3 Strategies for Fewer Office Freak-Outs

An exclusive excerpt from ‘Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do’ by Kathryn D. Kramer 

To keep your cool when a situation gets heated, remember to respond rather than react, says Kathryn D. Cramer, author of Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do (Jossey-Bass, March 2014).

“Responding means to thoughtfully and intentionally adapt your behavior to the current circumstance. It involves the parasympathetic nervous system [the automatic things we do like breathing and blinking], which is activated when the body is calm and at rest. In contrast, reacting means to automatically go into high-alert stress mode. Your brain automatically processes the problem as a state of emergency and your sympathetic nervous system is activated, preparing your body to fight, flee, or freeze.” 

Cramer describes highly effective leaders as highly responsive leaders, ones who respond to tough situations with high energy and excitement—versus fear and stress. 

Learn how to channel your own aggression with Cramer’s three strategies for fewer freak-outs: 

Strategy No. 1: Take 10

Consider this saying: “The only difference between fear and excitement is breathing.” Adopt this phrase as a kind of mantra when you start to feel stress-induced anxiety coming on. The physical action (or do) of taking ten deep breaths will help you to interrupt the high-alert cycle and channel your adrenaline positively toward high energy.

Try taking ten deep breaths anytime you would rather be excited than fearful. Taking ten breaths creates a break in your reactivity, clearing the way for your parasympathetic nervous system to kick in. After all, you cannot be calm and anxious simultaneously.

Strategy No. 2: Get Off the Field and Into the Stands

Think about the difference in perspective when you are a player on the field versus a spectator in the stands. As a player, you have a more immediate and narrow line of sight. In contrast, when you are in the stands you can see what is happening on the whole field. Your perspective is wider and you can anticipate the plays before they happen because you can track the movement of all the players.

In our day-to-day activity, we spend most of the time “on the field,” intensely immersed in making the best plays to win the game. Sometimes, when the pressure gets too intense, you can reduce your anxiety and facilitate responsiveness by going “into the stands” to see the bigger picture. In psychology, this is called “going meta.” While still engaged in solving problems, making decisions, and other daily activities, you simultaneously rise above the situation to observe the dynamics. From that “meta” perspective you can ask yourself questions like: What am I doing? How are others behaving? What is really going on here?

Going into the stands allows you to mentally extract yourself from your reactions and the immediate demands of the moment. From that more elevated perspective you can see new possibilities. You can better interpret the behavior of others to find the assets of the situation. Going into the stands allows you to better understand what the other players are experiencing, to adopt their points of view, and to stand in their mental shoes.

Strategy No. 3: Act, Observe, Reflect

The extent to which you learn from your past leadership experiences is key to increasing your effectiveness. The classic book Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience by Richard Hughes, Robert Ginnet, and Gordon Curphy describes an Action-Observation-Reflection model. Here’s how it works.

The premise of the model is that once leaders commit an act, they must stop to observe what happened and then reflect on what was done well (or poorly) and what lessons can be carried forward. The model calls for leaders to learn from what they do. Taking the time to observe, and reflect on your actions automatically puts you in the responsive mode. The benefits are also a well-earned time-out from doing and the cultivation of rich lessons for what to do better next time.

Assess what you are learning as a function of what you are doing. You can accomplish this in the privacy of your own thoughts, or you can process what you are learning out loud in conversation with someone else. Both methods work to help you milk your leadership experiences for all they are worth.


Excerpted from Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say, and Do by Kathryn D. Cramer. Copyright 2014 by Kathryn D. Cramer. Reprinted with permission of Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint.

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The American Dream Is Alive—These People Prove It

Meet three modern business titans who started at the bottom. Learn how you can emulate their greatness.

The American Dream is the heartbeat of our collective ethos. For generations it has promised that through hard work, each of us has the opportunity for success and prosperity—a social mobility brought about by our ability to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and achieve whatever our imagination holds.

This spirit of self-determinism lives on today. Consider the lessons from these modern-day dreamers as you plot your own American success story.

