Episode 56: The Gifts of Going Blind with Chad Foster: International Motivational Speaker
“I wasn't responsible for my blindness, but I had to be accountable for my life and its outcomes. It's my life. I have to own it. It's your life. You have to own it.” - Chad Foster
Failed it! Fam, on today’s episode we have inspirational speaker, Chad Foster with us! He truly took lemons and made lemonade with the visual impairment he acquired in college. With his blindness, he has done so much more than thought possible – a Harvard Business School Leadership Program graduate who climbed the corporate ladder and only wants to share his story so people don’t have to go through what he’s gone through to learn what he’s learned. Please give a warm welcome to Chad Foster!
In today’s episode, Chad talks to us about:
Living life blind
Overcoming challenges through resilience
Ambitionitis
#SargeTheGuideDog
Links from show discussions:
About the Guest: Chad Foster is a husband, a father, and an avid snow skier who is not just competing with his condition, he is competing with the world's most successful people. Chad believes he is not successful in spite of being blind, but rather he is successful because he is blind. He embraced his problem and turned it in to a solution. Can you imagine going blind as a teenager? When most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad Foster was watching the world he grew up in fade to black, but that didn't stop him from becoming the first blind person to graduate from the Harvard Business School Leadership Program and climbing the corporate ladder as a successful sales executive throughout his career. His financial strategies and decisions have resulted in the creation of countless jobs. Billions of dollars in revenue industry leading growth and best in class margins. He works at Red Hat, one of the most innovative tech companies and the world's largest open source software company, which was recently purchased by IBM for 34 billion. With determination, ambition and drive, he created what Oracle said would be impossible. He gave millions of people the ability to earn a living by becoming the first to create customer relationship software for the visually impaired. While with speaking invites from London to Beijing and the Atlanta Opera commissioning an opera inspired by his life story, Chad inspires people to overcome their own blind spots.
About the Host: Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Episode 56 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hey friend, are you a leader who is career-focused, goal-driven and possess a life long learner mentality? Do you dream about achieving your goals and spend hours Googling how tos and gurus? Does a side effect of your awesome, might I add, personality include perfectionism, the dreaded imposter syndrome and the ever-present fear of failure? Well, you've landed in the right place. We just became virtual BFFs. I'm Erin Diehl, the founder of the improv training company improve it! And a recovering perfectionist turned failfluencer. Inspired by the improv rule, there are no mistakes, only gifts, this podcast is the creative outlet you need to not only motivate you, but the people that you lead through interviews with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and even comedians. You'll walk away becoming a more empathetic boss and realizing that failure is a part of the journey and you must fail in order to improve. In the scene of life, we all have our own unique guests that we bring to the world, and it is our mistakes that help to unwrap them. Welcome to failed it!
Erin (01:20):
Hey, failed it! Fam I am honored, thrilled and beyond excited to share today's guest with you today. Welcome to the failed it! Family Chad Foster. Welcome Chad.
New Speaker (01:34):
Thank you. I appreciate you having me.
Erin (01:36):
You're so welcome. And the failed it! Fam does not know what they're in for. We were just chatting before the show and I've been getting to know you through doing some research for today and I'm just so thrilled. And I know our failed it! Family is going to gain so much from this conversation, but let me just start off real quick. Chad, I got to pump you up. I'm going to read your bio really quick to the failed it! Fam. And I just want you to sit there and bask in your glory. Are you ready?
New Speaker (02:03):
I am. Okay. Might be a little uncomfortable, but I'm ready.
Erin (02:06):
Yes. Yes. Just get comfortable. Let put on some deodorant in case you get a little sweaty, just get ready for it. Okay. So Chad foster is a husband, a father, and an avid snow skier, that is not a joke, who is not just competing with his condition, he is competing with the world's most successful people. Chad believes he is not successful in spite of being blind, but rather he is successful because he is blind. He embraced his problem and turned it in to a solution. Can you imagine going blind as a teenager, when most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad Foster was watching the world he grew up in fade to black, but that didn't stop him from becoming the first blind person to graduate from the Harvard Business School Leadership Program and climbing the corporate ladder as a successful and sales executive throughout his career. His financial strategies and decisions have resulted in the creation of countless jobs. Billions, I said billions of dollars in revenue industry leading growth and best in class margins. He works at Red Hat, one of the most innovative tech companies and the world's largest open source software company, which was recently purchased by IBM for 34 billion. Lots of talks about billions in here. I love that Chad. Okay. With determination, ambition and drive, he created what Oracle said would be impossible. He gave millions of people the ability to earn a living by becoming the first to create customer relationship software for the visually impaired. While with speaking invites from London to Beijing and the Atlanta opera commissioning an opera inspired by his life story, Chad inspires people to overcome their own blind spots. Chad, welcome to failed it. Holy cannoli.
