Speaker 2: This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast about all
things innovation in the people's space.
I'm Kyle Rode.
Let's start the show.
Welcome back, rebel HR community.
This is going to be a fun one.
Today with us we have Chad Foster.
Chad is an international keynote speaker, bestselling
author and entrepreneur.
His book is Blind Ambition and we are going to be talking all
about it today.
Welcome to the podcast, chad.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm super excited to have you as well.
You know, I get a lot of pitches for guests, and when I
got your information and heard that you were interested to talk
to us, I jumped at the chance, and so I'd love to dig into you
and your story and what you're all about.
Speaker 1: But the first question I have here is what
motivated you to write a book.
What motivated you to write a book?
Well, you know, I'd always had the idea that writing a book
would something I need to do.
I think a lot of people have that idea.
I should probably write a book.
But then, you know, I had a moment when I was at business
school that I realized there was so much opportunity that I had
to help other people with the lessons that I've learned.
And it happened when I was elected as my graduating speaker
of my class when I was at business school and I saw how
much I could help people just by sharing a little bit of my
journey.
And that was just 12 minutes of my journey.
I had a bit of a unique story, you know, having gone blind
earlier in my life and coming out of that better off than
before.
And when I gave my little graduation talk when I was at
Harvard Business School, it it blew people away and that that
blew me away.
Honestly, it made me reevaluate what I'd been doing in terms of
telling my story.
I'd never really done that before and I saw how much I
could help other people done that before.
And I saw how much I could help other people if I were to just
take a little bit of time and share some of my story and the
lessons that I've learned and the mindset shifts that I had to
make as a byproduct of going blind at 21 years old.
And that's why I started writing the book and also, a
little bit selfishly too, I wanted something for my kids to
have, just in case who knows, for them to get a little bit of
a blueprint of hey, how did dad go through all this and come out
in one piece and even better off than before.
But if I help a few people along the way, you know, even
better off.
So that was the motivator a few years ago when Blind Ambition
came out.
I'm excited to get it out there and really thrilled by the fact
that it's been so well received by everyone.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
And I, you know, I think it's, it's, it's really a powerful,
powerful story.
You know your story, and you know, I mean you know.
One word comes to mind is you know, badass, like you know
you've, you've overcome a lot.
You know you've done what people said couldn't be done.
And you know, you know, all through it, you know you've,
you've, you've done some really cool stuff too.
So you know, I I'm fascinated to.
My first question is you know you're, you're clearly an
ambitious guy.
Where does that fire come from?
Speaker 1: You know it's a good question.
I think part of it's from you know, just deep down inside of
me, part of it's probably from my dad.
You know he was an ambitious guy.
Probably from my dad you know he was an ambitious guy and I
think maybe more so than I'd like to admit is from the
doubters.
I've had.
So many people doubt me.
You know, when I was going blind and what could be done and
I was, this kid grew up in a small country town and not
country town, but it was pretty rural.
Right, it was suburbia, but it was suburbia Knoxville.
And so you know, not a lot of expectations were being put on
me because I was going through this situation, going blind, and
some people don't like that, you know they needed the people
to believe in them and certainly it would have been great if
everybody would have believed in me.
But I used it as fuel.
People ask me do you have a chip on your shoulder?
Yeah, actually I do.
I do, and it's not because I want to prove you wrong, as much
as I want to prove me right, and that has been.
My burning desire is to make sure that I get the absolute
most out of this one shot at life 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 trying to push my limits and try and
figure out not only what's possible, what do I think is
possible and what really is possible.
How can we redefine what's possible?
Just because somebody else said something is impossible doesn't
mean it's true.
So that's what you know.
That's what a lot of my life has been is just trying to
figure out how I can redefine what's possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love that and I think you know it's.
You know, yeah, it might be, it might be a little bit of fuel,
but you know, what it sounds like to me is it's almost like
you took, you took the doubts or you know the, you know, maybe
the, the questions that people were asking, and you use, you
reframed it into something, that , that that motivated you to go,
you know, do some excellent things Um it, and I, you know, I
think that so much of this is around mindset right and and you
know, I think that so much of this is around mindset right.