Sara Blakely:
 Recognize Your Own Genius

She’s a billionaire now, but in 1998 Sara Blakely was a Georgia-based fax machine sales trainer and stand-up comedian who didn’t like the ugly panty line that was visible through her new $98 pair of pants. She cut the feet out of a pair of control-top pantyhose, the line disappeared, and she could even wear sandals. With that eureka moment, a product was born, but the business was still to come.

Before quitting her day job, Blakely read books on trademarks and researched pantyhose patents at a local college. Blakely had never taken a business course, and the hosiery manufacturers she approached initially told her that pantyhose without feet would never sell. But Blakely’s father always told her that failure was a necessary part of life, so she kept at it until a manufacturer—with two daughters of his own—agreed to take her on.

Making a prototype cost $5,000, which Blakely could barely afford, and she had to be her own saleswoman, slogging through cold calls to department stores. “I called the buyer at Neiman Marcus and introduced myself over the phone,” Blakely told CNBC. “I said I had invented a product that customers would not want to live without, and if I could have 10 minutes of her time I would fly to Dallas. She agreed!” Blakely was even her own model, showing off her product to buyers from Saks, Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s. The personal touch worked, and the newly named Spanx took off. It certainly helped that Oprah Winfrey named Spanx a favorite product in 2000.

Blakely had wanted to be a lawyer, but the LSATs got in the way. “If I had not failed, I’d have been a lawyer, and there would be no Spanx,” she said. “Failure is nothing more than life’s way of nudging you that you’re off-course.” Spanx (which has diversified into panties, bras and swimwear) is growing rapidly because Blakely’s eureka moment recurs in closets and dressing rooms every day—women like the way they look in Spanx.


Shahid Khan: 
Don’t Take No for an Answer

A newly arrived immigrant from Pakistan, Shahid Khan washed dishes for $1.20 an hour when he first came to the United States. Enrolling at the University of Illinois at Champaign in 1968, he told his fraternity brothers to call him “Shad.” He learned about football and baseball, and he studied engineering, moonlighting at a small auto parts company called Flex-N-Gate.

Today he has a net worth of around $4 billion and owns Flex-N-Gate, which has become a major global supplier of car bumpers and other parts to automakers. Khan owns both the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and the London-based Fulham Football Club. But his base is still in Champaign, where it all started for him.

In 1970, Khan was offered two jobs, one as manager of an ice cream shop and the other at Flex-N-Gate. He chose the latter, and gained a higher education in practical engineering. Khan started his own company, Bumper Works, in 1978 with a Small Business Administration loan. He produced a seamless bumper for pickup trucks, and when domestic manufacturers weren’t interested—preferring instead to continue working with their longtime suppliers—he took his invention to Asia, where Toyota was the first to nibble at his hook.

The domestics soon gave Bumper Works their business, too, and that enabled Khan to buy Flex-N-Gate in 1980. He’s been growing the business—and his diverse interests—ever since.

“There is a phrase that if you build a better mousetrap, the world is going to beat a path to your door,” he told Sporting News. “That’s not how life works. You’ve got to build a better mousetrap. Then you’ve got to go sell it. You’ve got to be paranoid enough to keep improving that mousetrap.”

John Paul DeJoria:
 Eliminate Excuses

It was 1980 when John Paul DeJoria (who was then living in his car) and Paul Mitchell (a hairdresser) pooled their names and energy to found a company, John Paul Mitchell Systems, selling shampoos and conditioners. Their starting capital was only $700. It was a rather inauspicious time to start a business, anyway, with inflation at 12.5 percent and interest rates at 18 percent.

DeJoria, now worth approximately $4 billion, grew up financially challenged in the Los Angeles area. He sold Christmas cards when he was 9 and delivered the Los Angeles Examiner at 11. Without the money to attend college, he took sales jobs, including a succession of positions at hair-care firms—and got himself fired from most of them. That had a profound effect on him, he told Charles Payne on his syndicated radio show. “When people fire you for not being their kind of manager, it makes you want to be your own manager,” DeJoria said.

And so Paul Mitchell was born, but not easily—a major European investor pulled out just before launch, leaving the partners with practically nothing. Labels were printed in black and white because they lacked the money to print them in color.

