Blind Ambition: Shifting Perspectives | Chad E. Foster

00:00
I always looked at what I lacked instead of what I had until I had a moment when I went to get my first seeing eye dog that completely changed my outlook on life. Now I went there to learn how to use a guide dog, but I learned a whole lot more than just how to use a guide dog. You see, when I was there, I met some people there who were also getting a guide dog, and some of these people, they had mental impairments on top of being blind. So multiple disabilities. Some people...

00:27
were on dialysis every single week because they had diabetes that had stolen their eyesight. And then there were these girls there, whom I'll never forget, these young girls who could neither see nor hear. They were deaf and blind, yet they were getting a guide dog because they wanted to have more independence in their lives. And so that experience just blew instantly any of the self-pity that I had right out of me. Because I realized at that moment,

00:56
Here I am, I'm 23 years old, I've had all of my hearing, all my mental and kidney function, and about 20 something years of usable eyesight. And so that was like this epiphany that just shifted the way that I looked at everything. I realized at that moment that for me, happiness is not a feeling, and it's not an emotion. It's a decision that you make every single day when you wake up, you either choose.

01:23
how you're going to look at things or you just allow random circumstances to affect your happiness. Today's guest is Chad Foster. Chad is an extraordinary individual who turned his blindness into a powerful catalyst for success and resilience. He was diagnosed with a genetic eye condition at a pretty young age, but he knew he would eventually lose his sight. Despite this daunting prospect of the future, he chose to focus on what he could control, and he developed this resilient mindset that...

01:52
really has propelled him to incredible heights, literally. In this episode, Chad shares his journey from losing his sight in college to becoming a trailblazer in the business world. He discusses the anatomy of resilience that he's developed, the importance of turning obstacles into opportunities, and the significance of authentic leadership. Chad's story shows us that our greatest challenges can become our most powerful motivators. I won't tell you too much more, but I'm certain you'll learn a lot from Chad.

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So without further ado, here is my conversation with Chad Foster. I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is The Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

02:47
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Life Shift Podcast. I am here with Chad. Hello, Chad. How's it going? Thanks for having me here today. Well, thank you for being a part of this. We were talking a little bit before recording, and I was just telling you a little bit about how the Life Shift Podcast really started, if you will. And just for anyone listening that's brand new, when I was eight, my mom was killed in a motorcycle accident, and my parents were divorced, and they lived states apart.

03:13
At that moment in time, my life completely shifted from what it was going to be to a brand new what it was going to be. And I didn't understand that. And it was the late 80s, early 90s, and people around me, they just didn't know how to help a grieving child. And so I really pushed that down for about 20 years. And all that time, I really thought, do other people have these significant, pivotal moments in their lives that changed everything, where they became like a different person because of those moments?

03:42
And it turns out after having all these conversations, they do and they have many of them. And Chad, you also have many of them, I am sure. We just talked through a couple of them before we started recording. So thank you for just wanting to be a part of this journey because it is such a healing journey for myself, but I also know for the listeners as well. Absolutely. Yeah, I've certainly had my share of life shift moments, one of which I can think of recently when I was attending

04:12
Business school, so the short version, and we'll get to more of this later on in the show, but I went blind at 21 years old due to an inherited eye condition. And I ended up coming out of that experience better off than before, happier and more successful. And here I am in my 30s at the time, late 30s, early 40s, and I'm at Harvard Business School. I brought in all this.

04:37
revenue for my company and they asked what they could do for me. And for some crazy reason, I asked them to send me to Harvard. And for some crazier reason, they agreed to write a six-figure check and do that. And so, a lot of people think you go to Harvard to learn about case studies and business metrics and all these things. And that's certainly part of it. But the thing that really stood out for me is I'm taking this class called Authentic Leadership under the guidance and teaching of Bill George. And Bill George is an executive fellow there, used to be.

05:06
the chairman, CEO of Medtronic, one of the world's largest medical supply companies, and he teaches how to help people find their true north. And we're studying his true north leadership framework and reading the book, and a lot of my classmates are wondering what their true north could be. When mine just sort of reached up and smacked me in the face there in his class, I realized that my whole life, people had told me that what I was doing was inspiring. The fact that I was showing up and doing the work, not being able to see and...

05:35
doing things like writing software to be able to use my computer more effectively or getting a guide dog to traverse where I was going, various countries around the world, or just all the different challenges that I had and how I faced those. They always told me that that was inspiring. I wasn't really trying to inspire anybody. I was just trying to get to my next goal. But I realized in that moment that I could be doing more with what I'd gone through.

06:01
that really crystallized for me in particular when my classmates elected me to be our graduating speaker. And I had this feeling that it was going to happen. I don't know how to describe it. I just know that I felt it in this unmistakable way. It was like a gravitational pull that I'm going to be the graduating speaker in my class at Harvard. And being a type A person, I'm like, I can't be caught flat-footed for that. That would be a bad look. And so I flew to Houston, much to the...

06:29
uncertainty of my wife, spent several thousand dollars. I met with a professional speaker, wrote a 12 minute talk for a graduation ceremony for which I had not even been nominated or elected. You did this before. Before. Yeah, because I wanted to be prepared. And so, of course, as as fate would have it, as destiny would have it, I was elected and I was obviously prepared. And and it affected people that that evening in a way that I never really anticipated. You know, it affected me.

07:00
in a way that I never anticipated. There was a couple of people, a lot of people came up to me, but a few really stood out afterwards. One gentleman was going through a messy divorce and he had shared with me that something I said helped him. And then there was another gentleman there, I'll never forget. He's literally, he's weeping in my arms because something I'd said helped him. And I later found out that this particular classmate had lost his daughter the year before to cancer.

