I Can Move Mountains
[Music]
[Music]
i’ve always been fascinated by mountains
and the way we use them to describe
different tasks in our lives
i’ve got a mountain of emails to go
through i can move mountains now the
truth is
these saiyans are used so often because
they’re the perfect metaphor
mountains are daunting unpredictable
and they can push us to our limits what
i want to convince you today is while
climbing your own metaphorical mountain
is not only imperative for your own
individual growth for the growth the
world as a whole
how are y’all doing my name is daryl d
ray reynolds now i’m a proud villanova
alum
i graduated in 2017 after playing for
the villanova wildcats basketball team
for four years
and the fall of 2018 i returned to coach
for one season
and i was blessed enough to be around
for some of the most exciting times in
school’s history
and put it in context while i was here i
was a part of five big east
championships
three big east tournament championships
and one national championship that had
the most exciting ending
the world has ever seen it’s me
obviously very excited for chris
after a short summer league stint i want
hometown sixers
i also decided to play my first year
overseas in poland and upon returning
home
in a pickup game at lasalle i toured my
acl
lcl pcl ripped off my hamstring and
suffered residual nerve damage from the
knee down
as you can imagine i haven’t played a
game professional basketball since but
in all honesty i’m actually happy it
happened
you see without basketball’s escape i
was finally able to get to the root of
who i was
what did i love to do what fulfilled me
the more i questioned myself
the more the world around me began to
make sense and eventually i got to my
truth
or i solved for why
it was this paradox of looking
internally at that which was in my
control
to find peace was going on externally
outside of my control
life like the game of basketball can
bring together so many different
perspectives and ideas
they can be overwhelming to take it all
in
therefore we must do is find those
things that fulfill us
those things that speak to us it’s about
finding
our truth or solving for our
why
now it wasn’t easy but i broke this
pseudo science down into seven
successive concepts or themes that are
present in all of our lives
and if you follow them you’ll find what
i found
the strength to be who you want to be
and the courage to be who the world
needs you to be
now these seven successive concepts are
muscle mindset the follow-up
self-assessment
the follow-through gratitude
simplification
and preparation and i base these seven
around one of the most fundamental
understandings of modern society
the calendar week i did this because
each day of the week has a wide spectrum
of emotions and meaning
like each and every one of us
let’s start with mondays the muscle
mindset mondays at their core
mark a new beginning and almost
imperfect juxtaposition represent a
mundane routine
they dread it in some cases their fear
and they’re certainly not associated
with a good time
if anything we’re celebrated for
complaining about mondays what if we
tweaked our thinking just a little bit
what if instead of looking at mondays
this thing that dread
we treated it like a muscle or something
to build on
and nurture now if you were working out
you wouldn’t start with a bad attitude a
bad form of a lack of enthusiasm
so why start anything in your life that
way the truth is
the way you do one thing is generally
how you do everything
that’s why marines make their bed first
thing in the morning it starts the day
off
with the execution of excellence by
building on that small thing that first
step
you build on the overall mountain of
work which is your life
you also give yourself something that’s
invaluable to any endeavor
momentum in my case let’s begin to face
my injury
as i was being wheeled into the hospital
i cracked joke after joke
joined my fingers together like this and
hung the theme song from the bad guys in
star wars
now i knew full well whatever was coming
would not be easy
but i knew it’d be transformative and
feel potential
so why not go into it in high spirits i
would encourage all of you
right now to think of something that
you’ve been wanting to do
but to that you keep saying i’ll do it
tomorrow
maybe it’s that book you’ve been wanting
to write or that twitch page you want to
start
several things might pop up but you know
you found that one thing when completing
that task feels like climbing a mountain
and that you’re willing to do it anyway
when you got it hold on to it take a
deep breath
and understand that the mountain isn’t
going anywhere but it’s also not going
to climb itself
take some sage advice don’t wait and
don’t shrink in the shadow of the task
either
instead attack that first step with
confidence and an
open mind that allow you to adjust if
you slip then
treat every step after it the same way
now tuesdays the follow-up
how many like music
okay we had one hand not raised that’s
good enough for me that’s good enough
for me
now we’re all familiar with that feeling
when you hear a new artist