But before the first bills were due, DeJoria put samples of the new products in his car trunk and took them on the road to suppliers—and landed the company’s first orders. The business remained in considerable peril for the first two years, so on the road, DeJoria often ate at bar happy hours to avoid paying for dinner. “Every week we should’ve gone out of business,” he told Stanford’s business school. The partners’ first dividend to each other: $2,000. But salons kept signing on, and the profits steadily grew. “It got rolling and rolling until it got into the hundreds of millions,” DeJoria said.

Perseverance pays. After Paul Mitchell died in 1989, DeJoria diversified with, among other things, more than 100 hairdressing schools, a stake in House of Blues, and Patrón Spirits, maker of premium tequila. And the core products endure: DeJoria’s privately held company makes 90 hair-care products that are sold in 100,000 salons nationally and in 80 countries.

DeJoria’s advice to business startups: “The American Dream is definitely still alive—more people just have to realize it’s alive…. You can start a business today with little or no money.” 

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Leaders Eat Last

Simon Sinek says leadership lies in placing others first.

Being a true leader, says Simon Sinek, author of Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’'t (Penguin), isn’t about being in charge, having all the answers or being the most qualified person in the room. Instead, it’s about creating a “circle of safety,” a culture that leads people to feel protected and free from danger inside the organization. That, in turn, allows them to focus their time and energy on protecting the organization from outside threats and on seizing big opportunities.
Here, from Sinek, are five precepts of his leadership vision.

Here, from Sinek, are five precepts of his leadership vision. 

1.  Leaders have to accept that their responsibility is not the performance of the company but the performance of their people, and that doesn’t mean numbers but whether people are working to their greatest potential. Are they being given opportunities to try and fail and try again? 

2. Leaders, whatever the size of their organizations, are those willing to put the interests of other people before their own.For entrepreneurs or small-business owners, that means committing ourselves to the success of our clients and our customers and showing up every day not simply to grow our own bottom line but to help somebody else’s bottom line.

3. Online communities function like any other community. You can’t just milk social media to tell people about your company without being willing to serve. Instead, use these platforms to offer and share information that has value to other people even if it has no direct impact on you whatsoever.

4. When an employee is going through a slump, don’t fire them, coach them. Consider the tech company Next Jump, which has a policy of lifetime employment. Once firing wasn’t an option, more care was taken to hire the right people—evaluating not just skills and experience, but character as well. Training became much more comprehensive; peer counseling groups were formed in every part of the company, and performance evaluations became more open, honest and real. Turnover went from 40 percent—average for the industry—to 1 percent. The best leaders don’t come down harder on people whose performance is lagging; they come to their aid.

5. Temper idealism with realism and accountability. While we’d want all our client relationships to be long, fruitful and marked by reciprocity, the economic realities of business sometime require us to say yes to clients that we know are going to be difficult. If someone rakes you over the coals during the contract negotiations—guess what?—they’re going to rake you over the coals later on, too. Treat the relationship for what it is: a short-term hit. When you’ve gotten what you need—better cash flow, say—politely move on. We sometimes need to take on difficult and unreasonable clients, but let’s do it consciously. 

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He wouldn’t give up!

He extended a hand...

I have the most remarkable people in my life. Most of them I’ve
 never met.

One lived nearby for over 20 years.

I really just met him today.

In my mind we traveled and lived in two different worlds. He had a big beautiful house that was always well maintained. Not by some company he most likely could have hired. He and his wife did it all.

He was friendly enough to wave as he passed by, or shout over to me when we were out shoveling snow, but we never really spoke.

I often times saw his picture in the paper because of different boards he served. In fact, he was on the board of the American Red Cross when my wife worked there.

That’s all I knew of him.

Clean cut, nicely dressed, he looked like a banker. I found out later he was a banker. President or Vice President of one.

See, maybe that’s what gave me the impression that we really had nothing in common.

How many presidents of anything do I know? Pierce, the president of my high school class perhaps.

He’s a great guy, too.

Over the past year and a half as life was changing my plans, I began hearing from Gary via Facebook.

Always supportive, inspiring words of comfort, always including an invitation for lunch.

