We know them when we’re in them. Or avoiding them. Uncomfortable conversations when it feels like one wrong word — or even one right word expressed wrongly — can explode like a hand grenade. But we can avoid the detonation and destruction, Harvard Negotiation Project and Harvard Law School lecturer Sheila Heen explain in unpacking the insights and action items in her books Difficult Conversations and Thanks for the Feedback. The key, she says, is recognizing that in tough conversations we’re speaking words but exchanging emotions.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
π Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick F:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax the founder of Crucible Leadership.
Sheila H:
One of the things that at the end of the day is true is that more than people will remember the facts of exactly who said what in the exchange, they're going to remember how they felt treated. And moving your purpose from, "Let me just reiterate and persuade you about why I'm right," to "And so my purpose is to have a learning conversation. I don't know whether I'll change my mind at the end of this, but I at least want to learn why we see it differently and how it's been for you and what you're worried about." And we also try to teach people to listen for feelings as well as listen for facts. Because if I can listen for feelings, I can really hear what's behind your concerns, objections, et cetera.
Gary S:
Conversations in which the goal is to learn what the other person's thinking and to have the other person learn what you're thinking, listening for feelings in conversations rather than trying to make points and win arguments, these are just two ways to navigate difficult conversations that we explore on today's episode. Hi. I'm Gary Schneeberger the cohost of the show and the communications director for Crucible Leadership.
Gary S:
And today we have an interview with Sheila Heen. Sheila is the founder of Triad Consulting Group, and she's been on the Harvard Law School faculty as a lecturer on law since 1995. Sheila spent more than 20 years with the Harvard Negotiation Project, developing negotiation theory and practice. She specializes in particularly difficult negotiations, what we might call crucible negotiations, where emotions run high and relationships become strained. For the purposes of our discussion today, Sheila is the coauthor of two New York Times best sellers.
Gary S:
The first book was Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, and her most recent book Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, (Even When It Is Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, And, Frankly, You're Not In The Mood). What you'll hear from this conversation today is how you can, especially in the midst of a crucible, allow for both sides in a conversation not only to speak, but to truly be heard. And as you'll hear from Sheila herself as we kick off her interview, she comes by her expertise in this area quite honestly.
Warwick F:
Well Sheila, it's an honor to have you. So just so the listeners know kind of how this all came about is, like many of us in the era of COVID, I have three adult kids in their 20s who are all wonderful people just pursuing different things. And my daughter is in the middle of my two sons. She said, "Dad, I came across this book and article on difficult conversations and I think the author that would be great to have on your podcast." So I took a look and I thought, "Wow. Well, we at Crucible Leadership and Beyond the Crucible we're all about bouncing back from adversity, and as you're doing that, you are going to have some difficult conversations. And so how do you do that well?" So I was fascinated by this.
Warwick F:
And I like to think I'm reasonably good at communications, fairly discerning, but I learned a lot just from reading some of the stuff that you've written Sheila. It's like, "Wow." I mean, I'm not bad in this area, but there's a lot I didn't know. So talk about what led you to write these books. And obviously one follows the other, Difficult Conversations and Thanks for the Feedback, but what was some of the genesis of that? Was there anything in growing up or... Often there's a story behind the story. But what was sort of the backstory that led you to focus so much of your working life on these two books?
Sheila H:
Yeah. It's such a good question. And it's interesting because I think when you look back on your life, things are much more clear than when you're living them at the time. Right? That's the challenge. But there's also a way in which you're stitching together things which may or may not be related. Right? But when I do look back, I think about the fact that... I grew up in the Midwest in Iowa and Nebraska where, although I don't think there were big secrets that were not talked about in my family, the general tenor I think is, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Sheila H:
And conflict was kind of a big deal. I have very vivid memories of the arguments between my parents that I witnessed because they were relatively rare, so I knew it was a big deal. And then in college, I went to college in California and got interested in public policy and international relations and was doing simulations, negotiating between the two World Wars, that kind of thing, and my advisor, as I was thinking about going to law school... my dad's a lawyer by the way, said, "I really have an instinct that this negotiation thing might be your thing, and if that's your thing, Harvard really is the center of some of the most interesting work being done."
Sheila H:
And that's kind of how I ended up at Harvard. But if we then also want to go one step further, I was in a really hard on-again, off-again relationship during law school. We kept breaking up and getting back together and breaking up and getting back together. And I knew in my heart of hearts this was not the right relationship for me, but I kept getting talked back into it. And I was simultaneously taking negotiation class, serving as a teaching assistant for negotiation class and trying to figure out why can I not negotiate my way out of this relationship?
Sheila H:
And a lot of it was a conversation with myself about whether I... He would say, "You're not giving it a fair shot," et cetera, and I'd think, "Well, I want to be fair so I guess..." And it took me a long time to realize this is not actually a negotiation. If I don't want to be in this relationship, he doesn't have to agree. And he can think I'm a terrible person and okay, I am hopeful he's not right about that but he can exist in the world and think that about me and that will not kill me. So that's a little bit of I think the backstory of what led me to what is missing from these negotiation skills and why am I so stuck when I think I'm a pretty thoughtful, reasonable person.
Sheila H:
And of course when I watch other people be in on-again, off-going relationships, I think, "Why are you being so stupid?" While I'm in one, while I can't seem to find the exit door. It keeps leading me back into the room.
Warwick F:
What it probably makes us think is, as smart as we all like to think we are, we have moments where we feel maybe we're kind of dumb and stupid. I mean, where we're kind of less than we... We're not operating at maximum intellectual, emotional, spiritual capacity and we're-
Sheila H:
I think that's exactly right. And sometimes I'm very aware that I'm not operating at my best and other times I'm so stuck that I can't see that I am stuck or why I'm stuck, whereas people around me see it faster than I can.
Warwick F:
Well, and that's why friends are useful. I mean, just one other point on this. Do you ever kind of... Obviously you're very familiar with your books and reread it and say, "Boy. Back when I was in California in that relationship, I needed to read or think about chapter six and seven and five. I had kind of..." Okay. But you could probably... Because you actually give examples on your book of relationships. You give professional examples, but relationship examples. And you look at that and say, "Diagnose it like self-autopsy, if you will. Yeah. That it was this and this that was really missing in that conversation."
Sheila H:
Yeah. And by the way, I can't take all the credit for that because what ended up happening is that I was doing independent research projects during law school with Doug Stone and Bruce Patton. We became coauthors of Difficult Conversations. And my third-year paper, which Bruce supervised was actually about a terrible interaction I had in an elevator when I went to renew my passport in Los Angeles. And there was someone in the elevator making these awful racist, demeaning comments, and we're in a packed elevator of people and no one said anything. And it was so upsetting. I just felt ill. I was trembling when I got out of the elevator and I felt ill for the rest of the day and every time I thought about it.
Sheila H:
And so I decided to take that moment as a moment of analysis to try to figure out what was going on with me, what was I trying to accomplish, what were my options that I couldn't see at the moment. And so I wrote that paper while Bruce and Doug were actually asking some of the same questions. So as I graduated and joined them full time, we found that we were coming at those questions from different directions, but that we were trying to see what are the patterns in what gets us stuck and what would help. And it turns out those patterns... The underlying structure of difficult conversations is the same, whether it's in your personal life or your professional life. And that's one of the reasons we wrote the book really with a huge range, every possible combination or context we could think of. We wanted to include real examples.
Warwick F:
And that's very helpful. And we're going to get into here in just a second just some of the key elements of difficult conversations. But as I reflect on this, I think as some listeners will know, I grew up in a large wealthy family newspaper business in Australia, it kind of had the equivalent of New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. And like some other relatives of mine, I went did my undergrad at Oxford, worked on Wall Street banking, Harvard Business School. So I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent.
Warwick F:
And so I come back and I launched this two billion plus takeover and did so many dumb things. I mean, that was within months of graduating from Harvard Business School. It's meant to give you some level of understanding of things. And there was so many dumb... I even look back then... That must have been another person. I couldn't have been that... So many dumb assumptions. But often when you look beneath the waterline, it was various emotional dynamics. Without belaboring it too much, some other relatives had thrown my dad out as chairman 11 years before in '76. So come '87, I felt like the company wasn't being well run along the ideals of the founder, it wasn't being well managed.
Warwick F:
So there's all these emotional subtext in which my normal level of reasoning was subverted by some various emotional things that I wasn't fully aware of that led me to make some poor decisions. And the classic was, talk about difficult non-conversations, I was so focused on, "I don't need any more information. There's right, there's wrong, let's go." Sort of like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Launch this takeover. And I had conversations with other close family members who were heavily involved in the family business the night before. I'm doing this in the morning. Clearly I wasn't interested in listening, I was informing them. I mean, what is-
Sheila H:
Yes.
Warwick F:
It's a rhetorical question which you don't need to answer. But what is the point? That's not a conversation. That's like an edict. That's like a diatribe. I mean, it was just... I just blindsided them. I just can't believe I did that. I was just so stupid and disappointing any way. So all that's to say is bright people can make really dumb decisions because it's all this emotional feeling, identity subtext.
Gary S:
And that's an interesting-
Sheila H:
Yeah.
Gary S:
... point to sort of talk about... We talk about difficult conversations in the context of your book Sheila, but we've started to call them crucible conversations here at crucible leadership because... And what you just described Warwick is crucibles can be conversations that aren't had?
Warwick F:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gary S:
Right? They can cause crucibles if you don't have conversations. And sometimes conversations can be... The actual difficult conversation itself can be a crucible. And I pulled a statistic or some stats, Sheila, from an article that someone wrote in reference to your book. And this was from a 2013 survey of 200 professionals. And this is what was found about people's attitudes toward difficult conversations.
Gary S:
97% of respondents said they were concerned about the associated levels of stress for the other person. 94% were worried about damaging the other person's self-esteem. 92% were fearful of causing upset. And this is the one that really got me. 80% of respondents said these conversations were part of their job. They had to have these difficult conversations. Eight of 10 people said they had to have them, but more than half indicated, they didn't feel like they had adequate training on how to conduct them. And I think that goes to speak to a couple of quotes from your book Difficult Conversations.
Gary S:
One, the idea that you got to have them, but you don't want to have them. You talk about how delivering a difficult message is like throwing a hand grenade. So, that will kind of scare you off a little bit. So there's that aspect of it. But on the positive side, what you say in the book, is that we think there may be a broader organizational need driving interest in a business community. A recognition that the longterm success and even survival of many organizations may depend on their ability to master difficult conversations. That's a hard road to plow. A hard road to pave when 97% of people who responded, business professionals, say they're concerned about the levels of stress.
Sheila H:
Indeed it is. And I think part of what you're capturing in those statistics, I think, is the either-or choice that we feel. Warwick like you were saying, "I'm smart, I've run the numbers, I have the story that reinforces why I'm right about what I'm about to do, and that story feels like I'm just factually right about the risks and what we're putting on the line and how this is going to turn out." But of course at a deeper level, it's also about the story we tell ourselves about who am I and what are my responsibilities here? Or I'm playing the role of the hero who's going to save the day. Right?
Warwick F:
Right.
Sheila H:
And that's sort of happening at the deeper level. And Gary, when you raise how worried we are about creating stress for the other person, or emotional upset, or self-esteem issues, that's tied to identity because we're thinking, "Well, I don't want to be the kind of person who upsets other people." Right? "Or doesn't treat them fairly." But I'm now caught because I want to be a good colleague, but I don't know how to bring this up without being a bad person. And I think the problem is that we're thinking my choices are either explain to them why I'm right and they're wrong, or why they're the problem and they need to change or keep quiet about it.
Sheila H:
And one of the things we say in the book is that we are in a message-delivery sort of stance. So it's like, "Do I throw the hand grenade or not?" And holding onto it, not saying anything is no better. Right? Once the pin has been pulled, you can't hold on to the hand grenade.
Warwick F:
Either way damage will be done to you, to them.
Sheila H:
Either way damage is being done to you and to them. Yeah.
Warwick F:
Or to both. One of the things I think that's fascinating is you break down conversations into three areas, the "What happened?" conversation, the feelings conversation, and the identity. It made so much sense as I was reading it. And often I think, as you point out, we get into the "What happened?" They did that, this was wrong, or I said this, or we're just dealing in, "Well, let's talk about the facts." Okay. This business decision makes no sense, therefore I have to correct them. And you're not at all realizing there's a feeling and a subtext and identity. So talk about why we just tend to deal with the visible, if you will, with the what happened and why those other two components are so important.
Warwick F:
Because I think most of us and I like to think I'm reasonably good at communication, it's one of my highest values, but I don't think about those things consciously. So talk about the differences in those three.
Sheila H:
Yeah. So this is sort of the central learning for us that's captured in the book, which is that if we want to understand these conversations, because there's so much that people don't say to each other, because they're afraid to say it, you've got to look beyond what people say to what they're really each thinking and feeling and what we call their internal voice. And if you look at people's internal voices in the midst of a difficult conversation or a conflict, what you'll find is that they're very predictable. What we're preoccupied with is very predictable and it falls into those three buckets that you mentioned Warwick.
Sheila H:
The first is that we each have a story about what we call what happened, which includes what has happened up until this point... I've got a story about that, what is happening as you and I are, or aren't having this conversation and what we each think should happen. And that story itself actually has three sub-components because we're each preoccupied with what we're right about, whose fault it is that we're having this problem and to the extent that you're being difficult, I have a theory about why you're acting that way, what your intentions or motivations or character might be. You just don't get it.
Sheila H:
You're controlling, you're whatever. You won't listen to anybody, you're power-hungry. So that's our story about what happened and that's coming from both parties by the way. But then if you look a little deeper, by the time something becomes a difficult conversation, one and often both parties have strong feelings that we're trying to figure out what to do with maybe particularly in a professional context. And those feelings are often a bundle of frustration, anxiety, confusion, maybe self-doubt, anxiety, guilt. We're not talking about them, but they're infusing the conversation.
Sheila H:
And then at the deepest level, if something's a difficult conversation, what we started to notice is that there's something the situation suggests about you that feels like it's at stake. Am I kind or not kind if I'm going to have this conversation and hurt someone's feelings? Am I being fair or not fair? Am I competent? Do I know what I'm doing? Warwick I wonder to what extent the night before you heard people's doubts about the plan, your plan as maybe, "We don't believe in you. We're not sure you're worthy. We're not sure you're smart enough." And you're like, "I just came back from Harvard. All those people are maybe not smart enough but I'm bringing that 'wisdom' back with me." I don't know if you felt that as an identity hook in their doubts about you or about-
Warwick F:
Yeah.
Sheila H:
It's not really about you, but of course you hear it as doubts about me rather than doubts about my plan.
Warwick F:
Yeah. I mean, I think you tend to believe your own truth as being absolute truth. Like these other members of my family threw my dad out as chairman, and I thought he was a brilliant intellectual person I admired and loved greatly. And how could they do that? So there was this emotional subtext. My parents reinforced me growing up, "Yep. The company is not being well run," and a bit too sensational and the papers, so I just had this feeling of this is true and this almost heroic type of thing. So I felt like, "Well, I don't need more information because I know what's true. It's patently obvious."
Warwick F:
I didn't need to ask them their opinion. Or maybe they thought my dad was hanging around too long and maybe it was time for a new direction. And I had this just notion of what was true, but some of these subtexts of emotions of how could they do this to such a wonderful person? This feeling of this was not fair, this is not just, not conscious. And then identity, my whole identity was wrapped up with Fairfax Media. And yeah. I mean, you tend to feel like it's a sacred cause, I know it's what are they... That phrase the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Beware of the person who's on some righteous crusade or mission. They can be good, but be careful.
Sheila H:
Yes. Absolutely.
Warwick F:
A lot of bad things are done by well-meaning people. Sometimes not intentionally.
Sheila H:
And I think that one of the things, I mean, you have lots of company in history of sons and daughters who have their life story and purpose wrapped up in, or certainly heavily influenced by sort of avenging what happened to their parents. I mean, my dad left his firm for ethics reasons. Right? And I think my own path of being an entrepreneur was heavily influenced by his view that organizations can make bad decisions and you need to stick up for what's right. So I also think that what we need to get out of, if you're going to have a better conversation and make good decisions, it means leaving behind each of us being focused on what we're right about and talking past each other, and instead shifting to get curious about, well, so why do we see this so differently? Why am I so sure that this is the right path? And why are you really not sure? To say the least.
