Turning TURMOIL into TRIUMPH | Dave Sanderson | The 2%

When the captain came on and said his words, this is your captain. Brace for impact. He knew at that point it was serious. You want to face your turmoil, Go back and face it. Leave on your terms this time, not their terms. Real strength doesn't come from certainty. It comes from how can you handle uncertainty?

All right, welcome to another episode of the 2%, where as always, we're interviewing top performers, peak performers in all walks of life. Why? To give you the strategies, tips and tools that you can use to close that gap between your current and your best self. To migrate away from the 98% and join the 2% of people estimated to be operating at their full potential. And I'm super excited to have on the show as a guest today, Dave Sanderson. Welcome to the show, Dave.

Eric, thank you for having me. Excited to be with you today.

Thank you. Now, you have a very exciting history. You've been recognized as one of the top 100 speakers, leadership speakers, inspirational motivational speakers by Inc. And I know you have a great book coming out called Turmoil into Triumph very soon. Might actually already be out by the time that this airs. And you have a fascinating history. And I remember this film. It was an absolutely epic film as well. The Miracle on the Hudson, of course, you know, the plane that was ditched into the Hudson river River on January 15, 2009, a date that I know you remember super well. And you were on that plane. And I think that's a very interesting place to start. Who were you on that plane? Why are you on that plane? What happened?

Yeah, thank you for that question. Because I was just the every ordinary sales guy going up and down, trying to make a living. And, you know, I was into a three day business trip starting in Sarasota, Florida. And then second day was in Petersburg, Virginia, in a manufacturing plant. Like salespeople do. You go out, make calls, right? That's what you do. And third day, we were in Brooklyn, New York, working in a distribution center. So, you know, I was just one of those guys that was just trying to make a living doing the best I can. I was always a top producer. And in 2009, Eric, I don't know if you remember that, but it wasn't a very pleasant economic environment. It was on. It was very challenging. So it's. You really had to, had to work hard to get, to get your number, as they would say, in sales.

And so you board the plane that day, you obviously have no idea that you're about to become a plane crash survivor, which is pretty crazy, right? I Mean, we read about and we see plane crashes all the time. I think most people when they're on planes, even if they don't admit it, they think in the back of their head, oh, geez, I hope this plane doesn't crash. Yours crashed.

So what happened that day? Take us through that.

Well, yeah, first I wasn't supposed to be on the plane. I was scheduled to be on the 5 o' clock flight, but as I mentioned, I was working in a distribution center that day. And I don't know if anybody who's listening has ever been or worked inside of a distribution center, but they open up early. Yeah, this one open two o' clock in the morning because, you know, the trucks start about 5 o'. Clock. So we got in about 5 o' clock when the truck started. We want to be there right when all the action was happening. That's. So that's why our day started early and we got done early, so. And you know, like most salespeople, end of the end of a business trip, man, you want to get home, you're tired of traveling. And I called our travel agent 10 o' clock that morning, and she put me on flight 1549. I gave up a first class seat for seat 15A. So I was, I went back to coach. And that's fine, you know, I was just happy to get home. Like most people, Eric, I didn't pay attention. Who pays attention on a plane? You know everything, right? I mean, you fly 100 times a year. What could go wrong? You know, everything. So nothing unusual. It was 11 degrees of snowing that day in New York, but that's not unusual for New York right in the middle of winter. So that's nothing unusual. And the flight was delayed at LaGuardia, which. That's not unusual. That starts, that happens every, every day in LaGuardia. But it was about 60 seconds after we took off is when I heard the explosion. That's not usual. You don't hear explosions on a plane, especially New York City. That's, I think, that dynamic together. Right.

And what was the explosion?

The explosion turned out to be a flock of wild Canadian geese. And you know, I tell people, I said I would say, you know, if you heard one explosion and it's on your side and. But you know, you know, planes have multiple engines, so, you know, you go back to the airport. But what made this the most unusual of any of these kind of flights is that the birch strike happened simultaneously so on both engines and knock both engines out at the same exact second. Because I tell people, I think if people were to hear, boom, boom, then you're probably thinking something different. You're in New York City. You're probably thinking.

Maybe a terrorist attack, something's going on. But you heard one boom. So this plane was filled primarily about 90% filled with business travelers. And so, you know, we're going back to the airport, right. We're not getting home early today, but that's not what happened. Right. And so, you know, after. After you heard the explosion, all of a sudden I looked out the window, because I was on the window, and, you know, the plane was banking. So you're going, okay, we're going back to LaGuardia. But you look out the window, and all of a sudden you see the skyline of Manhattan is right there.

