January 22, 2025 • 37 mins
What if losing your sight at 21 became the catalyst for an extraordinary life journey? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Chad Foster, a compelling international keynote speaker, bestselling author, and entrepreneur, as he shares the transformative power of adversity. Through his book "Blind Ambition," Chad opens up about his remarkable experiences, including his time at Harvard Business School. His story is one of resilience, ambition, and redefining possibilities against all odds, proving that mindset can turn personal challenges into motivations for success.
Discover how stepping outside your comfort zone can be the key to personal growth. Chad reflects on the profound impact of embracing discomfort, from pursuing higher education as a blind individual to taking on thrilling activities like downhill skiing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Learn how these incremental challenges helped build his confidence and led to significant accomplishments. Chad’s experiences with Brazilian jiu-jitsu also highlight the joy of connecting with his children, emphasizing the importance of self-defense, family bonding, and lifelong learning.
Experience the powerful lessons Chad shares about gratitude and empathy in personal development. He emphasizes the necessity of reframing adversity into strengths and surrounding oneself with positive influences to prevent negativity. Through honest feedback and tough love, Chad demonstrates how true compassion sometimes means delivering hard truths for growth. Join us as Chad Foster inspires listeners to question their limits, embrace growth, and choose gratitude on their journey toward personal and professional excellence.
Chad E. Foster
Pursue Your Success
With Blind Ambition™
Watch Keynote Reel, Order the Book
Tel: 855-GET-CHAD
News: Harvard | Forbes | Yahoo
Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work. Please connect to continue the conversation!
https://twitter.com/rebelhrguy
https://www.facebook.com/rebelhrpodcast
http://www.kyleroed.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-roed/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast about all
things innovation in thepeople's space.
I'm Kyle Rode.
Let's start the show.
Welcome back, rebel HRcommunity.
This is going to be a fun one.
Today with us we have ChadFoster.
Chad is an internationalkeynote speaker, bestselling
(00:23):
author and entrepreneur.
His book is Blind Ambition andwe are going to be talking all
about it today.
Welcome to the podcast, chad.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity tohave a conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, I'm super excited to have you as well.
You know, I get a lot ofpitches for guests, and when I
got your information and heardthat you were interested to talk
to us, I jumped at the chance,and so I'd love to dig into you
(00:59):
and your story and what you'reall about.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
But the first question I have here is what
motivated you to write a book.
What motivated you to write abook?
Well, you know, I'd always hadthe idea that writing a book
would something I need to do.
I think a lot of people havethat idea.
I should probably write a book.
But then, you know, I had amoment when I was at business
school that I realized there wasso much opportunity that I had
(01:21):
to help other people with thelessons that I've learned.
And it happened when I waselected as my graduating speaker
of my class when I was atbusiness school and I saw how
much I could help people just bysharing a little bit of my
journey.
And that was just 12 minutes ofmy journey.
I had a bit of a unique story,you know, having gone blind
(01:41):
earlier in my life and comingout of that better off than
before.
And when I gave my littlegraduation talk when I was at
Harvard Business School, it itblew people away and that that
blew me away.
Honestly, it made me reevaluatewhat I'd been doing in terms of
telling my story.
I'd never really done thatbefore and I saw how much I
(02:02):
could help other people donethat before.
And I saw how much I could helpother people if I were to just
take a little bit of time andshare some of my story and the
lessons that I've learned andthe mindset shifts that I had to
make as a byproduct of goingblind at 21 years old.
And that's why I startedwriting the book and also, a
little bit selfishly too, Iwanted something for my kids to
(02:23):
have, just in case who knows,for them to get a little bit of
a blueprint of hey, how did dadgo through all this and come out
in one piece and even betteroff than before.
But if I help a few peoplealong the way, you know, even
better off.
So that was the motivator a fewyears ago when Blind Ambition
came out.
I'm excited to get it out thereand really thrilled by the fact
(02:43):
that it's been so well receivedby everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Absolutely.
And I, you know, I think it's,it's, it's really a powerful,
powerful story.
You know your story, and youknow, I mean you know.
One word comes to mind is youknow, badass, like you know
you've, you've overcome a lot.
You know you've done whatpeople said couldn't be done.
(03:06):
And you know, you know, allthrough it, you know you've,
you've, you've done some reallycool stuff too.
So you know, I I'm fascinatedto.
My first question is you knowyou're, you're clearly an
ambitious guy.
Where does that fire come from?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
You know it's a good question.
I think part of it's from youknow, just deep down inside of
me, part of it's probably frommy dad.
You know he was an ambitiousguy.
Probably from my dad you knowhe was an ambitious guy and I
(03:51):
think maybe more so than I'dlike to admit is from the
doubters.
I've had.
So many people doubt me.
You know, when I was goingblind and what could be done and
I was, this kid grew up in asmall country town and not
country town, but it was prettyrural.
Right, it was suburbia, but itwas suburbia Knoxville.
And so you know, not a lot ofexpectations were being put on
(04:15):
me because I was going throughthis situation, going blind, and
some people don't like that,you know they needed the people
to believe in them and certainlyit would have been great if
everybody would have believed inme.
But I used it as fuel.
People ask me do you have a chipon your shoulder?
Yeah, actually I do.
I do, and it's not because Iwant to prove you wrong, as much
(04:37):
as I want to prove me right,and that has been.
My burning desire is to makesure that I get the absolute
most out of this one shot atlife that, as far as I know, is
the only one we get.
So how do I make the most of it?
And that involves really tryingto push my limits and try and
figure out not only what'spossible, what do I think is
(05:01):
possible and what really ispossible.
How can we redefine what'spossible?
Just because somebody else saidsomething is impossible doesn't
mean it's true.
So that's what you know.
That's what a lot of my lifehas been is just trying to
figure out how I can redefinewhat's possible.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, yeah, I love that and I think you know it's.
You know, yeah, it might be, itmight be a little bit of fuel,
but you know, what it soundslike to me is it's almost like
you took, you took the doubts oryou know the, you know, maybe
the, the questions that peoplewere asking, and you use, you
reframed it into something, that, that that motivated you to go,
you know, do some excellentthings Um it, and I, you know, I
(05:41):
think that so much of this isaround mindset right and and you
know, I think that so much ofthis is around mindset right.
Oh yeah, and you know, I guess,for those of us that are, you
(06:03):
know, listening to this and aremaybe a little bit, you know,
beat down or looking for youknow, some hope or some, you
know, resilience, what advicewould you give us as we're
trying to figure out, you know,how do we get into that right
mindset?
How do we, how do we let thisbe fuel versus fire that burns
us up?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
It's a great question , and the good news, the good
news is it's entirely withinyour control.
It's simply how you attachyourself to circumstances that
are beyond your control, and soanytime you're dealing with a
situation, you've got thingsthat are inside your sphere of
influence, things you cancontrol and things that you
cannot control.
(06:35):
And for me, the thing that Icould not control was the simple
fact that I was going blind inmy late teens to early 20s.
Nothing I could say or do wouldchange the fact that I was
going from living a life where Iwas driving a car and playing
sports and doing all the thingsthat most young men do, to
suddenly being faced with thestark reality that I was going
(06:59):
totally and completely blind andI would never see again.
And you know that was a prettychallenging time, and so I
figured out over the course oftime that I had to learn how to
tell myself better stories aboutmy circumstances.
So you don't get to choose allof the facts of the situation
you find yourself in.
None of us do.
(07:20):
None of us get to choose allthe cards that were dealt in
life, but you alone get tochoose how you play your cards,
and so I had to figure out.
Number one okay, I've got toexercise the power of choice.
Number two I've got to learn totell myself the right stories,
because I will become my stories.
You will become your stories.
(07:40):
We all become our stories, soyou have to make sure you choose
those stories wisely.
We all become our stories, soyou have to make sure you choose
those stories wisely.
Now you can sit around and tellyourself stories that keep you
trapped in a victim mindset, oryou can choose stories that
empower you to bounce back witha visionary mindset, and the
beauty of it is the facts don'thave to change.
