Chris Waddell is a powerful motivational speaker who is the epitome of his message: “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you”.
The Power of Change
Chris helps audiences become champions of their businesses, their worlds and themselves. He has spoken to nearly every industry and kind of audience—from Fortune 500 Companies to non-profits, from sales groups to venture capitalists and engineers.
“Bumps and the bruises don’t stop him. His website says that he is an Extreme Athlete, Mountain Bike Racer, Paralympian, Husband, Father, Friend. From experience, I can tell you that he gives each equal weight. He’s the best friend you could find. I’d imagine that daughter Ella and wife Heidi would agree that he makes them feel like the most important people in the world. And he’s never had a bad day.”
The Power of Change
- Learning is painful and hard
- 2 diametrically opposed desires: security and growth
- Stop growing learning and dreaming we’re essentially dead
- No choice. Change or perish
- Our greatest moments, when we look back, are when we changed for the better
- Opportunities to learn from each other. What happened? What did you do?
- Eliminate emotional part: Change doesn’t mean failure.
- Change before change finds you
- Culture of change: pursuing a direction, accepting that there will be specific diversions along the way and opportunities to revisit the strategy
Achieve Your Goals
- How often do we say that something is impossible and it’s entirely true until someone does it? Why not us?
- Depression after competing. Didn’t want to be passionate. Cut myself off from optimism, the trigger to my greatest power.
- Dream, imagine, make it personal
- Achieving goals=growing as a person—confronting fears, improving skills, growing confidence
- Confidence not what we can do—it’s knowing we can handle whatever comes our way
- Goal bigger than ourselves. Make a difference and tap into greater power
- Learn triggers to best self. How were you at your best?
- Run toward fear
- Eliminate obstacles
Embrace the Struggle
- No matter how smart, rich, strong, educated we are we will struggle. Death of loved ones, divorce, bankruptcy, disease, addiction or many other things will have the power to force us to question everything we believe about ourselves and every decision we’ve ever made.
- I know struggle of traumatic injury but more damaging the struggle of complacency, indecision, and insecurity
- When I look back I miss the struggle (the two a day training sessions, the times that I was so sore it felt like someone had hit across the top of my back with a baseball bat) more than I miss the medals. The daily struggle was the part. It was my connection to my world and friends and colleagues
- Struggle was belonging
- We have the ability to determine how we react
- Be the underdog
- Don’t take yourself too seriously
- Talent abandons us when it’s most needed
- Grind
- Little things matter, daily routine, showing up everyday makes change
- What does winning look like
- Find strategies (those are yours. You made a difference)
- All guaranteed is struggle and journey
- Struggling is a game we can win either by emerging from struggle or turning struggle into something we can enjoy