And it's like, I've never seen that before. And all of a sudden, you look out a little bit further and you see this big bridge coming very quickly at you. It's like, haven't seen that one before. So, you know, at that point, as when the captain came on and said his words, this is your captain. Brace for impact. You knew at that point it was serious. Something's going on. And most likely it's not going to be a good outcome because you're just clearing the bridge by roughly 400ft. The bridge is 600ft up, and the plane was a thousand feet at that point in time and descending. So, you know, you're only clearing the bridge by 400ft. And I tell people what was one of the things amazing, because I looked out the window to see what's going on, and you can see people's faces. That's how close we were. They were looking up from their windshields. Looking up, and you're looking down. I was like, whoa, these people are right here. So, you know, it's probably not going to turn out to be a very good outcome.

And I can imagine the question in everyone's minds right now is what happened to those birds?

As they found later on when they got to. Finally got the plane out of the river. I think they found five Canadian geese in one engine and two or three in the other engine.

Wow. Okay.

So they.

And they were destroyed. And the engines. The engines are typically, I understand they're able to kind of handle say, you know, one bird, for example, going through, but not. Not so many at once, right?

Yeah, it was a flock. And they estimated. Now, once again, no one counted, but estimated about 25 birds were heading to the plane. Because if you look at the front of the Plane. The front of the plane was hit, right?

Yeah.

The windows were shattered. Right. And so they came in like, you know, like in a V. So the outside birds got the engines as closer in, they got the plane. So if you look at the plane, which I. I've had the honor to not only speak at, but also give people tours of the plane they could actually see up close and personal. This was not just the engines. It was pretty much the entire plane. Front of the plane got hit.

So you hear those words. Embrace. Yeah. Brace for impact.

Embrace the impact. Brace for impact. And what's going through your mind then?

Well, what happened to me is I prayed immediately because at that point in time, you hear those words, you never heard him before. You don't know what to do. So I just prayed. It's like, man, just, you know, just get me down in one piece, right? Just get me down in one piece and just thank God, forgive me, you know, for whatever I sin. I. Because if I go in a different direction, I want to have that door cleared for me, right? I. And I'm like most everybody in the world. There's only. I'm not perfect. So I wanted. I want some clearance. So, yeah, then you put your head down because, you know, that point in time, you know, you're trying to brace because he says you don't know how to brace. Who reads the instructions? I tell people. I mean, I do now. Most definitely. I read the instructions now, but who knows how to brace, right? And so, you know, you're 60 seconds away from potentially dying. You know.

60 seconds from cross the crossing the bridge to the impact of the water. So, yeah, you know, it was not that much time.

And for those not familiar with the story, of course, this is, you know, just, you know, quick recap. You know, the plane has taken off in New York City, is. Is on its journey. You know, the birds, you know, go into the engine, both engines go out, and the plane is forced to try to get back to the airport. Then, of course, the pilot realizes that we're not going to make it back to the airport, and he's in the middle of New York City and needs to decide where to land this plane. So take us from there. Where does he decide to land it?

Yes, good question. Because after you debrief, after going through the whole thing, Right. Looking back, the captain had four options, and that's what I tell people, the decision making that has to happen in that time period. You better be able to make a decision, right?

Yeah.

Because the first option was going back to the airport, as you said. You saw the movie. That was the one that some pilots thought he could get back.

Really wasn't an option because he. Going into the bay. Right. Second option was the ocean, because the ocean was right there. Right. But no one to rescue you. Third option was Teterboro, small airport, New Jersey. He probably could have made it, but those big buildings around northern New Jersey, he may have clipped them.

So fourth option was the Hudson River. And that was the, that was the option he took. And he hit it at the right time. Because we. The impact was at 3:37pm Eastern Time. At 4:00', clock, the ferries run for, you know, to take people back and forth from Jersey to New York. So the ferries start their routes about, you know, half an hour, 20 minutes or so from impact. So the good, the positive thing was the boats were queued up and there weren't that many boats into the river. There were boats in the river because of commercial traffic, but it wasn't that many where he was going. So fortunately, you know, everything lined up and the. You look at the. And I've got the, I've got the video from it. If you look at it, the river lines up like a Runway, right. So you can at least line up. But now you're going into hard water, right. And it's. So it was a hard hit. I tell people it was. It wasn't a nice general landing in the water, you know. No, it was, it was a severe impact because when we hit, I went back in my seat. I was like a jarring hit.