07:30
and something I'd said helped him. Now, I've never really been this warm and fuzzy person, but when you have a parent, you know, with that kind of loss, going through that kind of loss and something you said somehow helped them, it changes you. And it changed me. It showed me how in moments like that, helping people with my experiences that I've been through can make going blind worth it.

07:59
bizarre sort of way. And so now I realize that for me, blindness could be the beautiful gift that came disguised in really ugly wrapping paper. And so since that moment, my true north, I've discovered is helping people with the lessons of resilience that I've learned. The anatomy of resilience is now what I talk about. And so since that evening, that was sort of my tipping point moment. It ignited a fire inside of me. I built a

08:28
professional speaking business. My first book was released since then. And I've really made a living, a profession, out of doing meaningful work. And it's, when you find something that connects with you on that emotional level, something that gives new value to the experiences that you've had, it's not even work. It's not a job. It's not transactional. It's a reason for being. It's a mission. It's a purpose that gives you this

08:57
endless reservoir of energy and perseverance and determination to do the hard work that we all need to do when we're building a successful business. Were you someone before I mean, you, you highlighted a bunch of what we could call pivotal moments in your life just in that short story. But before this like speaking moment where you realized just by telling your story and what you did would touch other people, were you someone that was kind of in touch with

09:27
your feelings and would connect with people in that way? Okay, so this was like a true unwrapping, if you will, of that wrapping paper. It was, but I'll say, you know, I didn't really, I didn't get into the heart side of it. That never really has been my strong suit. If I'm being transparent with you, like, We'll paint that picture then. Yeah, going blind, and I grew up in a sort of a tough love household. My dad was very old school.

09:57
He was trying to prepare me for the inevitability of going blind. And so he used some tough love and it was hard to swallow at the time. It definitely helped, but it was, it was difficult. And you know, the, the challenges that I faced learning the limitations of my eyesight were also difficult. Not being able to see in poor lighting conditions, bumping into things, going to the hospital so much that they would question my parents and I in separate rooms as to whether or not they were abusing me.

10:23
not being able to drive a car at night because my eyesight had begun to fade, not being able to do many things that a lot of my peers were able to do. I played sports, drove a car, I couldn't drive at night. It's just all these sort of awkward things that were really challenging and inconvenient sort of hardened me to how difficult life could be. It reinforced I have this natural tendency to have this harder edge, but obviously, you know,

10:52
in your late teens, early twenties, if you don't toughen up, you know, it's not an easy task. And so I had sort of turned that off. I had turned all that off, just created this sort of steely exterior to push through and do the hard work that I needed to do to get to where I'm, where I am. Ironically, in my forties, again, another kind of life shift moment for me, I wanted to get certified as a leadership coach.

11:21
because I realized that I had this opportunity to help a lot of people. I didn't have the tools to do it. Very, very comfortable on stage now in front of thousands of people. Very comfortable leading a 16, 90 minute keynote and or workshop, hybrid, whatever. Very comfortable in a podcast, but having the tools to meet people where they are on their journey, I didn't have. And so I got certified to be an integral coach with New Ventures West and the West Coast and San Francisco. And the irony there is in order

11:51
to coach other people, you have to do your own internal work. And that was really, really transformational for me to see all the ways of being that I hadn't put down. We adopt these ways of being in our life to get us through hard moments for very good reasons. I had adopted this harder exterior shell to protect me mentally, emotionally, psychologically from all the things I was going through. But I never really stopped to question whether or not that was serving me anymore.

12:21
until I went through this certification at New Ventures West. And really it was this, really it was a beautiful softening that took place. It gave me a lot of versatility and awareness and ability to connect with myself and as a byproduct with others on a much deeper and more intimate level and being comfortable showing a lot of that vulnerability that I really hadn't had before. But certainly, you know, the sharing that was sort of when the dam broke, but

12:50
You know, the first time I gave that talk at business school, that was the first glimpse, and then I got into, all right, let me expand my keynote and then, all right, let me write the book. And I got published with HarperCollins and the whole process of doing that was the more vulnerability you can create in the book, the more connection you'll create with the reader. And it was just me just continually, incrementally getting out of my comfort zone with sharing and being vulnerable. And it was incredibly uncomfortable.

13:19
at first and it still kind of is but that's where growth happens is when we're uncomfortable. Yeah, well I agree with that and it's almost like you see this in the little stages or the layers in which you say you crack it open and then the performative, there is an element of performative nature when you are speaking I think that can kind of help us separate a little bit of it because we still have a task to accomplish if you will and then...

13:45
having that face-to-face or being like a leadership coach, I can imagine becomes a lot scarier, not scary, but a lot more vulnerable, I guess, if you're face-to-face with someone and have to kind of like meet them where they are and maybe admit, oh, that's happened to me as well and so I can relate and I can empathize and connect with you. I mean, I think it's a- It gets very real. It gets very real in those sessions. On stage- Super valuable though. Yeah, it is. It is.

14:12
On stage, I think on stage for me, I've sort of mastered the craft to understand, here's my message and here's how I'm customizing it and here are the challenges. Talking to a thousand people one way versus a two way conversation about people's most difficult moments. Hey man, that takes a ton of, I would say even more alertness, awareness, being in the moment, attentiveness to what the other person is going through, really.

14:39
really being switched on, not taking a second off, and listening with all of your heart, your mind, your body, like paying attention to everything, takes a lot of focus and a lot of alertness. Yeah, totally different part of your brain and heart than speaking, I would imagine as well. Like, yeah, you gotta tap into something totally different. I was thinking about your journey towards losing your sight, and so it sounds like you knew this was coming, or it was kind of...

15:08
inevitable because it was genetic? Is that true? Yeah, that's right. It was sort of the hidden family eye disease. So we knew I had it, but nobody else in my family had it. And so they diagnosed me at roughly three years old. Oh, wow. And told me that at some point I could go blind, but my parents didn't have it. Obviously, they were carriers for it. But because it was autosomal recessive, nobody else in the family was symptomatic for it. My brother didn't have it. I was the only one who had symptoms from it. So I knew it was coming.