I was hiding away. I was “going through” this “thing” in my life and the last thing I wanted to do was to chitchat over a sandwich.

I didn’t feel much like being seen in public without my wife.

I didn’t want to explain things to anyone. You know, it was all 
too fresh and most people had no idea that she left.

It would be natural to hear friends ask, “So, how is Marianne?”

So I decided just to stay in my little world.

Gary, in the mean time, kept writing to me. Yes, always asking if I’d like to go to lunch.

One day I snapped at him. Told him how difficult it would be for me 
to do that.

“We’ve been neighbors for 20 years. Why are you asking me now?”

I was mean. Very unlike me to do that to someone.

He quickly responded and apologized for pushing the issue.

“Perhaps some day in the future,” he said in that note.

I felt terrible.

Gary obviously didn’t, because he never gave up.

I sold my house and moved. He offered to help. I said no.

He emailed me again.

“How does lunch next Tuesday or Wednesday sound? My treat…who knows who we may bump into?”

I couldn’t believe it. I finally said “Yes!”

Okay, you might be thinking I did it so he’d stop asking. Perhaps that was part of it.

Mostly it was because I was ready.

He is a remarkable man. Friendly, out going, knew everyone who came 
in the door of the restaurant. We talked, laughed and shared stories of helping perfect strangers.

Then I stopped, looked at him and asked, “Why did you never give up on me?” 
I think he was surprised. Rather rude question – maybe unfair to ask.

“Because I thought you needed help!” he said with the soft gentle tones of 
someone who was sincerely concerned.

We talked about some personal things we both actually had in common. We shared a meal. We laughed, I talked, and he listened.

I thanked him and headed to my car. On the way home I thought about all that 
I missed the last 20 years.

Yet, maybe I didn’t miss a thing. He was a banker back then, on boards and very busy. Maybe his life and my life loosened us both a bit and taught us
 how important it is to make time for lunch.

Oh and to never give up on someone in case they need your help.

Maybe you know someone. Maybe you have been meaning to call them, email them 
one more time because you’re concerned.

Don’t give up on them.

Thanks, Gary. Lunch was great. How about breakfast sometime? On me, of course.

Bob Perks

Bob Perks is an inspirational author and speaker and a truly remarkable human being. You can receive his messages sent 2-3 times each week by visiting his website www.BobPerks.com I know you will be glad you visited.

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Louis Zamperini: The Indomitable Man Dies at 97

This American hero dreamed of clocking the first 4-minute mile, but his greatest feat would be surviving the horrors of war with his spirit unbroken.

Editor's note: Louis Zamperini, the American Olympian who spent 47 days lost at sea and two more years as a Prisoner of War, has died at the age of 97, his family reports in a statement. In this archive piece from July 2011, Zamperini describes what only can be described as the acts of an American hero. 

Adrift upon the face of an endless Pacific, Louis Zamperini and his pilot clung to the tatters of a life raft as days blurred together in relentless hallucination. Sun and salt water transformed their skin into a crust of sores and fissures. Sporadic rainsqualls dropped just enough water for occasional sips while birds and small sharks they caught bare-handed provided meager sustenance.

Zamperini, a California track star, had been a favorite to clock the world’s first 4-minute mile at the 1940 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. 

Then history intervened: As global warfare erupted, the 1940 Games were canceled, and the Army Air Corps trained Zamperini as a bombardier stationed on Oahu. 

A 1943 raid on Wake Island introduced Zamperini to combat; the B-24 limped home with 594 shrapnel holes, one flier died and everyone except Zamperini and two others got shot up.

Hoping for the ’44 or ’48 Olympics, Zamperini stayed fit; in May 1943 he ran an unofficial 4:12 mile. But within days of that feat, Zamperini’s aircraft crashed at sea on a search-and-rescue mission. He was one of three crewmen who made it to a life raft. 

So began a harrowing ordeal. In 47 days at sea, Zamperini and his pilot dropped 60 percent of their body weight; the third man died. 

Occasionally the men saw aircraft aloft, but only a Japanese bomber came near, swooping in on strafing runs to riddle the life raft with 48 bullet holes. Ocean currents carried the two survivors 2,000 miles west until a Japanese patrol boat sighted the men, who became prisoners on Kwajalein. 

