Let's Chat with Will & Tony
Let's Chat with Will & Tony
Embracing Life's Challenges: SEG 1 of 2: Resilience, Risk-Taking, and Finding Joy Through Adversity
When a brush with cancer redefined my perspective on life, I realized that our days are too precious to waste on the inconsequential. This episode is my heartfelt invitation for you to join me in a journey of discovery—where we unlock the secrets of thriving through challenges and transforming adversity into joy and resilience. In a series of personal narratives, including my own, we pull back the curtain on the often untapped potential of emotional and mental resilience. You'll learn practical strategies to navigate life's hurdles, all while fostering personal growth and finding fulfillment in what truly counts. It's about casting aside our innate fear of hardship and instead, welcoming it as the architect of our most rewarding experiences.
Venture further with me as I recount the lessons learned on the lacrosse field, translating the art of coaching into life's playbook for adaptability and resilience. You'll hear how practice and patience play critical roles in overcoming obstacles, not just in sports but in the intricate dance of relationships as well. We'll also discuss the exhilarating power of risk-taking and the liberation that comes with stepping out of your comfort zone, preparing you to craft a life brimming with satisfaction. Whether it's through creating a bucket list or embracing the nervousness that precedes success, this episode is an ode to the undaunted spirit within each of us, ready to soar to new heights.
Are you ready to chat? Call Will and Tony now. 607-414-chat. My teacher is telling my second grader about gender. Should I call the school? I'm having a huge struggle with eating too much and I'm not sure how to stop. My spouse seems to be changing her priorities and I'm worried. Yeah, we're fighting the digital battle in our house. I never can seem to make progress and I'm not sure what to do. Welcome to let's Chat with Will and Tony, focusing on what matters and ditching what doesn't.
Speaker 2:Now, here's Will Kesley and Tony Pack. Welcome back, tony. Good to see you. Yeah, it's great to be here. I always love this Focusing on what matters and ditching what don't. That's right.
Speaker 1:Get rid of all that stuff in your life. That doesn't matter. We're talking about how to make it happen, is that?
Speaker 2:like wrong English, focusing on what matters and ditching what don't.
Speaker 1:Maybe, so I think it's good for this Southeastern.
Speaker 2:Bonneville kid. That's kind of how we feel about things, tony and I. You just kind of get to know our personality here. We're like let's focus on things that are going to matter, because the other stuff it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:Life's too short, Really yeah. Life's too short to be hanging on to all this baggage and to People that argue over stuff.
Speaker 2:That's like what my wife and I have this little saying in our own family is if it's going to affect our eternal salvation, then we dig in and get to the bottom of it. Yeah, really, dig in. If it's not going to get to the bottom of it, it'll affect, don't sweat it, let it go. I agree she wants to go buy four pairs of shoes. Oh well, go buy four boots.
Speaker 1:You're going to need them for an eternal winter out there.
Speaker 2:I mean, I understand that that's always. A lot of people argue over money and things of that nature, but really we're hanging on to things that are so earthly, if you will, and they're so meaningless. We're going to argue over things. We're going to argue over opinion. None of this is going to actually matter down the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, none of it matters in the end when it comes down to. You mentioned this a couple of shows ago where you said, when it came down, you talked about your story of having cancer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you got down to that point where you thought that this was the end.
Speaker 2:You're dead within minutes.
Speaker 1:The only thing you think about is your family and your relationships. That's it. That's it. That's all you got.
Speaker 2:And that's why my attitude towards it, I think, is so much different. I've had that experience, I've gotten to touch that veil and I realize not everybody gets to. So you have to kind of maybe just trust me, but I'm going to tell you we've had a lot of effort into things that really do not matter. However, the effort you put into your family and the effort you put into your spouse and those relationships, they matter it matters that very moment.
Speaker 2:That was a thing that was of a concern to me whatsoever. You know people say that all the time. Right, it's like, yeah, and you don't see anybody that gets on their deathbed and says I wish I would have worked more. It's true, though.