15:38
But when you're a kid and they tell you that it's coming, it's sort of this abstract concept way off in the future that may or may not happen, you sort of, you don't prepare for it. And even when it's happening, do you, like you were describing yourself as like, it was, you know, it was, it was obviously distracting and these were hard parts of your life, but you hardened yourself and you kept going where I could see a lot of people, maybe even myself facing something like that. I might go the opposite way in turn, like what gave you the confidence

16:08
running or were you always just kind of like that? Like you were just gonna keep tackling things no matter what came at you? It's a really good question. I don't know, I think certainly some of it, I think some of it is inherent. My parents used to always say I was really, really hard headed until I became successful and then they started calling me determined, which I think is just better marketing, right? It's sort of the same concept.

16:35
It's more complimentary, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Same exact thing, just better marketing team behind it. I think that's part of it, but I think, you know, I had a lot of positive influences. I had people who gave me the straight talk when I needed to hear it. I was fortunate enough to be exposed to people and situations that gave me the gratitude that became the foundation for my perspective shift in my life.

17:03
which allowed me to discover what I now think of as the anatomy of resilience and what allowed me to succeed. And so when I, when I talk, when I'm delivering a keynote, I break down the anatomy of resilience, I have five pillars for it, but it's all based on what I've experienced in my life. These aren't things that I've read in a book. They're just my lived human experience. And so I tell the stories around them, but really what I do through my keynote speaking is it's the unpacking of what I have done.

17:32
over the last 20 years of my life. How did I get from where I was to where I'm at? Because let me tell you, I was in a pretty bad space, a pretty dark space, no pun intended, going blind in college, 21 years old. We ask kids all the time, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Well, guess what? None of them say they wanna be a blind person. So it was a pretty tough spot. I had to flush about three years of university work. I wanted to go into the medical field because I really wanted to help other people. But at...

18:02
At that point, after going blind, I honestly wasn't even sure if I could help myself. So, you did have moments of doubt. It wasn't always like, I can do anything. Oh, no, no. There were definitely moments of doubt. There were definitely moments of despair. The victim mentality set in front and center for a while. And I would say I experienced that even before I went totally blind. As I was...

18:30
as I was losing my eyesight, I always looked at what I lacked instead of what I had until I had a moment when I went to get my first seeing eye dog that completely changed my outlook on life. Now, I went there to learn how to use a guide dog, but I learned a whole lot more than just how to use a guide dog. You see, when I was there, I met some people there who were also getting a guide dog, and some of these people, they had mental impairments on top of being blind, so multiple disabilities. Some people...

18:59
were on dialysis every single week because they had diabetes that had stolen their eyesight. And then there were these girls there whom I'll never forget, these young girls who could neither see nor hear. They were deaf and blind, yet they were getting a guide dog because they wanted to have more independence in their lives. And so that experience just blew instantly any of the self-pity that I had right out of me because I realized at that moment,

19:28
Here I am, I'm 23 years old, I've had all of my hearing, all my mental and kidney function, and about 20 something years of usable eyesight. And so that was like this epiphany that just shifted the way that I looked at everything. I realized at that moment that for me, happiness is not a feeling, and it's not an emotion. It's a decision that you make every single day when you wake up, you either choose.

19:56
how you're going to look at things or you just allow random circumstances to affect your happiness. And so, that really to me underscored the power of choice and how we see things, our perspective, but also the anchor for things, you know, our happiness really doesn't lead to gratitude. It's our gratitude that leads to happiness. And it was the lesson that I learned from these brave souls there who taught me that, because here they were facing...

20:24
what I would consider to be far more difficult circumstances and doing so with such living courage that it left me ashamed of my pathetic approach and my pathetic attitude towards life. And so when I left there with my new seeing eye dog, everything changed. My attitude changed, doors started opening for me, grades improved, professors helped out, got a great job, got on the corporate ladder, like climbed the corporate ladder. Everything.

20:51
fell into place, but it started, everything started with that moment of recognition about how gratitude is so crucial to affecting our perspective, which highlights, ironically, the first pillar that I talk about, which is the power of choice. You have to choose your response. Yeah, that perspective element is very powerful, and it can be. I would also, as you're telling this story, I'm curious how society, did society feel like it was

21:19
Was it creating roadblocks for you because people weren't set up to help you be successful if you needed it? Or did you feel like it was very, everyone was willing to help and, you know, you just had to make it happen because your perspective has changed? No, there were still plenty of roadblocks. So as an example, I couldn't even get my, at the time I was at the University of Tennessee and I was in the pre-med field, I switched to business and I couldn't get,

21:48
my books in a format that I could consume. So literally my mom stepped in and read every single college business book to audio cassette for me because there was no other way for me to get it. And so you want to talk about being inspired by somebody who's moving beyond themselves to help you. That certainly inspired me to make sure that her efforts didn't go to waste. And so there was

22:16
consuming the information because this is in 99, 98, 99, 2000. The internet really was just getting started. We didn't have digitized books like we have today. Tools weren't here. We barely had Amazon. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so there was that, getting the information that I needed, the internet help. But not everything had been digitized by then. Then I got into the workforce for a top consulting firm, and not every.

22:44
software application in the environment we were using worked seamlessly with my technology on my computer. So I had to learn how to write code so that I could engineer my own software without being able to see my computer screen just to be able to effectively do my job. But the hard work that my dad and mom had taught me, the unwillingness to give up.

23:11
The unwillingness to make excuses, the determination to see things through, the perseverance, the hardheadedness and or determination that we talked about earlier helped me with what I needed to continue to push through and learn how to write the code. And then I ended up getting so good at using computers and writing code that I later on ended up building software for one of Oracle's software products that they did not think could be done. They ended up, they started referring business my way.