(08:01):
It's the way that you attachyourself to those circumstances,
the stories that you tellyourself that will determine
whether or not you'reapproaching it with the mindset
of a victim or the mindset of avisionary, and so recognizing
that you do have the choice,exercising that choice telling
yourself the right stories.
Third thing that's reallyimportant is visualizing
(08:23):
greatness, and sometimes we haveto visualize greatness even in
unfavorable circumstances.
I had to figure out how to makeblind look good, and I know
that's like a little tongue incheek and it's by design a
little tongue in cheek.
But if you can never reimaginegreatness, even in your
unfavorable circumstances, howcan you ever move towards
(08:44):
acceptance of thosecircumstances, let alone
thriving in those circumstances?
And so we have to visualizegreatness and things that we
can't control.
How are we attaching ourselvesto those things?
What are the stories we'retelling ourselves?
How do we make them work for usinstead of against us?
And you know, the other thingthat's really important is
(09:04):
realizing that at some pointmindset has to meet action.
So you can have the rightmindset, but at some point
you've got to face your fears.
You've got to do the hard workand you've got to lean into the
uncomfortableness of it.
I call it getting comfortablewith discomfort.
It's really where growth andinnovation take place, because
if you're never getting outsideof your comfort zone, then
(09:28):
you'll never grow.
It's you know, comfort zones tome are another word for
complacency, and so no growth,no innovation ever comes out of
people's comfort zones.
And so how do you do things?
What do you do regularly tokeep yourself out of your
comfort zone, so that you cancontinue to try new things, to
(09:49):
experiment, to find creativeways of doing things, to have
that innovation mindset, so thatyou can continue to grow over
time?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Absolutely, and you know, I think it's.
It makes sense that the comfortzone doesn't drive innovation,
but so often we're driven tothat as humans.
Right Like inertia is reallypowerful, right Like you just,
(10:23):
oh well, I really should learnhow to go do that.
But I'll start tomorrow becauseyou know, yeah, today's hard,
today's hard, today was a hardday.
I'm not going to do it.
So you know, it's really.
You know.
First of all, I just want to sayyou know a really inspirational
story to hear how you'vereframed something that I think
anybody would say waspotentially traumatic, right,
(10:46):
losing your eyesight as a youngman, looking at traumatic right,
losing your, losing youreyesight as a young man looking
at adulthood, right, um, but youturned it into into, uh, dare I
say, almost almost a gift, yeah, right, and now you're using
that to to help other otherpeople overcome that.
So, yeah, that that's a mentalmodel that I think many people
(11:06):
wish that they had, but just,quite frankly, don't.
So for those of us, and myselfincluded, that maybe struggle
with this kind of thisday-to-day inertia and this
tendency to fall into a comfortzone, what advice would you have
for us to kind of step outsideof that, and how do we start to
(11:29):
build that kind of that musclememory or that mental model, so
that our comfort zone actuallybecomes finding this area of
growth?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
For me.
I do something.
I'm a little, maybe a littlebit unusual at this point.
I guess my life has been suchan experiment of living outside
of my comfort zone.
Everything in my life has beenuncomfortable for a long time.
You know, going blind, not socomfortable, bumping into stuff,
(12:02):
hitting myself on you know, anobject, a pipe, whatever.
You know I was at the hospitalso much they questioned both me
and my parents in separate roomsbecause they thought they were
abusing me.
We pretty much had our ownparking spot there when I was a
kid.
And then going totally blind,getting a dog and walking into
university classrooms not verycomfortable.
(12:25):
And so you do all these thingsand go into job interviews and
boardrooms and travel all overthe world Just me and a seeing
eye dog's pretty uncomfortable.
And so now I've just continuedto edge out of my comfort zone.
At 38 years old I thought it'dbe a good idea to learn how to
downhill ski.
So now you know, we regularlygo and ski black and sometimes
(12:47):
double black diamonds.
And I train.
I started training Brazilianjiu-jitsu three years ago.
I've got my purple belt aboutsix months ago and that, to me,
is how I feed my discomfort.
That I think I need is becausefew things are more
uncomfortable than having a 250pound black belt.
Try and choke you out.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Can't say I've done that personally.
I missed out on that one.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It's a pretty good way to get comfortable with
discomfort, because let me tellyou, the first time you compete
in a tournament and you knowthat people are trying to take
your arm home with them,everything else you look at in
life that you're fearful of kindof pales in comparison.
And so, yeah, I would say myadvice would be to start
relatively small, with thediscomfort.
(13:35):
Now, while I do think we allneed bold visions of greatness
that inspire us to take action,you do want this big, scary,
daring vision of greatness foryourself, your career, your team
, your organization.
But at the same time, yourfirst step outside of that
should not be big, bold andscary.
It should be incremental,uncomfortable, but also doable.
(13:59):
You know, and what happens overtime is that you start to
realize that you're capable ofmore than you thought, and you
do that by demonstrating toyourself these small successes
over time.
And you know, these smallsuccesses breed confidence and
confidence creates more actionand it's the action that creates
the outcomes.
But you start stacking thosetogether over time and those
(14:21):
tiny little wins just startpiling up and before you know it
you've moved.
You know, look at where I was25 years ago with the poor me,
victim mentality.
Wasn't sure how I was going toeven get out of college.
And now here I am, 25 yearsremoved from that, living a life
I could have never imagined,like you said, with this
beautiful gift of blindness thatcame disguised in some really
(14:43):
ugly wrapping paper.
And that potential is there forall of us.
It's there for you, if you'reable to have the right mindset.
Show up, do the work andcontinue to lean into the
discomfort yeah, yeah, I, I justI just love that that
perspective.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I gotta ask were you just like sitting on the couch
one day and you're like I reallywant to go learn brazilian jiu
jitsu?
Like what was the decision treefor you to go do that?
I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Well, honestly, it started off in a pretty good
place.
It was, you know, I wanted tospend time with my kids because
I can't teach them how to shoota jump shot anymore.
I used to play a little bit ofbasketball back in the day, but
my jump shot is not nearly asgood as it used to be, being
totally blind.
I wanted something to do withthe kids, and I can't teach them
(15:30):
how to shoot a jump shotanymore, but I can teach them
how to defend themselves.
And so we all enrolled inBrazilian jiu-jitsu and we
started taking that and I justwanted something to share with
them, some activity.
And so now we'll go down to thebasement, we'll have a
self-defense day and we'll dosome technique and we can share
in that.
And, honestly, nothing makes mehappier or prouder than when
(15:53):
our two kids pile on me in thekitchen floor like both of them
trying to choke me out fromdifferent angles.
It's a.
It's a.
It's a pretty cool thing, but II got into it because of them
and to spend some time with them, and I ended up getting hooked
on it, so it's pretty addictive.
Actually, it's a lot of fun.
It's like playing chess withyour body, you know dealing with
other competitors, and it'shard to really put into words
(16:17):
the camaraderie that you buildwith people when you train,
going up to the line of injury,so close every day, and the
respect and you know the lovethat you have for the people who
are pushing you to be better.
Because you know, iron sharpensiron and it's.
It's hard, it's not for thefaint of heart, it's hard, but
you learn that you're capable ofmore than you thought and it
(16:37):
teaches you, teaches you a lot.
Actually, it's a great metaphorfor life, because a lot of
people get scared.
And what do they do?
They want to run away from thefear.
Well, jujitsu teaches you.
You actually need to movetowards the fear.
You need to lay down in thefear, settle into the terror.
Just, you know, get reallycomfortable and relaxed when
(16:59):
you're scared, which is a reallyhard thing to do at first, but
it teaches you over time how todo that, and so that's a good
thing.
Whether or not you're fightingsomebody, you know.
Something at work or somethingin your personal life may feel
like it's got you in a tightspot, but if you learn how to
control your mindset, controlyour breathing, stay calm, look
(17:21):
for the way out of the badsituation.
You know, then you'll find thatit helps you not just on the
mat but everywhere in life.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, well, I think it's fascinating and I think
this is kind of an element ofmany martial arts is so much of
this is also about mentalstrength, right?