Sheila H:
And if we can tease apart, what are you looking at and what am I looking at and why do we come to different conclusions here, we're at least going to have a better conversation where we're really listening to each other and we can isolate, are we looking at different things? Are we interpreting them differently? Do we have different predictions? Do you think this is the right path but now is not the right time? Often we're each actually right about what we think the conversation or the decision is about.
Sheila H:
And then shifting from blame to looking at what did we each contribute that got us here to this tough moment or to this place where there's conflict and friction between us, and that tells us if we each could change a couple of things, would we be able to work better together? Et cetera. So it's about actually first negotiating with your own internal voice, then stepping into the conversation with a very different stance.
Warwick F:
Yeah. It's so true. It's funny. I've kind of written a book that will get published next year that talks about leadership lessons through the lens of my story and some inspirational historical figures. So when it comes to myself it's typically I did this, don't do this, do this instead. And one of the things I talk about is some of what you're saying exactly right now is I had this belief of what is true about other family members, but I never sat down and chatted to them about, "Well, what's your perspective? What's your truth? What's your perspective?" And if I'd done that, maybe I would have learned some things. You can't always assume that your truth is the truth.
Warwick F:
So yeah. A lot of what you're saying, I look back on and saying, "Yeah. That would have been helpful." Even what I wanted to do in life. I really wasn't wired to be some Rupert Murdoch type of person. I'm more a reflective adviser. That's a whole nother conversation, which I talk a lot about in the book. But yeah. Just that sense of be willing to listen. I love that phrase you just mentioned, not so much focused on blame but contribution why you're each contributing to the situation. Talk about why that's such a huge paradigm shift, contribution versus blame.
Sheila H:
I think because, I mean, I think human beings when things go wrong, we instinctively look for whose fault is this. And that answer tends to be singular. If it's not, it's mostly your fault, it's at least those guys are the ones who dropped the ball. Right? It might be a group. And making a shift to say, "Look. Let's assume instead that everybody contributed in some way to the problem of where we are now." And it's not necessarily 50/50, it could be 90/10.
Sheila H:
But thinking about what did we each do or fail to do that got us here then actually tells us what would solve the problem and allows us to hold each other accountable for choices. That okay, these are some things I think I need to do differently, here's what would be helpful if you could do it differently, then let's check in. Because I don't want to have the same conversation next week and next month. And it allows us to actually signal that actually I don't think this is about blame, this is about actually making it better and solving the problem. And that's a really strong signal to send.
Sheila H:
What the research shows is that one of the most reliable ways to build trust or regain trust is to make what's called a statement against interest, being to say something that you would not say it because it's not good for you, except for the need to be honest. And owning your contribution to the problem, saying, "Looking back, there are some things I wish I had done differently that I think didn't help us," is a really strong signal that's a statement against interest. It's saying I'm not about blame, I just want this to get better.
Warwick F:
I think that's true. What I love about some of the examples you mentioned is, even if you don't think it's all your fault, just... I guess part of being a leader is being willing to go first to saying, "Well, I probably didn't help matters in that conversation when I said A or B," or "I assumed this and that about you and I'm sorry," or "That probably didn't help." Then you give the other person space potentially to say, "Yeah. I probably could have handled it better," rather than going in there all guns blazing saying, "Look. It ticks me off that you did A, B and C, and therefore you are A, and you are B."
Warwick F:
It's different as you point out saying, "It made me feel that." That's not saying it's truth, but saying you are... It's like it's your truth. So just that willing to be vulnerable and go first. It doesn't guarantee a positive contribution, but it helps. I mean that to me-
Sheila H:
It definitely helps.
Warwick F:
... makes so much sense.
Sheila H:
Yeah. It definitely helps. And also, if you look at the research, reciprocity is one of the strongest social norms. So if you blame me, I'm going to blame you back or blame somebody else. But if you take the initiative as a leader to be accountable for your part of the problem, it's much more likely that I'll lean in to own mine. Now what's the worst that could happen? The worst that could happen is I say, "Oh gosh Warwick. I'm so glad you finally admitted that this is all your fault." Right? This conversation is going so much better than I expected it to.
Sheila H:
But that doesn't have to be the end of the conversation. You can still then say, "Look. I do think that I did some things that didn't help. At the same time, I can't fix this by myself. I think actually there were a number of things that got us here and there are a couple of things that would be helpful if you might be willing to change them." So that the risk that we feel we're taking is a risk that you can also influence over time. If they don't take the invitation right away, be patient and keep at it.
Warwick F:
Absolutely.
Gary S:
And because so much of what we're talking about here is emotions, it's the emotional undercurrent of the conversation, we're speaking words to each other, but what we're really doing is imparting emotions to each other. That's the thing that's not being seen in word clouds above our heads. Because that's true, when you do those kinds of things, when there is reciprocity of, "Okay. I could have done this differently," or "Boy. I messed this up a little bit," it's true that that deescalates, and it can deescalate rather quickly the negative emotions of a conversation. And that helps it move to a place where it's beneficial and healing. Is that fair?
Sheila H:
I think that's really fair and I'm glad you brought that up, Gary, because one of the things that at the end of the day is true is that more than people will remember the facts of exactly who said what in the exchange, they're going to remember how they felt treated. And moving your purpose from, "Let me just reiterate and persuade you about why I'm right," to "And so my purpose is to have a learning conversation. I don't know whether I'll change my mind at the end of this, but I at least want to learn why we see it differently and how it's been for you and what you're worried about." And we also try to teach people to listen for feelings, as well as listen for facts. Because if I can listen for feelings, I can really hear what's behind your concerns, objections, et cetera.
Warwick F:
And it just seems like so-
Sheila H:
Yeah.
Warwick F:
... much as you write in the book, what lies behind the conversation is sense of feelings and identity. And the more that you try to understand yourself and certainly understand the other person or through a learning conversation, that helps. I mean, that's so important. I know sometimes I'll be angry or fearful and I'll be like... And I won't know why. And so for me, if it's personal, first stop would be my wife I'd say, "But I'm feeling fearful about something, but I don't know what it is." And we'll chat. And nine times out of 10, she'll nail it or we'll figure it out. And then, "Okay. Now I can deal with..." Or identity, I'm far more attuned to that.
Warwick F:
So the more we understand feelings and identity about ourself, it's a big help if we react with like, "Why did I react that way? Was it feelings? Was it identity?" And the more we can... You can't know somebody else's feelings and identity but you can explore and probe. I mean that to me, that's... Talk about why that is so huge, and dealing with feelings and identity, both in yourself and having a learning conversation with others. Why is that a game changer rather than sticking in the what happened circle.
Sheila H:
I think because what you're hearing is what's really at the heart of it. So by the time something becomes a difficult conversation, typically you've got two problems. You've got the surface problem of whatever we're arguing about. For instance, I've had several conversations in the last three weeks with my parents about, are we going to be able to get together at Christmas or not?
Sheila H:
So I live on the East Coast now, one of my sisters actually lives down the street from me in the same town on the East Coast, my parents still live in Nebraska, my other sister lives an hour away from them in Nebraska. We alternate years. So this is a Heen year. And my parents keep bringing up have we made a decision about Christmas? And I keep saying I don't think we can make a decision yet. Right?
Warwick F:
Right.
Sheila H:
And as long as I'm focused on what's the factual question we're trying to decide, is it safe? You guys are in a hotspot now. We used to be the hotspot. What would it entail? What risks would we be taking? We can talk about that factual thing, but the deeper question is how are we feeling treated around this? Do you care enough about us? We're feeling lonely. We miss you guys. I feel like you're arguing the facts, but that facts aren't what's actually causing me to bring this up again. I just feel sad. And I think the deeper issue is often how I'm feeling generally or how I'm feeling treated in the relationship.
Sheila H:
And so we might solve the surface issue if we stay there, but then the deeper issue is going to reinvent itself as whatever the next argument is, or the next topic that we're not agreeing about. So listening for feelings and identity is really getting to the deeper issue that is trying to be expressed whether or not it's even conscious sometimes.
Warwick F:
Yeah. I want to shift just a little bit to Thanks for the Feedback, to at least touch on it, because I feel like obviously one they're very linked, it feels like. I mean-
Sheila H:
They are. Yes.
Warwick F:
... inevitably...
Gary S:
Yeah. It's like The Godfather Part II. It's the sort of the sequel to the-
Warwick F:
There you go.
Gary S:
... the first.
Warwick F:
Yeah. I wonder if they had a different way of dealing with difficult conversations.
Gary S:
Yeah. For sure.
Sheila H:
They did.
Warwick F:
Maybe not-
Sheila H:
They did.
Warwick F:
... but why have them?
Sheila H:
Yeah.
Warwick F:
But I was fascinated by so often there's a lot of literature about, okay, here's how you need to give feedback, but talking about how you receive feedback, that's a different paradigm. You talk about truth, relationship, identity triggers so it's... Because yeah. I mean, as I tell my adult kids, don't assume you're going to get a good boss. I tell them most bosses are probably not going to be that good. That's just the way life is. Most bosses, they hate giving feedback and the first time you'll get feedback is, "Well, I hate giving feedback, so you're fired." "So. I mean, say what?"
Sheila H:
What?
Warwick F:
"Well, I just don't like doing it. So, here's the pink slip." It's like, "Really?" "Yeah. Sorry. But bye."
Gary S:
And even though I'm a word guy and I'm terrible at math, I'll be the numbers guy again and read some statistics again about this issue. To your point Warwick about bosses, generally some aren't good especially at this. This is actually from an article that you wrote Sheila a few years back for the Harvard Business Review. Only 36% of managers complete appraisals thoroughly and on time. That's just over one third. In one recent survey, 55% of employees said their most recent performance review had been unfair or inaccurate. And one in four said they dread such evaluations more than anything in their working lives.
Gary S:
When senior HR executives were asked about their biggest performance management challenge, 63% cited manager's inability or unwillingness to have difficult feedback discussions. That is a huge problem in the workplace. And those statistics are crucible experiences waiting to happen. Going back to the words you used in your Difficult Conversations book, it's those are hand grenades waiting to be thrown.
Sheila H:
Yeah. I think that that's right. And I think that those statistics aren't going to be better this year for us working remotely from each other, having a hard... Any goals that we set at the beginning of the year probably have either gone totally out the window or been heavily revised. And the sense of is this going to feel fair and how do we connect with each other? This is actually a current project that we're working on right now, which is to put out resources for people to have richer and more meaningful conversations as we do check ins, as we turn the corner on the year, we settle in for the next six months of working remotely.
Sheila H:
Because I think the question of can we connect and can we wrestle together with the challenges of offering honest and meaningful and fair feedback and taking in what others see, experience the impact we have on them and to sort it for what's valuable and not let it destroy us at the same time, I think is the central challenge.
Warwick F:
And I think for most human beings, receiving feedback is just so hard. I mean, you hear books saying use a three to one ratio, three to positive to one negative, but I'll hear some high performers say, "Don't tell me about any of the good stuff. I just want to know where I need to grow." Which is in my view stupid. You need to be told-
Gary S:
To use the technical business term-
Warwick F:
Exactly. Yeah.
Gary S:
... from Harvard Business School.
Sheila H:
Yup.
Gary S:
Stupid.
Warwick F:
Exactly.
Sheila H:
Stupid. Yes.
Warwick F:
You need to know the areas where you actually did poorly... where you did well at. In fact, I often find, I will remember the bad stuff, but if you ask me five minutes later, "Okay. You were just told by your family or by somebody at work, there were five things you did well, what were those five things?" "Is I really can't remember. I can't process good feedback", which is a whole other discussion which I think is fascinating.
Warwick F:
But it's just so hard. And I love these sort of truth, relationship, identity. I mean, you may believe it's not true or, "Oh. My boss is awful and they're clueless and I despise everything about them." Whether it's their lifestyle, their politics, the way they manage, they might be conventional, might not have an entrepreneurial bone in their body, and they're giving me feedback? Come on? They're clueless.
Warwick F:
Or identity. If somebody said to you, "Well, gosh Sheila. I know you think you're a pretty good professor, but actually maybe not so much." Well that strikes at the identity of who you are. It's like, "Excuse me? Really? I think if there's room for improvement, I think I'm pretty good." Or me, I've done a lot of executive coaching and, "Gee, you're a terrible executive coach." "Wow. Really? I thought I'm pretty good at listening to people and discerning." And so that's tough stuff. I mean, I read it, but to receive feedback when it is used for relationship and identity triggers and I mean... How do you deal with that? I mean, that's tough.
Sheila H:
Yeah. Well, so I think the shift for us was the shift from thinking about how to give feedback effectively to, "Well, gosh, what's so hard for all of us about receiving it?" Whether it's formal, like those dreaded reviews or informal like I got taken off the project without any conversation because my boss won't have the conversation. How do I figure out whether that even is feedback? So maybe I'll just say a couple of things about it. One is that what we found is all of us really do have three kinds of triggered reactions when we have feedback incoming, direct or indirect.
Sheila H:
And as you say, one is truth triggers. What's wrong with the feedback? Is it accurate? Does it fully understand the situation? Is it good or bad advice? Would it work? It's all about assessing the quality of the feedback itself. The second is a relationship trigger and that is everything around who gave me the feedback. Do I like them? Do I trust them? Do I think they're credible? Do I want to be like them? What are their real motives? Et cetera. And the irony here is the who looms larger than the what. The who actually... People that we find difficult and don't want to be like sometimes actually are valuable sources of learning for us. Right?
Sheila H:
They bring out our worst, it's their fault, but of course it is our worst, and annoyingly. They can sometimes have valuable things to offer. And then the third is an identity trigger and that's the story we have about who we are and also our sensitivity to feedback. What we found is that individual sensitivity can vary by up to 3000%.
Warwick F:
Wow.
Sheila H:
So for some people you're really under-sensitive and people have to really hit you over the head before you even understand that it is feedback for you, and for others, you're going to hear feedback in any little hint of anything even beyond what anybody intends. So figuring out how do I understand my own profile around feedback and how do I coach other people on how to give me feedback effectively is part of the journey of becoming better at receiving.
Warwick F:
Well, that's fascinating because for some people that may be, "Yeah. You'll need to hit me with a two-by-four before I listen." Me-
Sheila H:
Yeah. And saying, "Do hit me with the two-by-four by the way."
Warwick F:
Yeah. Me I guess I'm wired at the other end of the spectrum, because I get discerning pretty well, so you don't have to yell. You just say something softly, message received. I mean, I may agree or disagree, but I'm the other end. So yeah. Don't yell or shout. No. Don't use a two-by-four with me because it won't be very effective. But that's so valuable. But gosh. I mean this whole... I mean obviously they're very lengthy feedback and difficult conversations, but it's just... I love the phrase you used about need to grow and be accepted. If feedback was done better, it would be a game changer in our world, if people were really focused on giving it in a way that could be heard and people would receive it in a way, even if it was done poorly, "Gosh. Maybe this jerk is telling me something. I can't believe it. It's actually helpful even though I despise who he is," kind of deal.
Sheila H:
Yeah. And I think for me the most... And I know we're short on time, so maybe I'll offer the most hopeful and powerful thing that I've found personally in this journey for myself, which is that by understanding what's so hard about receiving and understanding that receiving feedback is actually a distinct leadership skill and I can get better at it, I can get better. And if I become better at it as a leader, the receiving side, then I actually become a better giver myself, I have better feedback conversations in all directions.
Sheila H:
But to me, the thing that really lands it for me is that that actually means that I don't have to wait around for the perfect mentor to show up or wait around for somebody to have time for me. I can actually be reflective about and ask for what I need from people. And we have a theory about what people do need, which is three different types of feedback. Appreciation, and that might be words, but for other people, "I don't need to hear the words. They're embarrassing and put me on the spot. But the fact that you come to me with your toughest problems makes me feel appreciated." So I need to think about what makes me feel seen and appreciated and when do I need some of that.