Speaker 1:That's the word for it. I get it. I'm with you.
Speaker 2:So how do we stop the insanity right and how do you put some controls on life so that you can find the joy in it and focus on the things that matter and let's ditch what doesn't?
Speaker 1:Well, I think one of the things I want to really talk about in this show is how to get through those challenges, because you know, we all know, life isn't a bed of roses. I mean, you get out there and there's legitimate challenges. I mean everybody that I know that has, you know, been through life and is wonderfully happy and out there when you get talking to them, most of them have had very significant challenges. Isn't that the truth, though? Right, yeah, very significant challenges.
Speaker 1:Very significant and they've figured out a way to come out that other side of those challenges and still have that great joy in their heart right.
Speaker 2:So why are we so afraid of challenges? Why are we so afraid of adversity? Why are we so afraid of hardships?
Speaker 1:That's what I want to dig in today, because so often we're all out there trying to remove hardships from our lives. Yeah, we don't want them, you know and I'm not saying they're pleasant. We should seek out a hardship. Well, I don't know, I got that way.
Speaker 2:You went with what Seeking out hardships? Well, after having the cancer thing and trying to die from that, I got to the point where I was kind of like bring it on. Yeah, you know, is this the best you got for me? You're going to take me, and every time I do that God would send another calamity in my way of being See. Now stop it, now stop. I'm going to get through that and open heart surgery. I'm like that's all you got. Bring it on. I'm like stop.
Speaker 1:We don't need any more.
Speaker 2:We don't need any more of this.
Speaker 1:But I think I think that's an important thing is the people that I have known in my life that have true joy. They've gone through the hardships and they and they figured out that way to go through. So what I want to pick your brain on today will is is how to have that mental and emotional I'll call it resiliency, yeah, and make it through the challenge to help. Let that challenge then round you out and then come out on the other side of that challenge a better person with a deeper joy and a deeper sense of life.
Speaker 2:So that's what happens, and this is why I think the new buzzword is resiliency. It's not about enduring, it's not about putting up with, it's not about ignoring, it's not about I'm going to make this choice. It's not about being resilient, yeah, and you think, look at this way, navy SEALs, if you get into their training, part of that whole training program is to break down that soldier to a point when almost complete break yeah right, they want him to be dead, right, and they'll put him to the brink of that. Why they're trying to develop up emotional resiliency. They want to get him. So they're so broken, so fatigued, so tired that they then start to crumble emotionally and then they crumble physically and that weeds them out. Now what's the point of that one? They're trying to determine who has it, but, more importantly, what they're trying to do is when that person makes it through that, on the other end, they feel like a warrior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they feel like they can conquer anything, anything and you go Nothing.
Speaker 2:That you go into war and things change on you and it's not the way you thought it was gonna be. Etc Nothing beats training. I'm a pilot, yeah, and I got to do one of the one of my bucket list this a couple weeks ago. I have built my own airplane 29 years.
Speaker 1:No, I remember I've seen your airplane. It's beautiful thing, yeah but 29 years, and that's because now I don't know if I'd want to fly in something I built, but but I'm with you, it's a 29 years.
Speaker 2:That's because, you know, had kids and we had a league. We had other priorities along the way and there were years, like eight years at a time, that I wouldn't do anything on it. I finally got to that bucket list. On my bucket list when I was 16, I put down I want to build and fly my own airplane and so a couple setters ago, day day, to do it. I flew that airplane and I got to tell you it was a beautiful experience To have gone through all that hardship to get there and then to fly it and get through that fear of flying an airplane you built from plans not even a kit right.
Speaker 2:There's so many things that could be wrong here. But what I found myself when I first took off, I had issues with the plane immediately when I took off, yeah, it was like we're not getting enough power here. A lot of handful things coming out, yeah, and that's tough, the tough thing when you're in there. Right Right now you're in the air. I'm thinking I'm gonna pull the power back and land back on the runway and about that point I'm like I'm out of runway. Apparently, I'm gonna be flying today.
