How to turn difficult situations into progress | Benjamin Hardy | TEDxOrlando

dr. David a bednar the former president of Rick's College tells a story of a young man who drove a brand-new pickup truck up into the mountains to cut some firewood to bring home to his wife but very quickly he got stuck in the snow it embarrassed him he tried everything he could to get out of the snow and he couldn't do it so he decided that he was just going to start cutting wood and hopefully someone would come to help him out and eventually his truck got entirely full and no one came and so to his surprise he started to back out and actually the weight of the wood allowed him traction that allowed him to get out of the out of his stuck from 2010 to 2015 I wanted to be a professional writer I'd gone through a lot of experiences in my life a lot of hard experiences growing up a lot of trauma growing up I'd also served a mission for my church for a few years where I dedicated all of my time to helping other people I read an enormous amount of books learned how to overcome my own traumas and I filled stacks and stacks of journals about my experiences my emotions it led me to studying psychology for years and all of this time I want to be a professional writer but I was not making any progress towards this goal from 2010 to 2015 then in 2015 something very surprising led to my traction and allowing me to become a professional writer it was something I did not expect would lead me to this outcome my wife and I had been thinking about becoming foster parents for a few years before we moved to South Carolina where I went to graduate school we thought about it the opportunity wasn't there and eventually when we got to South Carolina things fell into place and so we got these three beautiful kids Caleb Logan and Jordan and as soon as they came into our lives Lauren and my life changed fundamentally we we were both graduate students never been parents I'd never read a book or a blog post on parenting and all of a sudden we have these three siblings who were dealing with we're serving were helping we're trying not to freak out all the time and admittedly for for long periods of time I avoided coming home from school because our house had become okay my wife is very exhausted she was the one doing almost all of the work she gets all the credit for all of the success that we've had with these kids but we ended up spending almost 3 years and almost all of our money trying to adopt these kids the foster system is not very suited for facilitating foster parents actually trying to seek long-term relationships these kids at least in South Carolina where we lived and ultimately we ended up opening our own private suit and seeking adoption and when we did that the foster system pretty much rejected us they were very angry at us and in a lot of ways did what they could to get the kids out of our home there were many episodes for years as we tried to adopt these kids that it looked like we were not going to get them and there were a lot of miracles that took place eventually after nearly three years of fighting for these kids and also a very inspired attorney named Dale dove who actually had to change the laws at the federal level of South Carolina once the laws changed we were able to adopt these kids and so earlier this year after three years of fighting going through enormous ups and downs we were able to adopt Caleb Logan and Jordan and I learned a lot through this process of dedicating almost all of my energy towards loving three individuals my wife and I had broke us down and built us up we had to fight eventually we got to the point where we wanted these kids more than if we were to ever have gotten our own kids and it was just a very humbling experience learning to want something that you didn't really know you what you wanted when you first got these kids you know it's not via the bond is not an immediate at least it wasn't for me but over time I learned to dedicate myself to these kids and what's really interesting is that the the level of commitment that we ended up developing and this love that we have for these kids transferred over to my work as a writer what I realized kind of thinking back to that story that I told you the beginning of that dr. bednar told of the truck stuck in the snow once the load of wood is in the truck it was able to start moving and that was basically me from 2010 to 2015 I was that it was stuck in the snow I wanted to become a professional rider couldn't do it and then these kids the responsibility the commitment the love the resilience all of these things that I learned led me to changing my entire approach I just started putting my work online I stopped worrying about what other people think of me when you're dealing with kids at that level with the amount with the emotions that they're dealing with little petty things like what people think about your blog post or what people think about your ideas they really don't matter you stop worrying about things that would hold you back and so I was able to take all of these beautiful experiences that I was having and it was able to lead me to becoming a successful writer very quickly now this concept is actually connected in psychology in psychology there's an idea called the Pygmalion effect and basically what it means is that we as human beings are either rising or falling to the demands of our expectation to the demands of our situation as Westerners we like to believe that our abilities are innate we like to believe that we have some innate personality that allows us to do what we want we like to believe that motivation is something that's just purely inside of us and that's not true our ability to achieve huge goals and our motivation to pursue them is situational and the problem with most people's situations is that they're not giving them the traction that they need to pursue their dreams and their big goals most people's situations are not summoning within them and a deeper level of commitment and meaning and purpose that allows them to not be worried about the petty things that would emotionally get in their way most people's situations are actually slowing them down or keeping them stuck and essentially the message in society is that you need less responsibility less of a load less roots in order to be successful in an order to be happy and that's in my opinion the opposite of truth and the opposite of reality one of my all-time favorite poems comes from a man named Douglas Malik and he says good timber does not grow with ease the stronger the wind the stronger trees the further sky the greater length the more the storm the more the strength by Sun and cold by rain and snow in trees and men good timbers grow people well trees that are growing in hostile difficult environments are forced to shoot forth very deep roots they're forced to have thick skins and human beings are the same way human beings that are in easy and stable environments don't develop the thickness the resilience to move forward the thing is is that you're never actually pre-qualified to do something amazing you're never pre-qualified to live your dreams you're never pre qualified to pursue big goals it's actually the load that qualifies you the load you're carrying is that thing that transforms you it enables you to become the kind of person that can do things that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise your load qualifies you your load transforms you your load gives you the resilience and the commitment to do things that you would never ever consider doing on your own your load becomes your why for doing whatever it is you were gonna do in the first place admittedly my why for becoming a professional writer for years was not because I'd been changed by these amazing three kids my why was potentially more self-absorbed maybe not but my wife shifted entirely once we got these kids and one of my favorite quotes and ideas is that the bigger the y the easier the how and essentially my why was my load and that's why I had the traction to move forward having a load is absolutely exhausting but it actually gives you far more energy it gives you energy because it gives you a far different perspective than you could ever have without one and it also gives you a reason to succeed your load allows you to move forward when all of your natural abilities have been maxed out the truck could not get out of the snow by itself it needed a load to get out once you are completely maxed out your load allows you to go forward beyond what you could do on your own your load is the thing that gives you traction your load gives you urge ensue and purpose your load absolutely can make your dreams come possible I can say that the things that I've been able to achieve and with my writing are very not normal and I don't give myself the credit your load is what can make things possible because it allows you to go far deeper lots of people think that they can actually go further and faster without a load it's not true I've learned through my experience as a foster parent that when you have a load my success became my load my load allowed my success to become inevitable and so when you're thinking about your own goals when you're thinking about your own dreams the big things that you want to do with your life rather than thinking about the next strategy rather than thinking about the next hack or the or there's the fastest way to get there my challenge for all of you is to look at your truck and to think about how you can load it thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 26,079

Rating: 4.8802395 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Business, Children, Life, Life Development, Life Hack, Marketing, Personal education, Personal growth

Id: zo6vLTG_L1E

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 04 2019