23:41
because they didn't think it could be done. And so it actually became a successful company that I started writing code to make software accessible for people who can't see. And so that included writing code and doing different things for businesses and government agencies. But so there were loads of roadblocks and that's just, I'm just talking tactical there. There were social roadblocks, there was the stigma that gets attached to it.

24:07
You walk into a conference room with a German shepherd, people have questions, eyebrows go up. I may not be able to see those eyebrows go up, but I can definitely feel the energy shift. And so there's all kinds. I mean, the roadblocks were everywhere. They were absolutely everywhere. And I'm sure they still exist in a lot of instances that you encounter. Yeah, they're definitely not gone. They just, they look a little bit different and people are more open.

24:33
to being aware of them now. I think people are more aware of those roadblocks than they were back then, the lack of accessibility. But they're still, honestly, there's still a stigma. They're still, I meet people and they, just depends. I mean, I've heard everything, to be honest with you, Matt. I mean, people will come up and like, oh, you're blind, oh, I'm sorry. Like, oh my gosh, it's so terrible. It's like, look, I'm not dead, I'm just blind. Like, it's fine, I've made peace with it. Like, you shouldn't be more upset about it than I am. I'm good with it.

25:02
Sometimes people don't know what to say. No, they don't. They don't. They just, and they come from, I think, a good place when they say it, but they just, they're so uncomfortable in that space that they're not sure what to say, which is a big part of what I do when I'm giving a keynote, is I'll come out pretty quickly and put people at ease with some funny jokes, create some relatability, let them know that, yeah, I've got a situation here that you could consider to be serious.

25:28
but I don't take it so seriously that I can't joke about it. So I'll drop some blind jokes, let them know that this is not a bless your heart kind of keynote presentation. I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm not here to stroke heartstrings or any of that. I'm here to tell you a story and challenge you to be a better version of yourself. Yeah. This is gonna sound, this might sound wrong, and I don't mean it wrong, just like you just said. Do you see losing your sight as something that maybe even...

25:57
held you in different ways that maybe if you hadn't, you wouldn't have done? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'm a better person because of my blindness and not in spite of it. I think I would be less successful today if I could still see. And that's because for me, going blind forced me to improve lots of different aspects of my life. I had to have a better perspective. I had to have more focus, more effort, and more determination. I had to work harder. I had to be disciplined. I had to...

26:27
really figure out how to cultivate what I call blind ambition. You know, the ability to know where I want to go and summon the inner strength, perseverance, and determination to find my path there. Certainly if life would have been as easy as it was before because grades came easy for me, athletic achievements came easy for me, and I kind of got lazy, to be honest with you. Things came so easily that I kind of got lazy. After I went blind, lazy really wasn't an option anymore. I had to work.

26:56
Extra hard to do the mundane. I mean, technically it could have been. You could have stayed in a state that wasn't as aggressively pushing forward and meeting goals and doing things that brought you joy that you didn't even know were going to bring you joy. You could have done that. That's fair. Yeah. And I think that that in itself is, whether or not you have sight or not, I mean, I feel like that's super inspiring and probably why.

27:25
your speaking gigs and things like that resonate with people because you don't have to have a loss of sight to be inspired by your resilience and the things that you go after. Because I talk to people all the time before some life shift moment that happens in their lives. They were just kind of like you just described, like kind of just going along and being a little lazy. And you know, like honestly, in my life, a lot of like after my mom died, I became, I just like took over these

27:54
perfectionism tendencies because I was afraid that if I wasn't perfect at things, then my dad would leave because my mom left in my small brain, right? She died so she was gone. So I was afraid my dad was going to do the same. And what happened was because I became this perfectionist, the grades came easier, all these things came easier. And then I was like, well, I don't have to do the hard things anymore. I can just do the thing that looks hard, but is a little bit easy. So I was kind of going down that same route.

28:23
And it wasn't until I went to therapy and kind of broke through the grief bubble that I was in until I was like, okay, now I can do the things that I wanna do. I can achieve the things that I want to do. And so it's like, I had to have this moment of a perspective shift, I guess, if you will, kind of like yours when you went to get your dog until I started getting out of that lazy mode. So I can see how your story would be different, maybe.

28:53
but also like how inspiring it could be to anyone that you do the things that you do. What it sounds like if I'm hearing you right, a lot of it could have been that you were maybe not taking as many risks. Of course not, because if I would have failed. Yeah, your brain, I mean, you wanted to be perfect. You wanted to fulfill or achieve every goal. And it's really hard to grow, to reach your full potential if you're scared of failing.

29:23
And you cracking that bubble that you talked about, the grief bubble, I'm sure unlocked a lot of ceiling for you in terms of what you were willing to experiment with and in pursuit of what was really deep inside you, what you wanted to achieve deeply inside of you, as opposed to just cashing in on the things that you knew that you could win pretty easily. 100%. And it was...

29:52
And I don't think I could have got there any sooner because of how I experienced the loss such an early age. It kind of was like embedded. And so it just took that journey to go on. And so, I think we all have these like weird parallels even though none of our lives are the same. It's just kind of like, we're human, I guess. And so we can be inspired by the turn of a switch. Like had you not walked in to get your guide dog at that time and like, or had you walked in and there was no one there, it was just...

30:22
getting your dog, maybe you wouldn't have had the same experience, right? I would have. My life would be totally different. It would be totally different. I could have easily still been the poor me victim who showed up there at 23 years old. But instead, I left just completely blown away with the living courage these people exuded. It was a really powerful moment for me.