Sheila H:
Coaching, which is just the engine for learning. Anything designed to help me improve counts as coaching. And what do I want coaching about and who might be able to offer it to me? Not just the person above me, but people in my own team. They have coaching for me, they're just not telling me because they don't know if I want to know. And how do I ask for one thing that I might think about regularly that I could change?
Warwick F:
And that's so helpful. Don't ask for everything, ask for one thing. It's funny when I think of great leaders and it's tough in our world today to think of them. But you look back in history and as I'm sure you know Abraham Lincoln is voted pretty much every year by historians as the greatest president, and Washington's number two but they always vote for Lincoln. And you think about some of his personality characteristics, he had this ability to receive feedback better than pretty much most people I know.
Warwick F:
Like there's one time somebody said, "Well, Mr. Lincoln, I believe in this area you're an idiot." And he said, "Well, you're probably right, but tell me why." His first reaction wasn't, "How could you possibly call me Abraham Lincoln an idiot." He said, "But I'd like to learn." So he combined certainly a lot of drive and is extremely secure with a sense of humility, a sense of curiosity, a sense of willingness to learn, not just accept what was given to him. So I often think it's the character behind the leader that determines greatness. So as you're talking about how to receive feedback, here's a pretty good example of best practice of how to do it, how to do it well, how to receive it and not just instantly reject it.
Sheila H:
I love that example because it really shifts us from our instinct often, which is the feedback is incoming and I have to decide as it's coming in and do I agree with it or do I not agree with it? Is this good feedback, helpful feedback? Is it right or is it wrong? And Lincoln, your example from Abraham Lincoln really says, "I reserve the right to decide later whether I think there's something valuable here. My purpose in this conversation is just to learn more about what you see and then I can sort for myself what's valuable about it and set the rest of it aside."
Sheila H:
And that actually diffuses the tension in the conversation because it leaves me more open to learning and listening because I'm not deciding. I have to first understand it, then I can decide what I want to take from it later. And that's just gives you a ton of freedom and humility in the conversation.
Warwick F:
Absolutely.
Gary S:
I can see the flight attendants are coming through the cabin to pick up our peanut bags-
Sheila H:
They're tapping their foot.
Gary S:
They're coming through the cabin to pick up our peanut bags. So the captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign and it's time to land the plane in a bit, not now yet, but in a bit. But there's something you wrote Sheila, in this article that I referred to from the Harvard Business Review back in 2013 about why feedback is hard. And to hear you describe it as a leadership skill, to receive feedback is itself a leadership skill, and then to see this reason that you explain why it's difficult, I think those things coalesce really nicely into why these can be crucible moments for people and that the difficulty of receiving feedback you wrote, what makes it hard is that it hits at the juncture of our need to grow and our need to be accepted as who we are.
Gary S:
It's almost a push me, pull you kind of situation. It can feel like it's dissonant. How do we get beyond that? How do we move beyond that? You had mentioned that there are three types of feedback. I think I heard you say appreciation and coaching. Was there a third one that we missed?
Sheila H:
There's a third one, which is evaluation.
Gary S:
Okay.
Sheila H:
And evaluation rates or ranks you. It tells you where you stand, how you're doing against some set of criteria or expectations. And I would say we need all three kinds to learn and grow, but we need different kinds at different times. And evaluation, Gary, coming back to what you were just mentioning is the most emotionally volatile. Being judged, measured, ranked, assessed, whether you're worthy enough is the one that gets everybody's attention. I think that's the one where we feel most acutely that tension between genuinely wanting to grow and get better.
Sheila H:
If you look at the happiness research, getting better at things is a big piece of what makes life satisfying. It's why people are listening to this podcast by the way. But we also deeply need to be seen and accepted and respected and loved the way we are now, and that's the tension that shows up most acutely around evaluation. So I would say, you were talking Warwick about ratios, of positive and negative, evaluation by the way it can be positive. Like that was the best episode we've ever done.
Sheila H:
That doubles as appreciation, but it is a judgment compared to something. But what I would say is that we really should be appreciating and coaching throughout the year, day in and day out in small practices and how we work together. And that actually takes some of the pressure off of at the end of the year, like so let's just get a sense where we stand. So that tells us, what do we want to work on next? What do we want to improve? What are our priorities for next year? And Carol Dweck's work on shifting from a fixed mindset, "I'm good enough or not good enough, smart enough or not smart enough," to a growth mindset, "I am learning my whole life and feedback is a way to get a sense of where I stand and what I could do and work on next as a leader," I think is part of what helps us sit with those two, wanting to grow and be accepted, and hear feedback, not as verdict or imprint, but instead as input.
Warwick F:
Yeah. I mean, great leaders they want to learn and grow. And just as we sort of sum up, I mean, I think most of us think we're in about as divided a world as we've ever been. Maybe every generation says that, I don't know. Maybe they have for thousands of years. But it does feel that way. People are in their own tribes and they're hearing their own truth and the self-reinforcing and it's hard to solve the world's big problems if everybody thinks they're right.
Warwick F:
And there are all these camps and nobody's talking and nobody's listening. It's easy to feel hopeless amidst the division that's tearing this country and a lot of other places apart. Do you have a message of hope amidst difficult conversation and receiving feedback of how we can get out of this cycle of I'm right, you're wrong and lack of learning, lack of listening, lack of understanding, lack of awareness, lack of a bunch of things. Is there a message of hope for a world that needs hope right now?
Sheila H:
Yeah. I mean, I think you're right that it really feels like at least in the United States, our country is in a crucible moment, and that everyone is yelling about what they're right about and frustrated that they feel misunderstood or dismissed or unheard. And shifting to think about what does the other side, whatever that means to you in whatever conversation you're in, what do they feel frustrated that I don't understand about them?
Sheila H:
And what I hear is people talking, we would say talking past each other, because they're talking about two different topics, so that they're each yelling about what they're right about, but they're right about different things. I don't know if you want to include political examples, but you can think about Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter are talking about two completely different topics. Black Lives Matter is trying to say they are treated as if they don't matter and black people are disproportionately impacted by... Fill in the blank. Everything.
Sheila H:
And saying All Lives Matter is raising a different question, which is, do we feel like in saying black lives matter, dismissing the other people? Well, it's also true that all lives matter. That is true. So that's right. They're both right. But they're talking past each other. I saw a post this morning about our new Supreme Court nominee saying what did she ever do to Democrats? And Democrats would say, "Nothing. That's not the point. The point is whether we should be rushing someone through this process right now."
Sheila H:
And so that we're just talking past each other. And I think for me... And by the way, I live in a split political household myself and in a split political family, and to me it's about what do we each feel frustrated that the other doesn't understand about what matters to us. And if we can sort of flip hats to say, "Rather than me being frustrated what you don't get about me, let me focus on what you're frustrated I don't get about you," is where the conversation can happen.
Warwick F:
I almost remind... I think it was St. Francis of Assisi, he said something like, "Seek first to understand rather than be understood."
Sheila H:
Yeah.
Warwick F:
Yeah. I think no matter how right we may be about whatever it is, if we would actually try to understand the other point of view, I think the world would be a better place. But it's hard to do that.
Sheila H:
It's hard to do that. And social media isn't really dialogue, it's serial monologue. And that makes it harder. So we're all reacting to a conversation that we're not even in, but it's happening around us too as well.
Gary S:
Indeed.
Warwick F:
Well said.
Sheila H:
So... Yeah.
Gary S:
And I have been in the communications business long enough to know that that is the last word. And when the last word is spoken as well as that last word was spoken, it's time to land the plane for sure. I won't do that though. I would be remiss if I landed the plane before Sheila I gave you a chance to let listeners know how they can connect with you online, how they can learn more about you, your books and your services.
Sheila H:
So one of the gifts of having a very unique last name is that I'm easy to find. So Sheila Heen. You will find Triad Consulting very quickly. And we have a page called Help Yourself where there are resources. We also will have ready in November some kits that leaders can use quick prep to get ready to have more meaningful conversations with the people around them and a kit for team members to get the most out of their own review conversations. And like, "I got feedback, now what? What do I do with it?" And so those will be available through the Triad Consulting website. We also have a Facebook page of course, and I'm also on LinkedIn. So you can find me on any of those places.
Gary S:
Fabulous. Well, I'm going to do what I do at the end of every episode. And I've never said this before, but it's always very... I feel inadequate because I'm trying to sum up a conversation with someone who graduated from Harvard Business School and someone who has taught at Harvard Law School. So here goes nothing. I think there's three points listeners that you can pull from this very robust conversation that we had with Sheila Heen today about difficult conversations and the power of, and the difficulty of feedback, which is sort of a fourth kind of difficult conversation.
Gary S:
Point number one, your choices when it comes to difficult conversations are not simply to explain why you're right and why the other person is wrong or avoiding it all together. Those aren't your only two choices. There is a third way. In fact, there are multiple third ways. You can think of difficult conversations, which we call crucible conversations as an opportunity to listen, not talk. An opportunity to hear not just their audible voice, but their internal voice. Aim to understand in those difficult conversations first, not to persuade. Two focus not on blame but on contribution.
Gary S:
I'm going to say that again. Don't focus in a difficult conversation on blame, who's right, who's wrong, but on contribution. Do not assume that one person is completely responsible for the problem you're discussing, but that each of you is responsible for aspects of it. Owning your responsibility in the crisis frees up others to own their part as well. And a crisis can deescalate quickly, as Sheila pointed out, a crisis can deescalate quickly when that kind of breakthrough occurs. And then the third point on the subject of receiving feedback, and that's to remember this, that receiving feedback is in and of itself a leadership skill.
Gary S:
Don't be afraid to ask for feedback. There's three basic types, appreciation, coaching and evaluation. And here's perhaps the best tip of all. Don't ask for it all in one big lump, you can ask for things individually and you can ask with time in between them. Don't overdo it because it can be difficult to receive. It's difficult to give, it can be difficult to receive. So ask for it as it comes up, as it comes along. You don't have to wait for annual evaluations. You can ask as time goes on.
Gary S:
Thank you listener for spending your time with us on this episode of Beyond The Crucible. Warwick and I have a little favor to ask you if you've enjoyed what you've heard here, if you've found our conversation with Sheila Heen helpful, please click subscribe on the podcast app you're listening to this on right now. That will ensure that you will never miss a conversation. And we have one every week. That is just about as robust on all kinds of different subjects on how you can overcome your crucibles and find hope and healing.
Gary S:
And until the next time that we're together, remember this about crucible experiences, that they are painful, they are traumatic, they are tragic sometimes, they do change the trajectory of your life. But here's the good news, they're not the end of your story. A crucible experience is not a period on a sentence that describes your life. It's a comma. And you get to determine what you write next. And if you learn the lessons of your crucible, if you apply those lessons to your vision and you make that vision a reality, what comes after that comma can be the most rewarding chapter of your book and the most rewarding time of your life. Because where it ends up, the path it leads to, the road it puts you on is to a life of significance.
Want to be a leader known as strong, confident, honest, transparent and secure? Vulnerability can pave your way to all those adjectives — if you employ it wisely. Host Warwick Fairfax discusses with co-host Gary Schneeberger the helpful and the not-so-helpful ways you can be open about yourself. When vulnerability works, they explain, it can help your team members weather crucibles they’re going through today — and inoculate them against those yet to come.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
π Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Perfectionism is a struggle so many of us have. Β No matter what we do, it seems like it is not good enough. Β Other people might say our work was great, that dish came out really well, we played amazingly in that We hear in our culture that we need to be authentic, even vulnerable. But what does that mean, and can you be authentic and vulnerable, even after being broken, and still be successful?
For leaders, we feel vulnerability is a sign of weakness. We fear our team will see our insecurities and respect us less. But the reverse is true. The next generation of leaders on our team, certainly millennial leaders, want to follow authentic and vulnerable leaders. But how do we do this? In particular, how do we practice vulnerability in a way that helps our team and does not sabotage our organizationβs success or our personal success?
Here are some keys to vulnerability as a leader. The overarching principle is we need to be vulnerable for a purpose.
Put Away Fear
Yes it is possible by being vulnerable we will say something that our team and those around us will feel is a bit weird or our leadership image armor might seem a bit tarnished. But this will be more than counterbalanced by our teamβs gratitude about our being real. Our team will see that we have the courage to admit that we can be fearful and uncertain too.
Vulnerability for a Purpose
Being vulnerable might make us think that we have to share every dumb thing weβve ever done. Maybe we crashed our dadβs car in high school, or worse, we might have been drinking while driving. Perhaps our marriage broke up, and we feel it was pretty much our fault. Or we made some terrible business or career decision. Maybe we were not the boss we believe we should have been. There are many areas of fear, doubt and mistakes we can share. So how do we decide what if anything to share?
Great leaders know that our team learns more through parables and stories than lectures. Think about the great teachers. We can think of Greek mythology and Greek heroes and the tales of heroism and folly. Think of how Jesus taught mostly in parables and stories. In wisdom literature, as well stories in general such as Aesopβs Fables, there was typically a point. Often a great story has one key point the author wants to make. So think of what you are trying to teach or relate to your team. What story can you tell that will really reinforce your message?
Perhaps it is about taking risk. Perhaps you could share a story of when you took a risk as the head of a small business unit, early in your career. It might have failed, producing one lesson. You might say, βI failed, but you have to be willing to fail in order to succeed.β You might share how the first few days as head of that business unit, you were so scared. Afraid that if you blew this golden opportunity that your career would be history. Perhaps it could be about failure when you were younger. Perhaps you did not make your high school basketball team when your buddies did. Maybe you kept trying and made the team the next year. Or perhaps you did not want to fail again, so you never tried out for the team the rest of high school. You could say, βIn hindsight my fear of failure kept me back.β And then you could tell your team, βI try never to be so afraid, that I make the mistake of not trying again.β
The key thought is, what point are you trying to make and which story would best illustrate your point? In a sense, which fable, which morality tale β though in this case, they are true stories β will best fit the purpose of your story?
Vulnerability gives others the freedom to be vulnerable, too
By being vulnerable, by willing to admit that you have made mistakes and have been fearful, you give others and in particular your team the freedom to also be vulnerable. If you are the leader of an organization, this willingness to be vulnerable can have a ripple effect through the company. Your senior leaders may follow your lead and be vulnerable with their teams. You as the leader set the tone, which can be to set a vulnerable empathetic tone or one of the fake strong armor, masking a fearful and insecure inside.
Vulnerability gives others the freedom to take risks
If you admit that you have made mistakes and that mistakes are OK, you give your team the freedom to take risks and try bold new adventures. Yes, there has to be a vetting process for new ventures, but if you encourage a culture of vulnerability and risk taking, then more good ideas will come to the fore, some of which could be game changers for the organization.
Vulnerability can create connection
By being vulnerable, not only will your team learn that you have made mistakes too, but in doing so you will create a sense of connection. They are more likely to share their own mistakes and fears, which creates the opportunity for you to listen, console and advise. Because you are coming from the space of leading alongside them, not above them. You are saying that you too made mistakes and have been fearful. The question is not whether you have made mistakes and have been fearful. The question is what you are going to do moving forward. Are you going to learn the lessons of your mistakes? How will you overcome your fears? Just admitting your fears can be helpful in overcoming them.
Vulnerability can be a tremendous leadership tool. Take the leap of faith. Be willing for your team to see who you are warts and all, mistakes and fears and all. You have to be pretty secure to be vulnerable and talk about your mistakes and fears. You just might find by being vulnerable, your team will respect you more, be more willing to follow you, and you and your team might be more successful. Being vulnerable for a purpose could be the key to your success and your teamβs success.
Reflection
How could being vulnerable help your leadership with your team?
What are the chances that by being vulnerable, that your team will respect you more and be more willing to follow you?
Which story could you share that would most help your team?