Did you get injured from that impact at all?

No, I did. I thought, you know, if I made it. Right. If you make it, I was probably going to get pretty, pretty torn up. But fortunately I didn't. Right. I went, I went back and forward and opened my eyes and I saw light out the window. I'm like, wow, man, I got a shot. But now you got part two. Water's coming in immediately because of the impact. There's holes in the bottom, right. And someone tried to open up the back door, which they probably read the brochure, Go the closest exit, you know, closest to you. Right. So I don't blame whoever tried to open up that. I don't blame them because they probably did what they were instructed to do. But you learn ultimately you don't go to a back door when the plane's in the water. Right?

Right.

So by somebody trying to open the door, so the water's coming in immediately. So now you got another issue. You got to deal with this plane's going down.

Yeah, yeah. And so you're. And you're. You're basically at the back of the plane, right?

Yeah, about three quarters of the way back. Yep.

Okay. And then you take on an interesting role during all of this. So take us through that.

Yeah, I. My game plan, you know, right before impact, I kept saying in my head, because I'm a business guy, I've always got to have a strategy and what am I going to do? Right. It was aisle up, out. As I kept saying, aisle up, out. Aisle up, out. Aisle up, out. Because that was my strategy, right? I was like, okay, I get to the aisle, I get up, I get out. But when I got to my. It was my turn. Get in the aisle. Something happened. It changed everything. It changed that strategy. 180 degrees. I heard my mom start talking to me in my head. And my mom passed away in 1997. But she was saying in my head, something that I heard her tell me when I was a kid just popped into my head. It was, if you do the right thing, God will take care of you. And I tell people, after analyzing that, I mean, in the moment, I wasn't analyzing. I was like, okay, what do I do now? But, you know, my mom made me make a decision. And one of the greatest things my mom taught me, which helped me in business and helped me really accelerate what I'm doing, is she made me make decisions when I was a youngster and have consequences for those decisions. I say one of the things I wish I had done for my kids is make them make more decisions, because that served me and always served me that day, served me in my life because especially what happened to me last weekend. So the decision I made was I was fine. I was mobile. The back of the plane was already underwater. So I climbed over the seats to see if anybody needed help. And things were moving pretty well. People started moving because now you're. The water's about chest level deep, 36 degree water. So people are moving. So I got this, got behind everybody else, Eric. And started making my way out. And luggage was floating in the water because of the impact, you're sort of trying to get your way out. It's dark because it's late afternoon. Winter in New York, right?

Yeah.

So I started making my way out and I saw light on the right side of the plane. Like, I'm out of here. Right. Time to go. But then I get stuck my head out to get out. And also you look out and there's no room on the wing of the boat. It's already filled up, but people are already being rescued. And I tell people that's. That's. That's the miracle. Within two to three minutes, people are already being rescued.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

And so the plane emergency lands on the river. Everyone's getting off, and you emerge from this plane crash, and you emerge with a mission.

And you word this mission as encouraging others to do the right thing. Yep. And I get the sense that that's your purpose now. So talk. Talk to us about that.

Yes. Thank you. So, yes, I mean, my life changed immediately, of course, immediately. Just trying to recover from hypothermia. You got media all over you. Right. I mean, it's just. You're in New York City, Right. I mean, it's game on. Right? So. But, yeah, I emerge in this with a new mission is like, you know, there's a lot of things that I learned.

And doing the right thing serves you more often than not. But I think the biggest learning, one of the biggest learnings I had out of this, Eric, it happened about two weeks later, actually, but it was a result of the plane situation. I was in the green room of Good Morning America with other passengers in the crew. We just got done doing the interviews, right? And I saw a fellow passenger who got irate. He was irate. He was mad. And he started just yelling and screaming and saying, I never want to see you people again. And, you know, and I'm looking around like, what's wrong with this guy? Right? I mean, you know, we're on national tv. We survived a plane crash. We're on national tv. I mean, how bad can it be? But then when I found out, Eric, he lost his job, but he was going through a divorce, right? And what all of a sudden I realized is, this is. How many times in my life have I judged somebody that's cost me a job, money, relationship, whatever? I said, how many times have I done that in my life? Quickly judged people before I knew their backstory. And that was sort of became the mission. It's like, you know, if I could become less judgmental and do like Martin Luther King said, judge people on the content of their character, not, you know, what you see, how could that change my life? And that one distinction changed everything in my life. All of a sudden, you know, I'm speaking at the Supreme Court. I'm doing things, interacting with people, because I became less judgmental. And that doing the right thing to me, becoming less judgmental, which has changed the direction of my life.

