Dr. Tim Thayne tells a story from his childhood about going up in the mountains with his Grandpa. Almost stranded in the mountains, they trust their horses to guide them back to camp. He breaks down two lessons and challenges you to:
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Dr. Tim Thayne tells a story from his childhood about going up in the mountains with his Grandpa. Almost stranded in the mountains, they trust their horses to guide them back to camp. He breaks down two lessons and challenges you to:
Follow this link if you are interested in submitting an article or photography to the yearbook.
https://notbychance.com/yearbook/
I think it's the fear of their weaknesses that get in the way of our belief in their strengths.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Talmage:welcome to the not by chance podcast. I'm Talmage, Tim Thayne's son and podcast manager. Today dr Thane is going to be telling you guys something pretty special. It's a story about his grandpa and to one of his most cherished stories. And it's something that he's tells us kids about all the time, is going to be breaking it down and telling you one of the greatest lessons he's ever learned. This podcast episode is titled grandpa's grit and the horses sentence.
Dr. Tim Thayne:I want to talk to you today about an individual in my life that has had a great impact on my life and, and I think even my own personal identity. And this is my father's father, my grandpa Harry thing. And over the next few podcasts I am probably going to invoke him his name, his stories, and all of that to help illustrate some key principles that I think, uh, all of us want to have more of in our life. So, um, the, the topic today is going to be on personal identity. You know, how do we develop an identity that gives us strengths that we can rely upon, that, that we find in ourselves? How do we, uh, how do we surrender to the strengths of others? So the things that maybe we not we may not have in our own lives and our own repertoire of strengths. Uh, when do we let go and allow other powers and, and strengths around us to take over. So this story takes place. Back when I was a young boy, every summer, or at least most summers, we would get on our horses, my dad, me, my brothers, our uncles and my grandpa. And we would head off into the high Uintas in the Northeastern part of the state of Utah. And this is vast wilderness country. It's where the highest peaks in Utah are located. And it was kind of in our backyard. So it was quite an amazing setting to be able to grow up in. And this was an exciting time because it was multi-day trip up there in the mountains on horseback, usually with the idea that we're going to do a lot of camping, riding and fishing. The cool thing about this too is that my grandpa at a young age, when he was just 12, 13 years old, herded sheep up there and was spent time in the mountains, had a sheep camp and in some cases way up on top above the Timberline and he was, uh, he had this incredible experience, young, well, one year we're on our way up the trail and we're headed to an area. So remote, my grandpa said, you know, it's been, I haven't been up here since I was 13 years old and he says, there's a Lake up there below the snow cap, the mountain there. That is way off the trail, but I'd love to take you guys to it. And so I thought about that and as the hours went on and we rode our horses to our camp, um, I was excited. I was ready to take this little trip with him, but everybody else in the camp besides my brother Tracy decided they were going to camp and we were going to take the horses on up. So away we went. We got back on the trail, we're headed up and not, it wasn't long before we came upon this place where the trail narrowed down. We went out around this outcropping and then this cliff and far below probably three, 400 feet, almost straight off was the sound of a river in this dark, you know, Canyon below. It was scary. I'm afraid of Heights personally. And so anytime I'm in a high situation like that, I have this scary feeling that somehow I'm going to fall off whether my involuntarily fall, fall off or or something happened. In this case I'm on the back of a horse. And that's like another level of fear that you don't know exactly what's going to happen. Well, about 15 minutes along that cliff base and we were off, uh, away from that. That's dangerous spot. The um, we continued off the trail for quite a while. We're going, we're again above the timber line. There's no trees up there. And we're going through Meadows with just strewn big boulders all over making our way towards this place. My grandpa said was a Lake. And sure enough, we come up over a rise and there's this little like being fed by this snow cap mountain above it. And, and we were all excited. So grandpa, he was, he was always one to get right to it. He got off the scores, got his pole ready, and before I could even hardly tie my horse up and get my pole in hand, I was just starting to try and put the hook on. I hear my grandpa yell, got one and I'm like, Oh my goodness, this is going to be exciting. And, and before I got there, he had already caught a couple of more fish. So we began to fish. My brother and I, along with my grandpa, catching fish, almost every cast. I remember putting two hooks on because I thought if I'm getting one with every cast, maybe I could get two with every cast. And it was, it was the funnest thing I'd ever done with fishing by far. It was amazing. Well, my grandpa's one of these highly, just very, very independent guys. He knew there was another Lake just over the next Hill and he made his way, ran around the first Lake and then he was off to the second Lake. And by this time the S the sun is going, starting to go down. And what's happening is clouds are moving in and there was a