Oh yeah, and you know, I guess, for those of us that are, you
know, listening to this and are maybe a little bit, you know,
beat down or looking for you know, some hope or some, you
know, resilience, what advice would 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 this be fuel versus fire that burns
us up?
Speaker 1: It's a great question , and the good news, the good
news is it's entirely within your control.
It's simply how you attach yourself to circumstances that
are beyond your control, and so anytime you're dealing with a
situation, you've got things that are inside your sphere of
influence, things you can control and things that you
cannot control.
And for me, the thing that I could not control was the simple
fact that I was going blind in my late teens to early 20s.
Nothing I could say or do would change the fact that I was
going from living a life where I was driving a car and playing
sports and doing all the things that most young men do, to
suddenly being faced with the stark reality that I was going
totally and completely blind and I would never see again.
And you know that was a pretty challenging time, and so I
figured out over the course of time that I had to learn how to
tell myself better stories about my circumstances.
So you don't get to choose all of the facts of the situation
you find yourself in.
None of us do.
None of us get to choose all the cards that were dealt in
life, but you alone get to choose how you play your cards,
and so I had to figure out.
Number one okay, I've got to exercise the power of choice.
Number two I've got to learn to tell myself the right stories,
because I will become my stories .
You will become your stories.
We all become our stories, so you have to make sure you choose
those stories wisely.
We all become our stories, so you have to make sure you choose
those stories wisely.
Now you can sit around and tell yourself stories that keep you
trapped in a victim mindset, or you can choose stories that
empower you to bounce back with a visionary mindset, and the
beauty of it is the facts don't have to change.
It's the way that you attach yourself to those circumstances,
the stories that you tell yourself that will determine
whether or not you're approaching it with the mindset
of a victim or the mindset of a visionary, and so recognizing
that you do have the choice, exercising that choice telling
yourself the right stories.
Third thing that's really important is visualizing
greatness, and sometimes we have to visualize greatness even in
unfavorable circumstances.
I had to figure out how to make blind look good, and I know
that's like a little tongue in cheek and it's by design a
little tongue in cheek.
But if you can never reimagine greatness, even in your
unfavorable circumstances, how can you ever move towards
acceptance of those circumstances, let alone
thriving in those circumstances?
And so we have to visualize greatness and things that we
can't control.
How are we attaching ourselves to those things?
What are the stories we're telling ourselves?
How do we make them work for us instead of against us?
And you know, the other thing that's really important is
realizing that at some point mindset has to meet action.
So you can have the right mindset, but at some point
you've got to face your fears.
You've got to do the hard work and you've got to lean into the
uncomfortableness of it.
I call it getting comfortable with discomfort.
It's really where growth and innovation take place, because
if you're never getting outside of your comfort zone, then
you'll never grow.
It's you know, comfort zones to me 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 to keep yourself out of your
comfort zone, so that you can continue to try new things, to
experiment, to find creative ways of doing things, to have
that innovation mindset, so that you can continue to grow over
time?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and you know, I think it's.
It makes sense that the comfort zone doesn't drive innovation,
but so often we're driven to that as humans.
Right Like inertia is really powerful, right Like you just,
oh well, I really should learn how to go do that.
But I'll start tomorrow because you know, yeah, today's hard,
today's hard, today was a hard day.
I'm not going to do it.
So you know, it's really.
You know.
First of all, I just want to say you know a really inspirational
story to hear how you've reframed something that I think
anybody would say was potentially traumatic, right,
losing your eyesight as a young man, looking at traumatic right,
losing your, losing your eyesight as a young man looking
at adulthood, right, um, but you turned it into into, uh, dare I
say, almost almost a gift, yeah , right, and now you're using
that to to help other other people overcome that.
So, yeah, that that's a mental model that I think many people
wish that they had, but just, quite frankly, don't.
