¶ Journey From Adversity to Success
How can hurt , heartache and tragedy become the keys to unlocking greatness ? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers .
Change either energizes or paralyzes . The choice is yours . This is the Shift Shapers podcast , bringing the employee benefits industry interviews with individuals and companies who are shaping the industry shifts . And now here's your host , david Saltzman .
And to help us answer that question , we've invited Ryan Miller . Ryan is a performance coach , a consultant , a keynote speaker , and his book called Wounds is a really fascinating read and I commend it to everybody . Go to Amazon , buy a copy . Buy a copy for a friend . It's a very different kind of a read than you may ever have been used to .
And with that , welcome Ryan . Thanks for being here .
Thanks , david , I appreciate it . It's good to be able to chat .
Always my pleasure , always my pleasure . So let's talk a little bit about your professional background first , just so folks know kind of how you got to be doing what you're doing .
Yeah , I'll make this brief because if not , we'd be here all day . So I literally fell into sales . I was 20 years old . I was working in the warehouse of an aftermarket parts shop for cars because that's what I loved to do . I saw guys inside the office that were clean All the while I was dirty out in the warehouse .
Every single day , I kept begging the CEO of the company to bring me inside and eventually I broke him and he let me jump in that door and I fell in love with the ability to be able to communicate with people . At that time , you know , I thought sales was about convincing people to buy things they didn't want , and so I thought I was really good at that .
And I was just a young , ignorant 20-something . And as time went on , I just continued to learn that I had been wired in such a way that I loved engaging with other people , understanding the challenges that they face and figuring out ways to solve the problems and be the hero in the process . So that was just awesome .
Fast forward all the way through to 2011 . I had spent time in the automotive industry , in the construction industry , in the print and document management industry , and I found myself on the back end of the recession , without a job .
I was one of the top salespeople in the organization , but we were a publicly traded company and we were bleeding money everywhere and they needed my salary and so they laid me off . That was April of 2011 . And I started interviewing for other companies and I remember I got a really great job offer to lead a sales team for Xerox .
And I called my wife as soon as I walked out the door because she was at home with my two kids , a mortgage and we had $500 to our name . And I said babe , I said I don't think I can take another job . I said she goes what ? You didn't get the offer ? And I said actually I did , but I just don't feel this is right .
And so , like my wife has been so incredible in doing , she said I trust you . If you think you know what you're doing , go ahead . And so that was my dive into sales , training , coaching and consulting .
Along the way , I picked up some chops in the benefits world , I actually went to work for one of my clients for about three years , a regional firm here in SoCal . That was my exposure to meeting great people like you .
And so today , here I sit , and the only difference in when I went out in 2011 and what I do now is I've come to realize that the tools , sales tools , sales process , sales strategy is easy . It's simple . Everybody has access to them . I try to give those away as much as possible .
What truly makes people successful is themselves , and so I try to help them overcome the self-limiting beliefs , the challenges that they face , the wounds that they experience , and ultimately just become the men and women that they've been created to be , and leverage those things to achieve the lives of their dreams .
It sounds so simple and yet it takes real work to get there . Even for somebody who's been at it as long as I have , every day is a new learning experience , and I'm glad you're doing it . So let's talk a little bit about kind of origins and whatnot . You were a pretty free spirited kid . Is that where your story starts ?
Yeah , so you know , before reflecting back in my writing process , I would say that from the time that my parents divorced , I was six , my brother was three and when my dad left he cut up all my mom's credit cards . She didn't have a job because she was a stay-at-home mom and so I had to fight to survive .
And it may not have really started at six years old , but pretty quickly I had to become the man of the house . My mom worked two and three jobs for us to be able to survive . So she would go to a day job all day .
She would come home , she would quickly make hot dogs and macaroni and cheese , which is what we lived off of for quite a few years , and then she would go to Macy's and work the jewelry department , or you know so she and then she would get home at 11 o'clock at night .
She would make sure we were in bed and okay , and then she would wake up in the morning and do it all over again .
So that survival and independence , which was really good to help support my mom , turned into really a lot of ignorance , self-reliance and self-dependence that created what you know you alluded to being that free spirit , because I just started fighting for the things that I wanted .
