How Hope Can Change Your Life

an ancient

greek philosopher named epictetus

said the words it is not what

happens to you but how you choose to

react to it

that matters in the year 2020

has brought us a truckload of it

we have all faced so many challenges

and business leaders in particular have

faced

overwhelming challenges trying not to

lay off their employees trying to keep

their

profit at least at break even it’s been

a difficult year

but i do believe the message

of that quote

isn’t so much what happens but how we

choose to respond or react to it

that really matters and i believe

in using a little magic to respond

with the power of hope

okay to unpack that for you i need to

first take you back to 1988 with me

the 1980s were a decade

of great music and really big hair

and i had the big hair i had it going on

big perm

you know the bangs that kind of reach

out and grab you

man i had some awesome hair and that is

about the only thing i had going for me

in 1988

i had plunked out of college i couldn’t

pass the remedial math class

that’s the math class you take before

you’re allowed to take the

actual math class where you get credit

hours and i flunked it not once

but twice so i decided

with my amazing math skills and all

that i would go to work as a teller

at a financial institution so i was

working

in 1995 for a credit union

in the federal building in downtown

oklahoma city

i still had the amazing hair even though

it was 1995.

now remember on the morning of april

19th 1995

it was a beautiful spring morning

everything

seems normal about it i remember seeing

my friends

that morning i remember seeing my best

work friend

sonya she had a bright yellow suit she

was getting ready to go to a supervisor

meeting

and back then they told us that we had

to wear um

you know colors that were like a power

suit or you know a pop of color to show

you were confident

so she had picked out a bright yellow

suit and then by the time she got to

work she said i think this

power suit just makes me look like a big

old yellow sunflower

and we all laughed and encouraged her

told her she looked great

she went to her meeting i went and sat

down at my desk

my desk was on the third floor front and

center

just a few feet from the front glass

windows

one of my co-workers who was seven

months pregnant walked in to talk to me

i turned to ask her what she needed and

i don’t know

if the words came out or not because

that’s when it happened

that’s when a bomb went off i remember

just hearing such an incredible roaring

in my head

and feeling this powerful rushing

sensation

like i was falling and

screaming all around me and i remember

hearing this

woman screaming in my ear

and then realizing that was me that was

my voice

i didn’t even recognize the sound of my

own voice

i found out later i actually fell three

floors

and i was upside down still in my chair

buried under about 10 feet of rubble

my right hand was sticking out of the

side of the rubble pile

the rest of me was completely covered

i remember thinking

that maybe i had died because everything

got quiet i couldn’t feel anything

i had no bearing about where i was i

would

try so hard to open my eyes really wide

but everything was still black

it was really hard to breathe

and then i heard a siren going off and i

thought okay i must still be alive i

hear this siren

and i kept screaming help me help me

over and over

but nobody replied

it was hard to breathe and when i did

breathe there was a smell that just

burned my lungs

i just laid there and prayed it was

about 45 minutes before i heard men’s

voices

and they said they were looking for the

daycare babies

and i thought daycare i worked on the

third floor

of the building the daycare was on the

second floor but i started screaming my

head off

i remember hearing this man yell i hear

you i hear you child how old are you

i remember thinking i really wanted to

say i’m too

you know i thought he wouldn’t come get

me if i told him i was 28.

and i said uh i’m sorry i’m 28.