New Speaker (04:09):
Thank you. That's a mouthful wasn't it?
Erin (04:13):
Just gave the whole, we just gave your whole story in your bio, but no, I mean, when you hear that, what do you think? Are you like, who is this person? Do you internalize it?
Chad (04:22):
No, I really don't internalize it. To be honest. It makes me feel, I don't know. It makes me feel, you know, as you're going through those things, like anything in life, you know, you're not stepping back and looking at it at 50,000 feet, like you're able to do once you've been through it. So as you're going through it, you're just trying to take that next best action. And you know, you do that throughout your life and then taking those moments to step back and look and say, Oh, wow actually that was pretty cool. Or I did have fun doing that. And those moments are inspiring when you stop and think about it. It is, it is a little bizarre to hear that. Cause certainly I wasn't thinking of it as any of what you'd said when I was going through it.
Erin (05:07):
I believe that, I mean, I couldn't relate to that on some many levels. And I'm going to read this tweet that you just made me think of. I just pulled it up. So it says, I feel like I'm constantly worrying about the next part of my life without realizing that I'm right in the middle of what I used to look forward to. And I felt that. So I think that that's yeah. I mean, that's, you have accomplished so much, you've overcome so much. We're going to talk about it as we get into the show today, but I want to start with a little fun fact. Okay. So what is one fun fact that we couldn't find out about Chad Foster from your bio, from your LinkedIn profile? We know you're a skier, which I got to talk. We got to talk about that, but tell us what's another fun fact about you that we wouldn't find on that bio or your resume.
Chad (05:55):
I don't know. I'm trying to think of what is fun, to be honest with you. I mean, anything, anything that's coming to mind is kind of like, okay, I enjoyed it. I enjoy going to concerts or I enjoy comedy shows. It doesn't really feel super fun. I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm not as good of a, of a car driver as I used to be. Is that fun?
Erin (06:17):
That is fun. It's fun. And I appreciate that. And I also think too just looking at your bio, I mean, you had so many fun facts already in there, like the Atlanta opera is commissioning an opera inspired by your life story. What?
Chad (06:33):
Yeah. That was a bit of an unusual thing, how it happened. So I was selected as the graduating speaker when I went to HBS and I kind of had this weird feeling that it was going to happen. So I prepared for it. I got someone to help me write my talk before I was even elected before we'd even voted, flew to Houston, met with him, wrote a 12 minute talk, flew back to Boston and then was elected as the speaker at our graduation. And so obviously I was prepared because I just had this bizarre feeling that I was supposed to do it. You know what I mean? One of those things that nothing had been talked about, but I just, I knew that it was supposed to happen. So I give a talk and for the first time in my life, I try to use my story to reach people.
Chad (07:23):
It was the first time in my life. I'd been ignoring this side of me for my entire life. Everyone, you know, from time to time, I would be out and about and someone would tell me, Hey, you're inspiring. And that just, it was weird for me to hear that because I never really saw myself as inspiring. I saw myself as a guy who was doing what he had to do to get by. I was doing my job. I had to learn how to write code, to do my job. And that was one thing. And then I'm using a guide dog to get around and I'm going to my daughter's school and giving a talk. And her second grade class, I didn't see myself as inspiring, but people had kept telling me that. But for the first time at Harvard Business School, I tried to use my story for the first time.
Chad (08:03):
And I saw firsthand just how much it can help other people. And I guess what I didn't realize at the time is how much it helped me to, by taking my greatest struggle and flipping it into a strength and helping other people deal with the curve balls that life throws at them. And one of my classmates, one of the gentlemen in the audience was Thomas Zvulun, the general and artistic director of the Atlanta Opera. And he said, when I was talking, all they could hear was music. And they wanted to commission an opera based on that talk. And based on my story that I told that day. So it's really, you know, really unusual basket of circumstances. Something certainly I would not have envisioned saying 10 years ago. Right.