To explore Beyond the Crucible resources, including our free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment, visit beyondthecrucible.com.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
π Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
At 19, Ryan Campbell became the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world. Two years later, a horrific plane crash threatened more than the dream he birthed at 6 to make a life and a living streaking through the skies. Left a paraplegic after the accident, he fought back physically and emotionally to walk — and hope — again. Today, he’s an in-demand motivational speaker who inspires audiences to build a mindset toolbox to conquer their crucibles.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
π Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Gary S:
Welcome everyone to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. I'm Gary Schneeberger, the co-host of the podcast and the Communications Director for Crucible Leadership. And we're welcoming you into a podcast that is about a subject that you probably know a little bit about if you've tuned in, and that is crucible experiences. We define crucible experiences as those things in your life that are painful, traumatic, upsetting. They can change the trajectory of your lives, failures and setbacks and things that happen to you, and sometimes things that you yourself set into motion. But the reason that we talk about them here on Beyond the Crucible is not sort of have a powwow where we just sort of tell war stories. The idea of talking about them is to highlight folks like our guest today who have been through crucibles and have bounced back from their crucibles. And now they're on the other side, living lives of significance.
Gary S:
And we talk about those individuals and we interview those individuals to give you hope on your road to healing, on your own road to a life of significance. And with me as always, I would not be here were he not here is Warwick Fairfax, who is the founder of Crucible Leadership and the host of the show. Warwick, we've got a great one today and not only because the only American accent on the show today is going to be mine.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely very much. Looking forward to that.
Gary S:
That listener was a reference to our guest Ryan Campbell, who when he speaks, you will realize is like Warwick, Australian, but here's a little bit more about Ryan. Few people have encountered the extreme polar opposites of success and tragedy that Ryan has, let alone by the age of 26. As the youngest person to fly solo around the world, Ryan's life changed in an instant following a very serious light plane crash. He survived against all odds and was admitted to a spinal rehabilitation ward as a complete paraplegic with no movement from the waist down. Ryan proved his mental fortitude as a record breaking pilot, but demonstrated his mastery by learning to walk again and fighting his way back into the sky. The gamut of human experience led Ryan to develop his mindset toolbox and the three step checklist to navigating change, ways of thinking that allow individuals and organizations to overcome adversity, navigate change, and build a better future. That's really what we're all about at Crucible Leadership. So take it away, Warwick.
Warwick Fairfax:
Ryan, it's so great to have you on the podcast and love your story and your book Born to Fly. But before we get into your crucible and some of the amazing things you've done in flying, tell us a bit about Ryan Campbell, how you grew up, your family. Tell us a bit about yeah, yourself growing up in Australia.
Ryan Campbell:
Good afternoon gentlemen. Thanks Warwick. I explain myself as just a normal Aussie kid. Any more laid back, I'd be lying down. That's my favorite overused line. I grew up not in a poor family, but not in a rich family, just a standard middle-class Australian establishment. We originated on a farm property and then we moved down to the beach when I was about six years old. And I grew up by the salty clear blue water and the golden beachy sands, which I now miss. But my dad was a truck driver. He was a farmer and he was a local milk man. And my mom was a stay at home mom.
Ryan Campbell:
We had a family of five, two older brothers and a family I suppose you could say much larger than that also you know, grandparents and aunties and uncles. And just an amazing upbringing, which the older I get, the more I value and appreciate. So a really cool upbringing. I was a young kid with a whole bunch of ideas that mom and dad normally rolled their eyes at. And many of those ideas, just drifted away into the atmosphere but a few of them landed and resulted in some wild adventures, not just for myself and then my family, but for whole bunch of people who were in involved in our little escapades. So it's just a normal as a kid is my favorite way to talk about who I am.
Warwick Fairfax:
So, where did your sense of adventure come from? Was it your mom, dad, or relatives? Because you're somebody that just likes doing things that other people don't normally do.
Ryan Campbell:
I think the problem lies within me to be honest.
Warwick Fairfax:
No problem.
Ryan Campbell:
I have a family who love travel, but we love to kind of see the world and a very outside of the box thinking family. But I'm definitely the first person and still the only person who's really ventured out on anything super left of field like I did and continue to do. I've always been a very impatient kid. I always wanted more. I remember when I was a young kid, I used to unpack the dishwasher and ask for chores before school. So mum could save some money for me so I could pocket money and buy things. And I just when I wanted something, it didn't matter what it was, a piece of technology or an ice cream or a new CD or whatever. I was that kid who just did not let go. It didn't matter whether my parents knew I would never use the product when it arrived in my hands, but I've always been someone who is very fixated on a goal. And that I think in itself has led to the adventures that we had.
Warwick Fairfax:
So I understand that you have wanted to fly or being fascinated by flying at the various earliest age. What was your first memories of this passion for flying?
Ryan Campbell:
I think so the first memory has attached to it a really cool business story to give you a little bit of an idea of my family. So my dad was a milkman, as I said, mum was a stay at home mom. We didn't have a lot of money, but we worked for a company in Australia where they had an incentive program every year. Now, if we sold a certain amount of berry juice products, we would get a free to take it overseas. So I remember at six years old in a family that had never set foot outside of Australia, my parents bought a lot of juice and I'm talking, we filled that store room with long life apple juice and orange juice. And what that led to was the first overseas trip to Vanuatu an Island in the Pacific when I was six years old. And we went on a business trip where we swam in the pool and they went to their little work events for a week and it was a amazing getaway.
Ryan Campbell:
And it was the only way my parents could afford to go overseas because they then come home from the holiday and spend the next six months selling orange juice to anyone with a thirst to pay for that adventure. So it was on that first overseas trip, that was actually to be the first of four. So we're really lucky young kids to get to travel. The first of four of these incentive trips that I climbed into a Boeing 737. And we took off and being the youngest and the cutest of the three, which I always say we, they put me by the window. I got the window seat and I sat there and watched Sydney appear in the window of that aircraft as we took off and everything about the experience, I was just blown away by it. It was just simply magic to me. The fact that everyone in Sydney, has a red roof on their house or just the size of Sydney, or honestly the biggest moment was the fact that we went through clouds.
Ryan Campbell:
At six years old, I didn't even believe he could reach the clouds, let alone do so over Sydney in an airplane. And prior to September 11, which shows how old I am. We were invited up to the cockpit and I walked up there with both my brothers and I followed in trail and we met the pilots and we looked at the buttons and the switches. And from that point on, if honestly Warwick and you laugh at this being an Aussie, but I would always tell people three things from when I was six years old. One is that I wanted to be a jumbo jet pilot. I wanted to fly for Qantas. That was great. That was a solid dream that lasted. The second was that I wanted to own a Subaru WRX, which was a big dream for a six year old. The third, for some reason I wanted to live in Canberra. I don't know whether it was a small town, just kind of like saw the glistening lights and the shopping centers, but I don't know, I would not live in Canberra if you paid me now, but-
Warwick Fairfax:
No. It's a pretty quiet place for capital city. There's not much going on.
Ryan Campbell:
It definitely is. So, I was a six year old kid with three big dreams. And the one that truly lasted was this discovery of passion and that was aviation. And it honestly has taken me and provided the highest experiences of my life, the best, the most positive experiences. But it's also taken me to the deepest and the darkest places. So it really has provided a roller coaster ride in a short period of time.
Warwick Fairfax:
So after that trip to Vanuatu and sitting in the cockpit and having this passion for flying, you told your mum and dad, "Okay, I want to be a pilot." What was their reaction to this dream of this six year old?
Ryan Campbell:
Little did I know when I was six that my granddad had actually, he'd just passed away, but he had been a pilot and not professionally, but he'd been a private pilot. Little did I know my dad actually wanted to learn to fly, he'd always wanted to learn since he was a kid. Little do I know my uncle who didn't have a lot to do with was a commercial pilot and owned a joy flight business, in Merimbula the little town I grew up on the South Coast of Australia there. And little did I know all of that, which just makes me believe that aviation's in my blood. So my family probably didn't take it as a shock. And as we grew older, that dream, as I said really was set in stone. It was getting to 14 years old and saying, "Alright, I need a plan. How am I going to work through school? And learn to fly."
Ryan Campbell:
Well, common sense at that point for 14 year old kid said, "You know what? You're going to need two things. You're going to need money, a lot of it. And you're going to need at least a driver's license before they'll let you fly an airplane." I was incorrect on one of those fronts. I definitely needed money, but I was reading the local newspaper when I was 14. And I read an article about a kid who flew solo in an airplane on his own for the very first time on the day he turned 15. That was the first day he was legally allowed. And here I am at 14, not very good at math, but I was like, "I don't have very long if he can do it. Why can't I?" Well, that led to an afterschool job.
Ryan Campbell:
And that led to a weekend job. And it led to about, what was I earning? $50 to wash a truck and 45 at the supermarket. So I was earning around about, I think, $190 a fortnight or every two weeks and a flying lesson for an hour was 180. So I actually funded my way through flight training throughout school. I went solo much to my mum's stress levels, went through the roof. But I went solo on my 15th birthday, just like this kid in the article. And I had discovered what I could do with a goal and a little bit of hard work. And I ignited this passion, not just to fly more, but to do everything I could at the youngest possible age. And the adventure just, it sped up from there.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's amazing. So you have all this sort of unknown, maybe flying genes in there, or it's just amazing how these things happen. So you had this dream of flying, when did this idea to fly around the world, while you were still a teenager, but what point did that dream started to form?
Ryan Campbell:
So I'd flown solo on my 15th birthday. When I was 16, I turned 16 I passed a flight test that allow me to take friends and family flying in a restricted area. I wasn't 17 yet, so I didn't have a driver's license. I couldn't drive a car on my own. So all my buddies at school who were older than me, we cut a deal with them. And we said, "All right, you drive me from school to the airport. After school, I'll take you for a fly, but you've got to drop me home." So that was my deal throughout when I was when I was 16, sorry. When I was 17, I had a private pilot's license. And when I was 18, I had a commercial. So I really pushed for whatever I could every time I become a year older. It was at 17 that I read an article again, I should've stop reading articles.
Ryan Campbell:
But I read an article on a kid who was American 23 years old who'd broken the world record for the youngest person to fly solo around the world. And we're talking 2008. We're talking the prior world record being 37. So there really was no age record. And we're talking a time where more people had gone to space and flying solo around the world. So not a very common thing to take place. Well, here I was at 17, he was 23. And again, not very good at math. I knew I had six years to pull this off and I decided I wanted to find out more, but I kept it a secret.
Ryan Campbell:
So I did what any wannabe 17 year old teenager would do and I Googled how to fly solo around the world. And I found a website called earthrounders.com and I printed off all the information. I highlighted all the important parts and I hid it in my desk. I didn't want my mom, my dad, my brothers, I didn't want anyone to find it. I didn't want anyone to think that I was silly enough to believe this was possible.
Warwick Fairfax:
So were you afraid that they were going to try and talk you out of it or something?
Ryan Campbell:
Or judge me or laugh at me and I have the most supportive family in the world. So it was a very irrational fear, but I thought they would potentially just laugh and get "What is this kid on?" You know, like this is wild. But I read those articles over and over again. And there wasn't a lot to read given that not many people had actually done this. I got to the point where I wanted to know more. I wanted to know more than that those articles, but what do you do at that point? Now my mom and dad couldn't help me. So I decided I'd contact a gentleman I'm sure you know to some degree, Dick Smith, an Australian entrepreneur, a businessman, aviation adventure, previous around the world, pilot. I decided I'd contact Dick Smith and I thought well, he has the power to help me, he has the knowledge and he has some of the answers. And if he laughs at me and this doesn't happen, I don't cross paths with Dick Smith very often. So I'm not going to feel judged.
Warwick Fairfax:
And that's sort of amazing because Dick Smith for U.S audience, he has an electronic store chain kind of like Best Buy in a sense in the U.S so I mean, it's kind of everywhere. So he's very successful, see, you reached out to Dick Smith, he's a busy guy, very successful and he responded.
Ryan Campbell:
He did and-
Warwick Fairfax:
Which is so amazing.
Ryan Campbell:
My mum said "How did you do that when you were 17?" And I said, "I just Googled Dick Smith's email address." And I hate to tell anyone that, but I found five and I sent an email out to all five. And I said, "Dear D|ick Smith. My name is Ryan Campbell, I've got 200 hours and I want to be the youngest person." I read that email now and just cringe. And he responded. And he said to me, "Ryan, he said, what you want to do is dangerous. It's very risky. It's hard. It's never been done before." And he listed all these bad elements to the adventure. But at the end he said a few simple words, and this was all about it. He said, "But it can be done, go and find yourself a mentor. And if you find a mentor who tells me that you're the guy for the job, I'll support you."
Ryan Campbell:
So I took that same email that I sent to Dick and I crossed out Dear Dick and I wrote Dear Ken. And I sent it to a guy called Ken. And he was the second person to ever hear about this adventure. He'd flown around the world with another pilot. He was an Australian based in a little town called Bendigo. He agreed to be my mentor. So I went back to Dick Smith. All of a sudden I had a team of three. Everything was very exciting until I realized I had not told or asked my mom and dad yet, at 17 years old. So we went down the road of asking mom and dad, I washed the dishes one night, which I think helped. And I said to mom and dad, "Hey, what would you think if I said that maybe potentially one day I might want to fly a small airplane solo around the world?"
Ryan Campbell:
And dad said, "Oh, you'd see some amazing things." And mom said, "Oh, wouldn't that just be a phenomenal experience?" And I thought here they are my parents going, here's another idea this kid's got. Yeah. Well then I sat the folder of emails down in front of them from Dick Smith. Literally a name they'd grown up with and all of a sudden it wasn't a joke. Well, that started the two year planning, training, fundraising, adventure, where I didn't just plan and train and then prepare as a pilot. But we fundraised a quarter of a million dollars on a laptop computer, the same laptop that would go around the world to write the blogs, the same laptop that we would write the book on. And we pulled together a team from literally myself to what became a massive team at an industry who supported what was a history making adventure. So a really long two years, lots of fundraising, lots of lessons, lots of growing up for a young kid.
Warwick Fairfax:
But to raise 250,000 being at age 17 is amazing. Obviously, your parents might've be nervous, but they were supportive. You had a plan. I mean, not too many 17 year olds would come up with a plan and have the courage to just write to Dick Smith and the wisdom to seek mentors when it was suggested. I mean, you pursued a goal just all out, but with a lot of wisdom, it was sort of courage and wisdom. I mean, as you reflect back, I know there's a lot of lessons in your life, but those lessons leading up to that round the world flight, they are some key lessons for people and how you approached it.
Ryan Campbell:
Absolutely. And for me, I always say courage and commitment, courage to take it on, commitment to see it through. And I learnt so many lessons the hard way, and we could talk for days about the little moments that I learned and I was a kid who couldn't make his bed. And I was trying to contact the largest companies in the world through these very average sponsorship proposals where I'd stolen their logo, full copyrights, straight off the internet. And I started off and had to refine the process to find success. And we did find success from a deal with 60 Minutes and all sorts of large media outlets around the world. And what resulted, not just in a successful adventure, but a book deal. And it was a phenomenal transformational time for a young kid to learn and grow even before we took off to fly around the world. I mean, that two years was I think that more of the story lies in that two years than it does in the 70 days of circumnavigating the globe.
Warwick Fairfax:
And that was 2015 was it? When did the flight happen?
Ryan Campbell:
That was 2013.
Warwick Fairfax:
2013. Okay. Got it. And so that was, how long did it take to fly around the world did you say?
Ryan Campbell:
So I climbed into a rented single engine airplane, and then it was a full seat piston powered propeller plane. And I had 160 gallons of fuel in the cockpit with me and a big bag. And we could fly this airplane up to 16 and a half hours nonstop, and that's what I needed to cross all these big ocean legs. And I took off at 19 years of age after that two years of planning, we flew 24,000 nautical miles to 35 stops in 15 countries. I took off from Wollongong, just South of Sydney, Australia on the East Coast. And I pointed that airplane Northeast, purely over the Pacific ocean. And I did not stop until I made it to North America. I had about five legs to get across the Pacific alone, the longest being Hawaii to California, 15 hours nonstop, literally sitting in my little seat. So a very long trip in a very...
Warwick Fairfax:
Not a lot of margin for error on that one, if you've...