30:48
That perspective shift is just so powerful when we have it, when we're lucky enough to get to experience that, and then what we can do with it after, it's just really powerful. And your own example, I mean, your life changed from that one shift. And I think, you know, if I look at kind of how my life has unfolded, I think we talked about your tendency to want to be perfect and not take chances. I think mine has sort of been the opposite.

31:18
And I think it's because of how I grew up. I think, you know, growing up and going blind is, you know, when you're bumping into things and you don't know what you can't see, you're learning your limitations, it's very uncomfortable. It's physically uncomfortable, it's socially uncomfortable, it's emotionally uncomfortable, and then you go blind and then you get a guide dog and it's leading you around and you're...

31:46
appreciative and grateful, but the first time you step inside a classroom or a boardroom or job interview with a German Shepherd, that's uncomfortable. The first time you board a plane, you realize, wait, I got to move to a new city, learn the layout of Atlanta. I'm from Knoxville. I don't have any friends here. I don't know how I'm going to get my groceries. I can't phone it in. There's no delivery service. How am I going to get my groceries? How am I going to do my laundry?

32:13
I can't drive. I only have one free hand to carry my stuff because I've got a German shepherd leading me around. I've got to learn how to write code to engineer software. I've got to make it to downtown Atlanta on the bus and train system. I can't see. How am I going to learn that? I've got to travel all across the country to go to client sites to do project work. I've got to learn new hotels, new airports. All these things were uncomfortable. They were incredibly uncomfortable. And so...

32:41
I believe that my life really has been an experiment of living outside my comfort zone. And the more that I lived in that space, the more my comfort zone began to expand. And so, you know, then next thing you know, I'm traveling to Asia or Europe or South America with just me and my guide dog not being able to see and it just being kind of normal and still getting up at 5 a.m. to go get my morning workout in and all that.

33:10
sort of led to the point to where I decided at 38 years old, I wanted to do something maybe a little unconventional for a totally blind person, learn how to downhill ski. And so, you know, now I ski black and sometimes even double black diamonds. And at 45, almost 46 years old, I decided, I'm going to start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because that's what totally blind guys do is they figure out if they can defend themselves against chokehold and arm bars, right? When they're competing in tournaments. And so I think...

33:39
What has happened in my life is it's been such an experiment of living outside of my comfort zone. I've started to crave that discomfort. And I find that through skiing and I find that through jujitsu and I find that through starting, you know, whether it's a new skill like speaking or coaching or being an author, all these things. But that's where growth happens. That's where innovation happens. That's where you're able to crack into new dimensions of yourself that you didn't even

34:09
nowhere there. And so, this blindness has been, you know, such a big challenge for me. But to your question earlier, has it benefited me in some way? And circling back to this tendency of wanting to be a perfectionist, it's like, I think because everything has been so difficult and uncomfortable for me, it's made me very comfortable in being uncomfortable, which has made it easier for me to experiment, to find...

34:36
new and better ways of doing things, to put myself out there and take a little more risk. And as a result of that, I've seen myself evolve in ways that I could have never imagined. When I went blind back in my 20s, I could have never imagined that I'd be where I'm at today doing all the things that I'm doing. But I think, ironically and paradoxically, it's because of the hardship that I've gone through, all of the adversity and all of the issues that I faced as a result of my blindness. Yeah. I mean, it seems like it...

35:04
because you had to live in uncomfortable situations and you one by one accomplished each of them or made it through or did it really well or whatever that may be, it also must build your confidence that whenever a roadblock comes to you, you don't necessarily shy away from it because hey, you've conquered so many before. So I can imagine how it just becomes almost like this, like you said, like a craving of...

35:33
All right, what's next? What else can I do? It is. In some way. I mean, downhill skiing, that seems to be something that is probably not too common for people with a lack of sight. Yeah. I mean, you find a lot of people. Or is it? It's more common than you would think. I'd say it's more common than you would think. The number of people who ski the way that I ski on the terrain that I ski, probably not as common because we go, we tend to cut it up pretty aggressively. We're not going down the bunny slope. You know, we're letting it rip.

36:02
down the mountain. The scariest thing are the trees and the people. We've got to make sure there aren't a lot of people out there. Don't want any collisions and try to avoid trees. Trees aren't very favorable for a blind skier. For anyone, really. Yeah. But I've tried, I learned to ski when I was 35 and I can see and I will never go on a black diamond. So. Well, there again, I think my blindness helps me because I can't see it. It doesn't scare me. I guess.

36:31
I guess, so yeah, I mean, it's just like, how did you, like, why did you wanna do that? Just because? Well, a friend contacted me, friend of mine that I went to high school with, we're close buddies, we've known each other now for over 34 years. And he was out in Aspen, he had a business partner who had a ski in, ski out place in Aspen, and they had an adaptive program where they had people coming down the mountain who would otherwise be in wheelchairs on a monoski. And he's like, hey, it'd be cool if they did that for people who can't see.

37:01
His friends said, you know, they do. And so we started looking into it and they guide. And so he called me and said, hey, I got a crazy idea, you wanna come ski? And I said, that does sound pretty crazy. Let me look into it. And then, you know, I had to get a little comfortable with the idea, just getting comfortable with the concept took some time, but I've been a, I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself a conservative person. I'm a pretty bold person, but I looked at it and saw that.

37:27
It wasn't just like two guys trying to figure out how to do it. There was a system for it and there were professionals who could help me learn how to do it in a safe way. And so we just started experimenting. I started getting comfortable with, you know, going down the magic carpet or the bunny slope and getting comfortable putting on the bindings. And year after year, for the first four years I went, I did three days of skiing. By the third or fourth year, I got to where I could do a black, got on some powder. Year four.

37:56
had a spill, fell into a tree well, got a little scary there, but that was my first time skiing powder and it was on a pretty steep black. And now we go, I've been skiing now for 10 years and we'll go two, three weeks every year and we just, we have a blast, an absolute blast. And so now it's kind of second nature of the skiing is the terrain and all those things. I'm pretty comfortable on just about any terrain that we find ourselves in. The moguls can be a little tricky sometimes depending on how.