Erin (08:42):
Sure. And also I just got chills when you said that that is, I mean, it's just, it's some beautiful story. I'd love to start at the beginning if we could just to give a little bit of context for the failed it! Fam. So can you tell us how you started to become visually impaired? I know you said that was when you were a teenager. I don't want as, as, as much as you want to share, but how did that start to happen? And when did you start to, because you weren't born visually impaired, right? You, this happened through time and through a disease.
Chad (09:13):
Yeah. So I have a genetic eye condition called RP or retinitis pigmentosa, and that's a genetic eye condition and it's autosomal recessive. And so what that means is I got two bad copies of the same gene. That's why I'm symptomatic. So neither of my parents are symptomatic. So, you know, you can infer that they're both carriers. They had one, one, good copy, one bad copy. My brother is not symptomatic. So he came up on one side of the dice. I came up on the other role of the dice and growing up, I could see, okay, I played sports, played football, played basketball, drove a car, rode a bicycle, motorcycles, jet skis, all that was very active growing up. I had problems though, and really dimly lit areas. And that's where my problems began. And then eventually over time it just started to get worse and worse and worse until eventually, you know, in high school it really began to fade.
Chad (10:09):
But particularly from 18, 19 years old is when I saw it really start to decline. So I was in college and studying, I wanted to go into the medical field because I thought I wanted to help other people. And then all of a sudden I went blind in college, totally blind, had to get a medical withdrawal from my major and from my classes. And then it wasn't even sure if I could help myself. Cause you know, I couldn't even get around. You know, you see yourself as a hard charging young man eager to make a difference in the world. It's pretty hard to see yourself like that when you're not even able to walk by yourself. And so it was a, it was a tough time because my self identity came into question, all the fears that I had about what would be possible, what sort of life would I be able to live?
Chad (10:53):
I had all these high expectations for myself. Were those reasonable and based upon the people around me, you know, it didn't seem very hopeful, you know, based on either friends or family or society, generally people don't put high expectations on you after you go blind. And it was just a tough time because we ask children all the time, what do you want to be when you grow up? But none of them said they want to grow up and be a blind person. So, you know, you have to figure out how you're going to reinvent yourself in the face of some pretty significantly different circumstances.
Erin (11:25):
Chad. Oh my gosh. Thank you for sharing that and know what you have. You have literally taken the lemons and you've made lemonade. You have done so many incredible things and I love that you're sharing your story and I love that you're so comfortable sharing it now and that I'm sure it took a long time to get to be more comfortable sharing it, right. I'm sure you had to kind of go through it and live it and then come out of this side to be able to be here with us today. So you have done, with a visual impairment, more than people have with full vision. I hope you realize that you've, you've become the first blind person to graduate from Harvard Business School Leadership Program, right? And then you've climbed the ladder in your corporate finance and sales role. And you've, you've been working at one fantastic company, Red Hat.
Erin (12:15):
And as I mentioned to you before the show, our failed at family is primarily composed of corporate leaders who are driven to succeed, but ultimately fear, failure, and rejection. And we call ourselves recovering perfectionists, turned failfluencers. So I want to ask you this, as you were going through this corporate ladder, did you ever encounter comparisonitis, imposter syndrome even going through, let's say Harvard Business School and then going into corporate America, did you ever encounter these feelings of imposter syndrome, comparisonitis and how did you become resilient to that? Cause I know you talk about resilience and it's so important for so many, especially knowing the challenges that you have come through. How did you overcome those feelings with resilience?
Chad (13:13):
Yeah, I think the thing that ended up getting me through a lot of the circumstances that I was facing, and I guess before I click into that, certainly I faced comparisonitis certainly I was looking around and figuring out how I was going to be successful in a highly competitive environment when I was working with less than everyone else's available resources. And so there were a couple of things that I, that I did. The first thing that I did is I decided to hold myself accountable regardless of my circumstances. And I could sit around like all of us and I could find legitimate reasons to fail. All of us can find legitimate reasons to fail and those legitimate reasons to fail may comfort us in the moment, but they don't take us towards our goals. And I kept thinking about what I wanted out of my life and whether or not I wanted it more than I wanted to take time off at the end of the work day or sleep in on the weekend or not put in the extra work on whatever skill, project activity that that I wanted to do.