So for those of us, and myself included, that maybe struggle
with this kind of this day-to-day inertia and this
tendency to fall into a comfort zone, what advice would you have
for us to kind of step outside of that, and how do we start to
build that kind of that muscle memory or that mental model, so
that our comfort zone actually becomes finding this area of
growth?
Speaker 1: For me.
I do something.
I'm a little, maybe a little bit unusual at this point.
I guess my life has been such an experiment of living outside
of my comfort zone.
Everything in my life has been uncomfortable for a long time.
You know, going blind, not so comfortable, bumping into stuff,
hitting myself on you know, an object, a pipe, whatever.
You know I was at the hospital so much they questioned both me
and my parents in separate rooms because they thought they were
abusing me.
We pretty much had our own parking spot there when I was a
kid.
And then going totally blind, getting a dog and walking into
university classrooms not very comfortable.
And so you do all these things and go into job interviews and
boardrooms and travel all over the world Just me and a seeing
eye dog's pretty uncomfortable.
And so now I've just continued to edge out of my comfort zone.
At 38 years old I thought it'd be a good idea to learn how to
downhill ski.
So now you know, we regularly go and ski black and sometimes
double black diamonds.
And I train.
I started training Brazilian jiu-jitsu three years ago.
I've got my purple belt about six months ago and that, to me,
is how I feed my discomfort.
That I think I need is because few things are more
uncomfortable than having a 250 pound black belt.
Try and choke you out.
Speaker 2: Can't say I've done that personally.
I missed out on that one.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good way to get comfortable with
discomfort, because let me tell you, the first time you compete
in a tournament and you know that people are trying to take
your arm home with them, everything else you look at in
life that you're fearful of kind of pales in comparison.
And so, yeah, I would say my advice would be to start
relatively small, with the discomfort.
Now, while I do think we all need bold visions of greatness
that inspire us to take action, you do want this big, scary,
daring vision of greatness for yourself, your career, your team
, your organization.
But at the same time, your first step outside of that
should not be big, bold and scary.
It should be incremental, uncomfortable, but also doable.
You know, and what happens over time is that you start to
realize that you're capable of more than you thought, and you
do that by demonstrating to yourself these small successes
over time.
And you know, these small successes breed confidence and
confidence creates more action and it's the action that creates
the outcomes.
But you start stacking those together over time and those
tiny little wins just start piling up and before you know it
you've moved.
You know, look at where I was 25 years ago with the poor me,
victim mentality.
Wasn't sure how I was going to even get out of college.
And now here I am, 25 years removed from that, living a life
I could have never imagined, like you said, with this
beautiful gift of blindness that came disguised in some really
ugly wrapping paper.
And that potential is there for all of us.
It's there for you, if you're able to have the right mindset.
Show up, do the work and continue to lean into the
discomfort yeah, yeah, I, I just I just love that that
perspective.
Speaker 2: I gotta ask were you just like sitting on the couch
one day and you're like I really want to go learn brazilian jiu
jitsu?
Like what was the decision tree for you to go do that?
I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: Well, honestly, it started off in a pretty good
place.
It was, you know, I wanted to spend time with my kids because
I can't teach them how to shoot a jump shot anymore.
I used to play a little bit of basketball back in the day, but
my jump shot is not nearly as good as it used to be, being
totally blind.
I wanted something to do with the kids, and I can't teach them
how to shoot a jump shot anymore, but I can teach them
how to defend themselves.
And so we all enrolled in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and we
started taking that and I just wanted something to share with
them, some activity.
And so now we'll go down to the basement, we'll have a
self-defense day and we'll do some technique and we can share
in that.
And, honestly, nothing makes me happier or prouder than when
our two kids pile on me in the kitchen floor like both of them
trying to choke me out from different angles.
It's a.
It's a pretty cool thing, but I I 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 with your body, you know dealing with
other competitors, and it's hard to really put into words
the camaraderie that you build with people when you train,
going up to the line of injury, so close every day, and the
respect and you know the love that you have for the people who
are pushing you to be better.
Because you know, iron sharpens iron and it's.