Then things got bad. Zamperini describes his 43 days on “Execution Island” as “much worse than the raft”: a waking nightmare of an outhouse-like cell, frequent beatings, intense hunger and thirst. 

Life as a ward of the Empire was literally a world away from Zamperini’s previous experience. It nearly broke him. 

Nearly. 

As a teenager back home, Zamperini had caroused with petty thieves who lived to top one another’s exploits. An older brother whom Zamperini adored inspired an abrupt turnaround: “I got locked up and Pete came to the jail. Pete asked the police chief how we ought to channel my energy. The chief said ‘Well, your little brother is one hell of a runner! What about track?’ ”

So Zamperini threw himself into training full-bore. With his natural ability, the effort paid dividends as Zamperini set California and U.S. high-school records. “That roar from the crowd tasted good,” he recalls intently. He gave up impressing small-time thugs in dark alleys in favor of showcasing his speed for a public audience. Instead of farmers chasing Zamperini with shotgun blasts of rock salt, he became popular with girls.

 At 19, Zamperini earned a spot on the 1936 American Olympic team, enjoying unimagined luxuries heading for the Berlin Games aboard the ocean liner Manhattan. “We could only train up in first class, making loops inside the rail, hopping over the legs of millionaires and movie stars.” He gained 12 pounds devouring shipboard fare, alertly spotting a service window featuring ever-present cold beer.

The highlight of Zamperini’s Atlantic voyage? Dancing with swimmer Eleanor Holm, who paid a price for late-night partying: “That was a gold medal for me! But Eleanor got kicked off the team before we arrived in Europe—what a raw deal! So Eleanor shot dice and had some champagne? She was invited! We drank our share of beer—nobody got bombed, but we liked that little window.”

Of Berlin, Zamperini recalls “Storm troopers were everywhere. Only a fool would have missed it—Germany was gearing up for something big.” He pauses. “For war.”

Finishing eigth in the 5-kilometer run, Zamperini turned a blistering 56-second final lap that generated stadium buzz nearly as frenzied as the crowd’s reaction to an entrance by Hitler. “They always went berserk when Hitler arrived,” says Zamperini, who shook der Führer’s hand at the Nazi leader’s request but regarded him as a “dangerous comedian.”

Celebrating in the German capital after his big race, every biergarten liter amplified the hilarity of an inside joke: popping off with “Heil Hitler!” to anybody in uniform and triggering robotic salutes. Earlier Zamperini had swiped a “Do Not Disturb” sign from teammate Jesse Owens, but when he pulled a much crazier stunt, his Olympic sweater probably saved his life. Zamperini stole a Nazi flag—naturally, grabbing that souvenir right off the front of Hitler’s chancellery. “A rifle went ‘crack!’ and a guy hollered ‘Halten Sie!’ I knew what that meant.” The fleet Zamperini could also talk fast, telling dumbstruck guards “It’s just to remember your wonderful German hospitality!”

Zamperini still owns that flag—and the sign from Jesse Owens’ door, too.

 After returning home, Zamperini attended USC on a track scholarship. The cancellation of the 1940 Summer Olympics hit him hard: “That really hurt! People don’t understand—you train four years for one event. Disappointed? You bet!” He ponders a moment, musing: “The Olympics exist to help stop war, but only war can stop the Olympics.” 

Disappointment about being unable to compete soon was eclipsed by the cruel realities of life as a prisoner of war on Kwajalein. Most Japanese guards behaved savagely; American prisoners interned by the Japanese died at 37 times the rate of Americans held by German and Italian captors. One guard spoke enough English to stop by and belt Zamperini with a cheery “Thump on the head for a biscuit?” Complaints of thirst brought scalding water thrown in his face.

 Zamperini hoped that transfer to another prison might offer more humane treatment—a right mandated under the Geneva Convention—but he was wrong. In a camp called Omori, a maniacally cruel guard nicknamed the Bird delighted in starving and assaulting captives. Despised by fellow guards and prisoners alike, the Bird singled out Zamperini for sadistic brutality. “He was a psychopath,” Zamperini says.