Speaker 2:What happened was I found all the years of other trials, all the pilot training, how many times I had thought through this first flight, everything's just started kicking in for you. Everything start and it was like oh, okay, I gotta do this, gotta do that. It was just mechanical. When it got done, I could have been completely flustered from it and I actually sat there going okay, I got a handful of squawks. I need to work on this airplane. I don't understand it, but there was a part of it that was so fulfilling. What made it fulfilling was the trial to get there. Yeah, the experience as I had to go through to get there so that when the trial really came, I took that plane off, I didn't feel the panic. I mean, there wasn't panic, it was calm. I called the towers that I need another runway. I am able to maintain.
Speaker 2:You know, alda dude, yeah, my wife on the ground is going. What the heck? He's gonna crash and I'm going. I got this, but I've never my life felt that way. Honestly, I've always had that trepidation about something and I got this. One went something's different, mm-hmm. Why was this different? And I think, as I look back, it's the resiliency I've picked up by doing other very difficult things. Yeah, it's that. And having the confidence, I could do that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I like that thought of you. Got to a point where you've you'd built up there, continue with the word resiliency, to point where, when something was thrown out, you, you now had that ability to adapt and Adjust and then conquer. So my wife and I love survival shows, we love these. You know like alone and you know Survivor please tell me, not naked in alone.
Speaker 2:You know, that's the stupidest show ever.
Speaker 1:So the alone is the one where they send you, have equipment and everything. They send you out and they just leave you and you're all alone. You're like legitimately alone out there and my kind of world, and these individuals have to just figure it out. They have, they get to take like I don't know five items or something like that, so they have their axe and their knife and chewing gum a Snickers bar and a you know sleeping bag, and then they're up in like my remote control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no remote control, but they're up there right and and the funny thing is you watch the series of shows. The same individuals keep coming back and the only place they feel alive is out on these shows challenging themselves, and they put themselves through serious physical and mental stress.
Speaker 2:But they found that thing that made them come alive, but it makes them come alive, you know.
Speaker 1:And so I think when we, if we looked at our life challengers similar to these individuals, those challenges are the things that are that offset to make us feel alive as you come out the other side of those and you learn to deal with those, you learn to adapt in life and you learn to adjust to the change. There is nothing like that sense of accomplishment of when you've taken on a tough thing, come out the other side and you're better for it.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, because it gives you that sense of fulfillment Right, and there's a strength that comes with it, a confidence that comes with it. But you can't get if your life has been watered down and every obstacle taken in front of you. And we need to revert that back to parents with children. Yeah, we're seeing that today. Moms and dads, you're trying to take away everything that might be difficult for your child because you don't want them to hurt, you don't want them to struggle, you don't want them to lose.
Speaker 1:And you're taking away their ability to be resilient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're stealing their ability to learn resiliency when they're at home, when it's safe and they have a mom and dad that loves them and holds them and cries with them. Instead, you wait for them to go out on their own, and they've never been told no before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they break down. They've hit that first big challenge in life and they're a complete mess, a complete mess.
Speaker 2:So today we're gonna talk about emotional and resiliency. Yeah, resiliency, because how to get through and adapt Life is not getting easier. No, so we gotta get more resilient, which means we gotta get tougher, we gotta get a little tougher, we gotta become Navy SEALs.
Speaker 1:And that doesn't mean ignore your emotions. Tougher, no, that means being able to deal with your emotions and get through.
Speaker 2:It's all about your experience more you learn. So I have one little motto that I keep in my mind as we dig into this you can either become better or you become bitter. Hmm, anything in your life. When I got cancer, my wife said to me well, honey, you can become better or you can get bitter. Which one's it gonna be? And that's an interesting thing, right, I could look at it and say why me? Why is it happening to me? How come I have to go through this? How come this is so hard? Why did God make you know what never happened? Any illness is that same way. Right, I had to stop and go. I've got this for a reason. I wanna get better from it. Not most better is from healing. I wanna get better as a person, yeah, and what do I need to do? So it helped me build some resiliency to other challenges that were coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 1:Like open heart surgery.