Ryan Campbell:
Very little margin for error. There's some stories from that leg for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
So you did this remarkable journey in 2013 and that led to, I think the book you wrote Born to Fly was that written after that, but before?
Ryan Campbell:
Yeah. The way that I explain the stories when we deliver keynotes is I tell stories, not from an ego point of view, I hate nothing more than ego or manufactured drama in life. And we tell these stories to give people a little bit of an idea of how good life was at this point. So around the world flight ended, we were on 60 Minutes. I was invited to meet the Royals and named one of Australia's 50 greatest explorers. And I wrote a book that my nan can tell you every page number of every spelling mistake in that book, and that's not a joke. And we shared the story and the story spread and life was great. We did so many wonderful things that Australia Day, Ambassador roles, and just had the opportunity to see a story which originated as a silly idea in a 17 year old kid's head spread and impact the world. Everyone from six year old kids who wanted to maybe fly one day like I did originally through to ex World War II Spitfire pilots who were writing me letters, just absolutely blown away by the story.
Ryan Campbell:
Yeah, my heroes of the world were reaching out to me. So my life was amazing. I was on the Australian speaking circuit and I was flying for a living and speaking, just to kind of subsidize the terrible pay that we kept paid as pilots. And I could not argue with where I was at in life. And then it all changed.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So life was going so well, you were talking about courage, commitment, go for your dreams. Anything's possible, which is a great message. But then for whatever reason, the world or fate gave you another message, which you weren't planning on. Didn't really want to talk about that. I guess it's 2015, that kind of that fateful day, what happened?
Ryan Campbell:
Well, I was my six year old self wanted to not only fly jumbo jet, but my dream was to fly for Qantas, the Australian airline.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah.
Ryan Campbell:
Following a speaking gig in Canberra, believe it or not. I was offered a job with Qantas Link, our regional Qantas airline. And I turned it down because my dream was to fly Spitfires. I wanted to fly World War II fighters. That was my dream. And I wasn't going to gain the experience I needed to fly those rare airplanes through flying for an airline. Plus I was 20, 21. I needed to go and live a little bit more. And I turned down the job with the airline and I took a job flying Vintage airplanes to build up the experience I needed and just to have a great, exciting living. So my job was to fly a biplane that was built in the 1930s up and down the coast of Australia and do some aerobatics and a beautiful machine, very old, but beautiful.
Ryan Campbell:
My job was to take one passenger at a time flying and it was simple. But it was a very pleasurable job. And on the 28th of December 2015, I got up and went to work just like any other day, no oceans to cross no records to break. And we climbed into that airplane. I had a gentleman in the front with me and I was sitting behind him. He was also a pilot, very, very nice gentleman. And we started the airplane. You actually have to grab the propeller and spin the propeller with your hands and start it by hands. It was very old technology and we taxi to the end of the runway. We lined up on these short grass airstrip, nice and early in the morning to take off and go and look at the beach. And I pushed the power forward, the airplane performed beautifully.
Ryan Campbell:
And we lifted off the ground, the runway and the fence at the end of the runway disappeared beneath the nose, and straightaway at about 150 feet over the top of trees the engine failed. And we had a partial engine failure and within three seconds, despite everything that I could do, I don't know what I ever could have done different. We had nowhere to go and we ended up in what was a horrific plane crash. It's just not explainable how bad it was. And I was cut from the wreckage, placed into a helicopter and flown to hospital, but I was the only survivor.
Warwick Fairfax:
Oh my gosh.
Ryan Campbell:
I was taken to hospital in Brisbane. I was operated on immediately. I had shredded facial bones, fibrates and my ankle was almost removed. My right ankle was shattered and I was operated on immediately. And I was awake from the accident. And most of the ordeal blacked out from the pain and the impact for some minutes here and there. But overall, I remember every element of it. And I woke up in the recovery ward with no movement or feeling from my waist down. I was a complete paraplegic.
Warwick Fairfax:
So obviously a lot's going through your mind. I mean, you're an experienced pilot. Even at that age, you're thinking, well, obviously I'm not a pilot, but if you're a 100 feet up, the engine fails. You've got no time to think of anything or do anything and even if you could, it sounds like there was nothing you could do. Was that like well, certainly it wasn't pilot error. There's nothing I could have done.
Ryan Campbell:
It was the hardest part of this entire, especially with the outcome of the accident. The hardest part of this entire journey for me has been coming to mental grips with the outcome. What happened, why it happened, what could have been done, what was done and analyzing those number of seconds. And I know in my heart of heart that we made the best decisions on the day in that moment, flying what we were flying. It was just, if that engine had a failed 10 seconds earlier, or 20 seconds later, we would have been okay, but the devil himself pressed the button at that moment for me. And I don't know, put me in a simulator and give me that a 100 times again, I don't know what I could have done differently with all the elements that come into play when we consider an engine failure on takeoff, specially in 1930s technology.
Ryan Campbell:
And do I regret being in the airplane that day? No. Do I regret getting out of bed and not sleeping in? No. Do I regret not having a flat tire and canceling that flight? No, I don't. We made the best decisions to be there that day and I don't know what I could have done different. And that's my only way that I can come to grips with being the one who made it out as opposed to the one who didn't.
Warwick Fairfax:
So obviously it goes through that, people talk about survivor guilt and all that. Why was it me? And that's probably one thing. Not that it's fair, but we're human. I mean, logically you knew there's nothing you could have done. Yes, it's like, "Well, I could have given the engine another once over." I mean, even if you'd done that, probably it wouldn't have been that obvious without, I don't know what pulling every part of the engine apart, even then you probably couldn't have found...
Ryan Campbell:
And it was, they pulled it all apart and we don't know. And it could be anything from a mud wasp to a little bit of water. We just don't have the answers.
Warwick Fairfax:
So logically, there's nothing you could have done, but because we're emotional beings, did it take a while for you to accept the fact there was nothing he could do? Your brain said, "I did everything I could." But emotionally were you kind of beating yourself up a bit, or?
Ryan Campbell:
I will always have that element in my life. I always will. That doesn't go away with time. It gets easier with time. You know, I do not blame myself and if I did, I wouldn't be here. I couldn't live with that. I however, live with the struggle and the triggers that will always come from that PTSD, whatever you want to call it. I will have that forever. And that's been hard.
Warwick Fairfax:
And you have to go through that to fully understand that kind of trauma. So people who have gone through those sorts of experiences probably could understand better, but how did you get beyond that? Because intellectually, it sounds like you came to terms with that pretty quickly because you're a pilot, you get it, you understood there was no room for error. It was bad luck. As you said 10 seconds earlier, at 20 seconds later, it would have been radically different. But how did you find a way to bounce back from that experience and live a positive life rather than, the alternative is just to say, "Well, that adventurous free spirited Ryan Campbell is no more. I'm just going to be safe, cautious just." Not do much at all.
Gary S:
And I'm going to jump in before you answer that question, Ryan, because you told me something when we talked before we started recording the show that I think is a universal truth for anyone who's gone through a crucible. Our listeners would know well. You probably know well, Ryan being from Australia, the crucible that Warwick went through the takeover of the family media business that failed. Takeover the slipping of the company after 150 years out of the family's hands at 2.25 billion loss. Not at all the same thing as the physical trauma that you went through, but emotionally speaking, what could I have done differently? What can I learn? How do I bounce back? Those experiences are universal with crucibles. And what you told me when we talked that speaks to Warwick's question about how you got through it. You said this to me, "We find the tools in our low points to power better times." And I just wanted to kind of get that out there, that perspective out there, because I think our listeners will definitely identify with that as you answer the question, how did you do it?
Ryan Campbell:
100% and I am really big on this idea of tools and building a mindset toolbox. I'm really big on adversity being an opportunity. Adversity alone is adversity, but adversity with the right tools to utilize it is opportunity. It's simple as that. At 21 years old, I was lying in that hospital bed, going through what you're talking about Warwick, this constant reflection of what happened. Trying to get my memory back, trying to pull the pieces together, trying to work with the right teams of people around me to say, "Okay, what happened? And get answers."
Ryan Campbell:
And it was a really long process that honestly it's not as prevalent in my day to day life now almost five years on. But I'll tell you what it lasted many years. And it's been very hard and there are times where it comes back up again. When we look at that time in hospital, it was so hard in the beginning just to exist. For me I would always tell people that I was at maximum capacity. You could have walked in and told me that I'd lost a family member, or you could have chopped off my leg or from a pain and a mental point of view, physical and mental. I was at capacity. You couldn't have done anything more to me to make it any worse.
Ryan Campbell:
But we started to crawl out of that hole with the real sink or swim mentality. I remember sitting next to an Australian. I had many people from Alan Jones and all these incredible Australians that the U.S audience might not be too familiar with, but trust me when I say incredible, incredible humans spending a lot of time with me at hospital. I remember sitting across from Paul de Gelder an Australian Navy clearance diver who lost his arm and leg in a shark attack in Sydney Harbour.
Ryan Campbell:
And he looked at me and he said, "Sink or swim." Now I'd spend an hour and a half with an ex Australian Wallabies coach. I had been to every psychologist known to man and ended up telling them how they felt. You know, I can't tell you how much help I had, but those three words changed everything for me. Because when I looked at Paul, I knew that at one point in his life, he had to actually swim and he chose to swim. And if we look at this crossroad we come to when we experience adversity or change challenge or crisis in our life, we have to make a choice. It's up to us. A lot of tough love is needed. A lot of harden up is needed. We have to sit back. We have to make our own decision to sink or swim. Sinking is a very long and slippery slope to suicide.
Ryan Campbell:
And I am really blunt about that because I'm really big on young people losing their mental battle. Swimming is the journey that we take to climb back up. To climb the mountain, that it's ahead of us to get out of where we are to end up in a better place, physically and mentally. And if it's just one step at a time, that's okay. When I was in hospital, I was battling the mental aspect of the accident. What happened, why, what could have been done differently? I was battling my physical state. I had no movement from my waist down, no feeling. My bodily functions had disappeared. I had no control. I was a newborn baby in a hospital. My dignity was left at the door when they wheeled me in. And I spent the next six months in that spinal rehabilitation ward determined to not walk, but fly and walking was merely a stepping stone on the way back to flying. And that was the end of the conversation for me.
Ryan Campbell:
I was naive. And I thought honestly for that first 12 months that I was just going to get better. I mean, how naive can you be? I'd flown around the world. I was like, "I'm going to be fine." And whilst I saw progress and I released a video on this yesterday, and I talked about progress being the antidote to stress induced, or to change induce stress and how progress even just a little bit of progress everyday towards our end goal provides a purpose to the pain. So for that first 12 months, especially that first six months in hospital, I went from a complete paraplegic with no movement or feeling from the waist down. A wheelchair that was custom built for my body to a human who was walking albeit I look like I've just sunk a bottle of Tennessee whiskey, but walking.
Ryan Campbell:
And that was a very long journey of pain but with a lot of progress, I would see a twitch for muscle. A little bit of sensation come back on some area of my lower body. All of these things were happening every day. When I got to that 12 month point where my recovery started to plateau, that lack of repair, that reduced rate of repair become one of the biggest challenges of my life, because now it wasn't about "Okay, just keep doing what you're doing. You are going to be okay." It was like, "Okay, this is it. This is where I'm going to get to, this is my new normal. We're going to have to start to get used to it, learn how to maintain it. And now I'm going to have to begin to adapt in my day to day routines to make sure that I can do as much of what I did in my previous life with these new injuries."
Ryan Campbell:
And I still have a whole bunch of things wrong with me, a long list of things wrong with me. No calf muscles, no glute muscles. I have no feeling where I sit no feeling of the backs of my legs. No feeling in my feet, very little control in my feet. No ability to push. I walk around on my heels all day, every day, no bladder control, no internal bodily functions whatsoever. But I walk and I just look like I've had a bad night on the town.
Ryan Campbell:
But that journey as a whole, we talk about, I mean I speak purely on how did you get back up? How did you swim? What were all the elements of that? It all boiled down to building a toolbox. My overwhelmed state in the beginning of my time in hospital, parents, brothers, cousins, doctors, Alan Jones, incredible humans, shark attacks survivors. They were all giving me advice. Advice on how to climb the mountain ahead of me. But it was too much. I had to take that crazy amount of advice. I had to take my overwhelmed state of mind and I had to somehow turn it into clarity. And that's where the mindset toolbox was born. My simple way, born in hospital to take the moments I was experiencing, moments that were easily forgettable to turn those moments into tools, tools that I could use to navigate change challenge, crisis, and adversity, and place them in my mindset tool box. Basically an unforgettable drawer that I have access to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The tools that I was going to use to climb the mountain.
Warwick Fairfax:
Wow. I mean, that's just an amazing journey, amazing story. Just for the listeners, Alan Jones, former coach of the Wallabies, that's Australia's national rugby team kind of a big deal, certainly in Sydney and in Queensland where rugby is pretty prevalent. But you mentioned early on that former diver said "Sink or swim," and it feels like that was a binary choice. It wasn't just plateau or lead a quiet life. It was sink might've been depression, suicide. I mean, who knows what sink would have been? I mean, it's scary to even contemplate. So it was like either swim or improve or the alternative is very dark and almost unthinkable. I mean that's, I think a lot of listeners wouldn't think about it that way, that sink or swim, you either rise or you fall into oblivion. I mean, it was that clear back then in the depths.
Ryan Campbell:
It was. Yeah. And I think it has to be that clear. And when I first started the two year process of planning around the world flight, I had a team of five people, no one else knew about it. Not even my extended family. I had a flying instructor who sat down with me, the very man who taught me to fly Big Al. And he said to me, "You're going to do this or not?" And I said, "Well, I don't know. One day I think I should, the next day, I don't know whether I should. And I just don't know." And he said, "Look, zoom out and have a look at the big picture. Where you are in life, what you are trying to achieve, how bad you want to do it. And then we're going to make a yes or no decision on whether you even attempt this round the world flight. If you make a yes decision, you are going to work unbelievably hard every single day until you get to the point where it is either A, is success or B, an absolute failure that you just can't bring back. Or you're going to say no, walk away and never look at it again."
Ryan Campbell:
That yes or no decision is binary as is the sink or swim decision. And I think we have to be clear in order to move forward and combat the mental, life is won and lost just above the shoulders. That's my deal. Right?
Warwick Fairfax:
Right.
Ryan Campbell:
We have to be binary otherwise we just get buried.
Warwick Fairfax:
So almost what I'm hearing you say is that two year preparation for the round the world flight, are we going to do it, are we going to not? It almost, in some sense, prepared you for that next round the world journey in a sense that next epic but tragic adventure, which was getting back from that horrific accident. You look back and say, "That kind of helped prepare me in some strange way?"
Ryan Campbell:
Without a doubt, a 100%, but yes, a 100%. What I also say is that at 21, I was lying in a hospital bed and I had experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. So highs higher than most people would ever experience, but lows lower than most people would ever experience. And it took a while for me to see it this way. But I started to view it as an opportunity. I'd been given an opportunity to compare. We have mountain climbers, as keynote speakers, we have people out there who have done incredible things. We have people out there who have suffered diversity kind of adversity stories. We have those people as well. We don't have a lot of people who've experienced both, especially by that age.
Ryan Campbell:
So what I was given was an opportunity to compare the highs and the lows and ask myself, where do we truly learn? Where do we grow? What makes me, me? And it was 150%. Yes, I did pull things from the round the world flight. Yes, it prepared me for what was to come, but I'd truly become Ryan, the person I am today through the adversity and the hard times in my life for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
And that sort of amazing thought of nobody wants adversity, but there are some lessons who we are after a crucible is never the same as who we were before. So I want to hear about the toolbox that you've created, but yeah, talk a bit more about how there's some. It's going to sound very strange, but I don't want to say there's beauty in adversity, but there's certainly a lot of lessons in adversity that can, I don't know, maybe make us a better version, a more refined version of ourselves. I mean, what's your experience with that?