Chad (14:28):
But my drive to succeed was greater than my desire to take my foot off the gas pedal and that I used as leverage to compel me to take action and hold myself accountable. And if you fast forward in your life and you're say, we're also fortunate, we make it until retirement and we're 70 or 80 years old, pick a number and we look back on our lives and we don't get what we want out of our lives. We're disappointed. Would it have been better to comfort ourselves in the moment and say, that's all right, Chad, you, you had legitimate reasons to not get to your goal that might make the younger version of Chad feel better, but the older version would still be disappointed with life and life's outcomes. And so we're not all responsible for our circumstances. I wasn't responsible for my blindness, but I had to be accountable for my life and its outcomes. It's my life. I have to own it. It's your life. You have to own it. And so I decided to adopt that philosophy early on, and that is one of the things that allowed me to power through some, some fairly significant challenges.
Erin (15:39):
Chad Foster that. Let me just say something, give this man a stage right now because I'm like, I'm going after that dream, I'm going, I'm not stopping. And you know what, that's what this show is all about. And that's what you're all about. And that's what your message is. And it's so clear to me that you're meant to speak about this, that you're meant to empower others, that you're meant to share this story. And God, I, I want to keep diving into more about you because I have more questions about failure I want to get to in a moment, but I want to talk tactically a little bit. So you now work for Red Hat and you've created what Oracle said would be impossible. And we mentioned this in the bio, you created a customer relationship software for the visually impaired, which is just crazy. I mean, we could talk probably at length about the tactical and how that was created and the technology and just how you did that. But I want to step aside and I want to talk about the emotional level.
Chad (16:39):
Okay.
Erin (16:40):
What did you feel emotionally after you created something that Oracle essentially said would be impossible? What was your emotional state? And I hope that you were able to take a step back and reflect on this one, but I want to hear what, right after that was put into the world. What did you feel?
Chad (17:03):
Honestly? I think I, at the time I had achievementitis, right. And I, I wasn't really good at stopping and reflecting as someone. And I think all of us, well, I don't want to broad brush everyone, but I have a tendency and I'm better at this now than I was years ago when I did what you're talking about. I think a lot of us have a tendency to have our foot on the gas pedal so much that we don't stop and appreciate what we've done and what we've gone through. Certainly I didn't, I didn't really do that the way that I should have back then. So the way that it happened, just a quick thumbnail, someone came to me, friend of mine that I'd worked with at Accenture, came to me and said, Hey, we've got a customer who has problem with the CRM system.
Chad (17:48):
They have a blind and they need a way to, to make it work. So I just, I went in and said, all right, let me take a look at it. I spent a few months, wrote a solution, got this employee up and running. He was doing his job with CBO Heiner activity framework, which was the CRM solution that Oracle had bought from CBO. And then a year or two later, I get an email on a distribution list. It says, Hey, you know, we're looking to have someone work with CBO Hunter activity and this person's blind. Is it possible? And everybody's saying no. And I said, yeah, actually it's possible. I've done it. And I said, okay, well, can we have a call? So we get on a call. They were there. The customer was the prospective customer. Oracle was there. And my customer that I had done this for was there.
Chad (18:30):
And so basically everybody's saying that it's not possible to do it. And I had a customer there said, yeah, he's he did it. And I I've been using it for the last year and a half. So it wasn't like I went into it, you know, after I'd written it, I didn't know that I'd done anything particularly special. I just, I did what I had to do to get to the other side of the, of the goal. I got this gentleman up and running so that he could do his job. And then a year and a half later, I found out that Oracle and others were telling people that it wasn't really possible to make these two systems talk to one another. So I guess ignorance really is bliss. And in a lot of situations, I wasn't, pardon the pun, but I wasn't blinded by what the expectations should have been.
Erin (19:11):
You don't even understand how much I love puns around here. So that does. Wow. Also I want to touch on something you said that I've never heard before - ambitionitis. That's a real thing, isn't it? That's a real thing. I'm going to Google. I'm going to Google, but I've never heard it used in that term. I've used, I've heard comparisonitis ambitionitis. I, this is going to be a new, a new phrase around this joint because that's what a lot of our peeps have. And myself included.