Speaker 2:Et cetera, et cetera right. All right, we got more of that coming up, Wow, and some details about how we're gonna work on resiliency and some of the things to watch out for Some of the pitfalls on the way With let's Chat. I'm Will, that's Tony. We back in two. Now. Here's Will Kesley and Tony Pack. Alrighty dady, welcome back. I'm Will. Here we are, I'm Tony, and this is called let's Chat with Will and Tony. We talk about the things that matter and we ditch what don't.
Speaker 1:That's right. Everything in life that we're dealing with and we're all dealing with it. Yeah, we're all in the same bucket.
Speaker 2:We're in the same boat on the same island, standing on the same rock. That's right. Just because we're on the radio don't mean we don't stand on the same rocks Everybody else stands on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're right there with everybody. I mean, we're dealing with stuff.
Speaker 2:By the way, if you'd like to join the show, you can give us a call at 607-414-CHAT. 607-414-chat.
Speaker 1:Or you can email us at let's Chat with Will and Tony at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:It's a long phrase. Let's Chat with Will and Tony. It's the commitment. That's what we're looking for, right? It's like, let's make it so like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want you to think that. Want that question answered so badly, you'll type that entire phrase. That's right. That's how we roll. So, tony, today we are talking about resiliency, and how does that affect our lives and why is it missing in a lot of people's lives and how do you get it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that, and we were talking in that last segment, that ability to adapt right. And I think that you had talked about your airplane story all the learning you'd done there, the challenges you'd done there, the things you had to learn, the training you went through and then I took off and it didn't fly like I supposed to and I had to adapt, Adapt yeah, adapt.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good model, for what we're talking about is how do you build the ability to be resilient? It's practice, it's like anything. I mean, it's the same thing with my lacrosse team. So, as we know, I'm going up to state championship this weekend with my lacrosse team. You go big, tony. I'm excited. Get a state championship. All right. Every single game I go into with my players, they deal with challenges, they deal with a different defense, they deal with more intense players. They deal with somebody that's really hounding them with the ball and without the challenges that we put them through practice all year long and that muscle memory that we've driven into them, learning they can run that long yeah learning that they can run, learning how to move.
Speaker 1:You've learned how to play through the pain when somebody else is hitting them with a stick right. Without that practice and that ability and that resilience that we've built with that team, they would crumble. And we've seen teams who've played crumble at times when the pressure gets too hard on them and they just fall apart emotionally and there goes their game. And my own team has had that occasionally where they lose it. Now, the more you practice those scenarios and the more you get those things that you want them to be able to deal with practiced in there. So it's muscle memory. Now they hit those challenges on the field. You see them adapt and they'll take what looks like a set play in practice. They'll adapt it more fit, just right for the circumstances. And now we're moving them along.
Speaker 2:So we talk about resiliency. The reason why adaptability is on the front mode part of this list to become resilient is because adaptability would be something that if you can master in your life, you will actually be able to find joy in life. Now here's the point to that If you go through life and adaptability is not your bacon, you're probably a pretty upset person because life is going to bring you lots of opportunities.
Speaker 1:You're constantly every expectation you have is going to be blown away if you can adapt.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest issues we find with the top three issues in marriages that fail, one or both don't have the ability to adapt and be happy at the same time. Think about it I got to adapt to this, I don't want to adapt to this. It's all about me. I'm not happy, I'm not just, and it's all meitis.
Speaker 1:This is what it should be like. This was my vision of a perfect marriage. This was not my expectation. I didn't expect to have a husband who got paralyzed three years in and whatever it is, or a stinky breath in the morning and these kids with diapers.
Speaker 2:I thought yes what happens is we set ourselves up for a failure because we set ourselves up for expectations that aren't realistic. Number one Look, I lived in Thailand for a couple of years and I watched these kids in Thailand. They don't have houses, they don't have shoes, they don't have a car, they don't have a chance at a college education. But you know what?
Speaker 1:They were happy, yeah they're excited to run around big smiles on their faces.