I can, I can totally relate to that. And I have my wife actually to thank for that because, you know, there'll be times when something happens in the course of the day or, you know, you get pissed off with somebody and you're upset about their behavior, and she'll be one of the first to say, yeah, but you don't know what's happened on their side. You don't know. Is that just like a superficial issue that you're experiencing, that you experience as a primary issue, but it's just a knock on chain reaction from other things.

So you're in the business now of helping, you know, inspire people, helping motivate people, but more specifically helping people, especially when they experience turmoil. Right. So you're, you've got your new book coming out, Turmoil into Triumph. Right. So how do you translate darkness, you know, into light? How do you translate turmoil into triumph? And I would love if you could give us some practical ways or, you know, frameworks or anything that people can use to do that, because we've all experienced darkness. Right.

Well, thank you. I was very fortunate, Eric, in 1984, to have a gentleman come into my life. His name was bill, and for 14 years he mentored me. And he owned 80 movie theaters and restaurants through the Carolinas. But, you know, he grew up, he built his business during the depression in the 1930s. And I was very blessed to have someone like that come to mind to give me these insights and these lessons in these distinctions. Because he grew up business during a time where there's a depression and now a world war starting up.

Yeah, exactly.

So he had a lot of different ways and the stories he would tell me to teach me these distinctions. And then after he passed away in 1997, I was very blessed to have Tony Robbins take me on as head of security. And I got to be with Tony for 14 years and learn other distinctions on top of those distinctions. So, you know, I was very, I'm very honored to be around people who now experience turmoil or turbulence or, you know, whatever traumatic life, whatever it is, because everybody in life goes through a traumatic life event, you know, and no one goes through life without something happening. Right. I mean, I don't care who you are, you could be the Queen of England. Something's going to happen. And so back about five years ago, this is how it all started. And I'll share with you some practical insights. Yeah, I got where I was sitting today, I got a phone call from a gentleman who wanted to interview me for aarp Magazine, Right. And I'm like, dude, why you want to talk to me? I mean, you know, AARPS for old people. What can I teach old people? Right. He said, well, there are two universities. UNC Charlotte and North Dakota State University were doing a study on me about. It's called ptgs, Post Traumatic Growth Syndrome. How did I grow from the traumatic life event? Why so many other people went a different direction? Even the captain. How did you turn to a different direction? What were the strategies you used? So I did this interview, and I shared strategies that I did to grow, have a traumatic life event. And then I was approached to do a TED Talk, and I did a TED Talk on it, which exposed me even more about this topic, about ptgs. So I, you know, now when I. When I go out and speak, I don't always speak about leadership and personal leadership, but I think it all starts with leading yourself first. But how do you grow from the traumatic life? How do you grow from something like a Covid or social justice questions or have cancer? How do you grow out of this? And there's. I really share five different strategies, but I'll share one with you right now. That it really is the essence. It is the meaning you attach to something, because the meaning you attach to something produces the emotion of your life and emotions your life. And I share with people that I didn't help them identify what meanings are they attaching to this, you know, and then I help them with reframe those meanings. That's how I initially did it. I started reframing meanings that I was attaching to things. That's. I started talking about being less judgmental. I started attaching a different meaning to being, you know, less judgmental. And all of a sudden opened my life up. So what really triggered all this, Eric, was an interaction I had with a neighbor. Two neighbors, actually. And I'm sitting where I am. I'm writing my second book, Moments Matter. Get a phone call from my wife, says, there's a neighbors need some help. They need to get your TV on. Now, I don't know where you grew up. I grew up in small town, usa, where you always helped your neighbors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Especially if they're elderly. And these were two elderly ladies.

Yeah.

So, of course, you know, I'm gonna go out and help them. Right? Go out and help them. And, you know, it wasn't that difficult. They say, would you stay for milk and cookies? Now, I love milk and cookies. I don't know about you. I love milk and cookies. Especially from older Ladies, you can probably bake, right? I'm all in. So, you know, they're getting milk and cookies, and I'm in their parlor. These are two. They have parlors. All right. They're down south now. Right. And so they have a coffee table with all these books. I'm looking through the books and very cool stuff about World War II. And I love World War II history. And they came out and they said, yeah. I said, where'd you get this book? They both looked at me and rolled up their sleeves to show me the numbers and letters down their arms. They survived the concentration camp.

Wow.