Like you said, it's like chess.
It's not about being big andstrong and punching somebody in
the face harder than somebodyelse, right?
You know, it's actually theopposite of that of that right.
(17:48):
It's around using somebodyelse's like aggression and lack
of mental strength against themto to win right, which I know
that I think you know beat bjjis like, like just to me it's
fascinating and I love.
I love the tenets of it becauseI think I think so much of it
does.
It's like it's principles forlife.
It's not just about like beatingpeople right, and so you know,
(18:09):
to me it's, it's fascinatingthat you somebody who's you know
, kind of working on the, thejourney of mental mastery, you
know it chose chose this as oneof the sports that that you
wanted to do.
So I'm not overly surprised,other than I've got to believe
it's a little bit challenging tonot see that's that is a.
That is probably a little bitinteresting to do, this martial
(18:31):
art.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Well, there are.
I will say I am the only personat the academy where I train.
Who's blind?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, and I'll.
I'll tell people you know causeI'm.
I roll with people from alldifferent skills and I'll kind
of joke.
You know I'll get like you knowsomebody who's newish or
whatever.
I'm like, don't worry, I'm justa poor, helpless, blind guy.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Let's go.
And then you proceed to showthem what's up.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, that can't happen.
That can't happen.
It's one of those things.
It's all hands on.
If I were in a martial art thatinvolved a bunch of striking,
obviously it wouldn't work outwell for me, being a kickboxer,
as an example.
But grappling is entirelyhands-on and so in some ways
(19:21):
it's perfect to be able to dothat.
You know all the things I saidabout fear and comfort zones,
but also you know, if you're thekind of person who maybe you're
talented or you do well atschool, or you know you've got
some athletic gift and you showup on the whatever football
field or soccer field orwhatever and you can dominate,
hey, that's great for you there.
But let me tell you, you showup on the mat and train jujitsu.
(19:42):
I don't really care howathletic you are or how flexible
you are, you're going to get abig helping of some humble pie,
a lot of it, and so it teachesyou humility.
It teaches you that greatnessdoesn't happen overnight.
It teaches you that greatnessis accomplished with hard work,
consistent dedication, respectfor the people around you, and
(20:05):
it's as much about getting thepeople around you better as it
is about getting yourself better, which is kind of remarkable,
and you know this having my kidsrealize that, hey, you know,
it's not about having theinstant YouTube viral video or
being a 22 year old CEO.
No, it's about showing up,doing the hard work, being
consistent, showing up at thebeginner's mind.
(20:27):
Yeah, we all want to win, butwinning isn't always more
important than learning.
Learning is the most importantthing, because if you continue
to learn, you will win, and sothat's where putting down the
ego comes into play.
A lot of people's ego gets inthe way because they want to win
, so they use their besttechniques all the time and they
never experiment with newtechniques, and so they limit to
win.
So they use their besttechniques all the time and they
(20:48):
never experiment with newtechniques, and so they limit
their game, and so they'llstagnate, like that we all will.
We'll all stagnate if we don'tmaintain the beginner's mind,
and so jiu-jitsu teaches you tomaintain that beginner's mind,
to put the ego down, to do thehard work, respect the people
around you, get everybody elsearound you better as you
continue to get better.
I just love the fact that we'reable to do this for the kids so
(21:11):
they can learn some of thesevalues and this blueprint for
life, so that they don't have tofigure it out, kind of how we
did a little bit later on inlife.
They get to learn it at anearly, early age.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, I got to learn it.
I learned it a little later.
You did, yeah, I learned it alittle later.
But yeah, you know, I, I was, I, I, I, I was.
I wasn't as good of a studentas as, hopefully, my kids are,
on some of those things.
You know, you touched onsomething here and I, and I
think it's it's.
You know, it's kind of circledaround in this, in this
(21:42):
conversation here, and you, youmentioned ego and you mentioned,
you know, about the storiesthat you tell yourself and
really kind of you know, usingusing those stories to drive
yourself to to success.
You know, I'm curious becauseit's a little bit of a, it's a
(22:03):
little bit of a I don't knowtwo-sided story here where we
talk about, like you gotta haveself, you know, positive
self-image, and you gotta, yougotta, use positive mental
imagery and, you know, tellthese great stories.
But you also need to make surethat you're not not getting too
egoic and not, you know, notlike believing all of the hype.
What advice would you have forus as we, you know, as we kind
(22:24):
of grapple with the dichotomy ofthis positive self-image but
not becoming a point of kind oftoxicity, if you will?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, it's an interesting question.
I think, first of all, youabsolutely have to believe in
yourself and, to the extent, ifyou have to choose between maybe
I become a little overconfidentversus not confident enough,
I'm always going to lean towardsoverconfident Because I feel
(22:59):
like all of us can do more thanwe think we can.
Even the most optimistic amongus is really underselling
ourselves in terms of what we'reable to do.
I'm about as optimistic as youcan get.
I mean, I'm a blind guy whosays you know, blind's a good
thing, like how many?
How many folks are out theredoing that?
Not a whole lot.
So my cup is half full.
But, that being said, there'sno way 25 years ago I would have
(23:22):
ever imagined I'd be doing whatI'm doing today.
My point is we allunderestimate what we can do.
All of us do, you do, everybodylistening to this, you
listening right now, you'reunderestimating what you can do,
and it's not a knock on you.
We all do that.
All of us do can do, and it'snot a knock on you.
(23:46):
We all do that All of us do.
Now, in terms of it moving totoxicity, like I don't, I don't
believe in in having rosecolored glasses about everything
you know.
We have to face the reality ofthe situation.
Like I couldn't sit around andtell myself that, oh I'll, you
know, one day I'll get myeyesight back and everything
will be fine and I'll livehappily ever after.
And all of a sudden, I'mputting my future precariously
(24:07):
in the hands that are really myfuture, in the hands of things
that are outside my control,like whether or not there's a
cure.
And so how do I instead chooseto tell myself a story that
involves me taking anunfavorable set of circumstances
and moving forward with it.
And so the example that I useis I could have sat around and I
(24:29):
could have chosen to tellmyself that I went blind because
I've got terrible luck and thatcould technically be a true
story but instead I chose totell myself that I went blind
because I'm one of the fewpeople on the planet who has the
strength and the toughness toovercome it and use it to help
other people.
See, one story paints me as avictim, but the second story
(24:53):
takes the exact same basket offacts and reframes it in a way
that turns it into mycompetitive advantage.
This happened to me because I'mstronger than most.
That's my story.
So now I've taken this oh,you're going blind at 21.
And instead of being, oh, pooryou, you went blind at 21.
(25:14):
It's like, oh, good news, youhappen to be one of the few
people who can dominate thisthing.
You can overcome it.
And that becomes a verypowerful thing when it starts to
seep down into your bloodstreamand into your bone marrow and
you start really believing hey,wait a minute, I think I can
handle this.
And then you start to believethat you can handle it.
(25:34):
And then you start gettingresults that demonstrate that
you're handling.
And then, all of a sudden,before you know, you've reframed
your future by simplyreattaching yourself to the
current reality in a differentway.
It's an incredibly powerfulconcept and it's there for all
of us.
It's there for you, no matterwhat circumstances you're facing
(25:57):
.
Just simply reframing them,telling yourself a better story.
How do you take that thing thatyou don't want in your life and
flip it into a dominatingadvantage?
It's possible.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I absolutely love that, yeah, and I think it's
such an important distinction,right.
And it's not about beingoverconfident, right, it's about
being confident, and I lovethat.
You know, like, if you look atall the research, it's like the
most successful people are theoptimistic risk takers, right,
like the ones, the ones that aregenerally going to assume that
(26:30):
good things will happen andbelieve that good things will
happen and and take risks, andthat's, you know, that's that
drives success, right, like I'massuming you you're an
optimistic guy, right?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I'm an optimistic guy and I am a bit of a risk taker
and I realize I'm not flawless,I'm not perfect, I'm going to
screw some things up, but I knowthat on balance I'm going to
figure things out, because I'vedemonstrated that over time.