It's hard, it's not for the faint of heart, it's hard, but
you learn that you're capable of more than you thought and it
teaches you, teaches you a lot.
Actually, it's a great metaphor for life, because a lot of
people get scared.
And what do they do?
They want to run away from the fear.
Well, jujitsu teaches you.
You actually need to move towards the fear.
You need to lay down in the fear, settle into the terror.
Just, you know, get really comfortable and relaxed when
you're scared, which is a really hard thing to do at first, but
it teaches you over time how to do that, and so that's a good
thing.
Whether or not you're fighting somebody, you know.
Something at work or something in your personal life may feel
like it's got you in a tight spot, but if you learn how to
control your mindset, control your breathing, stay calm, look
for the way out of the bad situation.
You know, then you'll find that it helps you not just on the
mat but everywhere in life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it's fascinating and I think
this is kind of an element of many martial arts is so much of
this is also about mental strength, right?
Like you said, it's like chess.
It's not about being big and strong and punching somebody in
the face harder than somebody else, right?
You know, it's actually the opposite of that of that right.
It's around using somebody else's like aggression and lack
of mental strength against them to to win right, which I know
that I think you know beat bjj is like, like just to me it's
fascinating and I love.
I love the tenets of it because I think I think so much of it
does.
It's like it's principles for life.
It's not just about like beating people right, and so you know,
to me it's, it's fascinating that you somebody who's you know
, kind of working on the, the journey of mental mastery, you
know it chose chose this as one of 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 to not see that's that is a.
That is probably a little bit interesting to do, this martial
art.
Speaker 1: Well, there are.
I will say I am the only person at the academy where I train.
Who's blind?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll.
I'll tell people you know cause I'm.
I roll with people from all different skills and I'll kind
of joke.
You know I'll get like you know somebody who's newish or
whatever.
I'm like, don't worry, I'm just a poor, helpless, blind guy.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
And then you proceed to show them what's up.
Speaker 1: 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 that involved a bunch of striking,
obviously it wouldn't work out well for me, being a kickboxer,
as an example.
But grappling is entirely hands-on and so in some ways
it's perfect to be able to do that.
You know all the things I said about fear and comfort zones,
but also you know, if you're the kind of person who maybe you're
talented or you do well at school, or you know you've got
some athletic gift and you show up on the whatever football
field or soccer field or whatever and you can dominate,
hey, that's great for you there.
But let me tell you, you show up on the mat and train jujitsu.
I don't really care how athletic you are or how flexible
you are, you're going to get a big helping of some humble pie,
a lot of it, and so it teaches you humility.
It teaches you that greatness doesn't happen overnight.
It teaches you that greatness is accomplished with hard work,
consistent dedication, respect for the people around you, and
it's as much about getting the people around you better as it
is about getting yourself better , which is kind of remarkable,
and you know this having my kids realize that, hey, you know,
it's not about having the instant 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 the beginner's mind.
Yeah, we all want to win, but winning isn't always more
important than learning.
Learning is the most important thing, because if you continue
to learn, you will win, and so that's where putting down the
ego comes into play.
A lot of people's ego gets in the way because they want to win
, so they use their best techniques all the time and they
never experiment with new techniques, and so they limit to
win.
So they use their best techniques all the time and they
never experiment with new techniques, and so they limit
their game, and so they'll stagnate, like that we all will.
We'll all stagnate if we don't maintain the beginner's mind,
and so jiu-jitsu teaches you to maintain that beginner's mind,
to put the ego down, to do the hard work, respect the people
around you, get everybody else around you better as you
continue to get better.
I just love the fact that we're able to do this for the kids so
they can learn some of these values and this blueprint for
life, so that they don't have to figure it out, kind of how we
did a little bit later on in life.
They get to learn it at an early, early age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to learn it.
I learned it a little later.
You did, yeah, I learned it a little later.
But yeah, you know, I, I was, I , I, I, I was.
I wasn't as good of a student as as, hopefully, my kids are,
on some of those things.