Chad (19:38):
It's easy to fall into that trip where you you're so focused on getting to the next goal that you don't take time to stop and relish what you've just done. And certainly I was, I was definitely a victim of that earlier in my career. Now I try to take a little more time, mark the occasion, put more event celebration around something like that, so that you can kind of internalize it a little bit better and appreciate it. But yeah, it's a, it's a trap that's easy to fall into.
Erin (20:08):
Oh my gosh, I love it. And I'm glad you shared that with us.
Erin (20:13):
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Erin (21:50):
And so now you're, you're at Red Hat. You're currently, still there crushing it, growing, continuing to grow in your role, but you're also speaking all over the world, right? And I know that you, do you travel with your companion, your giant German shepherd, who I saw on the sizzle reel is that your companion that you travel with?
Chad (22:10):
Yeah. My guide dog, Sarge is my seeing eye dog now. And I've had him for a couple of years in storage. And I have probably been to 20 or 30 countries in the last few years. And we go everywhere together. And Sarge is fantastic. Actually, as of our recording date here today is international guide dogs day, big celebration to all the guide dogs out there and all the people who make those guide dogs possible. I don't know what I would do without mine. He's a big part of my livelihood and it's pretty cool that I get to take my best friend with me everywhere that I go.
Erin (22:47):
Oh my God. Sarge, we're giving you some love from the failed it! Family.
Chad (22:52):
#Sargetheguidedog.
Erin (22:52):
Okay. That's a thing I'm going to look in that. That's a thing. All right. We're going to put that in the show notes. That is so cool. And I'm just, I'm just so proud of you for taking this to the stage for spreading this story for making people feel empowered as you know, this is the failed it! Podcast. So the show is all about using the most important rule of improv comedy, no mistakes, only gifts.
Chad (23:21):
Well, you know, what's interesting about that is what I didn't realize is how incredibly fulfilling it would be. Once I started talking about it, giving motivational talks or conducting resilience workshops or with the book that I just recently put out, when I connect with another person on that level and use my story to help them navigate the obstacles that fall in their way and connect with them on that deep and meaningful level. It's so rewarding for me that it makes going blind worth it.
Erin (23:55):
Wow. Wow. I love I'm gonna, I want to say that again. Can you say that again? I'm like, that's it.
Chad (24:02):
It makes going blind worth it because all of a sudden I discover that I have this incredible gift that was wrapped or disguised in some really ugly wrapping paper. And you don't really know that you're being handed a gift in the moment because the wrapping paper is so ugly and so hard to look at and, and hard to digest, but how many people could I help had I not faced the adversity that I faced in my life if I hadn't learned how to be happier and more successful and navigate some really difficult conditions, I wouldn't be able to connect with people on that level. And so now I know that I lost my vision to help other people find theirs.
Erin (24:48):
Oh my gosh, I literally have tears coming down my face right now because I've never heard it described in that way. It's a gift dressed up in really ugly wrapping paper. And I just think it's so beautiful that you've realized that you are really what this show is all about. You are taking those gifts and you are you're, you are looking them in the eye and you were saying, this is my advantage. This is how I'm going to help people. You've in fact, you, you mentioned this, the book that you have out, can you tell us a little bit about that and what that writing process was like and where people can find it, all of those things?
Chad (25:33):
Sure. So the book is called Blind Ambition. How to go from victim to visionary. They can find it at any of the major retailers it's on Amazon, Apple books, Barnes and noble, bookshop, Books-A-Million. They can also find all those links on my website, which is ChadEfoster.com. And the book really is about my journey. So it's written in the form of a memoir and the stories are told, obviously with the point of illustrating the lessons that I've learned over the course of my life, so that people don't have to go through what I've gone through to learn what I've learned, the process of going blind in college and relearning how to learn. I was a visual learner, which come to find out it's not very helpful when you're blind. So I just had to relearn how to learn and then learn how to use a computer and eventually learn how to write code to engineer my software, without being able to see my computer screen and then get a, get a college degree. And it turned out I was a better blind student than sighted student made straight A's, made the Dean's lift list after I went blind and went on to, like you said, go to HBS and start climbing the corporate ladder in the business world. And then eventually getting to a point where I can, I can motivate people, tell a story, write a book and and, and continue helping. But the process of the writing the book itself was it was a really interesting process. I think when I ended up learning throughout all that, and I had folks helping me write it, editors and publisher, and bringing all that to life in a way that in a very, I think crisp but engaging way so that it doesn't feel like a textbook, right?