I , you know , started stepping into crowds that I felt I could be accepted into and that led to partying and fighting and getting in trouble with the law , and so I would say it's interesting like what started off as a good trait in learning to you know , be dependent and lead at a young age just went awry because it was so much about self-reliance .
At what point did did stuff start dawning on you that , hey , there's gotta be a better way , Was it ? Well , get into your experience in Las Vegas and in a minute or two , but as a child , as a younger guy , did you understand that you were creating as many problems for yourself as you were ?
Yeah , you know , it's interesting because as a teenager so it was really my so my freshman year I started dabbling in drinking and smoking pot . But it wasn't really till my junior year that I started living this kind of duality of life in a way , which was my mom had raised me right .
So even though I was getting involved with a lot of girls at the time , I was very respectful of them .
¶ Teenage Struggles and Divine Intervention
I tried not to go off the reservation at school and maintain my grades fairly well , but I was still ditching class . I would go out at night and we would party and we were getting into lots of fights just in the local communities of our area . But I would wake up in the morning and it was like what am I doing ?
But I was so caught up in the acceptance , the popularity , that kind of fun and risky side of it , that it would always draw me back in . And there's a brief moment that I recount in my book .
But like there was a specific fight that we were in and , long story short , when everybody went to , the six or seven guys I was with went to get in this fight with 40 people , we were far outnumbered .
I was sent back to go get a gun from under the seat of one of my buddies trucks , and when I went back to them later , every single one of them had the living crap beat out of them . I mean , one guy had his head split down to the bone , another one had multiple broken ribs .
We rushed two people to the hospital and those were the moments that I was like this is not me , like I was a scrawny , six , 140 pound wet kid at that time . Like I didn't have any place fighting . I didn't grow up in the rough and tumble of the inner city . I just found myself in these places trying to fight for acceptance and found it .
And so that was where I started to be like man , like is this really my life ? But I just didn't have the wherewithal or the tools to overcome it because I was just too caught up in being drawn in .
We , you know you talk a lot in the book and well , again , we'll explore that as we go along about God stepping in . Sometimes you realize it , sometimes you don't . Squire Rushnell wrote a bunch of books called Godwinks , which is , you know , stuff that happens to you and you don't really realize it at the Time because you're not cognizant .
You alluded to being sent back to the truck to get a gun , but there wasn't a gun and the guy who sent you knew that . What's that part of the story about ?
Yeah . So what's so fascinating , David , is so . I grew up in the Catholic Church . I Walked away in early high school as late junior high , early high school as most young kids do , you know kind of just figuring themselves out , obviously started getting into a lot of trouble , so I wanted nothing to do with that .
I wouldn't come to faith until 2006 , which I was 28 at the time .
So this in between this probably 15 to 28 there was so many moments , just like that one that was totally God , because had I been in that situation , maybe I would have been the one that got killed , or maybe I would have been the one that Just got beat up way worse , or maybe I would have been the one that God forbid there would have been a gun and I
came back and just pulled the trigger and so it was just . It's so interesting to me how , in moments like that , I can now look back as we all have great 2020 vision , looking backwards and realize that God was he wasn't protecting me from everything , because I had to learn those lessons .
I had to get punched in the face and have my teeth go through my bottom lip , like I had , like a lot of those things had to happen , but at the same time , he was just this good father that was Letting me get hurt without allowing me to completely destroy myself .
And the . And yet the message came through your friend , who knew there wasn't a gun in the truck when he sent you back . Did you confront him ? Did you talk to him about that afterwards ?
Yeah . So this is so crazy because that guy would go on to be one of the biggest troublemakers of everybody . He got into so much and he wasn't like . He was a good guy , but wasn't a good guy like everybody . No , nobody could really completely trust him .
And yet he made this judgment call to protect me in that moment because the girl I was dating was pregnant , and so afterwards I said to him his name was tie and I was like dude , what ? What were you thinking ?
And without even Questioning it , this was like a couple of , I think was the next day or a couple of days later we're in my driveway and he said you , Janet , that was my girlfriend . He said Janet was pregnant . She was already freaking out that you were getting involved in this in the first place .