38:24
how I'm notified about the moguls. Sometimes I've been ejected a couple of times from a mogul run. My buddy didn't tell me because we're on a run that we've never done and we hit moguls at 40 miles an hour. And sometimes that doesn't go so well so you get ejected from your skis. But we... I think that happens to those of us that can see. So I think that you're in good company with the moguls, especially if you've been to Steamboat Springs, that's all mogul.

38:50
I haven't been to Steamboat. That's actually on my shortlist. We do a lot in Colorado because we have a place out there. We go to Keystone and Vale and Breck and Copper A Basin and Beaver Creek. Snowmass, we go there. What's that? Snowmass over in Aspen. That's the place where I started, actually, with Snowmass. It's wide. It's very big. I love Snowmass. Yeah, especially up there on Big Burn. Love up there on Big Burn. A lot of my videos, you look at my ski videos, we shot a lot of those.

39:17
up there on Big Burn, Dallas Freeway, Wineskin, all those runs up there, had an absolute blast out there. Love it up there in Snowmass. Yeah, and it's nice to get out in nature, I'm sure, for you to just have that wind blowing, it's just a really cool feeling. It's the most free feeling I've ever had. My wife, I came back and she was a little, you can imagine my wife like, hey, babe, I wanna go skiing, I'm blind. She's like, have you lost your mind? And I'm like, well, I don't know that for sure. Find out. But what I do know,

39:46
And I told her this when I came back, that is the freest that I've felt in 16 years since I went blind. And she knew at that point, no matter what she said, wasn't going to change my mind. And she just said, look, just do me a favor, text me or call me when you get off the mountain so that I know that you made it out okay. But it's one of those feelings that you just feel connected to God, nature. It's marvelous, right? And I can't even appreciate

40:15
the visual beauty, but I can certainly appreciate the feeling, the sound, the smell, the sensation, all the things. There's, it's hard to describe for those who haven't had an opportunity, but it's almost a spiritual feeling being out there. I can imagine that. Would you say that the skiing was maybe the hardest physical thing that you've done since going blind, or was the martial arts as hard or hard in a different way? I would say probably

40:45
Martial arts is probably harder. Yeah, because it's constant. I go tomorrow, today I've been out of town. We talked a little bit before we hit record. My training philosophy is every day I'm in town, I train when I travel. I can't usually train because I'm on the road. This is my 18th day today of training straight. And it's two hours every day plus whatever I do for weight training on top of that. And this isn't like

41:14
It's a shame you have no stamina. I'm sorry for that. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know my body would hold up. I actually came back from three weeks wondering will my body hold up because it's very hard on the body. It is. Yeah, I would imagine. It demands a lot and it remarkably has held up pretty good. I was surprised to see that. But a lot of people, you know, there are martial arts out there that don't demand quite as much. Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu...

41:40
This is not a martial art that involves technique and no application in a live environment. Every day we apply the techniques that we learn in a live environment. So picture if you will, a two hour session, you roll in, you warm up for 15 minutes, you learn technique for 30 minutes, you do some situational fighting from a certain position for another 20 minutes and then you actually fight people in five minute rounds for another 30 minutes. So you're going pretty hard.

42:09
We have a pretty competitive gym. Now we're not trying to maim one another. We're all friends, we're close. And so we err on the side of caution. And you always try to roll to the skill level of your opponent, your partner. But it asks a lot of you. It demands a lot of you. It is the most uncomfortable thing that I've done because you're constantly in bad situations. You're constantly.

42:34
You're either being, somebody's trying to choke you, they're trying to arm bar you, they're trying to wrist lock you, they're trying to knee bar you, all these things, and you are having to work out of some very difficult situations and a lot of times, some very strong and technical people. Some of the guys, they've been in there for 10, 15, 20 years. They're absolute killers. They're large, athletic, nimble, technical, all the things that you don't want, but you do want, but you don't want on you. You want them to...

43:02
by your side, defending yourself against whomever's coming after you. But you know, we always say, iron sharpens iron. And it's very, very difficult. It's very uncomfortable, which is why I think I love it so much, is because it is the epitome of getting comfortable with discomfort. Because let me tell you, I don't care how talented you think you are, how tough you think you are, the first time you step on the mat, the first 10 times you step on the mat and somebody gets a hold of you who knows what they're doing, and they get you in a choke hold.

43:30
Man, it is terrifying. It feels like your head is being put inside of a vacuum cleaner bag. But a funny thing happens, right? The more you move towards that discomfort, the more you learn to settle into the terror, to lay down in the terror and get comfortable in the terror and submit to the terror. And you actually learn that instead of panicking and breathing heavily, you learn and condition yourself.

44:00
to bring your heart rate down, to slow your breathing, to calm yourself, to bring your heart rate down, and to calmly look for a way out. And ironically, oftentimes, these seemingly inescapable chokeholds that you find yourself in actually do have ways out if you can just stay calm enough to look for them. So it conditions you not only physically to actually fight for that amount of time and to do it day after day after day, but it conditions you

44:29
mentally, to look for the right technique. How do I get out of this? It conditions you emotionally to not panic. It conditions you spiritually to lay down and submit to the terror and get really comfortable and relaxed in the face of fear. And to realize that on the other side of your fear is growth. And if you don't get comfortable in the fear, you'll never get to realize the growth. So from so many different levels, it requires

44:59
so much of you, but I can't think of something that has made me grow more over the last several years than Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And the other thing that it teaches you is it's sort of the antithesis of instant gratification that we find ourselves in. You know, we live in a culture, a society that craves instant gratification. Whether it's I want to be a 25-year-old CEO or I want my overnight shipping from Amazon or I want a YouTube video or Instagram video to go viral.