and you think wow i like such and such
but in order for them to really stick
with you you got to hear another song
and we can all learn a thing or two from
these artists because where most of us
fall
short it’s in that second step we give
the first one all our energy
but in order to make it concrete the
second step or the follow-up
has to be as strong if not stronger
in our reality this is the easiest step
because you’re more prepared
than you were the first time around in
my case
this is when i went to old professor
mine hezekiah lewis
and pitched the idea for a late night
style talk show
he gathered the students in the month
after my surgery we shot three episodes
on the first day and for so
long that first day was the finish line
it was a dream come true to even reach
that point
so what do we do we shot five episodes
on the next day
and then seven on the following that
turned out even better
not only to solidify our confidence we
were going the right direction but these
interviews are what ultimately landed us
on fs1 and nbc sports philly
now in case of your own personal
mountain this will come into play when
you built up the courage
after you found that thing and you
started to go after it
and then all of a sudden that
undeniable confidence and adrenaline you
had that allowed you to take those first
couple steps
begins to wither doubt seeps in
fear quickly follows you realize the
easiest thing to do
is just stop right there you got nothing
to lose right wrong
i guarantee you if you stay disciplined
enough and persistent enough to stick
with it
or follow up you’ll prove to yourself
right there that you can take
anything the mountain throws at you
wednesdays or self-assessment
is where most people will find the bulk
of their truth for their natural ability
to be at halftime
opens up the door and gives you the
perfect opportunity to self-reflect
or self-assess now if you’re like me
you’re wondering how do i self-assess
it’s simple ask yourself why until you
blue in the face
what this will do is point you towards
that elusive
gut feeling called instinct and our own
collection
of experiences that make up our
understanding on any given subject
especially ourselves call it knowledge
take me for example i’m tall athletic
looking i couldn’t jump over a phone
book now if i tried
but the answer is obvious right at first
sight i should be a ball player
well when i got injured i had to unpack
the type of thing because i figured if
the game was done with me
whatever i did next had to be as
fulfilling if not more
so i started about breaking down
basketball
why did i love the game why did i
dedicate so much time and energy to it
after questioning why time and time
again i realized that basketball was the
perfect vessel for my need of variety
camaraderie the need to compete and the
one to entertain
it was that simple those four
fundamental ideas
laid my foundation for the love of the
game
now the question was how do i find them
elsewhere
instinct knowledge i felt in my gut the
media production was my true calling
because it felt good not only in the
glamorized ending but in the grind of
working through shows beforehand and
planning and the post work
moreover i enjoyed the process more than
the payoff because the process was
something that could be savored
as far as knowledge goes well i’ve
always been an entertainer
i’ve got the pictures to prove it but
even as a kid
i knew that it wasn’t just about me
feeling good it was about bringing joy
to those around me
by questioning why why why i was able to
figure out
what not only fed my soul but
contributed
to my surrounding environment i feel as
though if more people found out when i
only feeds their soul
but contributes to their surrounding
environment the world will be overall
happier place now
in the case of your mountain this is
after you’ve built up the courage
taking those first couple steps you’ve
gotten your second win
and now it’s time to do the unthinkable
nothing
take a beat and stop and reflect for a
second
on why you’re climbing in the first
place we live in a time where stopping
feels like giving up entirely but that’s
just not the case
a simple practice like meditating i
don’t mean to dramatize
baby yoda style trying to levitate and
call something to you
but just simply sitting there and
letting your thoughts flow for 10
minutes
is a game changer it can also
re-center you and re-energize you to
attack the climb
with purpose now
thursdays or the follow through
now for me this is when it actually came
time to release the show
my anxiety was all-time high but in a
good way
you see most of us hear anxiety and we
think oh that thing that such and such
struggles with
but in all reality we all know what it’s
like to feel anxious
like fear and happiness it’s a
biological response
so why not find a way to use it instead
of it
using you so what did i do i tricked my
mind into using anxiety
to fuel the sharpness to fuel the focus
that allowed us to put out
the best show we could and it took off
and that is the power of following
through
all right mountain talk time now
you’ve built up the courage you’ve gone