I didn't want to put her in a worse position and I didn't want that baby to be without a father , which , if you read the book , you will later find out that that wasn't my child anyway . But it was like this is what's so interesting to me Like I don't believe everybody's good .
I believe that there is a lot of evil in this world and there are a lot of people doing a lot of evil things . But in the midst of this group of teenage kids that was getting into lots of trouble and fighting and stealing and breaking the law and doing a lot of really bad things , there was still a lot of good deep down in the roots of them .
And thank God , me too , because if it was all about evil and ill , I mean I don't even know where I would be .
¶ Surviving Trauma at a Country Concert
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For somebody who lives in Southern California , you're a big country music fan like real country music , not the crossover stuff we're seeing a lot of now . That brought you to probably what must have been one of the most traumatic experiences that you could possibly have . Would you share that story and then we'll turn back around to how that's made a difference .
Yeah , yeah . So , as you alluded to a huge country music fan , we were 15 , 16 live shows into the year come October of 2017 , late September , early October and so my wife Michelle , myself and five of our friends headed to Las Vegas for what was going to be our second year at the Route 91 Harvest Festival .
That year was being headlined by Jason Aldean , and he was the one that I wanted to see more than anyone that year .
He was the final headliner on the final night , and so we ended up in what was the best from a viewing and experience standpoint , and yet the worst place in that show , because when gunfire rained down later that night , we were on the side of the venue that was closest to the Mandalay Bay , which is kind of crazy to say , because the Mandalay Bay was down
the street and across the street , but we were the one that was closest to , and so , even all these years later it's so crazy for me to think about the fact that , so I still can see as I close my eyes the first round of gunfire hit the ground , and so , about 50 feet from us , just ahead of us , in between us and the barrier to the actual stage , there
was this concentrated what looked like fireworks going off on the ground , and we were on a combination of turf and asphalt , and I can still see it . It just boom , boom , boom , boom , boom , boom . Well , up to that point we hadn't seen many mass shootings .
Up to that point , I had never heard of any kind of violent outbreak at all at a country concert or festival Like these are people that love each other . There's really even a fight , and so I thought it was fireworks , as did everybody else . It startled us , but it didn't really do anything to disturb what we were doing .
So then a second couple of shots fired and then , when the third ones came out , that's when Jason ran off a stage , the lights went down and so the venue was almost completely dark and everybody hit the ground . And I remember . Sorry , sorry if this is long winded and you can cut me off at any time , but I hope you take it .
When that happened , my wife was yelling , screaming , and so I go for her . We'll come to find out . Thank God she wasn't hit , because we didn't even know it was gunfire at that point yet it wasn't 100% sure , so it was just somebody on her . So I pulled this other lady off of her , I grabbed my wife .
And as I grabbed my wife , she says oh my gosh , looks like Nicole is hit .
And so Nicole Kamara she was my best friend's girlfriend at the time , a really close friend of ours and she was laying face down and you could see that there was some blood coming from her rear right side , like lower kidney area , and so we stood up to try and kind of like collect ourselves to see what was going on .
And as soon as we went to go for Nicole , gunfire again , and as that happened , michelle went to the ground . My wife and I had this split second which felt like a million years decision , which was what do I do now ? And the only thing that I thought was like I can't let her get hit .
And so I just jumped on her and had a backpack on and I remember just grabbing the straps of the backpack laying on top of her just cringing and waiting for what I felt for sure was coming and by God's grace , you know , I did not and as soon as that pause like this was like his reload moments , we kind of stood up again .
But now the crowd is starting . You can tell like everyone now has figured out what is going on , and so I'm not letting go of Michelle because I'm not going to let her get trampled , pulled , dragged through . But Chad , my best friend , he's yelling like we've got to get Nicole , we've got to get Nicole . And so we turn her over .
She's bleeding through the front as well and we're trying to pick her up and can't because she's all but dead weight . At that moment the crowd is starting to run . I'm trying to hold like it's just , it's absolute chaos , and I was actually talking about this the other day .
It's like I've never been in war , I was never in the military , I was never a police officer . Like you , don't prepare for things like this . And yet again , god's kindness was him allowing me to have laser focus in the moment on what was important , and that was my wife . So we were able to run to the side .