and he said that’s okay and he starts

yelling we have a live one we have a

live one

he says you have to keep talking to me

we’ve got to follow the sound of your

voice

so i’m like okay so my hand is sticking

out the side of the rubble pile and i

feel them

hit my hand and i’m like it’s me you’ve

got me

and i feel hands grab mine and i’m

thinking they’re getting ready to one

two three pull me up and out

and about the time they found my hand

i hear men’s voices yelling in the

background

there’s another bomb there’s another

bomb everybody get out now

there’s another bomb let’s go let’s go

and i realized they couldn’t get me out

so they told me they said amy we just

need to get some more equipment we’re

going to be right back

we need to get more equipment but i had

heard

and i knew i told him my name

and then they were gone and i was laying

there

buried alive thinking to myself

i’m getting ready to die

and life started flashing before my eyes

and i started thinking about how

i had lived or rather how i had not

lived my life

and i was thinking i’m getting ready to

die and i’ve never even lived

i was filled with so much regret it was

overwhelming

i prayed and i just i begged god for a

second chance and

i was filled with so much

sorrow

and then i remember

of all the things to do

i started to sing and i began

singing a song that we had sung in

church years ago

and as i began to sing it took my mind

off of my situation

it was the only action that i could

really take

was my mind how i thought

to pray to sing but when i did that

even though my situation did not change

i felt peace

and of course there was not a second

bomb because i’m standing here today

and they came back and they started

working to get me out

and it wasn’t as easy as one two three

let me pull you up

it took them over six hours

these men risked their lives to get me

out the building was very unstable what

was remaining of it

and they had to stop about every 20

minutes

to decide if they needed to amputate to

get everybody out quickly

and safely but they kept saying well

let’s

give us 20 more minutes and finally they

said okay we’re going to count to three

and pull

this is probably going to hurt of course

i didn’t care

they counted three and they pulled and i

came out from the rubble for the first

time

and i remember looking around

and just thinking this this is not real

i couldn’t believe my own eyes

it was like a war zone it was like

something i had seen in a movie

they put me on the back of a gurney and

they took me out of the back of what

used to be the federal building

and i remember that beautiful spring

morning had changed

and it was dark it was gray

it was cold and it was starting to

lightly rain

but as i lay on that gurney and i looked

up at that dark sky

i took my first breath of fresh air

and i filled my lungs and i

promised i would never live my life the

same

i didn’t know about my injuries i didn’t

know about my friends i just knew if i

had a second

chance i was going to take it

i was in the hospital for eight days

during those eight days i would find out

one by one

18 of my coworkers my friends

had died

168 people

were killed in the oklahoma city bombing

i remember the last day in the hospital

i found out that they had found the body

of my friend sonia

in her beautiful yellow suit

and i remember as i laid there in the

hospital bed

looking out down below

at the cars in the middle of the day

and they were driving with their

headlights on

and for you young people you used to

have to turn

on the headlights people had turned

their lights on manually driving around

oklahoma city to show

a symbol of hope and i remember seeing

those lights

and thinking somehow some way

we will get through this

the place where i worked the credit

union

we only had one location and it was in

that building

and we didn’t pay any rent it was free

space

our one location was destroyed

over half of our staff gone

we existed basically to serve the people

in that building

everything changed

the few of us that remained were

traumatized

but we were clear on what we wanted

and that was to survive it was very

important it was personal

we felt like if our credit union kept

going

that it somehow meant the memories and

the lives of those we lost

also kept going so we got really clear

on what needed to happen and over the

next few years we got really good at

setting goals

and action steps one after another

moving forward constantly

in oklahoma we call that pulling

yourself up by your bootstraps

i remember a few years after the bombing

our ceo lynette leonard

asked me a question that would change my

life

she asked me she said

if you had a magic wand what would you

change what would you make better what

would you what would you do if you had a

magic wand you could do whatever you

wanted

in our credit union what would you do

and i was thinking okay is this a trick

question you know this is a ceo

like is this the trick and she kept

encouraging me no there’s no wrong

answer

like you have a magic wand do whatever

you want i

thought about it and pretty soon i was

rambling away about how

we would grow and we would have a really

great culture

we had some negativity going on we had

managers that didn’t speak to each other

it was kind of a hot mess so that was a

pretty big stretch

i’ll never forget what she said though

she said okay

given your current situation and your

current limitations

what are the smallest steps that you can

take

to make that dream come true

i remember walking away thinking okay

what just happened

like how did this thing now become my

responsibility to what

but i was actually excited and the

reason that i was excited was because

she gave me hope

the authors and researchers of a book

called

hope rising how the science of hope can

change your life

casey gwen and chan hellman make this

statement

hope is the belief that your future

can be better and brighter and that

you actually play a role in making it

better

they go on to say hope is basically

having a goal

having the steps the pathway to get to

that goal and agency over that

that’s what she gave me she her magic

wand question gave me the clarity to

know what i wanted

and then with your current situation and

current limitations what’s that path

this not only transformed our

organization as we kept doing that

but i started applying the magic wand

exercise to my own life

and there was something i wanted and it

was to go back and get that degree

and it was very intimidating my grade

point average was a 0.50

like nothing in front of the decimal

point it was that bad

and i remember those action steps i

wrote

this first one was call the college get

the transcript find out what school will

even take you

like it was a big daunting thing

but when i graduated with that

leadership degree

my confidence was through the roof

and i took that power of hope and i kept

going

and i got my masters in business

administration

i changed so many things i went from

being a teller

to a ceo

i was a 355 pound couch potato

and i started riding a bicycle and

getting

active and losing weight and when i

turned 50

i became an iron man and what that means

is that means that

i did a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112

mile bike ride

finished up with a 26.2 marathon all

within 17 hours

and i crossed that finish line and mike

riley the voice of iron man said

you are an iron man

i came in dead last but i don’t care i’m

an iron man

are you and i i tell you these things

not to brag well the iron man parts

bragging

but i want you to see and to understand

but if my credit union can literally

survive

being blown apart

if i can make the changes in my life

that i’ve made

using this simple framework

you can too there is always

action that you can take

instead of focusing on what you can’t do

focus on what you can

even when i was buried alive

and facing death there was something i

could do

i believe

that you can make it through whatever

challenge comes your way

with that simple exercise of just

asking yourself if i had a magic wand

what would i do not what somebody else

would do but what would you do given

your

current situation your current

limitations

what can you do to reach that picture

and i believe the best way to react and

respond

in this life is to respond with the

power of hope

thank you