Chad (27:16):
It's more of a story. I wanted people to be compelled to keep reading, but obviously all the stories are there for point. And at the end of it, I've got some resilience exercises so that people can continue to work on themselves because as I was writing it, I discovered that all this is great, content's great. But I kept coming back to the, so what, you know, what about me as the reader? And so we put some exercises at the end. That's a lot like the resilience workshop activities that I do for corporate teams, but it's for the reader, they can take those exercises and apply it to their lives. So they've read my story and they've read what I've learned, but then it's taking it and applying it to their lives and how they can benefit from that. But the thing that I learned from all that, the interesting thing is I wrote everything down. I thought, you know what? I need to get a hobby. I spend all of my time. Right?
Chad (28:09):
I looked at all these years that I've been in the workforce. And it seems like I've always been doing something extra, you know, something just above and beyond. And I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but I think I'm the kind of person who, who has always had my foot on the gas pedal. And, you know, it's been really hard for me to create that space, to, to stop as we talked about earlier. But I think it's, it's really important. And so now I do have a hobby, a little bit more of a hobby, and, you know, you'd mentioned earlier, I like to go downhill, snow skiing.
Erin (28:39):
I'm glad we circle back to this. Okay. Yes. Let's talk about that. Chad, give us the insight on that.
Chad (28:46):
So about seven years ago, a friend of mine called me and said, Hey, I'm out here at a buddy's place in Aspen, Colorado. And they have a program out here where they help people ski who have physical limitations, some of them skiing a monoski, some of them can't see. And I said, know, I don't know. That just doesn't really sound all that safe, you sure? I should really strap on skis and go down this big mountain? And he said, yeah, no, it's no problem. So me being the adventurous type than I am next year, I'm on the same mountain at Snowmass, Colorado. And I tried out for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it. For the first time in 16 years, I wasn't tethered to a cane or a dog leash or a person I was free. And many of your listeners may be wondering, how does it actually work? And the short answer is someone skis behind me and we're both wearing Bluetooth, earpieces and microphones, and obviously helmets, because when you're skiing blind, you need a really good helmet.
Erin (29:50):
Yeah.
Chad (29:52):
They're telling me which way to go left and right. Whether or not it's a hard left or a hard ride. And that was seven years ago. And so now I've graduated a little bit skied black and even double black diamonds. And it's actually a bit of an advantage. The fact that I can't see my friends telling me that when we're skiing, the double black was it last year, we were on Cirque headwall and Snowmass and he was looking around and he said, Chad, it's a good thing you can't see around us cause it's absolutely terrifying.
Erin (30:23):
Oh my God. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. The last time I went skiing, Chad, my husband was literally, this was a green. Okay. He was pushing me from behind to go across. Like I literally like just stopped in the middle of the mountain and he was pushing me to go horizontal, not down, horizontal. And my brother-in-law is pulling me with his ski. I'm a horrible skier, no, no coordination whatsoever. And this fact that you're doing double black diamond. Oh my God. I'm just impressed by you. I mean, left and right.
Chad (30:56):
Either it either exemplifies how courageous or stupid I am - it's one of those two. It's probably a little bit of both, but I do think not being able to see, gives me a bit of an advantage. And what I mean by that is when you're looking at the mountain and you're at 13,000 feet staring down the mountain, it can be pretty intimidating. Right. I could see for 20 something years. So I can imagine what that looks like. I've never seen it personally, but I can imagine how intimidating that looks. I don't see that, I'm not intimidated by what my eyes are telling me. I'm just focused on the next turn. So while other people are seeing this mountain top to bottom and going, Holy smokes, how do I get from here to there? I'm not looking at that. I'm only focused on the next turn, taking that next best action left turn, right turn. And I think that's a lot of what trips people out and, and in the real world.
Erin (31:51):
I have just, yes, go, go, go. Because it's such a metaphor. I can't even handle it. Go.
