How to Change Your Mind To Change Your Life

[Music]

tony robbins said

change happens when the pain of staying

the same is greater than the pain of

change

my question is as humans why do we wait

until something is so painful that we

can’t tolerate it anymore

to find the courage to change after just

experiencing a year of extreme

uncertainty you may be feeling pulled

to make a change in your life but how do

you use that uncertainty

to make positive change

it’s a sunday afternoon in 2005.

i go for a run through my san diego

neighborhood

then head home feeling like a million

bucks

later that day we pull into the

container store

with my husband mike my brother chad and

my sister-in-law julie

the guys they weren’t hugely excited

about the prospect of home organization

so they ran off to a sports bar instead

i’m standing with julie in the create

your own closet section

and all of a sudden i couldn’t hold up

my body

i leaned back against a table trying to

hold myself upright

but i had absolutely no strength a few

moments later the entire store goes

completely black

as i hear my phone ringing in my purse i

fumble around in the dark

and i thrust my phone toward julie

saying who’s calling

i can’t see this mike walks up

and i lay my head on his chest and say

i’m really tired i need to go home

i slide down his body as i crumble to

the floor

over the next few minutes i can’t see

hear

or move they scoot me up in a wheelchair

and off to the hospital we go

as we’re driving to the hospital i keep

coming in and out of consciousness

and everyone’s laughing at me as i keep

saying

over and over again just take me home

i’m like a computer

i just need to reboot we pull up to the

hospital

and i’m becoming a little bit more aware

of my surroundings and i look up at the

building and i say to mike i can’t go in

here this is scripps

my hospital’s sharp my insurance covers

sharp

he chuckles and says no we’re here this

is where you’re going

in triage the nurses kept asking me what

i had taken

as i had never even smoked a cigarette

in my life

i kept insisting i was clean and sober

but apparently that didn’t look like the

truth

later that night they took me to sharp

by ambulance because even in my haze i

was right my insurance covered sharp

after hundreds of questions and tests

they tell this

healthy vibrant 29 year old woman who

woke up that morning

feeling like a million bucks that she

threw a blood clot to her brain

and had a stroke in the middle of a

container store

the next few days were a complete haze

of testing my cognitive abilities and

physical deficits

but eventually late wednesday night they

cleared me to go home

i don’t know what you would do after a

stroke but

thursday morning at 7 a.m i was sitting

at my desk

ready to see clients i was so

focused on doing what everyone expected

of me

that i wasn’t listening to my own body

i believe that when we’re living a life

that doesn’t fit

our bodies try to tell us they start

first with a whisper

then a shout if we still aren’t

listening to the shouts

our bodies will full-on knock us down

in order to better understand how a

healthy woman had a stroke

in the middle of the container store

before age 30 let me give you some

backstory

the mantra in my house growing up was go

to school

get good grades get into a good college

so you can get a good job

work there 40 years and retire with a

large retirement account

i was a good girl i did exactly what was

expected of me

perfect attendance good grades good

college

good job that grew to a six figure

finance career

and a million dollar san diego home from

the outside

it looked like i had it all but on the

inside

i was miserable i believe that if you

aren’t growing you’re dying

i knew i needed to make changes in my

life and in looking for opportunities to

grow

i learned about the lizard brain

your lizard brain is your amygdala a

small almond sized section in your brain

that is responsible for your most primal

instincts

of fear hunger and arousal

your amygdala initiates your

fight-or-flight response

originally our lizard brain kept us safe

from a bear attack or a stampede wild

buffalo

today we’re not really in danger of

stampede to wild buffalo

today our lizard brain causes us to fear

anything that is unknown or

uncomfortable

do you know the number one fear of

americans

according to a chapman university study

the fear of public speaking

is the number one fear in america with

over 25 percent of americans

saying they are afraid to speak in front

of a crowd

this is higher than the fear of heights

the fear of spiders or the fear of

snakes

why because we’re afraid to embarrass

ourselves

in front of other people in ninth grade

speech class i was

so afraid i couldn’t describe how to

make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

something i had done thousands of times

before

at that moment i went and chose the

scariest growth i could think of

i went and joined the debate team

my heart still races before i get on a

stage

but i choose to go deeper than my lizard

brain and not

allow my fears to stop me or define me

maybe today you’re sitting in a place in

your life where you know things just

aren’t quite right you’re unhappy in a

relationship

in a job in a career or in some other

aspect of your life but you’re afraid to

make a change because the fear of the

unknown

is scarier than what you’re experiencing

right now

we have recently experienced some of the

biggest changes we may

ever see in our lifetime quarantine

businesses shuttered record unemployment

and political unrest millions of people

who thought their lives were secure

found that their world could change in

the blink of an eye

crisis creates change and in the midst

of crisis

humans find resilience five popular

companies we

know and use today were founded at the

2008

great recession and contributed to big

change

then mo groupon instagram

uber slack these five companies

disrupted entire industries to change

how we

send money travel communicate

and purchase goods and services this

year

zoom video has surged 658 percent

and overtaken exxon mobil in market

capitalization

think about that a niche application

founded in 2011 is now

larger than a 135 year old

oil company founded by john rockefeller

today’s uncertainty actually provides

our lizard brain the perfect opportunity

to take a risk and choose change for me

after the stroke i ignored my body’s

whispers

shouts and it even quite literally

knocking me down

i doubled down on being successful i

worked harder

i took on bigger clients but it came

with some

side effects i gained almost 50 pounds

i opened the wine bottle actually the

entire wine cellar

on sunday afternoon at 3 o’clock just so

i could stop thinking about my upcoming

week

i had done everything the world said

would make me happy

but i was more miserable than ever i was

so afraid of change that i

just kept doing what i had always done

and i kept getting the same

unhappy results in my finance practice

almost 50 percent of our clients were

widows who were often left

completely unprepared to administer

multi-million dollar businesses

and the families that depended on them

as such

when they were thrust into scary change

their bodies started to whisper

and scream with stress some

microwaved their shoes yes in the midst

of crisis they accidentally microwaved

their shoes

others broke out in shingles in

observing these physical manifestations

of stress

i knew i wanted to empower women to be

better prepared to handle things before

scary change was thrust on them

so i worked days in my finance career

and i spent nights working to launch my

first business

to san diego fitness studios

then a couple years later i added a

consulting business

focused on helping other women just like

me

women who had achieved tremendous levels

of success

but woke up one day and wondered is this

as good as it gets

am i destined to end my life here

it wasn’t always easy my lizard brain

was totally right to be afraid

instead of being responsible for 35

wealthy clients

i was responsible for thousands of

clients

and a staff who counted on me to provide

paychecks and financial stability

there were lots of challenges and

opportunities to quit

but every time i was afraid to move i

looked for the one

task that was so small i couldn’t fail

the one task i could complete and find

success

in the process i learned that in helping

others

i became happier and more fulfilled

myself

why because you can’t be scared

and hopeful at the same time

fear and gratitude cannot coexist

in the same moment so if you’re sitting

here today

and you feel pulled to make a change in

your life but you aren’t certain what to

do next

start small go give to someone else in

need

i love nike’s mission statement to bring

inspiration and

innovation to every athlete in the world

if you have a body you’re an athlete

and to boil their mission down to its

essence it’s their tagline

just do it today’s uncertainty

actually allows you to go take that risk

make that change and today 15 years

after that stroke

i remember that every single day is a

gift

every day is an opportunity for you to

be better today

than yesterday so what change do you

want to make in your life today

what are you grateful for what are you

hopeful for what one

small action can you take today

that is too small to fail

just do it i believe in you your one

small action may

have the power to change the entire

[Applause]

[Music]

world