Before he and his fellow captives could enact a plan to kill the Bird, the Empire surrendered. The Bird disappeared. A 40-person arrest warrant for war criminals signed by Douglas MacArthur named Prime Minister Hideki Tojo Japan’s most-wanted man. Although a lowly corporal most of the war, the Bird’s 84-count indictment ranked him number 23.

After Zamperini’s lengthy recuperation in Hawaiian hospitals, the Bird stalked his dreams; the demon ruined sleep. Back home in California, Zamperini settled down with a beautiful bride named Cynthia. But trying for a normal life was rough sledding. Legions of repatriated servicemen rendered jobs and housing scarce. With an incomplete degree from USC, Zamperini was at a disadvantage. He chose not to seek full-time work, wasting money in shaky ventures.

After resolutely experiencing overseas hell, Zamperini underwent an excruciating stateside psychological collapse. His greatest shame? Taking Cynthia along a miserable spiral down to the brink of divorce. He awoke from nightmares strangling the Bird with his hands locked around Cynthia’s neck. Liquor became a mistress to blot out the Bird’s specter. Secretly Zamperini decided to return to Japan and murder his captor.


Then Cynthia dragged Zamperini to hear the Rev. Billy Graham, at whom Zamperini initially sneered… until something clicked, as he recalled a survival prayer offered while adrift in the Pacific. Zamperini went home to jettison his supply of cigarettes and alcohol. Even the Bird disappeared: “I accepted Christ and my bad dreams ended.”

Zamperini had once commented that with foreknowledge in 1943 of what lay ahead in Japanese hands, he would have committed suicide. “But that’s just what I felt at the time,” he says quietly.

With renewed spirit, he founded the Victory Boys camp for wayward youth. The Zamperinis raised two daughters, living comfortably if not lavishly; Roger Banister ran the 4-minute mile in 1954; Mutsuhiro Watanabe, otherwise known as the Bird, emerged from hiding after a 1952 amnesty declaration and died a wealthy man in 2003.

If Zamperini could talk with the Bird now, “I would forgive him,” he says firmly.

Today Zamperini maintains an active calendar as a lecturer. A jolly demeanor and quick wit belie his 94 years. The erstwhile world-class runner has hardly lost a cognitive step. The New York Times best-seller Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand chronicles his life, and a movie is in the works. 

After outliving not only his Olympic teammates, but his former tormentors and most of his friends and family, what of the man himself and his comrades-in-arms?

“Well, I’m not keen on that Brokaw ‘Greatest Generation’ stuff,” Zamperini states flatly. “We did what we had to. Call us the Hardy Generation.”

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Courage: It’s the Secret to Getting Everything You Want in Life

When I was in seventh grade, I got beat up by a skinny little girl with an umbrella.

To paint that picture perfectly clear, I’m saying a girl about 3/8 my size took her umbrella and beat the ever-living crap out of me with it. In front of people. It was a Hello Kitty umbrella to add insult to minor injuries. It seemed a little immature to bring a Hello Kitty umbrella to school at that age, but I was in no position to judge.

When I was in junior high, I got beat up by a fifth grader. Bad. I got beat up bad by a fifth grader. Like blood-and-black-eyes bad. I wish this was a joke, but it’s not. It’s history—my personal pathetic history.

All throughout school I did everything I could to avoid fights. I mean, if a skinny little seventh grade girl could do that much damage with a plastic Hello Kitty umbrella, just imagine what a regular boy my own age could do to me with some more normal, heavier inanimate object! Screw that, I laid low. If someone wanted to fight me, I just gave them money. I’m not kidding. I did that a few times.

Now the question you’re asking yourself, which I’d like to answer as quickly as possible so I can get to the part in the story where I learned mixed martial arts and sparred with professional UFC fighters, is this:

“Why were you such a sissy, Preston? I’ve actually never heard of anyone being so much of a sissy as you’ve just described yourself as being.”

Great question. The answer is that my physical impotence was an outward manifestation of my inward lack of courage, the ability to take risks and act in the face of danger either without or in spite of fear. For whatever reason I just didn’t have any.

