No Straight Lines
[Music]
have you noticed
that there are no straight lines in
nature
well life doesn’t operate in straight
lines either
now you might imagine as you launch
yourselves into the world that
achieving your dreams might be as simple
as going from point a to point b
a nice straight line but
life doesn’t operate in straight lines
it tends to look
a bit more like a roller coaster and on
this ride
life will take you to places that you
might not
really want to go yourself now
these detours might come in the form of
a significant event
maybe an accident or illness
maybe loss maybe you screw up really
badly
or maybe just don’t seem to fit in with
the expectations of those around you
whatever form it takes it often involves
trauma and it always
involves pain now
no one asks for that but it’s something
that everyone
at some point will have to face no one
gets through life unscathed
we all have our scars
here are mine
all my life i wanted to become a safari
guide in africa
i dreamt of living and working in remote
and beautiful places teeming with
wildlife
i loved being in the wilds and looking
for animals as a kid
and more than anything i loved lions
i found them just magnetic they were the
main reason i wanted to be a safari
guide
but i also found them totally terrifying
when i began my life as a safari god my
greatest fear
was that i might one day get attacked by
lion
in my mind there was just there was
nothing more terrifying than that
so i’ve learned that life has a bit of a
twisted sense of humor
when i was 25 and living and working in
a beautiful
wild remote corner of botswana teeming
with wildlife
i i got attacked by lion
that morning i was guiding some very
important safari clients and and we were
in an open
safari vehicle and i’d found the tracks
of a female line with tiny baby cubs
now she’d been walking down a sandy road
for several miles
and the tracks were super fresh and i
was getting excited that
i might actually be able to show my
guests the sighting of a lifetime
but the tracks disappeared so i stopped
the car i got out and walked
back behind the car to look for the
tracks
not realizing that the lioness and her
cubs
were hiding behind a large termite mound
about 30 yards away
now she charged
and she didn’t stop she knocked me to
the ground
she raked my head with her claws
and she bit down hard on the back of my
head
now a couple of hours earlier when i’d
hopped out of bed that morning
my life was just full of hope and dreams
and
potential now i had a line biting me on
the head and my blood
and my life was seeping into the sand
your life can change very quickly
now i was incredibly lucky my life was
saved by my guests who
managed to drive the car at the line and
chase her off
and while i eventually recovered
physically i remained traumatized by the
event
for a long time this this was the worst
thing
that i could ever imagine made worse
by the pain and trauma that had been
inflicted on my family and friends
it looked for certain that my guiding
career was over and it just
felt like my life was falling apart
i certainly didn’t want any of that and
there was nothing
in that whole scenario that i could see
that was positive
i did eventually return to guiding
safaris
but early on i made a decision
not to talk about the lion it felt that
the best
thing for everyone including myself was
for me to just
try and wipe the experience from my life
so i avoided situations where someone
might ask me about it
and if a safari guest ever asked me
if i’d ever had a close call then i’d
give them pretty much
any other experience but i wouldn’t give
them that one
in my mind i didn’t want this to define
me
i wanted to be known as a great safari
guide or a great photographer or pretty
much
anything other than the dummy
he’d gotten attacked by a lion
so i popped the story in a box and i
shut the lid
tight and i carried it around with me in
my personal baggage
for about 15 years
you see i thought my life would be
better with the story locked away
but after all that time my life was
still a constant struggle and
that box was getting very very
heavy so i eventually made the decision
to accept the line attack as a part of
my life
i opened the box and had a good look
around inside and i started to share the
story willingly
you know allowing people to understand
the experience that i’d had
and the journey that it had taken for me
to be able to share it
and in doing so i discovered that the
box that i’d been carrying around with
me for so long
had everything that i needed
for a happy and fulfilling and
meaningful life
now when i spoke to people i found that
you know
a lot of them were moved and inspired by
what i said
not just by the story but also the
journey afterwards
some of them began to look at their
lives differently as a result
which was fantastic but the person
that benefited the most from me sharing
the story was
me every time i shared it i discovered
something new for myself
some new perspective or lesson
or just a big reminder on how to live my
life
when i opened the box one of the things
i rediscovered was the moment when
the lion bit me on the head when i felt
her teeth
biting down i knew without a shadow of a
doubt that i was going to die
but it wasn’t my life that flashed
before my eyes
it was instead i saw all the things that
i hadn’t done in my life
i could see with great clarity that i’d
taken for granted
all the love and care of the people that
i loved the most
and i’d never returned their love
anywhere near as much as i should have
and i saw how much time i’d wasted
and as the teeth bit down harder i could
see that
i’d never really given of myself and i
could see how much i actually had to
give but
now there was no more time
it was a moment of just indescribable
pain and regret but it was also
the most fundamentally powerful and
motivating moment of my life
and that moment had all but disappeared
when the story was sitting in a box
but it was probably the first thing that
came leaping out
after it had been opened and this moment
is now at the forefront of my mind when
i make plans and decisions around my
life
reminds me that i need to keep focus on
what’s really important
and i need to share my gifts i need to
let people see me and i need to not
waste any more time
that moment was just pure gold
but i never would have gone there
willingly
life however had other plans
now in fully accepting and embracing the
whole experience
and freely sharing the story that the
line attack went from being
the worst moment of my life to somehow
become the most valuable
and as you go through your life
you will at some stage face your own
metaphorical lines
and in the hardest of times it’s going
to feel like your world is falling apart
but it’s important to remember at these
moments that this is
just the beginning of a bigger story
this is chapter one
and in walking the journey through these
stories where there are no
straight lines you are going to need
help so don’t be shy to seek it out
and the experiences that you face
at very least they’re going to give you
depth
and perspective and empathy
and these moments are yours no one can
take them away from you and no one can
deny
how you felt when these things were
taking place
and if you want these experiences can
become a platform for you to share
and help others who might be walking
through a similar journey
and when you’re able to help others as a
result of your own pain
then you you begin to recognize that
these hard moments have not been in vain
and that they are actually helping you
to become the human that you really
want to be the harder the experiences
you face in your life
the more you will ultimately have to
offer the world on the flip side
but not not if you keep them in a box
so life is a roller coaster ride and
it’s scary and it’s thrilling
and there will be moments when you want
to get off
but these are the moments often that are
just before things get really amazing
and if you try and design a life without
those scary bits then you also
end up taking out the joy and
life becomes like being stuck on us on a
really suffocating
vanilla merry-go-round where there’s
just no freedom and no fun
so leap into life give as much as you
can
and when things get tough you got to
just keep going
because life will not throw anything at
you that you
can’t handle
thank you