Ryan Campbell:
I remember feeling so unbelievably sorry for myself, which is what we all do as a reaction to negative change, or adversity or crisis. And I was feeling down and I was in hospital with a whole bunch of reasons that probably allowed me to feel a little down at this point. And I remember that every day that would hoist me off the bed in hospital. So they put a sling under me. It was a very non flattering kind of experience. And they'd lift me off the bed and they'd let me hang above that mattress until my body hurts so much that they'd just put me back down and let me rest. Every day we get hang for a little bit longer. And then they originally put me out of that bed into a wheelchair. And they took me to the rehabilitation gym.
Ryan Campbell:
That first trip to the rehabilitation gym changed my life. The gym was a place where quadriplegics and paraplegics were doing all they could to bring their bodies back to life and obtain what I call our maximum potential, which is a really important word in what I speak about now. So I was taken to this rehabilitation gym and I was placed down on a low lying mat, slung onto this mat. They told me my first challenge for the day was learning to roll over. Now, it was a whole lot harder the second time than it was the first time. But I remember loving a challenge and thinking, all right, like how can I go from my back to my stomach? Yeah, nothing works from the waist down, but I can do this. So I concocted a plan in my head, and I thought, if I could just lift one of my chunky up and lie it over the other leg and I could then lean over and grab the side of this bed and pull with my arms, I'm going to kind of untwist.
Ryan Campbell:
And I'll be not only lying on my stomach, but I'll be victorious in this first challenge. I remember doing that, twisting my legs and then grabbing the side of that bed and pulling. And as I pulled the fire breaks in my back and all the new titanium metalware that I have just screamed in pain. So I stopped on my side and my right arm was twisted, all kinds of trying to balance. I stopped just to let the pain subside. And I remember looking through a hole created by my elbow and what I saw through that hole at a point where I was really down in life, changed everything. What I saw was a guy called Ben. He was a young guy in his early 30s, sitting in a really big wheelchair. He'd slipped over, hit his head whilst mopping his girlfriend's floor.
Ryan Campbell:
He'd broken his neck, had no movement or feeling from his chest down and very little feeling in his arms or his hands. He was a quadriplegic. And I remember looking up at Ben and seeing Ben stare back at me. I was feeling sorry for myself at this point, really, really bad place in life. The way Ben looked at me, I realized what he would have given for one chance at learning to rollover. And at that point to say that I felt like the worst human on the face of the planet would be an absolute understatement. And I remember being put back into the wheelchair and taken back to my ward and put back in bed. And I remember my body resting and my mind moving at a million miles an hour. I knew at that point that I needed to remember the way that I felt when I looked at Ben, because it was that feeling, whatever it was. And I couldn't explain it at the time. It was that feeling that was going to allow me to get through the hard days. And there were plenty of hard days on the horizon.
Ryan Campbell:
So I decided to come up with a concept, which is the mindset toolbox to take those moments and place them somewhere where I won't forget them. So my concept is so simple, very, very simple. It's that we're all born with an empty toolbox. It's really big. It has wheels, lots of drawers. We'd take it with us wherever we go in life. When we get it in the beginning and when we're born, it's empty. Our job in life is to fill that toolbox with tools that we can use to work through the challenges that we will all no doubt face. Adversity is simply a byproduct of breathing. So we'd fill that toolbox with tools, tools that we can use to navigate change, challenge, crisis, and adversity.
Ryan Campbell:
It is our goal to learn how to find tools, how to use them and how to keep them sharp. Throughout that six months in hospital, the year and a half in rehab, the four and a half years up until this interview, I continue to find tools every day and place them in that toolbox. And I have a really big overflowing toolbox. And it's my way to not forget the moments that I need to navigate my life. It's my way to provide a tangible kind of learning experience in developing your mindset. And that's what this is. Life is won and lost above the shoulders. We have to go out and better ourselves. We have to go out and learn. We have all the information in the world at our fingertips. We have to understand that we have to build resiliency ways of thinking into our day to day life as an individual or an organization so that we can tackle how crucible moments, our tough days. Our tough years our 2020s.
Ryan Campbell:
We have to be wired that way. My mindset toolbox not only saved me, but it's now how I encourage others to think of their own mental health and resilience.
Warwick Fairfax:
I want to hear a little bit about this mindset toolbox. But I want to go back for one second. Here you are, trying to roll over, which for most of us is a pretty easy thing to do. It's like you just roll over. But for you at that point, you might've said climb Mount Everest. I mean, it was pretty difficult, but then as you were going over and bad things were happening and you looked at Ben. What was it about Ben's look that almost was a not a mini crucible, but some, an inflection point in your recovery, there was something about Ben's look, that kind of bore a hole through your soul almost.
Ryan Campbell:
He was just a big boy sitting in that wheelchair and he had elastic bands around his wrist and he was moving his wrist in and out, maybe an inch or two at a time. And that was his exercise for the day. And knowing quadriplegia quite well by that point, just being in a spinal cord injury ward and learning about a spinal cord injury and what it does to your body, I knew what state Ben was in. And I knew the very slim chance of him ever getting back to a point where I even was at that point at the beginning of my recovery. It was just the loss in his eyes and we went on to talk a lot throughout the next six months in rehab and learn more about each other and the struggles that we were both going through. And when I unpacked that moment with Ben into that mindset toolbox, at the surface level, I obviously learned perspective.
Ryan Campbell:
I was like "Oh, I'm actually quite lucky really at the surface level." But by unpacking that story into my mindset toolbox, that was a process that allowed me to pull so much more out of that moment than what I found at first glance. And that's the power of the toolbox. I learned so many things from gratitude through to not accepting what I had and my ability as opposed to focusing on what I'd lost. All of these different lessons from Ben, they all boiled down to one thing. I was lucky to be a paraplegic. I was 21 years old. I had just survived a plane crash. I had just turned 21. I'd been in hospital for not an entirely long amount of time and I could look at you and tell you that I was lucky to be a paraplegic. I could look at you and tell you that this challenge was not physical, it was mental. Without Ben's injection of gratitude that day, without the concept of the mindset toolbox, I would not. And I just would not be where I am today. I just wouldn't.
Warwick Fairfax:
That's amazing. And that's really one of the key elements of your toolbox, gratitude, confidence, resiliency. Obviously you can connect the dots now in hindsight, that sense of gratitude that I'm glad I'm not where Ben is. Ben would give as you said anything he could to be where Ryan was. So talk about how you use this toolbox to inspire others, both others who've been through physical challenges. They could be mental, physical, financial, abuse. I mean, there's all sorts of challenges in the world. So talk about how this can help, not just crash survivors or paraplegics, but just people in general. What about this toolbox can really help people?
Ryan Campbell:
I encourage anyone who has a pulse to build their own mindset toolbox because it doesn't matter where we live, the color of your skin, your background, religion, beliefs, geographical. It just doesn't matter. If you are breathing right now, you will have experienced adversity in your life and you will experience it more again, byproduct of breathing. So adversity is a common thread amongst every human on the planet. I encourage everyone to pull together their own mindset toolbox, to take the moments in their life and convert them to tools, to build resiliency and confidence in their ability to overcome. I did find however as I filled this mindset toolbox that even in a time of crisis a really rough moment, even with a full toolbox, it's hard to reach back into that toolbox and pull out exactly the right tool you need to overcome that challenge. Whether it's an engine failure in that split second moment. Whether you've just been furloughed, whether you've just found out that someone's been lost within a family or any form of adversity, big or small, we are so overwhelmed when it first strikes.
Ryan Campbell:
I wanted to create a checklist that we could run through very quickly and very simply, whenever that moment strikes. Now, I use my three favorite tools and most used tools out of my mindset toolbox to create that checklist. People often ask why a checklist? Well, why did you do that? Well as a pilot, when something goes wrong in an airplane, when a red light flashes or a warning buzzer sound, we don't just start pressing random buttons and pulling random levers despite what Hollywood may tell you, we use a checklist, right? We go through a checklist of predetermined potential problems. We work through the checklist items and we hopefully end at what is a solution to the problem.
Ryan Campbell:
So I created a checklist, not for aviation, but for life, a simple three step checklist that will not solve all your problems. If I knew the checklist to solve all of the problems in the world, I wouldn't be talking to you. I'd be on my yacht in the Caribbean drinking some form of alcohol, but this is a checklist that places you in a more change and challenge, ready mindset. It is so simple. It's gratitude, confidence, and resilience. And we can either go through that or we don't have to with timing, but that three step checklist is a very quick, easy way to talk about my tools.
Warwick Fairfax:
I'm just curious at least in summary, why those three, right?
Ryan Campbell:
They were my three favorite tools, Warwick, it's as simple as that. Everything I'd been through, everything I had when I built that mindset toolbox, I didn't just feel it from that day on. I went back to the round the world flight, and I unpack stories, stories that we share in keynotes around America and around the world. We took stories that I had put in my past folder. We pulled them out and we unpacked them. And I learned more and more from the experiences I'd already been through. So these three tools in this checklist are simply my most used most transformational tools that have changed my life.
Ryan Campbell:
And not only do I want other people to potentially implement my three step checklist, but I want you to understand the power of a checklist culture and start to create your own. Grab your own mindset, toolbox, go through the same process, fill it. Look at your top tools that you use every day. Look at the challenges you face, start to put together a little checklist that you can implement when times are tough, because this year's a tough year and we all need the mental resiliency to kind of bounce back.
Warwick Fairfax:
And I find that fascinating because you're saying by all means, use gratitude, confidence, resilience, but you're saying make sure that it works for you to develop your own, which is sort of a different approach. You could say, these are the three steps, guarantee it'll work for everybody, but you're saying it might work for a bunch, but here's what I've done just so that you can get an idea what it looks like, but create your own. That's a different approach. That's almost feels empowering to people rather than saying you got to use this or else.
Ryan Campbell:
No, we don't want the cookie cutter approach. It just doesn't work in life. It just doesn't. You know what, we're not the same. We're all different. I remember having a lady say to me after a keynote, "Oh the checklists won't work." She said, "A list don't work for me." She said, "I'll write a list. I navigate through that list. And I know a lot of people like that." And my pilot brain thinks why. It is the best thing in the world, but this didn't work for this lady. So I told her, we worked together and I said, "Let's take one, step back. A checklist is a systematic approach, an implementable way that we can just apply whatever it is over and over again. Let's create your systematic approach. So what do you enjoy? It could be a walk on the beach. Every time you struggle, or you have a rough day, take your shoes off, get your feet in the sand and go for a stroll. Watch the sunset. It could be anything, it could be the gym. It could be, it doesn't matter. We have to find our own little solutions to those moments of struggle and change. Every time we go through crucibles or every time we go through adversity or have a rough day, we've got to have tools in that toolbox that we can apply."
Gary S:
That is- I'm sorry Warwick, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Warwick Fairfax:
I was going to say, as we kind of wrap up one of the maybe last question I have is how does life look for Ryan Campbell now? These several years later, you've been through a lot. You're doing a lot of amazing things. How would you describe to people what's Ryan Campbell's life like now?
Ryan Campbell:
Ryan Campbell lives conveniently close to the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee. That's very, no it's, I a lot of people wonder how my life went after the accident. I went back to walking and as I said I do walk very, but a lot of things still wrong with me. I found my way back into the air flying airplanes with modified brake systems. But then I went as an incomplete paraplegic. I learned to fly a helicopter from scratch and now I have a commercial helicopter license. My goal was to fly helicopters full time. I was flying a helicopter one day. I had a rock in my shoe. I can't feel my feet and that rock ate into my foot.
Ryan Campbell:
So I ended up back in the hospital, but in my wheelchair for two months. That was my moment where I went, "Okay, we have to do more with these stories. We have to go out and help others who have been through similar things to me." I sold everything except a little airplane that got me back into the sky named Doug and Doug and I moved to Tennessee. And I now live in the U.S as a professional keynote speaker, working with organizations from school groups to fortune 500s delivering sessions from eight minutes to 90 minutes on navigating change, overcoming adversity and using our challenges in life to build a better future. And it is my passion. It's my drive. And I just find it unbelievably rewarding. So it's a pleasure to help others learn, and it's a pleasure to learn along the way.
Gary S:
That is an excellent segue to our, and I always say this as Warwick pointed out before we started recording, I always say this on every show. It's time to land the plane, but this really makes sense talking to you, Ryan. We've come to the point in the show where it's time to land the plane. But one thing I'd be remiss if I did not, based on what you just said for sure. And everything that we've talked about. If I didn't give you the chance to let people know how to find you and how to find your services online and elsewhere.
Ryan Campbell:
Absolutely. So we would love to help anyone and everyone and 2020's rough, and we do a multi-camera virtual keynote we've delivered this week to all sorts of large companies. You can find our details on all social media at Ryan Campbell Speaking, or you can find me and contact our team directly at ryancampbell.co it's not .com. I cannot afford the M yet www.ryancampbell.co. So reach out to us. We'd love to chat. We'd love to help,
Gary S:
Before I close, we have with every guest that we have on the show, we have a little form that we ask people to fill out. And sometimes the answers are really interesting and sometimes they're less interesting. And you gave an answer, I got to know what the answer to this question that you asked, we have on our form is if there's only one question we could ask you, what would you want it to be? And this is what you said, we should ask you. So I'm going to ask you this and see what the answer is. You said, we should ask you, what is the most unique purchase you've ever made?
Ryan Campbell:
Gary, when I moved to America, I got in the car and I drove to Graceland in Memphis to Elvis's place. I went into the gift shop and I bought a model pink Cadillac. It was always my dream to own a pink Cadillac. And I spent about $30 and I bought this small model pink Cadillac that sits by my television. Four months later, the opportunity arose to buy a real pink Cadillac. So I now own a two and a half ton, 1960 pink Cadillac with white leather interior that we drive to Kroger. We drive it to the movie theater. We take it everywhere. We just, I've never seen a machine in my life that brings so many smiles as what flow pink Cadillac does it, it led to a whole segment that we do, called what's your pink Cadillac? What's the one thing you buy? It's absolutely ridiculous. It just makes you feel like a kid and absolutely illogical. But my favorite ridiculous purchase in my life has been a genuine Elvis, 1960 pink Cadillac.
Gary S:
Wow. That beats mine, mine is a seven foot tall Superman action figure in my office, so.
Ryan Campbell:
That is insane.
Gary S:
Thank you for being with us. And as we do when we end listener, there's much great content here, but three things, sort of takeaways that you can take with you as you go from our conversation with Ryan. One, and he just started talking about that from the outset when he was six years old. And that is pay attention to your passions at a young age. Not everyone who dreams of being a firefighter or a nurse as a child ends up doing so, but they can. Ryan's story is a testament to the truth that the passion of your childhood can be the vision of your adulthood. If you love it, you can learn it and you can live it at any age. Like Ryan did, a great help to making that happen is to find support and to seek mentors and then go for it.
Gary S:
The second takeaway, I think is that we find the tools in our low points to power better times. That's something Ryan's said in a conversation we had before this episode. Crucibles are painful emotionally, financially, sometimes like Ryan's, physically. And there comes a time as a friend of Ryan's told him after his plane crash, that we have to decide to sink or swim. So start swimming one stroke at a time, you will get to a better destination than sinking.
Gary S:
And the third point that we've spent a really good dialogue here at the end talking about, is build a toolbox to help you as you go through your crucible. And fill it with the thoughts and practices that will help you navigate the steps you need to take to move beyond that crucible. Focus on filling that tool box with items that build your gratitude, your confidence, and your resilience.
Gary S:
Ryan says that life is won and lost above the shoulders. We would only add from Crucible Leadership to that by saying that crucibles are overcome and a life of significance is launched above the shoulders. So until next time we're together, listeners, thank you for spending time with us in this episode of Beyond the Crucible. And please remember as Ryan's beautiful story makes it very clear that your crucible experiences can be painful in a lot of ways, emotionally, financially, to your dreams, to your body. They can be very painful, but they are not the end of your story. Ryan's crucible was not the end of his story. Your crucibles can in fact, be the beginning of a new chapter in your story as they have been for Ryan. And that chapter can be, as it has been for Ryan, the best chapter of all, because what it leads to the path that puts you on is toward a life of significance.