You know, you touched on something here and I, and I
think it's it's.
You know, it's kind of circled around in this, in this
conversation here, and you, you mentioned ego and you mentioned,
you know, about the stories that you tell yourself and
really kind of you know, using using those stories to drive
yourself to to success.
You know, I'm curious because it's a little bit of a, it's a
little bit of a I don't know two-sided story here where we
talk about, like you gotta have self, you know, positive
self-image, and you gotta, you gotta, use positive mental
imagery and, you know, tell these great stories.
But you also need to make sure that you're not not getting too
egoic and not, you know, not like believing all of the hype.
What advice would you have for us as we, you know, as we kind
of grapple with the dichotomy of this positive self-image but
not becoming a point of kind of toxicity, if you will?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting question.
I think, first of all, you absolutely have to believe in
yourself and, to the extent, if you have to choose between maybe
I become a little overconfident versus not confident enough,
I'm always going to lean towards overconfident Because I feel
like all of us can do more than we think we can.
Even the most optimistic among us is really underselling
ourselves in terms of what we're able to do.
I'm about as optimistic as you can get.
I mean, I'm a blind guy who says you know, blind's a good
thing, like how many?
How many folks are out there doing that?
Not a whole lot.
So my cup is half full.
But, that being said, there's no way 25 years ago I would have
ever imagined I'd be doing what I'm doing today.
My point is we all underestimate what we can do.
All of us do, you do, everybody listening to this, you
listening right now, you're underestimating what you can do,
and it's not a knock on you.
We all do that.
All of us do can do, and it's not a knock on you.
We all do that All of us do.
Now, in terms of it moving to toxicity, like I don't, I don't
believe in in having rose colored glasses about everything
you know.
We have to face the reality of the situation.
Like I couldn't sit around and tell myself that, oh I'll, you
know, one day I'll get my eyesight back and everything
will be fine and I'll live happily ever after.
And all of a sudden, I'm putting my future precariously
in the hands that are really my future, in the hands of things
that are outside my control, like whether or not there's a
cure.
And so how do I instead choose to tell myself a story that
involves me taking an unfavorable set of circumstances
and moving forward with it.
And so the example that I use is I could have sat around and I
could have chosen to tell myself that I went blind because
I've got terrible luck and that could technically be a true
story but instead I chose to tell myself that I went blind
because I'm one of the few people on the planet who has the
strength and the toughness to overcome it and use it to help
other people.
See, one story paints me as a victim, but the second story
takes the exact same basket of facts and reframes it in a way
that turns it into my competitive advantage.
This happened to me because I'm stronger than most.
That's my story.
So now I've taken this oh, you're going blind at 21.
And instead of being, oh, poor you, you went blind at 21.
It's like, oh, good news, you happen to be one of the few
people who can dominate this thing.
You can overcome it.
And that becomes a very powerful thing when it starts to
seep down into your bloodstream and into your bone marrow and
you start really believing hey, wait a minute, I think I can
handle this.
And then you start to believe that you can handle it.
And then you start getting results that demonstrate that
you're handling.
And then, all of a sudden, before you know, you've reframed
your future by simply reattaching yourself to the
current reality in a different way.
It's an incredibly powerful concept and it's there for all
of us.
It's there for you, no matter what circumstances you're facing
.
Just simply reframing them, telling yourself a better story.
How do you take that thing that you don't want in your life and
flip it into a dominating advantage?
It's possible.
Speaker 2: I absolutely love that, yeah, and I think it's
such an important distinction, right.
And it's not about being overconfident, right, it's about
being confident, and I love that.
You know, like, if you look at all the research, it's like the
most successful people are the optimistic risk takers, right,
like the ones, the ones that are generally going to assume that
good things will happen and believe that good things will
happen and and take risks, and that's, you know, that's that
drives success, right, like I'm assuming you you're an
optimistic guy, right?
Speaker 1: 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 know that on balance I'm going to
figure things out, because I've demonstrated that over time.
I don't have all the answers.
I like to think I know what questions to ask and eventually
I'll find the answers.