I don't have all the answers.
I like to think I know whatquestions to ask and eventually
I'll find the answers.
But I don't pretend to have allthe answers.
But I do have the confidencethat you know what, I'll learn
(27:11):
how to ask the right questionsand I'll find the right answers
working with the right people.
Eventually I'll figure it out.
I may not know right off thebat and maybe it won't be as
quick as I'd like, but I'llfigure it out one way or the
other off the bat and maybe itwon't be as quick as I'd like,
but I'll figure it out one wayor the other.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Right, right, yeah, I I tend to.
Those are the people that I Itry to surround myself with.
Right, because I want to try tolike, like, get that by osmosis
right, like it's, like it's,it's infectious right when
you're around people that thatthat believe in the direction
you're going.
You know it's, it's so muchbetter than than you know, the,
the trying to hang out with abunch of naysayers.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And I can't do it.
Man.
Yeah, it's, I'm with you.
You are the average of the fivepeople we associate with, and
so you got to ask yourself areyou hanging around people who
are bringing your average up, orare they bringing your average
down?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Totally, totally agree.
Yeah, and I yeah.
I mean there's.
There's so many situationswhere you know I do think,
circling back to where westarted this conversation I
think people get complacent inthat you know, with those people
you know you naturally will getcomfortable with what you get
used to.
And if you allow yourself toget used to surrounding yourself
(28:24):
with naysayers and negativityand people that have that victim
mentality, whether you realizeit or not, that's going to feel
comfortable to you and that's ahard question to ask yourself,
but it's the reality sometimes.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
It becomes toxic.
You know, I can start to feelit before I even.
I mean, I feel it as much as Ihear it.
If that makes sense, I can bearound people and I'll hear the
words come and I'll just like Idon't know.
I start to feel like I'msuffocating in a way, even
though it's not my breathing,but it's like the energy is just
(28:56):
dark and I just like I have toget away because it's not how
I've chosen to live my life.
I've chosen to for lack of abetter term see the glass half
full.
I know that's funny a blind guysaying that, but it's true.
It's how I've chosen to see mylife.
All of us can easily findreasons to complain.
(29:19):
They're out there, right?
How's that serving you?
I instead, every night, one ofthe things that we do at my
house it's mandatory and hasbeen for 16 years, since our
first daughter was born is wehave a gratitude session every
night, three of us.
(29:39):
We all have to say three thingsthat we're thankful for every
night, and it has to be uniqueand it has to be concrete and it
has to be, you know, notrepeated or redundant based on
what somebody else said.
And what it does is it forcesyou to bring your conscious
attention to the very thingsthat we all very naturally take
(30:00):
for granted.
And if you do that on a regularbasis, eventually you might
just start paying attention tothose things that you've been
taking for granted.
And, who knows, maybe gratitudewill just seep its way into
your muscle memory and, beforeyou know it, you'll have this
foundation of gratitude thatdetermines your happiness in
life, because that's the orderthat it works in.
It's not happiness that bringsyou gratitude, it's gratitude
(30:23):
that brings you happiness andinforms your perspective.
And so that's why, at my house,that's a mandatory thing that
we do every day, because I wantmy kids to have the benefit of
gratitude and their perspectiveand to create that foundation so
that they can live a happier,more successful life, anchored
in the appreciation for thethings that we all overlook
(30:47):
every day.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I love it.
What a powerful gift to giveyour kids and, with that, a
powerful gift to give ourlisteners.
Here we're going to shift gears, we're going to go into the
Rebel HR flash round.
Are you ready?
Let's do it All right.
Question number one where do weneed to rebel?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Where do we need to rebel?
I think we need to rebelagainst a society that has
caused us to soften mentally alittle too much.
I think our society hasover-rotated to cushy and soft
and fuzzy and there's a placefor that and we're so intent on
(31:32):
meeting people where they are inthe moment and being empathic
and I'm all for empathy, don'tget me wrong but sometimes we
need to hear what we're supposedto hear as opposed to what we
want to hear.
I'll give you an example.
Try and keep it short, becauseI know we're in a flash round,
but I was in college and I washanging out with a bunch of
(31:54):
losers, trying to deal with thefact that I was going blind, not
dealing with it all so well.
I was at a house we were notdoing productive things,
partying too much, and my cousincame in town and he did exactly
that.
He told me what I needed tohear, not what I wanted to hear.
He looked at me.
He said hey, man, come out here, I want to talk to you.
I go outside.
He said you see all yourfriends in there.
(32:18):
I said, yeah.
He said you're going to be aloser too.
You need to get your head outof your rear end, get it
together and you know what.
You say that to some peopletoday, like, oh, but you're not
being empathic and I'm goingthrough a tough situation and
I'm going blind.
Yeah, all that may be true, butI needed to hear it.
(32:38):
We all we don't.
Hopefully, we're all sofortunate to have people in our
lives who will tell us the hardtruth that we need to hear
versus the warm and soft andfuzzy things that we all want to
hear, because, at the end ofthe day, we need both.
We need people who meet us wherewe are and are empathic and
help us get over the hump andhelp us deal with the difficult
emotions of some of the thingsthat we're experiencing.
But we also need the straighttalk.
(33:00):
We need people in our lives whocare about us enough to have
the difficult conversation, tosay the things that are
sometimes harsh, but they needto be harsh, to pierce through
the way that we've been doingthings.
That coat of armor that we have, that it's our comfort zone and
don't rock me out of my comfortzone I think we need that and
(33:20):
that's the way I'd like to seethis rebel is.
You know, let's try and meetpeople where they are with
empathy, but let's also tellthem what they need to hear in a
way that allows them to makethe changes that they need to
make to move forward.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, I, you know, I love that distinction and I
think we lose sight that.
You know, empathy andcompassion doesn't mean that
we're just like wet noodles,right?
You know, empathy andcompassion doesn't mean that
we're just like wet noodles,right.
You know you can still beempathetic and tell someone
something that they don't liketo hear.
Yeah, you can still do thatwith compassion.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yeah, if anything you might be doing, that giving
them a gift, absolutely you are,especially if they know you're
coming from a good spot and theyknow, like you care about them
and you make it very clear theonly reason I'm telling you this
is because I care about you andI want you to know this.
But you know, delivering thehard truth that takes more guts
(34:17):
than just, you know, passing italong and going, oh no,
everything's great Right, that'snot caring for somebody.
You really care aboutsomebody's future.
Have the hard conversation youknow, say what needs to be said.
Get it off your heart.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Right, right, all right.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Who should we be listening to?
You know, I think there's a.
I think there's a lot of wisdominside of all of us.
I think there's a lot of wisdominside of you.
I think you know you betterthan anybody, and so I wonder if
there's not so much noise andso much distraction in our lives
(34:57):
that we've tuned out the onevoice that matters the most, and
that's the one deep inside ofus.
I think that's one voice thatmatters the most and that's the
one deep inside of us.
I think that's probably why I'mable to.
You know, I've been able to doa lot of the things that I've
been able to do.
It's because I'm not distractedby the constant stream of
visual things that are that aregoing on everywhere you look,
(35:19):
whether it's, you know,instagram or any social media
application, or the images.
It's just, sometimes it's goodto be alone with our thoughts
and really understand what'sgoing on inside of us, and if
you're not making time for that,you're really missing out on
probably your most reliableadvisor yourself.
And so if you don't knowyourself and what's really going
(35:40):
on inside of you, how could youever move towards where you
want to be?
Because you're just we're alldealing with this stream of
disruptions and notificationsand all these things, and that's
why I think you know havingreal vision.
When I talk about having avisionary mindset, it's not by
looking at what's going onaround you, it's by really
(36:01):
examining what's going on deepinside of you.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I love it All right.
Last question how can ourlisteners connect with you and
how can they get their hands onthe book?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, If they go to chadefostercom, forward slash
rebel HR got a landing pagethere for them so they can get
some goodies.
Got a worksheet there Fromthere.
That's my website.
They can click on the link.
There's a book tab there.
They can get some goodies, Gota worksheet there From there.