45:30
Well, that doesn't exist on the mat. I don't care how talented you are or how nimble or strong you are. When you get on the mat and you're a beginner, you get humbled very quickly. And you realize that instant gratification does not exist in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu only through years of consistent practice, discipline and effort will you get better. And after, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, you may be great, but until then you're probably going to get...

45:59
be getting your dose of humility and humble pie from the people around you who have been doing it for that long. Yeah. Well, it's interesting too, as you describe all the elements of Jiu-Jitsu, which is really easy to say, it kind of mimics or not mimics, but represents your life and the way that you tackle things in your own journey of like the challenges that you might, that others might see. And you're like, no way I can just.

46:26
relax into it and know that I can accomplish it. And I know I can do this. And it just seems like this kind of parallel to the other things that you've done in your life, the way you described it, at least to me. I've never thought of it that way, but I think you're onto something. Maybe that's why I love it so much, because it does feel like such a metaphor for the way that I've lived my life. That's fantastic. Well, at least in the stories that you've told so far, it's like, you talk about these chokeholds, you talk about these arm bars, you talk about these things that

46:56
I would see in life as such, like in an experience of like, oh, that's gonna be really hard to do. Let's see how I can get out of it or let get through it or get to the next level or whatever that may be. And so I can see why it's like a microcosm of like your life in like each session that you go to. It's like, let me experience all of it here in this two hour session that I do each day. I love that. I never thought of it like that. Do you have, I mean,

47:23
Do you have something on your list that you haven't yet done but you want to do and you know it's going to be a big challenge for you or could be a big challenge for you or other people? Yeah, so there's some things I'm looking at doing a series that to be aired on PBS here in the upcoming the next several months. We're looking at shooting some footage at where, you know, they're it's called blind adventures. We'll be doing some things like climbing Kilimanjaro. I'm not too worried about that. It should be a pretty easy climb.

47:52
skydiving beneath the Arctic Circle. I'm not too worried about that. The one that gives me a little bit of pause is hella skiing, like jumping out of a helicopter on a pair of skis in back country. I don't know why. You know, that seems so easy. Yeah, I know. It'll be fine. Why not, right? Yeah, no, I know that's never going to be on my list and it's just, I'm okay with that. But good for you. Yeah, I'm not worried about it, but I do have some pause about it. I'll have to really think through

48:22
All right. What terrain are we being dropped off in? What do the avalanche charges look like around that area? From what elevation will we drop in from the chopper? Like, how far down do I have to jump before hitting the snow? All those things. Like, I'll have to get... It'll take me... Smart choices. I feel like, you know... Little details that kind of matter. Yeah. It's not like, you know, it's not like we're trying to...

48:50
I don't think you come across that you would take every risk that ever existed. But you might take some calculated risk. You might take some things that are challenging to you, but you're not going to do things that you know are just 100% unsafe for you. No, I have a family. I have a wife and kids. I want to come home to them. But I also don't want to live my life based on fear decision making. I will not live my life based on...

49:17
fear decision-making. The one thing that I know is I'm going to die. We are all going to die. The question is, are we going to live? And I choose to live. I will choose to live my life and I'll take precautions and I will try to not be careless. I will do my absolute best, but I also won't live timidly or in fear because something bad might happen. Something bad might happen, whether or not I- But that could happen anyway. Exactly.

49:46
Exactly. And so- That could happen walking to the mailbox. Exactly. Or yeah, exactly. Just sitting here at my house, I can have a heart attack and keel over and- And- Don't do that. I don't want to look back on my life and have regrets. The thing that I always look at when I'm thinking through these decisions, whether it's whether or not I want to go hella skiing or skydiving, or do I want to move to Atlanta to take my first job with a technology consulting company? I call it the future you exercise. And so-

50:13
Fast forwarding into the golden years, if we're also fortunate to make it there, when you look back on your life, what can future you live with? Can future you live with trying and failing in pursuit of a goal, or never knowing whether or not it could have been possible? And so for me in the long arc of life, I am more fearful of not knowing. I'm more fearful of having the regrets than I am of failing.

50:42
And so I try to let that guide my decision making when it comes down to these sorts of things. But certainly I try to be prudent. Like I'm a, I wouldn't consider myself risk averse, but I, you know, I do, I do want to come home, but I also, also want to live while I'm here because I know our time is short and the clock is ticking. Yeah. You know, I'm curious, and this is totally like off on a tangent, but I'm curious what a, what having a guide dog has.

51:08
taught you or has it taught you anything? Oh yeah. Like the dog itself or having a dog or multiple dogs or whatever it may be. Well the first thing it teaches you is patience. When you go blind and you rely on a dog to guide you around and patience never was my virtue, which is probably how I ended up going blind. I needed some more patience in my life. And so now, you know, I have to be more patient because the dog is doing the work. The other thing that it really instills in you

51:38
All of us need to make work fun. And my dog, you know, my dog does the work that he does because of the love and the affection, but also because the work is fun. If the work stops being fun, the dog won't want to do it. If I'm stressed out, that comes through to the dog. That energy is transferred through the harness to the dog. And so if I'm late or if I'm...

52:06
you know, lost in an airport or if I'm whatever, whatever is going on with me and my situation, if I let any anxiety transfer from me to the dog, meaning if I have anxiety about it, it will transfer. And if it transfers to the dog, then we've got like double trouble because now the dog is feeling the anxiety. So it just, it helps me kind of settle into the adventure.

52:33
of getting around and I realize I take these trips to overseas, whether I'm going to Singapore, Dubai or wherever and I can't see and I just leave the house and I know that, you know what, I'm probably going to get lost once or twice or maybe even a dozen times today. I don't know. I can't control any of that, but what I can control is whether or not I let it affect me. And I just choose to see it more as an adventure, as a challenge, not as a this.

