In Those Moments When You Are Paralyzed By Fear

[Music]

[Applause]

so

i used to love waking up

in the morning to the sunrise in my face

in 2010 i lived in this condo where

the large bedroom windows at my feet

face due east

into the morning sunrise it would awaken

me

into this grateful state of having a new

day

but not this particular morning

i would wake up see the sun rise

and instead of grateful i felt dread

in the idea of another day in this

new world of pain and suffering

this wasn’t supposed to be my life

i had spent too much time and intention

crafting a life worth living for this

to be the result

i thought i had done everything right i

left my comfortable corporate career

path

and then i took up a low-paying contract

position

with a successful real estate investor

looking at that like my real world mba

and then i struck out on my own found a

mentor

who had been in real estate longer than

i’ve even been alive

and i started on my own and i raised a

fund

of just over a million dollars in under

eight months

to begin investing in real estate

projects

nationwide i had this

ambitious goal to create financial

freedom

for the family that i was so looking

forward to create

next

instead the great recession of 2008

had squashed my plans instead of

building

i found myself barely holding it

together trying to weather that

financial storm

i would tell myself the same investors

song and dance

that sometimes markets take a dip

we can’t control that investments will

sometimes take

longer than expected to pay out

but real estate always holds its value

and we just need to hold on another

month

and another month came and another month

i kept telling myself the same song at

dance

but then i had to start telling my

investors

and then i started living on credit

cards

i was getting scared growing up

a lash key kid to a single working mom

it wasn’t in my blood to do something

like this on this scale

training perceived job security for

risky entrepreneurialism

my awakening in those days

was to a gut-wrenching pain of fear

anxiety

and bewilderment i was especially afraid

to fail the friends and family who

believed in

and then invested with me like most of

us

i didn’t understand the magnitude of the

economic

bubble that was bursting at that time

in the moment i was just paralyzed

by fear

have you ever had the moment where you

didn’t know what to do

where the damage has already been done

and

any next move could be the wrong move

making it even worse

and the fear of that whole situation

just leaves you stuck

in place in psychology

there is a polyvagal theory that

in summary introduces a third option

in the fight or flight scenario which is

to simply freeze or let’s call it

surrender if just for the moment

think of a gazelle caught by a lion

if caught the gazelle will often

play dead while being carried back to

the lion cubs

looking for any opportune moment to make

a move

and get out of there there is an

evolutionary advantage in surrendering

because for the gazelle to thrash about

in the

jaws of the lion will only cause further

hurt and trauma it gives itself a chance

at living another day

because it simply surrendered

in my situation i

froze but it wasn’t out of an ex you

know

an evolutionary surrender it was out of

an existential panic

i was creating more suffering

on top of the suffering generated by the

external thing

and eventually i got to this point where

i had to make

a move any move i just gave myself a

chore to do

to get out of the damn house i just went

to starbucks

i journaled about my situation it put me

around other people who

had their own lives in motion and were

oblivious to my little

existential panic and that

helped me surrender a little bit

and i had this thought stream that

that sun’s gonna rise and it’s gonna set

and it’s gonna do its thing regardless

of whether i sit here in my little

victim bucket of despair

and it’s going to do its thing over

billions of other people

the majority of whom have far greater

and more fundamental problems

than i have and that helped me surrender

a little bit more and take a bigger step

i surrendered to the idea that the

to the truth that the business and

investments were really lost

and i started the bankruptcy process

i felt like an incredible failure

i punished myself for a good chunk of my

30s

falling back and tripping into

uh the fear that just anything

the next thing that i put my name on

that i committed to would also just

blow up in my face

i had to separate my self-worth from the

business failure and realize that

i wasn’t i didn’t hadn’t done anything

intentionally wrong

i didn’t swindle my friends and family

out of their money and then go

spend it on fast cars and yacht

vacations

money went to investments in the

paperwork

there’s a chapter or a section called

risks

and in there is unforeseen economic

circumstances and acts of god and as we

all know

that’s exactly where we were at that

point in time

at the heart of it were these subprime

mortgage-backed securities and default

credit swaps that

tanked the global economy

and it was perpetrated by the

institutions that were supposed to be

safeguarding and driving that

reliability in the real estate market

right

but we all know that’s not what happened

there’s this saying right that goes the

tsunami

tide sinks all ships something like that

either way maybe it’s the opposite but

either way my little paddle boat was

no contest

after those five years of punished

myself i finally just had to

let it go and it was january 15 by that

point

i was turning 38 i had this voice in my

head that just said

you are running out of time

so buddy and i went

camping and hiking and getting a little

wet down the california coast

i used that time to reset and i just set

out three

simple goals grow my business

walk my dog in the morning and focus on

triathlon training

these three simple goals kept me

narrowly focused on

creating wins to just build momentum

again

and indeed they did

this process for digging out from

insurmountable challenge is my ideal

worth sharing

three steps the first

is to just surrender

give yourself permission to just be in