But I don't pretend to have all the answers.
But I do have the confidence that you know what, I'll learn
how to ask the right questions and I'll find the right answers
working with the right people.
Eventually I'll figure it out.
I may not know right off the bat and maybe it won't be as
quick as I'd like, but I'll figure it out one way or the
other off the bat and maybe it won't be as quick as I'd like,
but I'll figure it out one way or the other.
Speaker 2: Right, right, yeah, I I tend to.
Those are the people that I I try to surround myself with.
Right, because I want to try to like, like, get that by osmosis
right, like it's, like it's, it's infectious right when
you're around people that that that believe in the direction
you're going.
You know it's, it's so much better than than you know, the,
the trying to hang out with a bunch of naysayers.
Speaker 1: And I can't do it.
Man.
Yeah, it's, I'm with you.
You are the average of the five people we associate with, and
so you got to ask yourself are you hanging around people who
are bringing your average up, or are they bringing your average
down?
Speaker 2: Totally, totally agree.
Yeah, and I yeah.
I mean there's.
There's so many situations where you know I do think,
circling back to where we started this conversation I
think people get complacent in that you know, with those people
you know you naturally will get comfortable with what you get
used to.
And if you allow yourself to get used to surrounding yourself
with naysayers and negativity and people that have that victim
mentality, whether you realize it or not, that's going to feel
comfortable to you and that's a hard question to ask yourself,
but it's the reality sometimes.
Speaker 1: It becomes toxic.
You know, I can start to feel it before I even.
I mean, I feel it as much as I hear it.
If that makes sense, I can be around people and I'll hear the
words come and I'll just like I don't know.
I start to feel like I'm suffocating in a way, even
though it's not my breathing, but it's like the energy is just
dark and I just like I have to get away because it's not how
I've chosen to live my life.
I've chosen to for lack of a better term see the glass half
full.
I know that's funny a blind guy saying that, but it's true.
It's how I've chosen to see my life.
All of us can easily find reasons to complain.
They're out there, right?
How's that serving you?
I instead, every night, one of the things that we do at my
house it's mandatory and has been for 16 years, since our
first daughter was born is we have a gratitude session every
night, three of us.
We all have to say three things that we're thankful for every
night, and it has to be unique and it has to be concrete and it
has to be, you know, not repeated or redundant based on
what somebody else said.
And what it does is it forces you to bring your conscious
attention to the very things that we all very naturally take
for granted.
And if you do that on a regular basis, eventually you might
just start paying attention to those things that you've been
taking for granted.
And, who knows, maybe gratitude will just seep its way into
your muscle memory and, before you know it, you'll have this
foundation of gratitude that determines your happiness in
life, because that's the order that it works in.
It's not happiness that brings you gratitude, it's gratitude
that brings you happiness and informs your perspective.
And so that's why, at my house, that's a mandatory thing that
we do every day, because I want my kids to have the benefit of
gratitude and their perspective and to create that foundation so
that they can live a happier, more successful life, anchored
in the appreciation for the things that we all overlook
every day.
Speaker 2: I love it.
What a powerful gift to give your kids and, with that, a
powerful gift to give our listeners.
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 we need to rebel?
Speaker 1: Where do we need to rebel?
I think we need to rebel against a society that has
caused us to soften mentally a little too much.
I think our society has over-rotated to cushy and soft
and fuzzy and there's a place for that and we're so intent on
meeting people where they are in the moment and being empathic
and I'm all for empathy, don't get me wrong but sometimes we
need to hear what we're supposed to hear as opposed to what we
want to hear.
I'll give you an example.
Try and keep it short, because I know we're in a flash round,
but I was in college and I was hanging out with a bunch of
losers, trying to deal with the fact that I was going blind, not
dealing with it all so well.
I was at a house we were not doing productive things,
partying too much, and my cousin came in town and he did exactly
that.
He told me what I needed to hear, 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 your friends in there.
I said, yeah.
He said you're going to be a loser too.
You need to get your head out of your rear end, get it
together and you know what.