I said, whoa. I said, let me. Let me. Tell me record a story. Let me record this story. They said they won't let me record it. But for two plus hours, they told me the story.

He survived the concentration camp. And it blew me away. And I started. I wrote about this. I called my person who was telling me, Cindy, I got it about it. All these moments in our lives really do matter. And if people start looking at these moments in their life and I could help them reframe their moments, you know, the negative moments always have something positive, because I learned from Bill, I learned from Napoleon Hill. Every adversity has a benefit.

Yeah.

And if I can help people turn that around and show them how to turn that turmoil into triumph, I can help them. And so that's what I started doing, and that's what my new book's about. And really. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.

No, no, I just love it. I just, you know, turmoil into triumph, it just. It really rings.

You know, with me. I always, you know, I always talk about stress, build strength, and that the problem isn't stress. The problem is you, you know, so to speak. So, you know, for example, people are running around trying to avoid stress, trying to avoid, you know, the stressful things that happen to them. But I equate it to, like, when we. When we go to the gym. Right. So if you go to the gym, like, when's the last time you went to the gym? And you said, can you please point me in the direction of the most comfortable weights?

We don't do that. So, you know, one of the things I'm always trying to stress to people is that they get these concepts that you're talking about, you know, that I talk about stress, build strength, because they get it physically. They know that physically I need to go stress my body in order to make it stronger. And if they can, then get that and embrace what they already know physically to be true. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Then if they lift those weights, then they become stronger as a result. Right. As well. And so I think we're really, really speaking the same language. And that leads me to my next question, which is, do you think turmoil is necessary for triumph?

Yeah, that's a great, great distinction. Great question. Because I think if you're going to have any triumph in life, you got to have some adversity. You know, you got to have something pushing you. And I tell people, you know, I mentioned earlier, everybody in your life has some turmoil. I mean, last year, one of the things I did, Eric, which helped me really illuminate this, was when all this stuff was going down around Covid, about March, April, time frame, right? I said, I was in my office here. I was bored out my mind, right? So I started calling five people a day just to check in. I said, how you doing? Right. And what I found is this is last year wasn't just about COVID It was about social justice questions. It was about police. It was about that election that just kept going on and on, and all this turmoil just kept stacking on people.

So what happened was I did my first live event back in my hometown in Northern Virginia. The principal asked me to speak to the students. He said, they're having a rough year. Will you speak to the students, do some inspiration, right? But really talk more about leadership and personal leadership and how to do this. I said, okay. So I reconfigured my talk overnight in the turmoil to triumph, and I started sharing with these students about how they could turn this last year into something really special. And all of a sudden, their eyes started widen up, and all of a sudden, I was getting a lot of response. I'm like, okay, I'm on to something. Because people are such pain right now, and especially youth are in pain because they've never had to face adversity. I mean, I don't know when you grew up. I grew up in the 60s, where you had the Vietnam War. You had. You had the social justice questions going on in 1968. This is not. This is not new news to me. My generation, right? We've seen this before. The Black Panthers and all that stuff. Burning down Chicago, burn down Watts. Seen it, right? So you know how to handle it. These kids haven't had to handle anything because this generation was born right around 9, 11, but they were too young for it.

Yeah, Yeah. I.

Again, super resonate with what you're saying.

I think what we're both agreeing on is that, you know, for the Person who's thinking, okay, but do I need turmoil in order to triumph? The answer is, yes, you do. Because if you didn't, it would be going back to my analogy. It would be the equivalent of, again, walking into the gym and expecting to get bigger and stronger and faster, lifting no weights. Right. Which is not going to happen. You need to lift the weights, whatever those weights are. I didn't realize this. I came across this recently.

Have you heard of. We've all heard of IQ and then eq. I just came recently across aq. Adversity quotient. Have you heard this?

I've not heard this one, no.

Yeah, this is fascinating. I thought you might like this if you hadn't heard about it.

I did a genetic test recently as well, and it actually shows genes correlated with iq, eq, and aq. Adversity quotient. And the adversity quotient is simply your ability to handle adversity. But like anything, you have a genetic side of it, but then you have an environmental side, which you can grow and develop. So, on that note, the plane crash that you are on is an incredible event.

It's so incredible that it's sort of like I'm trying to draw another analogy where somebody says, well, I have no chance to be as athletically gifted as you because you were in the Olympics and you had access to all this incredible stress and training. And so people can look at you, Dave, and say, you know what? It's great. You talk about how you got to turn turmoil into strength, but you had the ultimate test. You survived the plan plane crash. So, you know, what do you say to them?