My lack of courage spilled over into my young adult life and resulted in dysfunctional relationships, financial chaos, emotional instability and a bunch of other stuff that sucks.  And the reason is because it takes courage to be successful in life. I’m tempted to say it’s the root cause of success, but every time I think I’ve figured out the root of success I find something even rootier. Let’s just say it’s one of the core fundamentals.

Eventually I started to work hard to develop this missing attribute. Once I got it solidly in place, everything changed. I now walk with my head high, wallet thick and heart happy. Anyone who pulls that umbrella gimmick on me again will have a serious problem.

Here’s how to go from being wussbag to warrior in 3 easy steps:

1. Figure Out What Happens When You DieI was at a doctor’s office the other day, and a young intern was asking me questions. I could tell something was wrong.

“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “Just a little nervous about school.”
“Do you have some fears about something?” I queried.
“Of course. Everyone does. Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t. Let me ask you a question. What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to you on any given day?”
“I could die,” he responded.
“Right. Well, if you know where you’re going when that occurs, and that place happens to be better than this place… then what is there really to fear?”
“Sir, you just made my day,” he said.
“Well, me making your day just made my day. So it’s a great day. Best of luck to you,” I said as he walked out the door with a new look of courage on his face.

Many psychologists believe the fear of death is the number one underlying motive for everything we as humans do. I suggest you get rid of it.

2. Hang Out with Courageous People.

Duh.

3. Write a List of Every Single Thing You Are Afraid Of. Do Them All.

Scared to ask people out on dates? Go to the mall and ask out every single person you see all day long. They’re just people, not vampires. Usually. You’ll be over your fear by probably the 10th rejection or so. Here’s a good pick up line that I just made up ... “Excuse me, do you happen to have directions to Build-A-Bear? My compass is broken. As a matter of fact, I’m building this for a little homeless child that the government is ignoring for some reason. Maybe you should definitely help me build it. C’mon.” Then just grab their hand and walk them to the store. Trust me, this will work. I’ve got a good feeling about it.

Scared of heights? Go bungee jump at the county fair. You have a better chance of getting shot by gang members at that fair than a tragic jump.

Scared of public speaking? Join Toastmasters.

Scared of reading the very very best, most entertaining yet highly educational articles on the Internet? You’re facing that fear right this second! Congratulations!

It wasn’t until I was well into my adult years that I realized I was still scared to fight. I was rich, happy and healthy, but I decided I needed to face my biggest fear … fighting.

So I did what any abnormal personal would do in that situation… I paid a professional UFC fighter to beat me up on a regular basis—literally. I told him if I wasn’t bleeding or bruised significantly at the end of each session, I would stop paying him.

I got black eyes at least once a week. I got a broken nose that leans to the left now. I got broken ribs. I got beat up so bad that I literally cried like a baby one time—in front of people.

But I also got courage.

The cool thing about courage is that if you gain it in one area, it trickles over into every other area of your life. Ever since I learned how to pretty much kill a man with my bare hands, things like “speaking in front of people” have gotten a lot easier.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” –Muhammad Ali

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Falling into the Rhythm of Life

“It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” ~ Zig Ziglar

Did you ever make one decision that would change your life forever? I did. It was on July 11, 2008. I was performing for parents of children who had attended my horseback riding camp, and I made the decision to pay more attention to the crowd than to Malachi, my horse. This is the story of my fall, what I’ve learned through my recovery, and the unwavering strength I have gained from the “great fall” that has made me so “grate-full.”

There is one moment in time I will never forget. Falling through the air, I felt light, weightless, and suspended in time. My head slammed off the ground, and the force from the bounce after the first hit sent my body upright. My head, back and hips slammed against the cement-like ground over and over. Every strike was incredibly powerful, and it was as if a lightning bolt sent shocks through my body and roared throughout my skull.

I remember darkness, a peaceful midnight black, like a dark velvet curtain, and it enveloped me into a cocoon of silent stillness.

Slowly, I emerged from a dark abyss. I heard a voice calling my name and the sound of people crying. I sensed confusion around me, and waves of pain were shooting through my body.