Speaker 2:They didn't know any better. That was their world. They could be happy. What we live in today's society is we look around us and go, oh but so and so has got this. Look on Facebook, so and so is on a trip to New Zealand, and my husband doesn't make that kind of money and so we're not stop yeah one of my the insanity, one of my favorite quotes.
Speaker 1:out there is comparison is the thief of joy.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Compare and ranking. How do I rank and how do I compare?
Speaker 1:Which is how you get those unrealistic expectations which we talk on the show day in, day out about social media and some of the dangers there, pitfalls of it, and that's one of those key pitfalls of that social media is you're looking around and you're artificially establishing this expectation with everything you see on this is what I should have, this is what I should be like, and then when you fall short to that ideal now you're unhappy and you're just satisfied with life.
Speaker 2:I'd like to see a social media site that showed nothing but your failures, nothing but your struggles. Here's my biggest struggle today my dog had diarrhea and so did my kid and look, it's all over the kitchen floor. I want to see that one. Yeah, and then you go. You walk away going. That didn't happen to me today. I'm feeling good. I feel pretty good. That's right, right.
Speaker 2:So the gift of adaptability is one that will take you from so many places. But if you want to stay inside relationships for a minute within a marriage, if you don't have the ability to be adaptable and happy, they have to come together. So many people say, yeah, I adapt, I'm the one who always has to, I always have to never have resentment. That is not a gift, correct? You're still resentful. You're just lying about your adaptability. Adaptability says you're okay with life to a place where you can say, yeah, let's change that and I can still be happy with it. And that's where we get into problems, and that starts from selfishness and greed. So when you talk about resiliency, one of the problems we get into here's an example, by the way, do you know how to catch monkeys? True story, okay, let me hear it. I know, this is in Thailand. This is in Thailand.
Speaker 1:I watch them catch.
Speaker 2:Monkeys, and monkeys are easy to catch and at the top of the box they cut a hole just big enough for them to put their hand through and their arm through.
Speaker 1:And in the bottom of the box.
Speaker 2:They'll put a banana in it and the monkey will walk up, stick his hand in that box, grab the banana and can't get his hand back out of the box and the box is chained to the ground. Unwilling to let go of the banana, Will not let go of the banana. You can walk up and cut the monkey's head off and it will not let go of that stink of banana and run. Because I'm not going to adapt. My greed has got to hold me. I got a banana in my hand and I'll lose my whole life. All my happiness is I'll go out the window because of greed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and think about it. Obviously, it's the representative banana of whatever it is in your life that you're holding onto so tight that you're willing to sacrifice the rest of your life over it.
Speaker 2:So we talked about adaptability and resilience. The first thing you got to ask yourself is what things do you hang onto so tight that you're unwilling to adapt from, to find happiness or to live another day Like you don't have to win every battle to win the war. Correct, I've got to have everyone. I've got to use that greed. We hang onto some things way, way too tight.
Speaker 1:And I think that is one of those. When you get into the way life throws at you and these challenges that come at you, a lot of times you fill that resentment because you're like why isn't my life the way it should be? Why aren't things going how I designed them?
Speaker 1:And then you almost hold onto the resentment, as this little token that you want to use to carry around, because I'm a victim of my circumstances, versus taking that challenge, taking that trial, whatever you want to call it and put it in its right constant and get better and learn from it and think of some of those things.
Speaker 2:They could be anything from I lost my job to I've gained a bunch of weight and I looked like a porky pig to you. You're losing all your hair.
Speaker 1:I'm not losing all my hair. That's the problem. I'm growing hair in places.
Speaker 2:I don't want to grow an air, but you think about all the things in life that we could just look at and say we failed. I don't see we'll use that word periodically, but honestly, in life there are no failures. You want to think about it? You're not failing, you're experiencing. What happens is we want to condemn ourselves by saying, oh, we didn't end in where I failed at that, you didn't fail at it. What you gained, it was an opportunity to learn from. Yeah, I was just going to say you know at the heart of everything you've learned in life.