it for a while

be okay with being the gazelle in the

jaws of pain

anxiety or fear recognize

you’re human you’re living a life

and this is the true inevitable right

and the inalienable right we have

resisting both the event and the

feelings that come with it

are futile waste of energy

when ready to be done just exhale and

let it all go

that part you might have to do a few

times i did

second find what you can be grateful for

if you have trouble finding what you can

be grateful for start with those

simple things that we take for granted

it could be

a fresh mountain air it could be that

cup of morning coffee

it could be toilet paper next to the

toilet

in my goals my walking my dog in the

morning was an act of gratitude

and i literally thought to myself i get

to

walk up a hill the long and steep one

in san francisco where i lived at the

time to this

hilltop parklet where i watched the

sunrise over the city before everyone

was awake and making noise

every day gratitude has this

phenomenal way of getting us outside of

ourselves

regardless of the state that we might be

in

third is to figure out one step to take

forward

for me in that past situation it was

just to get

out of the damn house go to starbucks

and when you’ve completed that task be

sure to give yourself kudos

click your own like button and activate

your own dopamine

and then figure out the next step

and the next step eventually

you’ll look up and see progress you’ve

made towards taking bigger

and bigger steps i have a great example

of this in my triathlon training where

i began the year barely surviving 20

mile rides

to loving 50 mile rides

to completing a sprint distance

triathlon to then going on to a middle

distance

olympic race and then setting my sights

like a crazy person on a half

ironman race where you swim 1.2 miles

and then bike 56 miles and then do a

half marathon 13.1 miles

all in one race what you may find in

this process

what i found in this process is that we

can build up a

arsenal of mental aikido moves to

sidestep

and not waste time on the pain and

anxiety that come around

come with the next round of adversity

as we we have discovered even in this

last year

the true inalienable right we have is to

change

and challenge and if you don’t have

a toolbox of tools to use and

cope you’re just setting yourself up

for a world of hurt

i had mentioned that in 2015 i was

going on to that half ironman race

well the weekend before the race on our

last training ride

in the best shape of my life

exactly 20 minutes after this very

picture was taken

i lost control on my bike i was on an

infamous section of lucas valley road in

marin

north of san francisco locals there know

it very very well

i was going too fast into a downhill

curve and i lost control of my bike i

went over the side of the hill

and i fell 20 feet landing flat on my

back

the impact

broke my left collarbone cracked most my

ribs on my left side

collapsed my left lung and burst

my l1 vertebrae

after a six hour surgery the next day

putting my spine back together i woke up

my awakening in the icu bed

was to a beautiful panoramic view of the

marin

foothills including

the one that literally broke

my back unable to

turn away or sit up

and pull the curtain i had to watch that

sunrise

and sunset over that hill

except this time i knew there was

nothing for me

and laying there mentally paralyzed by

fear

i had already wasted a good chunk of my

life i wasn’t gonna waste

another five years so instead of

laying there mentally paralyzed by fear

i thought

why would i stack mental paralysis

on top of the physical paralysis that i

now

get to enjoy

no i knew that that someone rise and

that someone said

it wouldn’t care about my

situation whether it be economic

collapse

burst vertebrae or toilet paper reserves

i was surrounded by an amazing tribe of

friends and family who brought me almond

milk lattes in the morning

and milkshakes whenever i needed a boost

and i had an amazing team of doctors and

nurses and physical therapists who never

let me succumb to the pain

i had a brain that was still producing

thoughts hopes and dreams

i was still breathing despite the

collapsed lung

so i set out and

i remember actually the day before the

race

actually the day of the race my friends

took sharpies to their arms and they

tattooed themselves

and they made signs dedicating the race

to me and they sent me text messages

all day during the race and it was

awesome and

it pissed me off

that i couldn’t be there actually

and it made me vow

to race again within a year

i had already lived through my worst

nightmare i had

my mental aikido moves

and so i got to work and that next year

i didn’t do just one i did three sprint

triathlons

the year after that i rode that hill i

crashed on in a hand cycle

and i do it every year and i’ve done it

almost every year

since year after that i did the la

marathon in a racing wheelchair

and i crossed the finish line at

my first half iron man in oceanside

near san diego

i also that year i met a woman

the year after that we fell in love we

bought a house we went to another half

iron man in lubbock texas where

i qualified for the half ironman world

championships

in nice france which we traveled to

and i raced later that year

i continue to train despite this

pandemic

my next race will be a full distance

ironman triathlon

hopefully this year

now let me be the first to tell you

i’m no world-class triathlete i’m not

breaking any lance breed records

i’ve actually failed at more half

ironmans

than i’ve even completed

but the truth is is that

that doesn’t matter what matters is this

and i’m going to leave you with this

question

most of us have the ability to choose

our response when

adversity strikes and adversity

will strike sooner and later

big and small do we choose the

victim bucket where we thrash about in

those jaws of pain

fear and anxiety or

do we choose the perseverance bucket

where we know

that pain fear and anxiety are just

normal

and temporary if we surrender to the

experience

whichever you choose another day

is coming it’s another day

for you to choose your own adventure

thank you

you