Thank you for opening that one up for me, because I think it just. I just. I'll share a story. What just happened recently. They'll hopefully give some insight to that. So back in early April, I was actually in New Jersey at the airport Newark, looking at the Hudson river, where I went in, and I got a phone call from a friend. Her name's Suzanne. And she said, you know, how would you like to get redemption from that river? I said, what are you talking about? She goes, would you like to swim with the Navy SEALs in Hudson River? And I said, okay, I'm hoping. Let's have a call, right? So she introduced me to one of the top seals named Scuba. I said, anybody named Scuba, I got to talk to, right? So I talked to Scuba. He said, come on out to the. Come out to this pool two days from now. I want to see you swim. And he put me in the pool and I could get to the other side, but I was winded. I was. I was not proficient. And he said, you know what? He says, I'm not going to take you out of this, but you'll take yourself out. All right, first challenge, right? First challenge. So I had to humble my. One of the things my mentor always says, you got to, you know, humble yourself in preparation so you're ready and have the confidence next to you, right? So for the last 15 weeks, Eric, I humbled myself. So this is the answer to the question. I humbled myself when back in the pool, learned from scratch on how to swim 3.1 miles from New Jersey to New York with the SEALs, the elite of the elites. And I humbled myself, right? So I think, to answer your question, I think sometimes, you know, people say that to me. I'm like, yeah, but have you ever humbled yourself? Have you ever gone back down to the bottom because you got a big challenge now. You're gonna go after. I wanna leave Hudson river this time on my terms. Last time, I didn't get a vote, right? I had to deal with all that stuff that you don't know, I had to deal with. Now I put myself back in the same situation. Cause I wanna leave on my terms in life. I wanna leave on my terms. So for 15 weeks, I humbled myself and went at 5 o' clock every morning to swim with these guys and gals, right? So last weekend, I went to New York City in New Jersey and swam 3.1 miles of the seals in the Hudson river with the waves and the currents, with my wingman Suzanne, who introduced me. And I tell people. So when you tell me that, yeah, oh, yeah, you went to a plane crash. He's got a platform. He says, I do. But you know what? I also went back to humble myself.

Wonderful.

So I can leave on my terms.

Love it.

And. And now I, you know, the seals gave me, you know, a code name, right, by the code names miracle. And I've earned respect. And I tell people, yeah, so you can't, you know, some people think you could just give respect by going through. No, you got to earn respect in life. You got to put yourself out there, Right? My dad always told me, your wall, your word is your bond. You say it, you better be able to back it up. And I said it back in April. I had to back it up and I had to humble myself. So, yeah, people say that to me sometimes. I'm like, okay, well, if you want to face your turmoil, go back and face it. Leave on your terms this time, not their terms. But you got to humble yourself. You got to go through, like you said, that adversity. You have to. I mean, it was no fun swimming five o', clock, hour and a half every day, you know, just to get myself so I could go back in a place where it almost took my life and swim at the elite level and do 100 push ups at each stop. Right?

Yeah. So what an amazing experience too.

Yeah. There's so many lessons out there now I'm going to talk about. I'll leave you one lesson that I just wrote about yesterday in my blog because, you know, you're a business person. Likewise. And business people, and we talked about this earlier, I always put strategies again.

Yeah.

Tony always said, have a strategy, put your strategy right, be a strategist. That's where it's at. Right. So I had this. We had a strategy to have a go to attack this thing right in the Hudson River. Then all of a sudden you got a bunch of Navy SEALs jumping over a bridge 13ft up in the Hudson. And that ain't part of the strategy, right? My strategy's blown up, but so that's part of life, right? In life you can have all the blueprint strategy. You want to face your turmoil, but when life hits you and your strategy goes one way, a different direction, you gotta be able to problem solve quickly. And the key skill right now, I tell people, for anybody right now, the key skill you better have is resourcefulness. You better be resourceful.

Right?

And people are the most resourceful now are the ones who are thriving, the ones who sat around, didn't do anything for a year, are not resourceful, are dying right now.

So who, who do you think really represents this? Well, that a lot of people might be aware of or could identify with, who represents. Well, the idea of turning adversity into triumph, of being resourceful.