In 8th grade, after dreaming for years of competing in the finals of the National Spelling Bee, Adom Appiah got knocked out of the competition early. Instead of wallowing in the disappointment of that crucible, though, he turned his attention to consoling the other kids who had also fallen short. That’s just one example of how this 16-year-old — author of two books and founder of the fundraising nonprofit Ball4Good — is living a life of significance and already focused on building a legacy of service to others.
Enjoy the show? Leave a review on your favorite podcast app and leave a comment at our YouTube channel. And be sure subscribe and tell your friends and family about us.
π Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Gary S:
Welcome everyone to this episode of Beyond the Crucible. I'm Gary Schneeberger, the cohost of the show and you have clicked on play. We hope that you've subscribed to a podcast that deals in crucible experiences. Those experiences, crucible experiences, you probably know them a little bit too well. They're setbacks, failures, traumas, tragedies, things that don't always go right in your life that can knock the wind out of your sails. It can feel like it changes the trajectory of your lives.
Gary S:
And we talk about those things here on Beyond the Crucible, not so we can wallow in them, not so we can just share war stories about them, but we talk about them so that we can identify those things that we might learn from them and use those in moving, as the title of the show says, beyond those crucibles. And here with me to explore that is the founder of Crucible Leadership and the host of the show. And as I have taken to call him in the last few episodes, the Lego master of Crucible Leadership, Warwick Fairfax. Warwick, we have truly a remarkable guest and a remarkable show today.
Warwick F:
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I'm very much looking forward to it.
Gary S:
And the reason that it is remarkable, listener, I always read the biography of the guests before we start, but zero in on this one, and I'll tell you when I'm done just one of the reasons as if what's written here isn't remarkable enough, but there's lots of remarkable aspects to this guest story. This guest is Adom Appiah, who is a student, author and founder of Ball4Good, a nonprofit that supports communities through sports. A two-time National Spelling Bee competitor, Adom's books have received high reviews from teachers and community leaders.
Gary S:
He is the 2019 South Carolina high school honoree for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, and a recipient of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. In 2018, he received the Presidential Volunteer Service Award and the Mary L. Thomas Award for Civic Leadership and Community Change. He was appointed to the Points of Light Youth Council in February 2020, and is also a board member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Upstate. He's the recipient of the 2020 William R. Sims Award for Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy. A Roc Nation honoree, Adom has been featured in local state and national media.
Gary S:
He is the host of Kids Changing the World, a biweekly show highlighting youth in business or volunteerism. I love this next part, Adom, I love how this next sentence begins. In his free time, having read all that, I'm wondering, where is Adom's free time? But in his free time, he enjoys producing music, reading and playing video games. Wow. Warwick, that is quite a list of accomplishments, and this young man is indeed a young man, 16 years old and a high school junior, just both amazing and inspiring.
Warwick F:
Wow, well, Adom, thanks so much for being here. What you've done and who you are, it's almost overwhelming. My kids are a bit older, they're in their 20s, but my gosh, what you've done at 16, the two books you've written; Bouncing Back from Failure, Kids Can Change the World, I love both of them, but Kids Can Change the World, what a vision, and what you're doing with Ball4Good, it's mind blowing really. So thank you so much for being here. So before we get a bit into your crucible and bounce back and what you do for Ball4Good, tell us a bit about yourself.
Warwick F:
I think you live in South Carolina, Spartanburg, I believe, just tell us a bit about yourself, your family, growing up, just who is Adom? Give the listeners a bit of an idea of that.
Adom A:
Thank you. A little bit about myself, I'm 16 years old, a high school junior, and I really just enjoy helping others. And just a part of me has been just working with my family to help other people. Ever since I was young, we've just had this mentality of giving back to our community and making sure that others are fortunate and others are able to thrive and prosper. And so through my experiences growing up, that's just become a part of who I am. It's been ingrained in me to always give back. And so beyond my books, beyond the things that I have accomplished, I'm really just someone who loves to help others.
Warwick F:
Where did that come from? I mean, sometimes, it's a mom or a dad, a cousin, an uncle, a grandparent, a teacher. Where did that, just this mission to serve others, where did that come from?
Adom A:
I really think it's a family thing because it was ingrained in my mom, ingrained in my dad, and they just passed that down to me ever since a young age. Ever since I was able to walk, we've been able to walk for certain causes or give money or food or whatever we're able to do in that time to help others who don't have the same things that we have, and we're able to provide them with that opportunity or that health. And they're just focused on giving back and helping others.
Warwick F:
Wow. Some of your early memories, can you think of a particular example of where your mom or dad or just some family member was doing something you thought, "Boy, this is amazing." Give us an example of what was modeled for you, the kind of activities and behavior.
Adom A:
Well, I know that when I was very young, we went on walks for a kidney disease, we went on homelessness walks, and getting into the nonprofit world was just through osmosis really because mom was in the nonprofit world and she inspired so many people with her work, gathered people that are local libraries and different places to teach things like coding or reading to youth. And so being in that environment just had me in this nonprofit and giving back mindset from such a young age, I just grew up like that.
Warwick F:
So what did some of your buddies think because not everybody grows up in a family like that? They might just want to hang out, play, I don't know, school, whatever it is, what does some of your buddies think of your family and just that mindset of just wanting to help everybody? not everybody grows up in that kind of family.
Adom A:
Sure. I'm definitely blessed to have the family that I have with my friends. I know that there's a mutual respect there. We don't always have the same families or the same things that we participate in, but we always find a balance and they've helped me out with some volunteer work and I've had some fun with them playing some video games or whatever that might entails. So it's just a mutual understanding and we understand how our families operate and how to work together.
Warwick F:
That's amazing. One of the things you said is from an early age, you just had this desire, this passion to be in the spelling bee competition. Talk about, why the spelling bee? Some people want to do... not everybody wants to go in the spelling bee competition.
Adom A:
Sure. Yes. The spelling bee was something that I watched ever since maybe third grade, because as soon as I entered real school beyond kindergarten, I used to love the spelling bee and seen it performed in my school, because in my school there was a third grade spelling bee and that was the pinnacle of spelling. And so ever since the first grade, I saw those people and I wanted to be that champion that they announced every year. And in the second grade, I started going through class bees.
Adom A:
And then in third grade, we actually had our class competition based to determine who would go into the third grade spelling bee. And I had people talk to me about how it's not common for boys to spell, it's not common for people who like a certain way to spell. And so that was discouraging for me, but then my third grade teacher encouraged me to watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee and see the number of people represented in that bee. And it's just such a diverse group and a bunch of people just having this great time contributing themselves to words and understanding the dictionary. And I fell in love with it. I was inspired.
Adom A:
And so I ended up winning the third grade bee, and after that, I was just hungry for more spelling, but my school didn't have the opportunity to enroll in the national spelling bee until sixth grade. So that's when I started going back to spelling, reviewing the packets that my teachers would give me. And I was fortunate enough to go to the regional bee in sixth grade, even though I didn't win my school bee because I got second place. And our winner was gracious enough to give me the place to go to the regional bee because she had a conference that day.
Adom A:
And so going to that regional bee was just a great experience for me, I got way further than I would have ever expected. My parents helped me study, but I had no prior experience with it. I was able to get third place in that bee as a sixth grader, which was just wonderful to me and I was so thrilled and so shocked, but that also encouraged me to work harder the next year, given that I had seen what the layout was like. And so I knew how I had to study, I knew how I had to prepare. I was able to win my school bee the next year, and won the regional bee and progressed to the national bee.
Adom A:
And in that national experience, I got to meet so many people who were like-minded, who loved spelling, who just loved learning altogether, and I still have those connections to this day. And I was able to go again in my eighth grade year, and it was just a wonderful experience, learning about the spelling bee and going full circle and eventually making it there.
Warwick F:
But I think from what I understand, there was a competition in which you were trying to get in the semifinals and didn't make it, which grade was that?
Adom A:
That was eighth grade.
Warwick F:
That was eighth grade. So talk about that because from what I think you've said is, that was a tough thing to go through, a tough blow not making it. So talk about what happened and why it was tough and that whole experience.
Adom A:
Yes, sir. Going into the eighth grade spelling bee, there was an expectation because as I mentioned before, I realized that as I got to go and experience the regional bee, I was able to progress beyond that. So I was thinking that in seventh grade, as I went to experience the national bee, I'd be able to progress further than I had the last year. And that ended up not being the case. So that was very disappointing to me because of how much I had poured my heart into learning to spell and learning to make my way around the dictionary, learn the roots of words, just learn the ins and outs of the bee.
Adom A:
And so it was disappointing to me and disheartening when I got my word wrong and wasn't able to progress to the next round that everybody sees on TV. So it was upsetting to me, but in that very moment, I put it to the side and just decided that other people were going to feel down, other people are going to feel sad, and so I was going to uplift those people. And as they got off the stage, I decided to comfort them and encourage them and put my own struggling and disheartenment to the side. And eventually, at the end of that night, I went back to my room and I was thoroughly upset that I hadn't fulfilled the experience that I had dreamed of.
Adom A:
And so I began to write when I got home and I just started to reflect and started to understand how far I'd come and how much it had meant to me and what this failure had ultimately become. And that really just evolved, those words that I was writing evolved into Bouncing Back from Failure, my second book.
Warwick F:
What's remarkable about that is sometimes you go to a gut-wrenching experience you've wanted your whole life and you don't make it. And in that moment, you might be angry, sad, depressed, very few people in that moment have enough self-awareness or enough altruism in a sense to be thinking of other people. I mean, like people 10, 20, 30, 40-years older than you, wouldn't behave the way you did, wouldn't have the maturity you did. And how old were you back then?
Adom A:
14, I believe.
Warwick F:
Right. I don't know too many 14-year-olds let alone 40-year-olds would have that level of maturity.
Gary S:
I'm 55, it's hard for me to get there.
Warwick F:
Yeah. It's sort of unheard of, so what led you in that moment, the first thought being, "I need to care for the other folks here who haven't made it too. I need to comfort them." What led you to do that because that's off the charts remarkable?
Adom A:
I just try to apply the golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated. And I knew that in that specific moment, I was feeling down, I was feeling bad, but I decided to not let it just weigh me down and let me sit in the corner. And so I decided that other people are going to be feeling the same way and they might need someone to look out for them, someone other than their parents to console them, lift them up as a peer and look at them and just say that, "It's going to be all right and you're going to be able to grow beyond this experience."
Adom A:
And I was able to console some kids who had further years ahead of them. And I saw them go through and years following, the year that I got out and be even more successful than they were before. So I just thought that it was going to be really important for me to reach to those kids who were feeling down because I knew how they felt in that position.
Warwick F:
Wow. Well, not to repeat myself, it still blows me away. I just can't believe it. I don't know pretty much anybody that would react as maturely and honorably, really lifting up other people.
Gary S:
And that is, if I can, that is a unique experience, but your experience of having that eighth grade failure of not achieving the goal that you were after is surprisingly not unique. We've talked to many people on this show, Adom, one of them is a successful Hollywood writer, director, producer, actor, the whole thing. He just signed a two-year deal with Netflix. This guy's career is going well, we had him on this show. We thought his biggest crucible was going to be that his wife was pregnant with triplets and there were some complications and they almost lost the baby.
Gary S:
So we thought that's what he was going to talk about, but instead, the first thing he brought up was in eighth grade, he did not make the basketball team and all of his buddies did. And here's a guy, he's in his late 40s, early 50s, and he still remembers that moment as a pivotal moment in his life where he had to learn how to bounce back from failure as you had to learn at your age. So listeners, as you hear Adom talk about his experience and say, "Okay, he was in eighth grade, which was only three grades ago. He's going to have a lot of more."
Gary S:
I'm pretty sure that moment's going to stick in his heart because of the way that he prepared for it, and the same way that it did for the guests I was talking about, Robert Krantz, the filmmaker. It is okay, it is common for experiences when we're young to carry forth as crucibles. The beautiful thing about what Adom has described, is he moved beyond that. And the way that he moved beyond that, first and foremost, the first step was to help others.
Warwick F:
So well said. That is exactly right. So Adom, as you're back in your hotel room and like all of us, you're human, you're starting to just feel sad, were you down about yourself? All sorts of thoughts could have gone through your mind, "If my school had a spelling bee from third through eighth, maybe I would have been better prepared." Did you start feeling angry at yourself or bit down on others or what was going through your mind as you're in your hotel room, just reflecting on all of that?
Adom A:
I'm a kind of laid back person and a reserved person. So I didn't really express anything, but going through my mind, it was like reflecting on what I could have done better, what I could have understood or what I could have gone back and done. And then with a couple of days passing, I just came to the conclusion that I can't go back, I can't change that. There's not going to be another opportunity for me to approach the spelling bee, but there are going to be other opportunities for me to do other things in my future. And so I just took that into consideration, that's what helped me get out from that point of feeling down and feeling sorry.
Warwick F:
Again, I'm just blown away by that.
Gary S:
I am too.
Warwick F:
I don't know anybody of any age that so quickly would say, "Well, that was awful. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have missed that one or maybe... " I don't know, if there'd be more spelling bees over the years, but just to say, "Well, past is the past, I can't change that, let's move on." Easy to say, but I don't know too many people that would have done what you did. That's, again, that's an unbelievable maturity. Yeah, it boggles the mind really. So that's incredible. You have a lot to teach people, I can tell you, of anybody of any age. So that's amazing. I'm going to to keep repeating myself. It's like, "Wow." I don't even know how many times I got to say wow.
Gary S:
This would be a good time, Adom, to tell you something. When I talked to your mom, okay, I've got notes here from talking to your mom. And she told me a lot of the things that you've told us here, and you've told the listeners here. And at one point, I had a similar reaction to what Warwick has been saying, "Oh my goodness, wow, it's incredible what this young man, the maturity he has shown and the care for others he has shown." And I said to her, "You must be so incredibly proud of your son?"
Gary S:
And this is a direct quote written right here on my page. She said, "I am absolutely proud," then she laughed, and she said, "But he probably doesn't care." Spoken like a mom of an exceptional child.
Warwick F:
Yeah. Well said. So I want to move on to maybe another defining moment, so talk about... Ball4Good came out of a project in school, but there was another project from what I understand working on like a computer project for high school seniors, and you were part way through it and decided to shift gears. So talk about what the project was and why you decided to shift gears halfway through?
Adom A:
Yes. So my first project that I was going to take on that I never quite took action on was going to help our neighboring and possibly even more senior living facilities, help them with their technology and understanding the things that they have around them such as laptops or iPads, just getting to work with them and getting to understand that. And I thought that that was a great cause, and I see some people doing that today and in the past, but I just thought that it wasn't something that could fully get behind. So as I was going through the process of outlining what I would do for this project, I just lost interest and decided that I would shift gears and rethink what I was doing and start with a passion.
Adom A:
And looking back, I'm so glad that I did, because this was able to grow to something beyond what I ever imagined just because I was starting with the passion of sports.
Warwick F:
But talk about just what happened. You had a conversation with your teacher, and it's the way you kind of changed gears. But basically I was going to say, "It's going to cost you. It's going to cost you a lot." So talk about that conversation. What did your teacher say and what was the cost that you had to agree to if you wanted to move forward?
Adom A:
So with that first project, we had already done a pitch, we had already done everything for the project grade. And so that's what I had earned, I had earned a pretty good grade on that project without actually starting it because we had pitched it because we had done those initial steps. And going back and erasing what I had done and moving forward with something new, I will lose those initial points. So I had lost the points from the project that I had earned and I had to regain them through Ball4Good.
Adom A:
So that was another way of encouraging me to keep on my toes and update my teacher, making sure that everything was in line because I had to make up for something, because I had to make up for lost ground.
Warwick F:
That was probably weeks, maybe months of work that you lost, right? I mean, you went from a good grade to zero?
Adom A:
Yes sir. In a sense.
Warwick F:
Zero points. It's almost like being in a, I don't know, 800 meters and you're 600 meters through an 800 meter race, and was like, "Okay, you're going to have to go back to the starting blocks again." It's like, "Seriously, really?" That basically is what happened, which is incredible. Now, what led you to make a shift that not too many other kids your age would have made? It's like, "Well, I'm going to lose all those points. I'm going to have to do all this work again. I'm going to have to go it double time, triple time." What led you to be so convinced that you wanted to make that shift?" Because the cost was very high.