That's my website, they canclick on the link.
There's a book tab there.
They can see all the differentplaces they can buy the book.
It's on Amazon, it's on Audibleand all the places where books
(36:33):
are sold.
But certainly they can land onall those things from that one
website chadefostercom forwardslash Rebel HR.
It's got my social mediahandles.
All that stuff's there.
It's a nice one-stop shop tofind everything they need.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Absolutely.
We'll have a link to that rightin the show notes.
Click in there.
Check it out, chad.
This has just been an amazingconversation.
Thank you so much for thanksfor putting the book out there.
Thanks for all that you've doneto help people out there.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
You've helped our listeners today immensely.
So thanks for doing what you do.
Man Appreciate you, absolutely.
Appreciate you, thanks.
Appreciate it, co.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website atrebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR Podcast
are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(37:33):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Baby.
This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast about all
things innovation in thepeople's space.
I'm Kyle Rode.
Let's start the show.
Welcome back, rebel HRcommunity.
This is going to be a fun one.
Today with us we have ChadFoster.
Chad is an internationalkeynote speaker, bestselling
(00:23):
author and entrepreneur.
His book is Blind Ambition andwe are going to be talking all
about it today.
Welcome to the podcast, chad.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity tohave a conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, I'm super excited to have you as well.
You know, I get a lot ofpitches for guests, and when I
got your information and heardthat you were interested to talk
to us, I jumped at the chance,and so I'd love to dig into you
(00:59):
and your story and what you'reall about.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
But the first question I have here is what
motivated you to write a book.
What motivated you to write abook?
Well, you know, I'd always hadthe idea that writing a book
would something I need to do.
I think a lot of people havethat idea.
I should probably write a book.
But then, you know, I had amoment when I was at business
school that I realized there wasso much opportunity that I had
(01:21):
to help other people with thelessons that I've learned.
And it happened when I waselected as my graduating speaker
of my class when I was atbusiness school and I saw how
much I could help people just bysharing a little bit of my
journey.
And that was just 12 minutes ofmy journey.
I had a bit of a unique story,you know, having gone blind
(01:41):
earlier in my life and comingout of that better off than
before.
And when I gave my littlegraduation talk when I was at
Harvard Business School, it itblew people away and that that
blew me away.
Honestly, it made me reevaluatewhat I'd been doing in terms of
telling my story.
I'd never really done thatbefore and I saw how much I
(02:02):
could help other people donethat before.
And I saw how much I could helpother people if I were to just
take a little bit of time andshare some of my story and the
lessons that I've learned andthe mindset shifts that I had to
make as a byproduct of goingblind at 21 years old.
And that's why I startedwriting the book and also, a
little bit selfishly too, Iwanted something for my kids to
(02:23):
have, just in case who knows,for them to get a little bit of
a blueprint of hey, how did dadgo through all this and come out
in one piece and even betteroff than before.
But if I help a few peoplealong the way, you know, even
better off.
So that was the motivator a fewyears ago when Blind Ambition
came out.
I'm excited to get it out thereand really thrilled by the fact
(02:43):
that it's been so well receivedby everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Absolutely.
And I, you know, I think it's,it's, it's really a powerful,
powerful story.
You know your story, and youknow, I mean you know.
One word comes to mind is youknow, badass, like you know
you've, you've overcome a lot.
You know you've done whatpeople said couldn't be done.
(03:06):
And you know, you know, allthrough it, you know you've,
you've, you've done some reallycool stuff too.
So you know, I I'm fascinatedto.
My first question is you knowyou're, you're clearly an
ambitious guy.
Where does that fire come from?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
You know it's a good question.
I think part of it's from youknow, just deep down inside of
me, part of it's probably frommy dad.
You know he was an ambitiousguy.
Probably from my dad you knowhe was an ambitious guy and I
(03:51):
think maybe more so than I'dlike to admit is from the
doubters.
I've had.
So many people doubt me.
You know, when I was goingblind and what could be done and
I was, this kid grew up in asmall country town and not
country town, but it was prettyrural.
Right, it was suburbia, but itwas suburbia Knoxville.
And so you know, not a lot ofexpectations were being put on
(04:15):
me because I was going throughthis situation, going blind, and
some people don't like that,you know they needed the people
to believe in them and certainlyit would have been great if
everybody would have believed inme.
But I used it as fuel.
People ask me do you have a chipon your shoulder?
Yeah, actually I do.
I do, and it's not because Iwant to prove you wrong, as much
(04:37):
as I want to prove me right,and that has been.
My burning desire is to makesure that I get the absolute
most out of this one shot atlife that, as far as I know, is
the only one we get.
So how do I make the most of it?
And that involves really tryingto push my limits and try and
figure out not only what'spossible, what do I think is
(05:01):
possible and what really ispossible.
How can we redefine what'spossible?
Just because somebody else saidsomething is impossible doesn't
mean it's true.
So that's what you know.
That's what a lot of my lifehas been is just trying to
figure out how I can redefinewhat's possible.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, yeah, I love that and I think you know it's.
You know, yeah, it might be, itmight be a little bit of fuel,
but you know, what it soundslike to me is it's almost like
you took, you took the doubts oryou know the, you know, maybe
the, the questions that peoplewere asking, and you use, you
reframed it into something, that, that that motivated you to go,
you know, do some excellentthings Um it, and I, you know, I
(05:41):
think that so much of this isaround mindset right and and you
know, I think that so much ofthis is around mindset right.
Oh yeah, and you know, I guess,for those of us that are, you
(06:03):
know, listening to this and aremaybe a little bit, you know,
beat down or looking for youknow, some hope or some, you
know, resilience, what advicewould you give us as we're
trying to figure out, you know,how do we get into that right
mindset?
How do we, how do we let thisbe fuel versus fire that burns
us up?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
It's a great question , and the good news, the good
news is it's entirely withinyour control.
It's simply how you attachyourself to circumstances that
are beyond your control, and soanytime you're dealing with a
situation, you've got thingsthat are inside your sphere of
influence, things you cancontrol and things that you
cannot control.
(06:35):
And for me, the thing that Icould not control was the simple
fact that I was going blind inmy late teens to early 20s.
Nothing I could say or do wouldchange the fact that I was
going from living a life where Iwas driving a car and playing
sports and doing all the thingsthat most young men do, to
suddenly being faced with thestark reality that I was going
(06:59):
totally and completely blind andI would never see again.
And you know that was a prettychallenging time, and so I
figured out over the course oftime that I had to learn how to
tell myself better stories aboutmy circumstances.
So you don't get to choose allof the facts of the situation
you find yourself in.
None of us do.
(07:20):
None of us get to choose allthe cards that were dealt in
life, but you alone get tochoose how you play your cards,
and so I had to figure out.
Number one okay, I've got toexercise the power of choice.
Number two I've got to learn totell myself the right stories,
because I will become my stories.
You will become your stories.
(07:40):
We all become our stories, soyou have to make sure you choose
those stories wisely.
We all become our stories, soyou have to make sure you choose
those stories wisely.
Now you can sit around and tellyourself stories that keep you
trapped in a victim mindset, oryou can choose stories that
empower you to bounce back witha visionary mindset, and the
beauty of it is the facts don'thave to change.
(08:01):
It's the way that you attachyourself to those circumstances,
the stories that you tellyourself that will determine
whether or not you'reapproaching it with the mindset
of a victim or the mindset of avisionary, and so recognizing
that you do have the choice,exercising that choice telling
yourself the right stories.
Third thing that's reallyimportant is visualizing
(08:23):
greatness, and sometimes we haveto visualize greatness even in
unfavorable circumstances.
I had to figure out how to makeblind look good, and I know
that's like a little tongue incheek and it's by design a
little tongue in cheek.
But if you can never reimaginegreatness, even in your
unfavorable circumstances, howcan you ever move towards
(08:44):
acceptance of thosecircumstances, let alone
thriving in those circumstances?
And so we have to visualizegreatness and things that we
can't control.
How are we attaching ourselvesto those things?
What are the stories we'retelling ourselves?