53:00
you know, illusion that I'm going to do it flawlessly because that's just not going to happen and it helps me manage my own temperament, but also importantly the temperament of my guide, Major in this case, and make sure that you know he's comfortable and relaxed and we're having fun together and we may get turned around but we'll make it there. Maybe a little late, maybe not, but at least we'll be safe and in one piece. Right. So it's like a symbiotic relationship that is like

53:28
super beneficial in more ways than just being guided or having a guide. Absolutely. Yeah, that's so interesting. I've never asked someone that, so thank you for answering that. I think it was kind of assumed, but also I think there are some people that might look at a guide dog as more of a tool and less of a relationship and less of a, like, kind of we're attached and we have to get through this together kind of feeling. Yeah, yeah, maybe. Yeah. And if they do, I mean, it's like...

53:57
whether you're leading a team, if you're seeing your team like that, probably not gonna get the best results, right? I mean, leaders, great leaders know how to connect with people on an emotional level. And they know that people are driven to go above and beyond. They're inspired to give that discretionary effort based on the relationship. And that's where it starts, whether it's with people or with dogs. And so my question is,

54:26
How do you inspire discretionary effort from the people around you? And the only way I know to do that is through empathy, through compassion, through love, and through the bond that you create. Yeah, which sounds like you really fell into as these different moments in your life kind of smacked you in the face, like the perspective change when you got your guide dog, or when you heard from people after your speech at Harvard, or...

54:54
when you went for the training for the leadership, like all these little moments kind of cracked you open to be really exposed to just having this empathy and being able to listen and care and genuinely care and not just like on a surface level care, but like really understand how people might feel. Funny how life works, isn't it? I never really anticipated that. I've never really anticipated that. You know, I was at a senior leadership offsite years ago. It was back in 2011 or 2012.

55:24
And I remember sitting there where the company was going through a big transformation and I was the senior leader at the company. I remember having this epiphany at the moment that I had always looked at people's ability to deal with change through my own lens. And I was sitting there wondering, gosh, I mean, we had some changes to benefits and we had to do some things that on the surface seemed a little draconian and that was hard, but come on people. I mean, it's not the end of the world.

55:53
I was looking at how they should perceive these things based on my own basket of life experiences, which is incredibly unfair. It's an incredibly unfair thing to do. And so that was probably, excuse me, the first big epiphany on that journey that I had of having more empathy of, holy smokes, I'm holding everybody else accountable for using my own measuring stick for resilience.

56:21
And that's completely unfair. I've been through so much more than the average person to expect them to be able to see it as flexibly as I do. It's just an unfair thing. And so that was a big aha moment that sort of began this cracking open of that empathy. And certainly I've come a long, long way since that time, 12, 13 years ago. Well, even with that, like thinking back to, you know, the teenage version of you as you.

56:50
new things were getting a little bit closer, like knowing who you are now and all the cool things that you do for yourself, with yourself, and for other people. What would you say to that teenage version of you? What would I say to the teenage version? I'd probably say just pause, take a breath. Things are going to end up a whole lot better than you could ever imagine.

57:18
And that's just, I mean, when I was going blind, before I went blind, if you had told me that I'd be doing what I'm doing today and have the level of, and not even just traditional success, but like meaningful work, contributions to helping other people and being able to do it in a way that, you know, is consistent with my values and reuses and repurposes a lot of what I've been through.

57:46
I kind of feel like I got the cheat code to life, to be honest with you. Kind of feels unfair that I get paid to do what I do, but it feels really great doing well by helping others do well for themselves. It's just phenomenal. Right, and like you said, that version of you probably would be like, what are you talking about? You know, like, I can't even imagine that. Or maybe not, maybe you knew because you were pushing through things. I don't think that version of me had a clue that this existed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

58:16
It's like you said, life is, what a journey and the things that we learn along it. It's very, very interesting to hear your story and very inspiring in a way that is like, just go for it. Because like you said, when you're in your golden years and you're looking back, are you gonna be like, damn, I wish I would have done that. Or I wish I would have tried. Or I wish I would have stepped into that because I think I would have liked it, whatever that may be. So thank you for just sharing that message, whether that was intentional or not.

58:45
Thank you for sharing your story in that way. That was not intentional, but that's what drives me because I realize the clock's ticking and we don't get do-overs. So, you know. Well, if people wanna like learn more about you, like what's the best way to get in your orbit or is it your website? Is it finding your book? Like, how should we find you? Yeah, if they go to chadefoster.com forward slash life shift.

59:11
Got a welcome page for everybody here. We've got some giveaways that they can access, but that takes you to my website from there. You'll see my social media handles. You'll have links for the book, all kinds of videos there, articles that I've written, press pages, all kinds of different things. That's the best way to find where I'm at. Obviously the books on Amazon and wherever fine books are sold in any format you can hope for hardcover audible.

59:37
Kindle all the things, but all those links, if they go to that website, again, it's ChadEFoster.com forward slash life shift. Awesome, we'll put that in the show notes. We'll put some of the other, your social media in the show notes as well, so that they can connect with you. You know, my ask for people listening is if something that Chad said today resonates with you, reach out.

59:59
to Chad or if you know someone in your life that just needs to hear this message and whatever stuck out with you, please share this episode with them. I would be so ever grateful. And I just wanna thank you again, Chad, for just being willing to have this conversation and not knowing where it was going to go and allowing that to happen. Absolutely, I enjoyed it. Thanks so much. Thank you. If you are listening and you enjoy what you hear, please leave a review and a rating and all the stuff that I never asked for. That would be wonderful.

01:00:28
And until next week, I will be back. Well, I don't know what I meant to say there. I meant to say I will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Chad. Thank you.