My wife and I were just gunfire and gunfire and gunfire and I guess I'll leave at least this moment and then pause with this was again . There was just this . There's these snapshots . I don't remember everything throughout , but there was this other snapshot , which was when my wife and I ran to the side . We hid behind these bleachers .
There was only about eight rows of bleachers . It was fairly short temporary bleacher area and it was just Sardine cans packed with people underneath . We were trying to get underneath to protect ourselves and couldn't . There was no room . So we're crouched down . I'm staring at her face .
To face Her back is what would be kind of to where the shots were coming from , and I just don't want her to take my eyes off of me . And I looked her in the eyes and I told her I loved her . Everything was going to be okay . The first part I met with wholehearted truth .
The second part I had no idea whether or not that was a reality , but I told her I loved her because I felt like there was a possibility that one or both of us was never going to get to say that again . And I was able to , you know , by God's grace , get us out of there . We were able to get to safe haven . But you know again , it was just .
It was moments like that . Excuse me that I don't know . As I reflect back , you know again whether it was Ty and the gun in the fight or , in this situation , the moments of jumping on my wife or looking her in the eyes . It was like God had given me exactly what I needed in the moment to do , what needed to happen , just to survive the next moment .
And I don't like that . I want a lifelong clarity of plan .
I want to know what's going to work , I want to know how it's going to work , I want to follow through and yet I find which just kind of like gut punches me saying this out loud , even in a season I'm in right at the moment that that's not how God works a lot of times , and definitely not with me .
Yeah , you , you get the test first and the lesson afterwards , and that's really hard and ultimately you did lose Nicole .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . And you know that was one of those things where . So , as we ran off to the side , I looked back out across the venue and there's just bodies everywhere people that were injured , people that had already died and there is Chad standing over Nicole , kneeling over her , and you know Chad and I had been . At that point I was 39 .
Chad and I had been friends from . We were born on the same street . We grew up together preschool , kindergarten , like everything . That was the most he would . He called me and told me you know that that had in fact happened , that she was confirmed dead , and it was crazy because I saw it with my own eyes .
I heard her say like I can't feel my legs , and we knew she was taking her last breath when we were
¶ Learning From Wounds to Unlock Greatness
over her . And yet there's always this hope that you either didn't see reality or something would save the day in the moment . And yet I remember man , when I got that call from him and he's screaming because he's still in chaos and we're in chaos down in a basement in the tropicana , and I remember him saying Nicole didn't make it , nicole didn't make it .
And I remember just screaming , knowing that she was gone , knowing what heartbreak he felt in that moment , knowing what that felt like to Michelle and I and all of our friends . Like it was , just , like it's still , I mean , here , it is right .
I mean this has been almost seven years and sometimes I can talk about this without batting an eye , because I've said it so many times and other times , and I really think about the moments . It's just like gosh , it's brutal that things like this just tear people apart . And it's not just me , because so many people go through things like this . I'm not sure .
You know the book outlines nine different types of wounds , but I was struck by something that didn't make sense to me until I finished the book , because it was in the forward , and the forward says these wounds can transform us . How can they transform us ? And I know you've developed a framework , you call it the wound analysis framework .
Would you , would you share that and how that can help us from these terrible , horrible things , these lessons that we need to learn how ?
how can they teach us ? Yeah , so I hate to admit this in many ways I'm a fast learner , but when it comes to learning my own lessons , I'm not .
And so , as you will read in the book , like I made many horrific errors in life and judgment and just committed sins against so many people and things were done to me , it was like , over and over and over again , I wasn't learning my lessons .
And so , through the journey from 2017 to writing the book in 2022 , but even more so as the book was being written , this framework started to become a reality when a consultant I was working with on a different project was asking me why I was so passionate about helping men specifically . I have a specific area of coaching that I do specifically for men .
And he's like why ? Why do you care so much ? And I'm like because my marriage is broken and because this and because that . And he says do you think it has anything to do with the fact that your dad left you when you were six ? And I'm like nope , I said I'm way past that . Like that , I've healed from that .
My dad and I didn't talk for 10 years , which I share in the book , and then now my dad's one of my best friends . I'm like that . That that's so past me . He says .