after it got your second win
taken a beat you stopped and
self-assessed and now you can attack the
climb
re-energized and repurpose you’re back
to trekking up
you’re moving and you’re moving and
you’re moving and then all of a sudden
that little voice that tells you
hey you know you’re just gonna come back
down gets a little louder
and real reality this makes the clown
futile because you’re gonna go
right where you came back from but
i’m challenging you to keep going and
understand
that the knowledge you gain on this
climb is paramount
to the overall mountain of work which is
your life
fridays or in this case
gratitude tgif
we got off of work just got paid
we’re heading to see our friends
or we will be going to see our friends
if it wasn’t the pandemic
what more could you ask for right most
people would say
i’d ask for that every day but the truth
is it wouldn’t be special if every day
was friday
you see gratitude isn’t about looking
too far back or too far ahead
it’s about focusing on the moment and
winning where your feet are
so forget about being sad about what
happened earlier in the week
or worried about what could happen over
the weekend just be grateful
that it’s friday when where your feet
are
you’ll look back one day and realize you
won a lot
my case this is when i started being
happier and happier for the little
things
and then bigger things began to happen
you see i just think it was the opposite
you make it to a certain point obtain a
certain level of success
make a certain amount of money and then
boom happiness drops in like one of
those army men
from toy story but no it was actually
about being happy for my newfound
perspective
for my ability to have a sense of humor
for the chance
to heal when where your feet are
and you’ll look back one day and realize
you want a lot
now i’m going to give all y’all practice
to help me with gratitude
set your alarm for five minutes earlier
in the time you usually wake up
and the moment you roll out of bed your
feet hit the ground stop
and on all ten fingers count off
something you’re grateful for
and this can be as simple as waking up
that morning
the day off you’re about to enjoy or the
rain outside that’s actually water in
the plants that you need
it can be that small but what this will
undoubtedly do is begin to trick your
mind to realizing
that when life looked at in the right
light is
always playing into your favor
i’m going to keep saturdays real simple
simplify your life y’all remember math
class right
simplify this simplify that well the
lesson was
to make things easier to solve by
simplifying
so you want to solve for y simplify your
life
something’s not beneficial to your
health stop doing it
if something makes you happy and doesn’t
bring harm to anybody else
do more of it if you’re working living
or thinking space is cluttered
clean it out if something’s not making
it easier for you to climb the mountain
leave it behind knowing full well you
can grab it on the way down
or if you need it all keep
life simple take what you need
give when you can and keep
life simple it’s like dodgeball
duck dip dive dodge and dodge
and lastly sundays or
preparation now these steps don’t go in
a straight line like the days of the
week
it’s a cycle and to keep evolving and
revolving
you have to prepare to take the next
step
in all honesty this is the most
important step because so many times in
life we ask for a change
but don’t do any of the prep work to
help life help us
you have to prepare when you start
something new you have to prepare the
pivot when things don’t go as planned
you have to prepare to make a new plan
when the old one rips itself in half
but most of all and more optimistically
you’re prepared to win time
and time again i felt my life on the
cusp of changing
and rather that change was good or bad
was left up to later interpretation
but i knew i was prepared i was prepared
to leave the game behind for the sake of
filling free
i’ll prepare to work for all the things
i want in the future but most of all
i was prepared to fail and get up and
try again
and again and again
some people get to the top of their
mountain they prepare to walk back down
some people prepare to stay there as
long as humanly possible but if you’re
like me
prepare to jump for the sake of showing
yourself you can fly
now here’s the thing there’s a chance
your wings may not open in time
but just like taking that first step you
have to just go for it and have faith in
what could happen
versus fearing what may not
mountains are daunting unpredictable
and they can push us to our limits yet
we still feel the need to climb them
i think that’s one of the best traits we
display as human beings the need to
conquer great feats
now throughout all this mountain talk i
didn’t mention
my favorite quote on mountains which
comes from edmund hillary
the new zealand explorer philanthropist
and mountaineer
he said it’s not the mountain we learn
to conquer
but ourselves find your mountain
prepare yourself and take the climb
but understand it’s not about the view
at the top
it’s about the journey and all the
things you learn along the way
thank you