storm brewing. And if you've ever been caught in a storm up in the high Uintas or anywhere high elevation, these can come quickly and they can be really, really terrible. Um, by the time my grandpa kind of recognized what was going on and came back over to the Lake with us and we made our way to the horses, the sun was almost down. And I remember thinking, I don't know how we're going to survive the night. Um, we didn't have coats, we didn't have frosh lights. We didn't have matches to start a fire. There was no way to, um, find the trail again. And, and here we were at this really scary moment in time. Well, I looked at grandpa and he was never worried. And uh, as, as the last part of the daylight was going away, he had us get up on her horses and he said, let's just tie the reins around the horses neck and then just lay down in the saddle because we can't see anything and just make sure that the brush or the trees that we go past will not, will not knock us off the horse. This was terrifying to me because I literally put my hand in front of my face and I could not see my hand. There was no light left. And yet here we were going to rely completely on these horses because grandpa said if we just let them go, they will take us back to camp. And I just remember thinking, I don't see any way that that's gonna work. And then of course in the back of my mind, I'm know that we have to get past that point where that cliff was and, and that river far below. And so as we climbed on the horse, I put my trust in grandpa and in the horse and we just let them go. And after about an hour of riding and plotting along without much conversation at all, I remember grandpa wasn't wanting to talk much. We could just hear the hooves of the animals, you know, hitting rocks and different things and, and, and then I start to hear off in the distance I hear this river and I could tell we're getting ever closer to this place that I was so worried about. Pretty soon I'm just literally right above the river and it's right below me. So I know exactly where we're at on the trail, which was about three, four feet wide. And I knew that one misstep, we'd find ourselves at the bottom of that cliff and, and wouldn't survive. And so I'm just terrified with what's going on. And then soon the, the river starts to fade away. They, I couldn't hear it as much. It's in, it's behind me. And the next 20 minutes or so plodding along, I know we're on the trail, but still are we ever going to find camp? And then through the trees I start to see this little flicker of light and it was the campfire that as the trees were passing in front of it, I could see the light shine through incredible experience where my grandpa knew. He knew it would be fine. I didn't think we would. But ultimately we had, I had to surrender to the strengths of these horses that, that we were completely, uh, you know, at the mercy of their strengths. I don't know what it would've been like to try to survive that night, you know, in the, in the wind and rain and cold of the high UNSF that night without shelter. And, but my grandpa decided the best thing for us to do was to let go and let the horses take us where they needed to. This still is one of the really one of the greatest experiences. My life as I look back on it, it was phenomenal. But then when I think about my grandpa, it was like the way he lived his life almost on a daily basis. It was just the way he was. He had, he has, you know, just an absolute, a huge amount of grit. He was a person that never, I never felt like he was going to fail at what he decided to do, whether it be a physical task or whatever. And uh, I, I drew a lot of strength from that. So what are the, what are the principles in the story that I think we can apply? One is that we have to surrender to the strengths of others. And that's really hard to do in a world where we're trying to really keep control. We're trying to put ourselves in position where we have control. We're not regularly putting ourselves out on a cliff like that on the back of a horse that we surrender to and to their strengths. And so it's counter intuitive for us to, to ever let go when in fact it's only in the process of doing that sometimes that the strengths around us in the people around us actually are able to emerge. So let's think about that from a parenting perspective a little bit. We're trying to control the outcome most of the time. Instead of setting the stage and letting go and letting our children, for example, our young adults or our younger children be able to draw upon whatever strengths they have and then find that they have new ones they didn't know existed. And I even thought to myself before this podcast, I thought, well what if I had my boys up in the hyenas and I was in the same position my grandpa was in? Would I give them that experience of letting go like that or would I be too afraid that something bad happen? Even though I've been through it and I know these horses have, have those kinds of strengths and there's a big part of me that's like, Oh, I would try to protect them from that when in reality that was, that's one of those things that I, I have drawn upon, uh, throughout my life. Let's talk specifically about let's say a young adult who's launching into life. We're so worried about their failure or something catastrophic happening and we build up all kinds of things that that could happen that we, we don't often let them fail. And it's really easy for us to try and step in and fix and, and advise, uh, when really that's, that's the recipe of, of finding strengths and developing strengths. Same could happen with younger children all along the way. We need to look for ways to not just create a soft landing for people. Maybe they need to have a little bit of a harder landing. Maybe there needs to be. Um, and you know, and