Speaker 1:It started with something that you didn't know how to do, and you tried and you failed, and you tried and you failed, and then you learned. I mean, think about how you learned to walk right.
Speaker 2:Look at baseball. How many times, when you were a four-year-old kid, could you hit the ball?
Speaker 2:Zero and then you worked on it and you got to five years old, six, seven, and you became more resilient. But baseball is that's like life we get up and we get to the dime and we park the ball. Sometimes you're with it and that doesn't mean you failed and you struck out. Hopefully you've learned by each one of those swings and it's gotten you closer to the one you can hit out of the park. Babe Ruth Interesting story. That's what you guys know for homeruns, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they also one of the vet the highest strikeout. He also has a high yep highest strikeout.
Speaker 2:but who talks about that? No, it does he hit tons of home reps. That's it also want to see you see your victories and that's the. When we talk about emotional resilience, or just resilience in your life against hard things, two things pop out. One you've got to become adaptable, allow for adaptability and enjoy the experience of the change. Yeah, and you've got to let go agreed.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about that. You mentioned a word that I love and I talked to my boys all about it is the ability to do hard things. Yep, and I think at the core of this emotional resilience that we're talking about is that getting through. Getting through hard things, and a lot of times it's putting yourself in situations where you got to do something hard. Building the airplane in an easy going and playing a sport isn't easy. Signing up for that, you know piano lesson that you're scared that you might not be able to know how to play piano, those things aren't easy. They they stretch you, they push you going. And lifting weights in a gym how?
Speaker 2:about jumping out of an. Jumping out of an airplane not easy. How many people are afraid of that? Lots. So here's, here's the challenge. Take something in your life, tony, and and look at it, say what am I afraid of? What things am I fearful of? What things do I dream at night like I just don't want to have happened in real life, because those the kind of things we're talking about as well. You get confidence in life and resiliency when you go and do it and find out it wasn't that bad so a little interesting story here.
Speaker 1:The other day I was part of the Leaders in nuclear energy Forum that was over at College Eastern Idaho and I was given a little keynote speech about the, the place in which I worked. There was another individual on it Sorry, I wish I remembered his name, bubba, but he was up there. He's one of the leaders at the INL and there was a panel of high school kids talking to him and they were asking him about his career and how his career progressed. And this individual spoke to there's two or three times in in his career that he took a risk. He stepped into the unknown and he was scared. He was worried that how is this gonna work out? This is a big personal risk in my life, but he took that step into the dark. He took that opportunity and he in retrospect now he looks back and he was advising these high school kids of take the risk, put yourself in a place where you're worried, but you're gonna do it anyway because you want to succeed.
Speaker 2:You've got to believe that taking risks will get you glory, and that's we're afraid of that right. Well, if we take a risk, what if we fail?
Speaker 2:you can't fail, you can learn experience right, and that means you're gonna learn from it that same thing. Get to the ball play. You may strike out every time, but it's only gonna take a little bit of time for you to hit the ball, but you'll never hit the ball. Enjoy that victory of hitting the ball, and unless you're up there swinging, swinging at it, so in your life that one of the things when talking about resiliency is to try something. Try something new in your life. Put something on that bucket list.
Speaker 1:Try, get out and do something you've always wanted to do, but you're nervous, you can't do it, or afraid or afraid of it.
Speaker 2:Get the training around it and see how that feels for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything I love to do in life. At one point I was nervous about doing it.
Speaker 2:But when you get talking about getting resilient, you also got get rid of self pity. You got to get rid of a lot of other negative things in your life. We're gonna go through a list of those things I like that. Let's talk about those. You're gonna ask yourself how many of these things do I do, mmm, could you could be submarining yourself from being fantastic.
Speaker 2:That's all about here, about being fantastic Yep, bo dashes, but Bo day, funky, crazy. Live life to the fullest. Oh yeah, that's what we're gonna do, and then we're gonna talk about what you do to destroy it here. Next it's let's chat with Will and Tony on news talk 107, 9 back in a few.