Dr. Sean Stephenson talks about overcoming shame and isolation by asking for help and using humor. He recalls a second-grade moment when denial made him soil himself rather than ask a nurse, and shares how laughter and the question "What's funny about this?" can reframe embarrassment and pain.
Questions this video answers
“What’s funny about this?”
36
Chapters
Imagine for a moment that you that when you were born, you were assigned a bully. This bully beat you up so bad, you barely survived. By the time you turned 18 years old, he had broken your bones over 200 times. And if that wasn't bad enough, the bully's beatings caused you to be massively disfigured and permanently in a wheelchair. Now imagine that this bully never let you out of his sight and. And would be with you the rest of your life. How happy and successful would you be? Our next presenter, Dr. Shawn Stevenson, was born with that bully in his genetics. But Sean has achieved things most of us in this room have never done. Anyone here ever worked in the White House for a US President, had your own TV show on the Biography channel, got a doctorate degree, or have videos online with millions of views. Well, Sean has done all of that and more by the age of only 36 to today, Shawn is going to teach us how we make peace with our own inner bullies. Please help me welcome my very dear friend, Shawn Stevenson.
Love you, buddy. Save the standing for the end. That's. That's the best part. Do you remember how old you were when you first lied to yourself? I was in second grade. I was wearing a Bo Jackson T shirt and dark blue sweatpants that. I'm getting ahead of myself. You know, when people meet me, they conjure up a lot of ideas of who they think I am, of what challenges I must have to go through. And they're right. I certainly have challenges that I deal with. But it's not the physical challenges that weigh us down in life. We learn to cope with them or we get tossed aside. It's the emotional ones that truly take a lot of courage to deal with. The day I learned about lying to myself, we call that denial. And denial happened when I was in second grade. My mom dropped me off at school one morning, and this was before cell phones and pagers. She then had a whole day of errands planned so she wasn't going to be home. And my father was on a business trip. And as the day progressed, something happened. I experienced an incredible amount of pain in my abdomen. The kind of pain that lets you know that something bad is coming. And as I was holding my abdomen, I realized I was getting sick. And what you may never know is people that are in my condition, we can't usually use normal bathrooms. We have special equipment. And so my equipment was at home, and I was getting sick, and I knew I was going to have diarrhea. Now I'm in Second grade. And that's the moment I told myself, sean, if you can just act like nothing is wrong, you can go in your pants right now. And I told myself that if I just acted natural, if I just put on that good smile, if I act like everything is great, they'll leave me alone because they'll think that everything is fine. Don't we all do that? Put on that smile, let everybody know I'm fine. And so I switched seats on the Titanic. I went from being in that abdominal cramps to then sitting in my own waist. And the people at a distance, they couldn't tell. They thought I was happy and fine and normal. But the people close, they knew something was wrong, didn't they? See? We can smell the truth, can't we? The people in your life that are close know what you're going through. And sadly, I've been a studier of human beings. And sadly, I found that human beings, what they think is the best thing is to just keep people far enough away from you that they can't smell the truth on you. And I'm here to tell you that's not the way to live life. The way to live life is to get help, no matter what size problem you're dealing with. It wasn't until I was willing to come out of that denial, willing to shake myself from that delusion that I was fine, that That I went to the nurse's station. I called my neighbor and asked her if she would come and clean me up. And as I was laying on that nurse's stage cot and she was cleaning me up, I was just filled with shame and embarrassment. How did I get myself into this? What kind of idiot am I? Why did I think this was a good idea? She looked deep into my eyes. She said, oh, sweetie, you did your best. Every single person in here, I'm here to tell you you're doing your best. No matter what mess you're in, no matter what mess you've been in or what mess you're headed into, you're gonna do your best. But it's not until you get out of denial. It's not until you're willing to say, I could use some help right now. I'm ready to take off this fake smile, that everything is perfect. And I'm willing to reach out and say, hey, I'm stuck here. I'm going through this challenge in my marriage. My kids don't talk to me. My business is not as great as the numbers. I say it's not until we reach out for help can we get out of our messes? And one of the best ways that I've got myself out of my messes is through a simple line that I would like you to write down in your notebook. It will pull you out of tons of problems. It's a question that you can ask yourself no matter what circumstance you're in, no matter how difficult. And the question is, what's funny about this? I learned the power of laughter years ago when I worked for Congress. That's some funny stuff right there. I worked on Capitol Hill for my congressman, and one morning, I got to work early. Have you ever got to a meeting early or an event early? You have your hot tea and your newspaper, and you're just ready for your me time. Well, that's what happened. I got to work early. I thought I was the only one there until I. I heard a voice off in the distance. Sean, get in here. Yes, Mr. Congressman. Sean, I need you to run a message on the other side of the Capitol. Can you do that? No one else is here. Yes, sir. So I take this message. I head out to a part of the Capitol that I had never been to. I get to the elevator bank. Now, for those of you that are a little perceptually slow, I'm not very tall. So when I get to the button, I have to take with me an elevator stick, also known as a back scratcher, I press the button. Except door is open. I go inside. I turn around, I find my floor, hit the button. The doors are now closed, and the light is not coming on. And I realize, oh, no. On the outside, the buttons are pressure sensitive. On the inside, they're heat sensitive. And my elevator stick wasn't hot enough. So I thought, what would MacGyver do if I had a pack of chewing gum and a tampon? I could make a bomb. So I start heating this sucker up. Nothing happened. So I did what any other man would do. I just started stabbing violently the button. Nothing happened. So then I decided to sit on my elevator stick. And now I am grinding my elevator stick. I am like, who's your daddy? Right? I pressed the button. What do you think happened? Nothing. I asked myself one question. What question did I ask myself? The answer to that was nothing. So that's why you have to ask it a couple times. What could be funny about this? Well, then I looked up, and I saw a little camera in the elevator. Finally, the elevator doors open because somebody called her from the outside. I get down to the maintenance department and I say, excuse me, you have elevators trapping people with disabilities whose elevator sticks aren't hot enough. And the man said in the most condescending voice, boy, they're not heat sensitive. They conduct an electrical current. If you would have had just a little bit of tin foil on the end of your elevator stick, you would have been fine. I looked at the man. Who comes to work with tinfoil. Am I just gonna be in an elevator? Like, hey, guys, wanna bake a batch of brownies? What are you talking about? And it was that moment that we started to laugh together. And you guys all run successful, amazing lives. But I see you in my office. As a therapist, I have a unique way of dealing with my clients. I see them for 12 hours in a row and then never again. And I see people holding on to stress and they're in messes and they're not getting help until finally they reach out and you gotta laugh. You gotta take yourself well. Not so seriously, you know? I love to laugh. That's why I'm friends with Joe Polish, right? If you want a good laugh, be friends with Joe Polish. I mean, his dating life alone is hilarious. I mean, but honestly, raise your hand if you've been greatly impacted by Joe Polish, right? I mean, Dan Sullivan. I mean, if it wasn't for Joe, I mean, you'd have to quote yourself, right? I mean, Dean Graziosi. If it wasn't for Joe Polish, you'd still be slumming in at 15 million a year. I mean, think about all the good. But you've all taught me so much. Where's Brendon Burchard? Brendon has taught me so much. One of the things he always ends with is, did I live? Did I love? Did I get more likes on Facebook than Tony Robbins? Just saying. Just saying. You gotta laugh. You gotta have fun here. Thank you so very much.