I'm all for, by the way, uh, finding the right accommodation for the right situation, but that can be taken way too far. I mean think about how far we can go to accommodate when there's people like my grandpa out there that in his case, he got kicked in the head by a horse when he was eight years old and, and literally only finished eighth grade education and yet developed incredible strengths in spite of that. Speaking of accommodations, I mentioned that there's a place for them, but oftentimes we go too far with accommodations. I think we need to actually look at examples around us where people with serious handicaps or challenges or, or areas of of weakness, they've been able to do great things in spite of all of that. You know, for example, get on YouTube and look for the butterfly circus and you'll find a man, uh, you'll find a person that's a paraplegic without arms or legs. And look at how he learned to swim. That's something we'd never guess could happen. Right? And I would assume if there were too many accommodations in his life, he would never have learned how to swim. So there's all kinds of things we can look at that would say, Hey, the limits are oftentimes in our mind, not necessarily in our child or in the person that we're, we're concerned about. That's one part of the story. The other piece I'd like to just tack on, which is very different from that topic, but surround this, this story is that ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and that's the way my family talks. So it kind of comes back. Little little guy. I've been told Tim, you look and act like your Harry thing. And I remember looking a little pictures of him back when, you know, he, he wore this little, these little short things. He's standing on a chair and I'm sitting there looking at the sane that looks like my little baby pictures when I was a little child all the way up. And I see that I do look like my grandfather and so it helps me be maybe I had the crutch of, Hey, I look like him. Maybe I can develop some of the same strengths that he has. And I can't tell you how many times I have been in a difficult situation in my life where I've felt overwhelmed, incapable and then I'd sit there and think what would grandpa do? And I've got story after story after story that someday needs to be in a book because it's incredible. That would tell me what you know Harry thing would do in that given situation in the first edition of the, not by chance your book that we just published this past summer. I write the story of my grandpa's pickax and it is another one of these Epic stories I rely upon. The reality is just sitting just a few feet from me over here to my left is that actual pickax sitting on our wall hanging there in a very prominent place to remind me to remind my kids of some of the strengths of my grandpa and what he has given to our family, who we are actually who we are, where we came from. And I think that's a great thing to do. Great start. But it also is important that we tell the stories. If I didn't keep reminding myself and our family about some of the stories that we've gleaned over the years from interactions with grandpa. And luckily most of my kids can remember him then the, the impact of his life and who he was and his strengths would not be near as great as they are. So I think symbols help, I think re these physical reminders help. It's really the stories that bring that all to life. My hope for all of us is that we can identify people in our lives with strengths and we all have them, whether they be biological or whether it be a, a parent that, uh, maybe we're adopted, but just the same that is in our family tree that is either in our DNA or in our family culture. It's what, who we are. And we can grab hold of that and we can exercise that until it becomes our own, not just one our ancestor had. I don't think we should ever hear something that we feel impressed by or inspired by that we don't do something about it. And so here's if you have been inspired by anything that I've shared today, I would give you two action items. One is I want you to go into your family history, your, your tree, talked to members of your family and really get to know an ancestor better and identify how you're similar to that ancestor or that person that's in your family. And, and then really, um, decide to cultivate that quality and build that in. Think about how you can tell stories to your children about their ancestors so that they can start to bond with them even if they are not here. So those would be the things around identity and around our ancestors and people in our family. The other action item I would like you to do is to identify strengths in your children if you're a parent and, and start to focus on those strengths. I think it's the fear of their weaknesses that get in the way of our belief in their strengths. And that if we can emphasize the strengths they have, we're going to be able to surrender to those strengths. So get clear about what those strengths are. And then look for ways that you can let go and let those strengths blossom.
Talmage:Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We're really excited to get it out to you guys because this is a story that our family loves. It's brought us all closer together and we wanted to highlight your story as well in this next yearbook, the 2020 not by chance yearbook, we are asking for more submissions. The 2019 year book came out beautiful, and it's all about intentional family living just like this podcast. So if you have a family story or poetry or photography that you think deserves to be in this yearbook, please go to, not by chance forward slash yearbook.com also go on our social media and comment what you learned from this episode and what you'd like to implement in your own life.
Speaker 2:[inaudible].