How do we make them work for usinstead of against us?
And you know, the other thingthat's really important is
(09:04):
realizing that at some pointmindset has to meet action.
So you can have the rightmindset, but at some point
you've got to face your fears.
You've got to do the hard workand you've got to lean into the
uncomfortableness of it.
I call it getting comfortablewith discomfort.
It's really where growth andinnovation take place, because
if you're never getting outsideof your comfort zone, then
(09:28):
you'll never grow.
It's you know, comfort zones tome are another word for
complacency, and so no growth,no innovation ever comes out of
people's comfort zones.
And so how do you do things?
What do you do regularly tokeep yourself out of your
comfort zone, so that you cancontinue to try new things, to
(09:49):
experiment, to find creativeways of doing things, to have
that innovation mindset, so thatyou can continue to grow over
time?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Absolutely, and you know, I think it's.
It makes sense that the comfortzone doesn't drive innovation,
but so often we're driven tothat as humans.
Right Like inertia is reallypowerful, right Like you just,
(10:23):
oh well, I really should learnhow to go do that.
But I'll start tomorrow becauseyou know, yeah, today's hard,
today's hard, today was a hardday.
I'm not going to do it.
So you know, it's really.
You know.
First of all, I just want to sayyou know a really inspirational
story to hear how you'vereframed something that I think
anybody would say waspotentially traumatic, right,
(10:46):
losing your eyesight as a youngman, looking at traumatic right,
losing your, losing youreyesight as a young man looking
at adulthood, right, um, but youturned it into into, uh, dare I
say, almost almost a gift, yeah, right, and now you're using
that to to help other otherpeople overcome that.
So, yeah, that that's a mentalmodel that I think many people
(11:06):
wish that they had, but just,quite frankly, don't.
So for those of us, and myselfincluded, that maybe struggle
with this kind of thisday-to-day inertia and this
tendency to fall into a comfortzone, what advice would you have
for us to kind of step outsideof that, and how do we start to
(11:29):
build that kind of that musclememory or that mental model, so
that our comfort zone actuallybecomes finding this area of
growth?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
For me.
I do something.
I'm a little, maybe a littlebit unusual at this point.
I guess my life has been suchan experiment of living outside
of my comfort zone.
Everything in my life has beenuncomfortable for a long time.
You know, going blind, not socomfortable, bumping into stuff,
(12:02):
hitting myself on you know, anobject, a pipe, whatever.
You know I was at the hospitalso much they questioned both me
and my parents in separate roomsbecause they thought they were
abusing me.
We pretty much had our ownparking spot there when I was a
kid.
And then going totally blind,getting a dog and walking into
university classrooms not verycomfortable.
(12:25):
And so you do all these thingsand go into job interviews and
boardrooms and travel all overthe world Just me and a seeing
eye dog's pretty uncomfortable.
And so now I've just continuedto edge out of my comfort zone.
At 38 years old I thought it'dbe a good idea to learn how to
downhill ski.
So now you know, we regularlygo and ski black and sometimes
(12:47):
double black diamonds.
And I train.
I started training Brazilianjiu-jitsu three years ago.
I've got my purple belt aboutsix months ago and that, to me,
is how I feed my discomfort.
That I think I need is becausefew things are more
uncomfortable than having a 250pound black belt.
Try and choke you out.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Can't say I've done that personally.
I missed out on that one.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It's a pretty good way to get comfortable with
discomfort, because let me tellyou, the first time you compete
in a tournament and you knowthat people are trying to take
your arm home with them,everything else you look at in
life that you're fearful of kindof pales in comparison.
And so, yeah, I would say myadvice would be to start
relatively small, with thediscomfort.
(13:35):
Now, while I do think we allneed bold visions of greatness
that inspire us to take action,you do want this big, scary,
daring vision of greatness foryourself, your career, your team
, your organization.
But at the same time, yourfirst step outside of that
should not be big, bold andscary.
It should be incremental,uncomfortable, but also doable.
(13:59):
You know, and what happens overtime is that you start to
realize that you're capable ofmore than you thought, and you
do that by demonstrating toyourself these small successes
over time.
And you know, these smallsuccesses breed confidence and
confidence creates more actionand it's the action that creates
the outcomes.
But you start stacking thosetogether over time and those
(14:21):
tiny little wins just startpiling up and before you know it
you've moved.
You know, look at where I was25 years ago with the poor me,
victim mentality.
Wasn't sure how I was going toeven get out of college.
And now here I am, 25 yearsremoved from that, living a life
I could have never imagined,like you said, with this
beautiful gift of blindness thatcame disguised in some really
(14:43):
ugly wrapping paper.
And that potential is there forall of us.
It's there for you, if you'reable to have the right mindset.
Show up, do the work andcontinue to lean into the
discomfort yeah, yeah, I, I justI just love that that
perspective.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I gotta ask were you just like sitting on the couch
one day and you're like I reallywant to go learn brazilian jiu
jitsu?
Like what was the decision treefor you to go do that?
I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Well, honestly, it started off in a pretty good
place.
It was, you know, I wanted tospend time with my kids because
I can't teach them how to shoota jump shot anymore.
I used to play a little bit ofbasketball back in the day, but
my jump shot is not nearly asgood as it used to be, being
totally blind.
I wanted something to do withthe kids, and I can't teach them
(15:30):
how to shoot a jump shotanymore, but I can teach them
how to defend themselves.
And so we all enrolled inBrazilian jiu-jitsu and we
started taking that and I justwanted something to share with
them, some activity.
And so now we'll go down to thebasement, we'll have a
self-defense day and we'll dosome technique and we can share
in that.
And, honestly, nothing makes mehappier or prouder than when
(15:53):
our two kids pile on me in thekitchen floor like both of them
trying to choke me out fromdifferent angles.
It's a.
It's a.
It's a pretty cool thing, but II got into it because of them
and to spend some time with them, and I ended up getting hooked
on it, so it's pretty addictive.
Actually, it's a lot of fun.
It's like playing chess withyour body, you know dealing with
other competitors, and it'shard to really put into words
(16:17):
the camaraderie that you buildwith people when you train,
going up to the line of injury,so close every day, and the
respect and you know the lovethat you have for the people who
are pushing you to be better.
Because you know, iron sharpensiron and it's.
It's hard, it's not for thefaint of heart, it's hard, but
you learn that you're capable ofmore than you thought and it
(16:37):
teaches you, teaches you a lot.
Actually, it's a great metaphorfor life, because a lot of
people get scared.
And what do they do?
They want to run away from thefear.
Well, jujitsu teaches you.
You actually need to movetowards the fear.
You need to lay down in thefear, settle into the terror.
Just, you know, get reallycomfortable and relaxed when
(16:59):
you're scared, which is a reallyhard thing to do at first, but
it teaches you over time how todo that, and so that's a good
thing.
Whether or not you're fightingsomebody, you know.
Something at work or somethingin your personal life may feel
like it's got you in a tightspot, but if you learn how to
control your mindset, controlyour breathing, stay calm, look
(17:21):
for the way out of the badsituation.
You know, then you'll find thatit helps you not just on the
mat but everywhere in life.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, well, I think it's fascinating and I think
this is kind of an element ofmany martial arts is so much of
this is also about mentalstrength, right?
Like you said, it's like chess.
It's not about being big andstrong and punching somebody in
the face harder than somebodyelse, right?
You know, it's actually theopposite of that of that right.
(17:48):
It's around using somebodyelse's like aggression and lack
of mental strength against themto to win right, which I know
that I think you know beat bjjis like, like just to me it's
fascinating and I love.
I love the tenets of it becauseI think I think so much of it
does.
It's like it's principles forlife.
It's not just about like beatingpeople right, and so you know,
(18:09):
to me it's, it's fascinatingthat you somebody who's you know
, kind of working on the, thejourney of mental mastery, you
know it chose chose this as oneof the sports that that you
wanted to do.
So I'm not overly surprised,other than I've got to believe
it's a little bit challenging tonot see that's that is a.
That is probably a little bitinteresting to do, this martial
(18:31):
art.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Well, there are.