Adom A:
Now, in discussions with people around me and my parents, family members, I just realized that if I was going to do something and I wanted to do it to the best of my ability, I wanted to have something that I was passionate about, that I can invest in. And so, I decided to reboot when I figured out that I wasn't feeling this project the same way that I thought I would. And so that took me back to square one, took me back to the brainstorming stage. And this time I took it with more care and more understanding of what I was looking for rather than just looking for a grade. And looking back, I'm so glad that I did.
Warwick F:
It's funny, it's not like providing technology to senior living places is such a bad idea. It's a pretty noble cause it's not like, "Oh, well, who cares?" That's noble, that's a wonderful thing to do. But talk about why Ball4Good, the concept of it really appealed to you and just fired you up, really? What about it made you say, "I got to do this?"
Adom A:
With, the concept of Ball4Good, I've always seen sports as a unifying measure. People have always been unified or divided about their sports teams, but overall, the sport itself brings people together. And so I thought that through my passion that I had for sports, specifically basketball at the time, I could bring a whole community together, even if it was a small community gathering. And it ended up being a much larger gathering than I would have ever imagined packing out the gym, but I just thought that I could bring people together and have a way to raise money with a joy behind it and have a community behind it, and just have this overall fun spirit going with the project.
Warwick F:
That's a remarkable vision, from what I hear you say, raise money through sports, but by bringing people together, by unifying them and letting them have fun. I mean, that concept of bringing people together. Obviously, the world is a pretty divided place in so many ways. When it's easy just to give up and say, "Well... " I mean, people a lot older than you just tend to be cynical, and, "What's the point? Nothing will change." Everybody's entrenched in their corners," and what have you. But yet you had a different spirit, you had more of an optimistic, so where's that come from? Because I don't sense that you're cynical, I sense to you're somebody filled with hope, right?
Adom A:
Yes sir.
Warwick F:
I think you're probably realistic, you're not in denial about the challenges of our world, but yet there must be a sense of optimism that fueled Ball4Good. Where's that sense of optimism come from?
Adom A:
I try to remain realistic in everything that I do. And I have a realistic vision of, what are the capabilities of this, what's the possibilities of this? And with Ball4Good, that kind of optimism and happy spirit really came with the idea that I would be helping somebody. If it wasn't a huge impact, I'd be helping somebody. It's not that it had to be something so magnificent, something that I would get so many awards or have a certain dollar amount, I just knew that somebody was going to benefit from this project. And even if it wasn't somebody that I would ever know of, they would benefit, and that just gave me hope, that just gave me drive, and it still does to this day.
Warwick F:
I think listeners really should hear what Adom is saying because it's so profound. Often, we think, "Oh, we want this big vision to change the world," which is great, but a big vision, if you just change one life, that's a big vision. And so we should never be discouraged saying, "Well, I can't change the world. I can't change my town. I can't change my neighborhood. Let's all get up." If you can help one person, that's a big vision. You've ended up helping a lot more than one person, but you were willing to accept whatever would come. You give it your all, and if it was one person, you would be good with that. That's a remarkable, again, I'll use that word again, incredibly mature way of thinking that people decades older than you don't get.
Warwick F:
There's probably a whole lot more thoughts that you have that could help people besides the two that you've done, but that's just a remarkable attitude. So talk a bit more about Ball4Good. You've talked a bit about uniting people through sports. Who are some of the people that you help? Just talk a bit more about that.
Adom A:
Yes. Through Ball4Good, we've been able to help several nonprofit organizations in my community and beyond. We've helped causes of child abuse, we've helped causes of advocacy, children's cancer, child camps for boys and girls clubs. We've just been able to help so many different causes with homelessness, or just people who aren't as advocated for, and we're able to reach those people through this collective community passion.
Warwick F:
How do you choose which groups to help?
Adom A:
Well, we actually have a very talented grants committee that's comprised of youth throughout our community. We're schooled by the Spartanburg County Foundation staff, and they teach us how to review grants. And then we're able to look at all of these applications that people submit to us, nail it down to four organizations, and then submit it to our various school districts. And they vote for the number one and the three finalists.
Warwick F:
Again, this is an organization a lot of people, again, decades older than you wouldn't know had to do. How do you pull the list together? Grants committee and a whole process to review, again, it blows my mind. How do you pull all that together?
Adom A:
Really a lot of listening because there was so much that I didn't know. And being a young person, I knew that there were going to be aspects of the nonprofit sector and just the business world in general that I had zero experience in because all my experience was school. And so going through this project, going into this real world scenario, I just had to have an open mind and open ears ready to listen to people and take different things from different aspects of the world and put them in my organization and the way that I would like to see fit.
Warwick F:
Wow. Again, remarkable.
Gary S:
I think this is the most times you've ever said wow in an episode, Warwick.
Warwick F:
It is. Normally at the end, there's two or three things that listeners need to listen to, there's probably 10 or 15 things that listeners need to listen to here. So here's another one. Speaking of listening, you mentioned listening. There's many successful, so-called successful executives, political leaders, whatever, most of them are terrible at listening. They have massive egos, thinking, "I know everything. I'm the foundation of all wisdom." They don't listen. And there's certainly a lot of young people, teenagers, 20s, who think, "Okay, I don't want to listen to my parents, I don't want to listen to my teachers, I don't want to listen to anybody. I've got it, I'm going to make my way." But you had the wisdom to know, "I don't know about nonprofits." How could you at your age? "I want to listen to the experts, to the best advice to pull us together." That requires remarkable humility. Where does that come from?
Warwick F:
I don't know, that's probably a tough question to answer, that desire to listen, the curiosity, the humility. I don't know, you probably can't answer where it comes from. You've probably have always been that way, I'm guessing. Is your mom or dad, they model some of these things for you, these desire to listen and be humble?
Adom A:
Definitely. I know that my mom always tells me the importance of respecting people and respecting where they come from. And so I've just worked that into my life and how I can take different aspects of the world and put them into what I do in the most productive way possible. My dad always tells me the importance of just doing you and doing what you need to do, what your legacy should be. And so he's taught me how I should listen to others, how I should take into account what everybody has to say and then pick what I believe to be important and ingrain that in my life.
Warwick F:
Another amazing word. I don't think I've heard pretty much any 16-year-olds mention is legacy, what your legacy to be. That's something people think about on their death bed. It's typically, "Man, I made lots of money, or whatever happened. And, oops, I neglected my family, I was so driven," whether it's in any field of endeavor; business, sports, the arts, but you're thinking about legacy right now. Do you have any inklings of what you want your legacy to be? It's probably a massive question, but since you brought up-
Gary S:
I bet you do. I bet you do.
Adom A:
I have some broad aspirations as to... I just want to be able to help, definitely more people that I've helped now. I want to be able to get to a point where I can consider myself a true philanthropist and be able to allow people to benefit, be able to help with the issues of the world in whatever way I can, whether that's in leadership or in financial contributions. I just want to be able to say at the end of my life that I was able to make a difference, I was able to help.
Gary S:
And that is in the parlance of Crucible Leadership, listeners. That's what we mean when we talk about leading a life of significance. What Adom just talked about is his ship where he's not exactly sure what port it's going to land at, his ship is pointed, the compass is pointed toward a life of significance.
Warwick F:
Yeah. That is a pretty amazing legacy. Let's talk a little bit more about Ball4Good. And so I get all the amazing things that you're contributing to, so how do you raise the money? Is it like sporting events? Or how do you maybe... I think you brought in some different, maybe NBA players, how do you do that side of it, the sporting events and create interest in what you're doing and raise the money?
Adom A:
Sure. Our first year we started with what is now our annual celebrity basketball game, that's where we tie in local celebrities as well as other celebrities to join us and play basketball against one another, and they just pitted against each other and teams. In the first year, we just raised money through grants, sponsorships, concessions, tickets sales, and then in the following years, in order to raise more money, we had competitions for the players to see which player could raise the most money, and they'd get a plaque for that. And so it was just encouraged players to get behind this cause and tell their friends about it.
Adom A:
So that spread the word about Ball4Good as a whole, and beyond the basketball game were able to raise money through a different streaming services, were able to raise money through soccer events, different school programs we've partnered with that are able to receive donations or donate physical items such as like winter hats for children or women with cancer. We're just able to do these various things for different organizations through avenues with sports and other avenues. As the quarantine hit, we were unable to have our annual basketball game, so we transitioned into something different this year.
Adom A:
We had a music fundraiser in which we streamed music on Instagram and Facebook, and our viewers tuned in every week for almost a month and a half. And they donated to the GoFundMe, were able to raise a substantial amount of money just by playing music and having a party every weekend.
Warwick F:
That's pretty creative. That's adaptable. Another important life quality is when life throws you a curve or like the whole coronavirus being able to figure out, "Okay, what do we do now?" So that's critical component for listeners in life.
Gary S:
This would be a good time, perhaps I think to do a couple of things. One, we're getting close to the time that we have to, I would normally say, land the plane, but let's say, rack the basketballs. So we're getting close to the part where we got to rack the basketballs and wrap up, but we're not there yet. But the other thing I would be very remiss, Adom, if I did not give you the opportunity to tell listeners where they can find out more about you, your books and about Ball4Good, how can they find out more?
Adom A:
Yes. My social media handles are all @iamadomappia, and you can also find us on Instagram @weball4good or Ball4Good on Twitter. And you can go to ball4good.org for more information about our organization. My books are also available for sale on Amazon, they are, Kids Can Change the World and Bouncing Back from Failure.
Gary S:
Fabulous. And we will spell for you listener both of the Adom's names so that you can find those handles in the social media accounts for sure.
Warwick F:
One thing I'm curious about is obviously your first book Bouncing Back from Failure, and it's so needed in our world today, but Kids Can Change the World, that's an amazing title. What's the concept there? Why'd you write that, obviously, you're changing the world and you're still in high school, but what prompted you to write that book? Maybe that's an obvious question, but I'm just curious.
Adom A:
Sure. Kids Can Change the World, actually didn't start as a book, it just started as me writing down ideas based on my experiences with aspiring to be involved for good. I just felt like that specific year for me was just so profound and so awakening that I decided to write down my ideas. And eventually, a couple of words turned into a full page, page turned into a chapter, and before I knew it, I had this book with these written out steps to how kids can make an impact. And the title says, kids can change the world and people view that as such a large and such a profound statement, but I truly think that if everybody has the mindset that they can change the world, the world can actually change, because if people have the mindset that I can't change the world, the world is so large, then nothing is going to get done.
Adom A:
But if people have the mindset that me as a person, if I do one small thing every day, the world will change in a small way, then eventually, a lot more it gets done because a lot of more people are purpose driven and excited about going out to make a difference in the world.
Warwick F:
Absolutely. And I think kids have unique opportunities because sometimes you get few more decades in life and you get downtrodden, you get cynical, maybe you've suffered failure, maybe sometimes it can be not your fault, you've been mistreated, a lot of things can happen, and you start getting angry and sometimes understandably, you start giving up and just, "Oh, what's the point? The world isn't fair," which obviously is not. But sometimes as a kid, you might know that, but you haven't had a few decades of, I don't know, being mistreated or downtrodden or failing.
Warwick F:
And so, sometimes that sense of optimism hasn't faded yet that later on... And it can be very understandable why it fades, but it's good when hope and optimism doesn't fade. And sometimes with kids, you know what I mean? It hasn't faded yet. So there's a unique opportunity. So what's next with, obviously you've got a junior, you're probably thinking of life after high school and college and all sorts of things, but when you think about Ball4Good, what's the next step and the vision for you?
Adom A:
With Ball4Good, I'm looking, especially this year to have something to wrap up, I don't know, the scale, we were able to accomplish, but we're looking to do something with a streaming service that we'll be able to raise money through Ball4Good. It won't necessarily be me streaming, it could be someone else that we're partnered with, but we're looking to raise money through that. And then going forward, we're looking to have meetings with our various committees, check in with them and brainstorm as to how we can adapt, assuming that we're not able to return to what we normally do and anytime soon.
Warwick F:
Wow. Well, thank you, Adom, that's so many remarkable things and Gary, you're probably going to try and sum up here, but I think if there's some things that we can really learn from Adom, often what leads people to be great leaders is character. I love history, and one of the things we talk about a bit on here is Abraham Lincoln and historians regularly rate him as the top president. And he had this self-belief, but he also coupled with supreme humility, you could say, "Mr. Lincoln, in this era, you're an idiot." And he'd say, "Well, you're probably right, but tell me why."
Warwick F:
So what leads to greatness is really, obviously, as I'm sure your parents probably say all the time, is character, is that self-belief, but that sense of humility, the willing to listen and to learn, thinking of others. That's really what makes great leaders and great characters, and you're already living that way at 16, so it's mind blowing. So thank you. It's an honor to have you here. It really is.
Gary S:
I'm going to change the way I normally end the show. Listeners, you know how I normally end the show, Adom does not, but it's because of you, Adom, I'm not going to end the show like I normally do. Normally I say, "Here are three tips that you can learn from what we've just had in our interview with our guest." I'm not going to do that because I don't believe I can do justice to some of the truly insightful things you've said. So what I'm going to ask the listener to do is go back and replay this episode because there's a reason why Warwick stopped several times in this conversation with this young man and said, "Wow." Because there is great insight.
Gary S:
And his book may have been called Kids Can Change the World, but there are tips in this conversation where you at any age can change the world by simply following these simple examples. One of the things I love about this conversation, Adom, is that you don't talk a lot, you're a man, a young man of few words, and the words that you say have great impact. And I'm going to end, instead of doing the recap of trying to add extra words to your word, let people go back and listen to your words because they apply them to their lives, and listeners, you're going to be well on your way to overcoming your crucible and achieving a life of significance.
Gary S:
But I want to end on this quote that I found, because when you were talking to Adom about your initial journey, about wanting to be in the spelling bee, there were some people who were saying that boys aren't very good spellers. And that could have discouraged you, but your third grade teacher, you mentioned, encouraged you and got you going and got you into the spelling bee and lit that fire in you again that maybe some people had tamped down. And it reminded me of this quote from Franklin Roosevelt, FDR, the former president, who said this about youth, "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future."
Gary S:
That's what your third grade teacher did, that's what your parents have done, and that is what you even still in the context of being a youth are doing for youth and for all of the adults who'll listen. I'm going to let you have the last word here, Adom. What's one tip you would give to someone who's going through a rough time, a crucible, a setback, a failure, what's the first step you would recommend someone take, who finds themselves in that position?
Adom A:
I'd say, in an experience where you're feeling hopeless, you're feeling bad, you are down, that you have failed, I'd say, take a moment just to reflect, think about all that you have, think about all that you've been blessed with and think of this failure as a blessing, because it serves as a lesson. It serves as a lesson that you can apply to your life in the future, and you can implement that in your life and always remember that failure, and it's going to lead you to further successes in your future.
Gary S:
Fabulous. I've been in the communications business long enough to know when the last word has been spoken. As we say in journalism circles, we put it at the end of our stories, #30#, end of story. Adom, you said it well. So listeners, thank you for spending time with us on this episode of Beyond the Crucible, we hope that you've gained some insights from our conversation. And we hope that it helps you recognize and understand that your crucible experience while painful, and it can be something that "is simple," that other people might not think would be painful, like not winning the spelling bee that you had trained for three or four years.
Gary S:
Some people might dismiss that as not really being a crucible, it is a crucible. And you may be in that crucible moment right now and feel like you're off balance, your life has been knocked off track, Adom has proven it through what he's, not only gone through, but what he's explained that that crucible experience, that pain, that failure, that setback is not the end of your story. In fact, if you learn the lessons of it, if you apply the lessons of it, if you flip the script and learn to serve others as you move beyond it, that crucible can become the launching point to a new story, a new chapter in your life that can be the best chapter in your life because what it leads to is something truly remarkable. And that is a life of significance.