I tell you why. You know, I don't know if they're alive. I don't think they're alive. But you leave somebody like a Mother Teresa, right, who has so much adversity now. People don't know the adversity she had in her life. And she turned, she all of a sudden changed her mindset to gratitude, right? And all of a sudden her life opened up. She turned that adversity she had into that. Look at this one from Afghanistan, who survived the Taliban originally and also is now a national speaker about women's empowerment. She turned that adversity from the Taliban into triumph. She was raped, she was beaten, but she turned it into adversity to triumph. So there's so many people out there, so many examples, but it starts with the mindset. You know, you got to have the mindset that, like Tony says, it's not a commitment. People commit all the time. It's a resolve. And that's what I tell people is the difference in April with me is a swim. And difference with people who make that 2% shift is they have a resolve. It's done. Now we just got to figure out how to do it. You know, it is done where people commit all the time, right? They'll commit. They'll come in, I'll pay you. I'll pay you the hundred dollars I owe you. And I never, never see it because it's not a resolve, Right?

Right. And a lot of people hold themselves back because the moment adversity appears, they don't know how to process it, handle it. They shy away from it. What do you think is those. Those people who are not stepping into adversity, those people who are not stepping into challenge, those people who are. Are not stepping into discomfort. What do you think is holding them back?

Well, here's a thought. There's six primary human needs everybody has. And the primary need for the people who you just talked about is called certainty. They got to have certainty. When they don't have certainty, they don't know how to deal with uncertainty, Right? The second my primary need is uncertainty. Right? And that's why you see people in life, they'll be jumping off mountains and climbing up sides of mountains with their hands. They want uncertainty in their life, because the more uncertainty you can handle, the more stuff you can handle when stuff hits you, right? So the real strength doesn't come from certainty. It comes from how can you handle uncertainty.

So the person who's in the certainty camp and who naturally backs away from all the uncertainty or the challenge, how do they develop their uncertainty muscle?

Well, that happens because there comes a point in time where that threshold hits where I've had so much certainty. I go to Vegas, I always win, right? I'm winning. I got a lot of certainty because I go up Cha Ching. I want to win something. But after so much time, you get the same outcome, you get bored. So there will be a threshold point, right? It's like, you know what? I need something. That's why people talk about guys in their 50s and have midlife crisis, right? They have so much certainty. They have their wife, they've got their kids, they come home, they got their money, right? I Got money, right?

Yeah.

I'm bored. I need to go jump off a mountain. I gotta go swim, do something crazy. And I need some. Something to jive me to jazz me. So, you know, there'll come a time, right? So this last year, everybody got locked in, and they're. Their offices. They're not going anyplace. And they had certainty, right? I'm not going to get Covid if I do this, this, this, and this. Well, there's a lot of people that went out the other direction. You know what? I'm going to go out. I want to live my life. I might get Covid, but I'll deal with it. And all of a sudden, now, that's the shift that's going on in this country right now, right? You know, they're trying to put people back in the mask and all this. And all of a sudden, people are like, I like it out here right now. I can deal with this. Let me assess my own risk, Right?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so. Yeah. But, you know, something with the Marines, I know a gentleman who's. Who's a Marine, and he asked me to be on his show. It's going to embrace the suck. And that's what. That's. That's what I have to do. You have to embrace the suck. It's going to be bad, but people who can embrace it are the ones who are going to thrive. The ones who can are ones who are going to shrivel up, right?

And what do you think about all the. You know, you'll hear this talk about try to do something uncomfortable, you know, or challenging every single day. You know, what are the tactics or the. The practical things people can use so that they don't have to wait until they become 50 years old. They don't have to wait till coronavirus, you know, how do they go to the adversity gym and strengthen the muscle tomorrow?

I think one of the things that I've done. First thing I've done is I've expanded my network to put myself around people who are already in that situation, who have to stretch me, who put me. Like, one of the reasons I did the seal swimming, I was around a group of people. One of the things I've always thrived around, Eric, is put myself around outstanding people, right? And people are much better at a lot of things than I am, and so they have to. I have to stretch myself. I have to put myself in uncomfortable situations. So when I was around the seals, right, I mean, I'm better at them at some things, but they are really good at a lot of things and they had. I had to go be stressed. So I think you have to. One of the strategies I've always used, and Tony taught me this, I was around Tony, heck Tony one night took us all out in the middle of a jungle in Fiji to jump off 100 foot bridge into a river, right? That float out to the ocean, right? And you're by yourself in the dark. It's like, okay. But you know, he put, put us all in that situation. The stretches, right? If I can do this, right? If I can do this, how can I get my mind to work with I really real adversity hits like, oh by the way, my kids got cancer. Oh by the way my mom's, my mom's dying, right? So this, all this stuff is stretch. The strategy I use is put myself around outstanding people who will stretch me consistently every single day.