Chad (31:56):
It is. It's absolutely. A lot of people are, they have this big audacious goal and we need big audacious goals. We all need bold visions of greatness for ourselves to inspire us to action. But once we get up to the top of the run, metaphorically speaking, and we look down, a lot of people get too scared. They're so scared that they don't make that next turn. And they're looking at this big, this big event, this big goal, this big mountain, however you want to look at it. And they're, they're so scared that they get psyched out and they don't take that next turn. And I think that's a shame because if they could just focus on that next best action, I think we're all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for. I think every person listening to your podcast is capable of more than they're giving themselves credit for. I am capable of more than I give myself credit for. We all are. And so we want to aspire to these bold visions of greatness for ourselves, whatever these goals are. But then it's just not focusing so much on what that is in the moment, in the moment of execution, when it's time to make the turn looking at that big mountain, that big vision can, can, can be overwhelming. And so it's really important in execution to really pull back and just focus on the next best action and executing that as flawlessly as we can.
Erin (33:21):
I literally need, I wish this was like, I'm just going to take this out of the show and put it on a poster and write all of the words that you just said down so that I remember this every single day, because you are living proof that if we take tiny steps and we don't focus on, we need to know that the mountain exists, right. But we don't let the mountains scare us. We just allow the tiny, tiny steps that we take in between to happen and to just conquer turning left, turning right. Whatever it is that you will get down that mountain, you will conquer that mountain. Chad you're, you are rad. Okay.
Chad (34:07):
You'll be, you'll have more fun. And you will face the things in your life that will give you the most amount of joy and reward and film it because you know, your, the things that scare you the most are the very things you need to be taking on. Yeah. Right. Those are the things we need to take on. And the way that you do that, isn't, you know, the first time I was scared, the first time I skied, I didn't start my first time on a double black. Obviously I started with lower consequences. I started on a bunny slope or a magic carpet. And then eventually you start teaching your brain that, okay, it's cool to be out of my comfort zone. This feeling of being out of my comfort zone is actually a good thing. And if the consequences aren't too low, I can recover just fine.
Chad (34:53):
And I can start expanding my comfort zone. And then all of a sudden you work up from the magic carpet to the bunny, to the green, to the blue, to the black, to the double black, you can do that in life too. Your next career goal, right? You should have a bold vision of what your goals are in life. And you should chase those goals with everything that you have. You also need to make sure that the consequences of failure aren't too great, right? Because we should be failing. I believe that all of us should be failing from time to time. If you're not failing from time to time, then you're not aiming high enough. I told my, my ski pro the first time I went out and said, look, if I don't have a major yard sale, which is slang for a big wreck, then I know that this trip has been a complete waste of time. I'm here to flirt with my edge of control. And that's true on the mountain. It's true in life. We need to be falling every now and then otherwise, number one, we're not aiming high enough. Number two, we're not learning how to pick ourselves up when that time comes. Cause it should come.
Erin (35:53):
Yes. Oh my God. This is truly some of the best failure quotes I've heard literally. I mean, and I talk about failure every week on this show. I am going to use everything that you just said and quote you Chad. Okay. I am just so many good juicy chicken nuggets that I want to dip in a dipping sauce of good information. I mean, this is truly what we talk about when failed it! Is as you know is based out of improv comedy. And one of the biggest things that we talk about and the work that I do is getting comfortable with the uncomfortable and then you're doing it. I mean, you're just doing it and doing it and doing it. And those reps start to feel like every time you start getting yourself a little bit more comfortable, it just feels easier and easier. And look at what you've accomplished. Look at what you're doing with your life. And so I wanna, I'm gonna take this home, Chad. So I want to know number one, what did you fail at today? Just today.
Chad (36:54):
Today I failed to get up at 5:00 AM. I got up at 6:30 AM for my workout instead of 5:00 AM, which threw my schedule off. And so that was, for me I like to get up at 5:00 AM for my early morning workout and then get some mindfulness in before I start my day. Because I believe that just like when you're flying on an airplane, they tell you when cabin pressure drops, if cabin pressure drops, we hope it doesn't. But secure your mask before you secure the mask of anyone around you. For me, that's my morning routine. My morning routine is Chad securing his mask. So getting up 5:00 AM getting my hour sweat in, getting my 15 minutes of mindfulness in and then getting my shower and everything else for me is my routine that allows me to secure my mask. So that was my failure for the day.