I will say I am the only personat the academy where I train.
Who's blind?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, and I'll.
I'll tell people you know causeI'm.
I roll with people from alldifferent skills and I'll kind
of joke.
You know I'll get like you knowsomebody who's newish or
whatever.
I'm like, don't worry, I'm justa poor, helpless, blind guy.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Let's go.
And then you proceed to showthem what's up.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, that can't happen.
That can't happen.
It's one of those things.
It's all hands on.
If I were in a martial art thatinvolved a bunch of striking,
obviously it wouldn't work outwell for me, being a kickboxer,
as an example.
But grappling is entirelyhands-on and so in some ways
(19:21):
it's perfect to be able to dothat.
You know all the things I saidabout fear and comfort zones,
but also you know, if you're thekind of person who maybe you're
talented or you do well atschool, or you know you've got
some athletic gift and you showup on the whatever football
field or soccer field orwhatever and you can dominate,
hey, that's great for you there.
But let me tell you, you showup on the mat and train jujitsu.
(19:42):
I don't really care howathletic you are or how flexible
you are, you're going to get abig helping of some humble pie,
a lot of it, and so it teachesyou humility.
It teaches you that greatnessdoesn't happen overnight.
It teaches you that greatnessis accomplished with hard work,
consistent dedication, respectfor the people around you, and
(20:05):
it's as much about getting thepeople around you better as it
is about getting yourself better, which is kind of remarkable,
and you know this having my kidsrealize that, hey, you know,
it's not about having theinstant YouTube viral video or
being a 22 year old CEO.
No, it's about showing up,doing the hard work, being
consistent, showing up at thebeginner's mind.
(20:27):
Yeah, we all want to win, butwinning isn't always more
important than learning.
Learning is the most importantthing, because if you continue
to learn, you will win, and sothat's where putting down the
ego comes into play.
A lot of people's ego gets inthe way because they want to win
, so they use their besttechniques all the time and they
never experiment with newtechniques, and so they limit to
win.
So they use their besttechniques all the time and they
(20:48):
never experiment with newtechniques, and so they limit
their game, and so they'llstagnate, like that we all will.
We'll all stagnate if we don'tmaintain the beginner's mind,
and so jiu-jitsu teaches you tomaintain that beginner's mind,
to put the ego down, to do thehard work, respect the people
around you, get everybody elsearound you better as you
continue to get better.
I just love the fact that we'reable to do this for the kids so
(21:11):
they can learn some of thesevalues and this blueprint for
life, so that they don't have tofigure it out, kind of how we
did a little bit later on inlife.
They get to learn it at anearly, early age.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, I got to learn it.
I learned it a little later.
You did, yeah, I learned it alittle later.
But yeah, you know, I, I was, I, I, I, I was.
I wasn't as good of a studentas as, hopefully, my kids are,
on some of those things.
You know, you touched onsomething here and I, and I
think it's it's.
You know, it's kind of circledaround in this, in this
(21:42):
conversation here, and you, youmentioned ego and you mentioned,
you know, about the storiesthat you tell yourself and
really kind of you know, usingusing those stories to drive
yourself to to success.
You know, I'm curious becauseit's a little bit of a, it's a
(22:03):
little bit of a I don't knowtwo-sided story here where we
talk about, like you gotta haveself, you know, positive
self-image, and you gotta, yougotta, use positive mental
imagery and, you know, tellthese great stories.
But you also need to make surethat you're not not getting too
egoic and not, you know, notlike believing all of the hype.
What advice would you have forus as we, you know, as we kind
(22:24):
of grapple with the dichotomy ofthis positive self-image but
not becoming a point of kind oftoxicity, if you will?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, it's an interesting question.
I think, first of all, youabsolutely have to believe in
yourself and, to the extent, ifyou have to choose between maybe
I become a little overconfidentversus not confident enough,
I'm always going to lean towardsoverconfident Because I feel
(22:59):
like all of us can do more thanwe think we can.
Even the most optimistic amongus is really underselling
ourselves in terms of what we'reable to do.
I'm about as optimistic as youcan get.
I mean, I'm a blind guy whosays you know, blind's a good
thing, like how many?
How many folks are out theredoing that?
Not a whole lot.
So my cup is half full.
But, that being said, there'sno way 25 years ago I would have
(23:22):
ever imagined I'd be doing whatI'm doing today.
My point is we allunderestimate what we can do.
All of us do, you do, everybodylistening to this, you
listening right now, you'reunderestimating what you can do,
and it's not a knock on you.
We all do that.
All of us do can do, and it'snot a knock on you.
(23:46):
We all do that All of us do.
Now, in terms of it moving totoxicity, like I don't, I don't
believe in in having rosecolored glasses about everything
you know.
We have to face the reality ofthe situation.
Like I couldn't sit around andtell myself that, oh I'll, you
know, one day I'll get myeyesight back and everything
will be fine and I'll livehappily ever after.
And all of a sudden, I'mputting my future precariously
(24:07):
in the hands that are really myfuture, in the hands of things
that are outside my control,like whether or not there's a
cure.
And so how do I instead chooseto tell myself a story that
involves me taking anunfavorable set of circumstances
and moving forward with it.
And so the example that I useis I could have sat around and I
(24:29):
could have chosen to tellmyself that I went blind because
I've got terrible luck and thatcould technically be a true
story but instead I chose totell myself that I went blind
because I'm one of the fewpeople on the planet who has the
strength and the toughness toovercome it and use it to help
other people.
See, one story paints me as avictim, but the second story
(24:53):
takes the exact same basket offacts and reframes it in a way
that turns it into mycompetitive advantage.
This happened to me because I'mstronger than most.
That's my story.
So now I've taken this oh,you're going blind at 21.
And instead of being, oh, pooryou, you went blind at 21.
(25:14):
It's like, oh, good news, youhappen to be one of the few
people who can dominate thisthing.
You can overcome it.
And that becomes a verypowerful thing when it starts to
seep down into your bloodstreamand into your bone marrow and
you start really believing hey,wait a minute, I think I can
handle this.
And then you start to believethat you can handle it.
(25:34):
And then you start gettingresults that demonstrate that
you're handling.
And then, all of a sudden,before you know, you've reframed
your future by simplyreattaching yourself to the
current reality in a differentway.
It's an incredibly powerfulconcept and it's there for all
of us.
It's there for you, no matterwhat circumstances you're facing
(25:57):
.
Just simply reframing them,telling yourself a better story.
How do you take that thing thatyou don't want in your life and
flip it into a dominatingadvantage?
It's possible.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I absolutely love that, yeah, and I think it's
such an important distinction,right.
And it's not about beingoverconfident, right, it's about
being confident, and I lovethat.
You know, like, if you look atall the research, it's like the
most successful people are theoptimistic risk takers, right,
like the ones, the ones that aregenerally going to assume that
(26:30):
good things will happen andbelieve that good things will
happen and and take risks, andthat's, you know, that's that
drives success, right, like I'massuming you you're an
optimistic guy, right?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I'm an optimistic guy and I am a bit of a risk taker
and I realize I'm not flawless,I'm not perfect, I'm going to
screw some things up, but I knowthat on balance I'm going to
figure things out, because I'vedemonstrated that over time.
I don't have all the answers.
I like to think I know whatquestions to ask and eventually
I'll find the answers.
But I don't pretend to have allthe answers.
But I do have the confidencethat you know what, I'll learn
(27:11):
how to ask the right questionsand I'll find the right answers
working with the right people.
Eventually I'll figure it out.
I may not know right off thebat and maybe it won't be as
quick as I'd like, but I'llfigure it out one way or the
other off the bat and maybe itwon't be as quick as I'd like,
but I'll figure it out one wayor the other.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Right, right, yeah, I I tend to.
Those are the people that I Itry to surround myself with.
Right, because I want to try tolike, like, get that by osmosis
right, like it's, like it's,it's infectious right when
you're around people that thatthat believe in the direction
you're going.
You know it's, it's so muchbetter than than you know, the,
the trying to hang out with abunch of naysayers.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And I can't do it.