Perfect. And I think that's super practical, right? Because people, somebody listening, watching right now can easily ask themselves, are the five people around me right now, are they keeping me in my comfort zone or are they pushing me in some way? And obviously we don't mean like pushing, you know, you in a bad way to do bad things. You know, obviously we mean you're stressing you in a way that pushes you to a higher plane, right. That gets you from your current to your better self.

And people right now, Eric, you know you can get this about anybody on the Internet, right? Yeah, LinkedIn. Exactly. You get this about to anybody, right?

Yeah.

So that's why I call five people a day, right. I found people who are stretching me and some people who needed to be stretched.

Yeah. One of the most powerful questions I've been using lately is you speak to those close to you and you say, hey, you know me well and you know my goals are this. And if I were to fail those goals completely in a year's time, I haven't achieved any of them. Based on what you know about me, why, why would I create my own failure? What is it that I would do or not do? And, and, and people tell you they have so many insights right around you, but people don't typically tap into this. So I, I think that's great. I think it's super practical. So thank you. Now, last question. If you could only share one success story secret with the world, something that would help people unlock their potential so they can become part of that estimated 2% of people who are operating at their full potential, what would that secret be?

I wrote about this in my Upcoming book. So I'll share a little bit. It's about. I have a chapter about this, and it's something my mentor. My mentor, Bill and I had a deep discussion about because he. He was a visionary back in the 30s. And he told me one time, you have to have a vision for an alternative future. You have to. You have to be able to vision something bigger than yourself as alternative to your future. Sort of like I give the example of you watch Marvel movies with, like, Dr. Strange in the multiverse. Right. There's all these multiverses out there. Right. That world. Right. Alternative futures. Right.

Yeah.

Bill always told me, he said, you gotta have a vision for that alternative future. And I never really realized where that was until all of a sudden after the plane crashed. And I all of a sudden saw a whole different world for me that opened up. This is what he's talking about. If I could envision that earlier in my life, where would I be right now? Right. Because I was so locked into my job and I had to make money. This is the strategy to get to me where I. But that's not. Because I'll leave you with this. That really would resonated when I was with Tony. Because when I was with Tony, one of the things that I would do is I would pick him up at the airport or helipad or wherever going is my job. And one of the first questions Eric, he would always ask me is, why are you still working for that company? When are you gonna start working for yourself? You will never have freedom until you do that. And I always came up with excuses. Until there's no more excuses, there's only so much you can bs, Right. Till you're called out.

Yeah.

Until one day he called me out. In 2012, after the plane crash, he called me out, and that was the moment I made the shift. That was the alternative future he was talking to me about. Right. You have to be able to see something bigger. You're going to have some pain making the transition. You will have pain. I had pain. Right. My wife didn't want the pain. That was part of the problem. I didn't prep my wife for the pain I should have. That was on me. But that's what he was talking about. And that's what Bill was telling me. Yeah. If you're going to be a real success, if you're going to have growth in your life to be the person you really are meant to be, that top 2%, you got to have a vision for an alternative future. And that's I'll leave you with that.

Love it. Love it. Dave, it's been absolutely awesome to talk to you.

I was so inspired by. You know, admittedly I, I wasn't even aware of the plane crash until I saw the film, but. But after I saw the film, I just. Was just blown away by it. And, and I was really excited to, you know, when it came through that we were going to be talking because I said, wow, somebody who was there, somebody who experienced it, somebody who played a role and turning that turmoil into triumph on the day, making sure everyone was safe. And I just think it's, you know, hats off to you for helping others do that. Stress does build strength. No pain, no gain. All of these things are true and you're living it and you're helping others live it. And, yeah, hats off to you. I think it's amazing. Thank you, Dave.

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you. And hopefully at least one person will hear this interview and take action and, and if they need any help, you know, you're there, I'm there. Just go to me on LinkedIn. Right. You know, message me on LinkedIn. I'll be more than happy to support you. And check out my new book later in September, Turmoil to Triumph. Hopefully you'll get something out of that.

Turmoil into Triumph. Your new book coming out, Turmoil to Triumph.

Yep.

Yep.

And Your website is davesandersonspeaks.com yeah.

So get in touch with Dave via his website, via LinkedIn. Other social media, check out the new book. We all have to turn Turmoil into Triumph. It's our only chance to break free from the 98%. Join that 2%. Thanks again, Dave. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric. God bless, man. Thank you.