I want you to just to take some time to go back and look at that and tell me whether or not this is actually had the impact that that I think it has , and this isn't even his role like his role was to build a marketing strategy was crazy anyway . So as I dug back in , I realized , david , that I hadn't completely learned .
I had almost fully healed , but I had not completely learned from that initial wound of my dad leaving .
And as I dug into that and so the framework being this idea that you acknowledge the fact that you were hurt and so I had been able to do that Way back then and then at different periods of life , as I reconciled with my dad , so but , but that's the first thing is like we have to own it . We were hurt , and especially as men .
This is way harder for men to do that . I believe that it is for women . Men put up this tough exterior . It's like nobody can hurt me , nobody can penetrate me . I'm like , no , this freaking hurt , like it just in the moment it hurt , this freaking hurt , like it , just in the moment it hurt .
Secondly to that and this is where I really started to understand and gain clarity is to realize the effect Of that hurt , of that wound .
And so you know , when you see this thread that's hanging from a piece of clothing and you go to pull it , and as you pull it it keeps pulling and pulling and as it does it's opening a hole somewhere else and it's bunching up the the seam in one spot and opening a hole in the sea , like it's just it's the thread that keeps pulling through .
And what I realized was was that wound , was the thread that pulled , like it wasn't my dad's fault and I say this over and over and over again it was mine , it was the impact of my dad . But but at six I didn't have the tools . But then , even when I started to get them , I just pushed them away .
But I realized that that was what started me down this trajectory of trying to prove to everybody else that I was something that I wasn't , because I wanted to be accepted . And what was interesting was I was good in school , I was an above average athlete , like I , my my work would have spoke for itself . But that wasn't good enough .
And so I had to understand that that ripple that was caused is that thread that kept , as that thread kept getting pulled , had done damage and I needed to understand what damage it did at different stages of my life .
But it wasn't just about damage Because , again , just like getting beat up but not to the point of death , or being in Route 91 but not being killed myself or not losing my wife , was okay . If all of this is happening and I'm surviving it , then there's meaning behind it . And not everybody attributes this , like not everybody believes in God .
I respect that completely . Not everybody would even agree with this statement and I respect that completely . But there's this key passage in the Bible , in Genesis , chapter 50 , where it says is what man means for evil , god means for good ? And so I had to understand that there is nothing about Route 91 that was good , nothing . Zero , zero , zero , zero .
Even you could say , well , there was survivors , yes , but still people died , like there was nothing good .
But good can come from it and the good was , even though I had a great relationship with my wife , I was able to better value the precious moments of not wasting every moment with her and with my friends and understanding that if I could survive something like that , then I could survive whining about not getting a business deal that I think I deserved and worked
really hard for .
And so that's when I say like unlock greatness , people kind of go to the place of , oh , so you're telling me that if I heal from my wounds , that I'm gonna stand on the top step of the podium and I'm like , maybe , but what greatness to me really is above all else and this is the punchline to the whole thing , so I guess you don't even have to read it
anymore Greatness to me , ultimately , is understanding who you've been created to be , and living is the best version of that human being to live the life that you dream of .
And I just feel like in a day and age where we're chasing monetary success , for good or for bad , when we're looking to everybody else as an example and as a model of what to live by and trying to bolt on all these new ideas and strategies and innovation , we miss the key and all of it , which is us . We are uniquely wired .
I mean , you've been incredibly successful in your career and yet I don't wanna live your life Like I wanna live mine . Now I may be able to learn and glean wisdom and insight from you , but I don't want to model my life after years . I want to live the life that I've been called to , and so that's where this idea of unlocking greatness comes into play .
And then what's super cool is , once I figure out who I am , what I'm really good at , and I can begin to heal , then I start to produce the highest levels of achievement in all these areas that I'm focused on .
And that is a great place to end our conversation
¶ Wounds Book Interview With Ryan Miller
for today . Folks get the book . It's called Wounds by Ryan Miller Ryan James Miller on the cover . It's a terrific read . It will take you to places that you haven't thought about , but that you should . Ryan , thanks so much for sharing your time and your story with our audience . Thanks , david , I appreciate it .
Shout out to the crew at Grand River Agency for their awesome post-production . This Shift Chapers podcast is copyrighted content . It may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of Shift Chapers Solutions LLC . Copyright 2024 .