My next memory is seeing my husband Doug standing beside the backboard that I was lying on. I felt a tingling sensation in the crown of my head that later descended throughout my body. I knew something was wrong, very wrong. I couldn’t speak or move. I traveled in and out of consciousness, confused by two very different worlds that were oddly connected, one draped in velvety darkness and the other bright and surreal.

In the weeks that followed, I was disoriented and had become hypersensitive to light, noise and crowds. I suffered from severe headaches, nausea, imbalance and confusion. Then ten days after the accident, I awoke, only to realize that I had lost my ability to speak and when my speech returned I had developed a wee Scottish brogue. I roll my r’s, shorten my ing’s, and think everything is grrraaannd and grrrreeeaat! This has been quite a surprise to my family and friends, who have known me all of my life and know that my roots are in Kent Bridge, Canada, not Inverness, Scotland! My accent is a consequence of the fall, and I am one of only sixty people in the world who has been diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome as a result of stroke or acquired brain injury.

Although my new wee brogue is an adjustment I could live with, there were many changes that have been challenging and difficult. I had trouble coping with simple day-to-day tasks and I would become frustrated and angry. My dark bedroom and sleep became my only escape from the chaos around me as even sitting watching TV or hearing the pots and pans clang and utensils hit the plate irritated me and made me escape to my room time and time again.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks drifted into years. I flowed in and out of depression, sinking into the abyss for months. I was diagnosed by my neuropsychologist as “completely disabled” due to my inability to process my thoughts, make decisions, problem solve or multi task, but I desperately wanted to return to the woman I was before.

I wanted control over my life again. I wanted the ability to fly and soar with speed and confidence, as I had done before. I yelled at God for the injustice.

Why had this happened? How was I supposed to contribute to life when I did not even know who I had become? Where was the person who so easily swept through life taking each new challenge with vigor and exhilaration?

Until one day I made the decision to “get back up on the horse again” and realized that just because I coped less didn’t mean it was hopeless.

After struggling with my new reality for three years, I’d finally had enough, enough of feeling frustrated, enough of feeling isolated, and enough of being unable to cope with day-to-day life. So over the next few years, I researched and tested a multitude of traditional and non-traditional therapeutic coping strategies, until I devised a holistic routine that provided me with the relief I was desperately seeking.

Slowly, but surely, I emerged from my cocooned state and rejoined the world, born anew. I began to realize that there was much that I should, and could, be “grate-full” for in the midst of the tragedy of the “great fall.”

Malachi, whose name means “Messenger of God” has helped me as a result of my accident to learn a number of life lessons that I say are “straight from the horse’s mouth”.

First, Malachi has taught me what my priorities should be. He has taught me about what I really need, not just what I want. Our newest technologies and toys only excite us for a time. We crave more speed, noise, gadgets, brain numbing TV, or a stimulating Wii game to cover our true feelings of sadness, loneliness, and lack of true connection with others and ourselves. Thomas Merton, an American writer and mystic, states, “We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being.”

Malachi’s greatest message he gives is to be still, rest, and be kind to yourself and others. As I have said, I used to always be one to get’r done! Now I can’t, at least not the way I used to. However, now I’m able to live in moments, incredible moments, where I am able to be still, breathe and soak in the sunsets, full moons, deer running in our fields, and fall colors and smells.

One night when I went to fill the water tank, Malachi met me at the gate, as he usually does. He rested his head on my left shoulder, then gently, quietly, and ever so slowly, lifted his head and put it on my right shoulder. I felt him push his neck towards my ear, and I could hear his heartbeat and breathing. It felt like the very rhythm of life. To me, it was a sacred moment in time.

If I had not fallen, if I had not had this accident, I would have missed the very rhythm of life. Be sure to pause in your day, and acknowledge the slightest good, positive, and hopeful part of your life. Be sure to catch one breath or hear one heart beat to feel the very presence of God.

Sharon Campbell Rayment

Sharon Campbell-Rayment is a motivational speaker, author, and workshop facilitator dedicated to helping people cope better with day-to-day life. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing, a Master of Divinity degree, and is the founder of The Coping Clinic. Sharon has been interviewed for radio, print, and television in numerous countries around the world.

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