You say that to some people today, like, oh, but you're not
being empathic and I'm going through a tough situation and
I'm going blind.
Yeah, all that may be true, but I needed to hear it.
We all we don't.
Hopefully, we're all so fortunate to have people in our
lives who will tell us the hard truth that we need to hear
versus the warm and soft and fuzzy things that we all want to
hear, because, at the end of the day, we need both.
We need people who meet us where we are and are empathic and
help us get over the hump and help us deal with the difficult
emotions of some of the things that we're experiencing.
But we also need the straight talk.
We need people in our lives who care about us enough to have
the difficult conversation, to say the things that are
sometimes harsh, but they need to be harsh, to pierce through
the way that we've been doing things.
That coat of armor that we have , that it's our comfort zone and
don't rock me out of my comfort zone I think we need that and
that's the way I'd like to see this rebel is.
You know, let's try and meet people where they are with
empathy, but let's also tell them what they need to hear in a
way that allows them to make the changes that they need to
make to move forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I, you know, I love that distinction and I
think we lose sight that.
You know, empathy and compassion doesn't mean that
we're just like wet noodles, right?
You know, empathy and compassion doesn't mean that
we're just like wet noodles, right.
You know you can still be empathetic and tell someone
something that they don't like to hear.
Yeah, you can still do that with compassion.
Speaker 1: 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 they know, like you care about them
and you make it very clear the only reason I'm telling you this
is because I care about you and I want you to know this.
But you know, delivering the hard truth that takes more guts
than just, you know, passing it along and going, oh no,
everything's great Right, that's not caring for somebody.
You really care about somebody's future.
Have the hard conversation you know, say what needs to be said.
Get it off your heart.
Speaker 2: Right, right, all right.
Question number two who should we be listening to?
Speaker 1: Who should we be listening to?
You know, I think there's a.
I think there's a lot of wisdom inside of all of us.
I think there's a lot of wisdom inside of you.
I think you know you better than anybody, and so I wonder if
there's not so much noise and so much distraction in our lives
that we've tuned out the one voice that matters the most, and
that's the one deep inside of us.
I think that's one voice that matters the most and that's the
one deep inside of us.
I think that's probably why I'm able to.
You know, I've been able to do a lot of the things that I've
been able to do.
It's because I'm not distracted by the constant stream of
visual things that are that are going on everywhere you look,
whether it's, you know, instagram or any social media
application, or the images.
It's just, sometimes it's good to be alone with our thoughts
and really understand what's going on inside of us, and if
you're not making time for that, you're really missing out on
probably your most reliable advisor yourself.
And so if you don't know yourself and what's really going
on inside of you, how could you ever move towards where you
want to be?
Because you're just we're all dealing with this stream of
disruptions and notifications and all these things, and that's
why I think you know having real vision.
When I talk about having a visionary mindset, it's not by
looking at what's going on around you, it's by really
examining what's going on deep inside of you.
Speaker 2: I love it All right.
Last question how can our listeners connect with you and
how can they get their hands on the book?
Speaker 1: Yeah, If they go to chadefostercom, forward slash
rebel HR got a landing page there for them so they can get
some goodies.
Got a worksheet there From there.
That's my website.
They can click on the link.
There's a book tab there.
They can get some goodies, Got a worksheet there From there.
That's my website, they can click on the link.
There's a book tab there.
They can see all the different places they can buy the book.
It's on Amazon, it's on Audible and all the places where books
are sold.
But certainly they can land on all those things from that one
website chadefostercom forward slash Rebel HR.
It's got my social media handles.
All that stuff's there.
It's a nice one-stop shop to find everything they need.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
We'll have a link to that right in the show notes.
Click in there.
Check it out, chad.
This has just been an amazing conversation.
Thank you so much for thanks for putting the book out there.
Thanks for all that you've done to help people out there.
Speaker 1: 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: All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at Rebel HR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website at rebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinions expressed by Rebel HR Podcast
are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of any of the organizations that we
represent.
No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Baby.