Man.
Yeah, it's, I'm with you.
You are the average of the fivepeople we associate with, and
so you got to ask yourself areyou hanging around people who
are bringing your average up, orare they bringing your average
down?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Totally, totally agree.
Yeah, and I yeah.
I mean there's.
There's so many situationswhere you know I do think,
circling back to where westarted this conversation I
think people get complacent inthat you know, with those people
you know you naturally will getcomfortable with what you get
used to.
And if you allow yourself toget used to surrounding yourself
(28:24):
with naysayers and negativityand people that have that victim
mentality, whether you realizeit or not, that's going to feel
comfortable to you and that's ahard question to ask yourself,
but it's the reality sometimes.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
It becomes toxic.
You know, I can start to feelit before I even.
I mean, I feel it as much as Ihear it.
If that makes sense, I can bearound people and I'll hear the
words come and I'll just like Idon't know.
I start to feel like I'msuffocating in a way, even
though it's not my breathing,but it's like the energy is just
(28:56):
dark and I just like I have toget away because it's not how
I've chosen to live my life.
I've chosen to for lack of abetter term see the glass half
full.
I know that's funny a blind guysaying that, but it's true.
It's how I've chosen to see mylife.
All of us can easily findreasons to complain.
(29:19):
They're out there, right?
How's that serving you?
I instead, every night, one ofthe things that we do at my
house it's mandatory and hasbeen for 16 years, since our
first daughter was born is wehave a gratitude session every
night, three of us.
(29:39):
We all have to say three thingsthat we're thankful for every
night, and it has to be uniqueand it has to be concrete and it
has to be, you know, notrepeated or redundant based on
what somebody else said.
And what it does is it forcesyou to bring your conscious
attention to the very thingsthat we all very naturally take
(30:00):
for granted.
And if you do that on a regularbasis, eventually you might
just start paying attention tothose things that you've been
taking for granted.
And, who knows, maybe gratitudewill just seep its way into
your muscle memory and, beforeyou know it, you'll have this
foundation of gratitude thatdetermines your happiness in
life, because that's the orderthat it works in.
It's not happiness that bringsyou gratitude, it's gratitude
(30:23):
that brings you happiness andinforms your perspective.
And so that's why, at my house,that's a mandatory thing that
we do every day, because I wantmy kids to have the benefit of
gratitude and their perspectiveand to create that foundation so
that they can live a happier,more successful life, anchored
in the appreciation for thethings that we all overlook
(30:47):
every day.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I love it.
What a powerful gift to giveyour kids and, with that, a
powerful gift to give ourlisteners.
Here we're going to shift gears, we're going to go into the
Rebel HR flash round.
Are you ready?
Let's do it All right.
Question number one where do weneed to rebel?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Where do we need to rebel?
I think we need to rebelagainst a society that has
caused us to soften mentally alittle too much.
I think our society hasover-rotated to cushy and soft
and fuzzy and there's a placefor that and we're so intent on
(31:32):
meeting people where they are inthe moment and being empathic
and I'm all for empathy, don'tget me wrong but sometimes we
need to hear what we're supposedto hear as opposed to what we
want to hear.
I'll give you an example.
Try and keep it short, becauseI know we're in a flash round,
but I was in college and I washanging out with a bunch of
(31:54):
losers, trying to deal with thefact that I was going blind, not
dealing with it all so well.
I was at a house we were notdoing productive things,
partying too much, and my cousincame in town and he did exactly
that.
He told me what I needed tohear, not what I wanted to hear.
He looked at me.
He said hey, man, come out here, I want to talk to you.
I go outside.
He said you see all yourfriends in there.
(32:18):
I said, yeah.
He said you're going to be aloser too.
You need to get your head outof your rear end, get it
together and you know what.
You say that to some peopletoday, like, oh, but you're not
being empathic and I'm goingthrough a tough situation and
I'm going blind.
Yeah, all that may be true, butI needed to hear it.
(32:38):
We all we don't.
Hopefully, we're all sofortunate to have people in our
lives who will tell us the hardtruth that we need to hear
versus the warm and soft andfuzzy things that we all want to
hear, because, at the end ofthe day, we need both.
We need people who meet us wherewe are and are empathic and
help us get over the hump andhelp us deal with the difficult
emotions of some of the thingsthat we're experiencing.
But we also need the straighttalk.
(33:00):
We need people in our lives whocare about us enough to have
the difficult conversation, tosay the things that are
sometimes harsh, but they needto be harsh, to pierce through
the way that we've been doingthings.
That coat of armor that we have, that it's our comfort zone and
don't rock me out of my comfortzone I think we need that and
(33:20):
that's the way I'd like to seethis rebel is.
You know, let's try and meetpeople where they are with
empathy, but let's also tellthem what they need to hear in a
way that allows them to makethe changes that they need to
make to move forward.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, I, you know, I love that distinction and I
think we lose sight that.
You know, empathy andcompassion doesn't mean that
we're just like wet noodles,right?
You know, empathy andcompassion doesn't mean that
we're just like wet noodles,right.
You know you can still beempathetic and tell someone
something that they don't liketo hear.
Yeah, you can still do thatwith compassion.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yeah, if anything you might be doing, that giving
them a gift, absolutely you are,especially if they know you're
coming from a good spot and theyknow, like you care about them
and you make it very clear theonly reason I'm telling you this
is because I care about you andI want you to know this.
But you know, delivering thehard truth that takes more guts
(34:17):
than just, you know, passing italong and going, oh no,
everything's great Right, that'snot caring for somebody.
You really care aboutsomebody's future.
Have the hard conversation youknow, say what needs to be said.
Get it off your heart.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Right, right, all right.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Who should we be listening to?
You know, I think there's a.
I think there's a lot of wisdominside of all of us.
I think there's a lot of wisdominside of you.
I think you know you betterthan anybody, and so I wonder if
there's not so much noise andso much distraction in our lives
(34:57):
that we've tuned out the onevoice that matters the most, and
that's the one deep inside ofus.
I think that's one voice thatmatters the most and that's the
one deep inside of us.
I think that's probably why I'mable to.
You know, I've been able to doa lot of the things that I've
been able to do.
It's because I'm not distractedby the constant stream of
visual things that are that aregoing on everywhere you look,
(35:19):
whether it's, you know,instagram or any social media
application, or the images.
It's just, sometimes it's goodto be alone with our thoughts
and really understand what'sgoing on inside of us, and if
you're not making time for that,you're really missing out on
probably your most reliableadvisor yourself.
And so if you don't knowyourself and what's really going
(35:40):
on inside of you, how could youever move towards where you
want to be?
Because you're just we're alldealing with this stream of
disruptions and notificationsand all these things, and that's
why I think you know havingreal vision.
When I talk about having avisionary mindset, it's not by
looking at what's going onaround you, it's by really
(36:01):
examining what's going on deepinside of you.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I love it All right.
Last question how can ourlisteners connect with you and
how can they get their hands onthe book?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, If they go to chadefostercom, forward slash
rebel HR got a landing pagethere for them so they can get
some goodies.
Got a worksheet there Fromthere.
That's my website.
They can click on the link.
There's a book tab there.
They can get some goodies, Gota worksheet there From there.
That's my website, they canclick on the link.
There's a book tab there.
They can see all the differentplaces they can buy the book.
It's on Amazon, it's on Audibleand all the places where books
(36:33):
are sold.
But certainly they can land onall those things from that one
website chadefostercom forwardslash Rebel HR.
It's got my social mediahandles.
All that stuff's there.
It's a nice one-stop shop tofind everything they need.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Absolutely.
We'll have a link to that rightin the show notes.
Click in there.
Check it out, chad.
This has just been an amazingconversation.
Thank you so much for thanksfor putting the book out there.
Thanks for all that you've doneto help people out there.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
You've helped our listeners today immensely.
So thanks for doing what you do.
Man Appreciate you, absolutely.
Appreciate you, thanks.
Appreciate it, co.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website atrebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR Podcast
are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(37:33):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Baby.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com