Chad (37:46):
I still got my workout in today. It wasn't on my schedule that makes me feel the best about myself. I know how I show up as my best self and a big part of it is that formula. But I haven't woke up the, the excuse that I, I do believe that, you know, we all tend to make excuses and this I didn't, didn't get up at five because I woke up sort of in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep, but I still had to get had to get it in, but that would be my excuse that I would use for myself as, Oh, I didn't, I didn't sleep well. Last night I woke up at one 30 and was up for two hours.
Erin (38:18):
Oh, that's the worst. Well, I got to tell you you're you are preaching to the choir right here. This failed it! Family is all about a morning routine. We've had episodes on it so that I feel that too, if I don't get up and do exactly what you do, I don't, some days I get up at five 45, some days like today was a seven o'clock I'm not going to lie to you. And I still got it in, but you just feel off. Right? You feel better the other way.
Chad (38:43):
Yeah. You do. You feel like, you know what I showed up today, I am my best self. I know that that is the recipe for my best self. And I think all of us need to take inventory of what that formula is for us. I know for me what it is and what I tell people to do is they can start journaling on days that you feel like you are crushing it, days that you feel like I have got this, every meeting you're just slam dunking every question, every conflict, everything that comes up, what did you do that day? What'd you eat? What did you do last night? You know, journal, write down and start identifying. What's the formula that allows you to show up as your best self? And all of a sudden you start identifying some trends. Well, if you can identify a framework that allows you to show up as your best self, why not do that every day?
Erin (39:31):
Yes. I'm giving you a yas. I mean, amen. Yeah. I mean, this is so true and it's so it's, it takes discipline and it takes effort, but then you control the day to day doesn't control you and yes, yes, yes, yes. So there with you. Okay. Chad, you've made it to the end of failed it! However, I have one thing left for you. It's called the fail yeah lightning round. Okay. There's a little bit of improv here. A little bit of thinking quickly on your feet, but guess what? You've been improvising this whole time. So you're going to nail it. So I'm getting, I'm getting, you're like, Oh God. So easy. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions and know that I want you to respond as fast as you can, but you can only respond with a one word answer. And know you cannot fail, but if you say more than one word, I'm going to give you a fail yeah like that. And it's just a super creepy, weird voice. Okay. Fail yeah. Just like that.
Chad (40:35):
Okay.
Erin (40:36):
Okay. Chad, are you ready for the failure lightning round?
Chad (40:39):
Yes.
Erin (40:40):
Already nailing it. Here we go. Okay. One word to describe your early career.
Chad (40:46):
Challenging.
Erin (40:47):
One word to describe where you're currently at in your career.
Chad (40:51):
Expanding.
Erin (40:52):
One word to describe your future self.
Chad (40:57):
Thriving.
Erin (40:57):
One word to describe your favorite boss.
Chad (41:01):
Incredible.
Erin (41:02):
One word to describe your least favorite boss.
Chad (41:05):
Maniacal.
Erin (41:06):
Oh, one word to describe your speaking style.
Chad (41:11):
One word is going to be hard. One word to describe my speaking style.
Erin (41:18):
Fail yeah Chad!
Chad (41:18):
I haven't answered yet!
Erin (41:18):
You're right. Okay. Okay. Okay. What is that? What is it?
Chad (41:20):
It's entertaining.
Erin (41:21):
Yes. Okay. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. One word to describe your skiing style.
Chad (41:29):
Aggressive.
Erin (41:29):
And one word to describe this interview.
Chad (41:32):
Fun.
Erin (41:41):
Yes! Golf claps for Chad. Yas! Oh my gosh. You totally nailed it. You didn't fail it. Tell the failed it! Family how we can find you the social platforms. We're going to link to your book in the show notes and make sure if anyone is out there listening, grab a copy of Blind Ambition, tell them where they can find you on all the things.
Chad (42:01):
Yeah. So we're on Facebook and Instagram at FindChadEFoster. Twitter is ChadEFoster. And obviously I'm on LinkedIn. Again, my web page, my home page, where the people can read about the book and speaking and all the things that I offer is www.chadefoster.com.
Erin (42:22):
Love it. And again, we'll link to all of that. So feel that fam check out Chad. He is so awesome. So first of all, Chad, thank you so much for being here today. I want to say your gifts have truly been a blessing to us here at the failed it! Family. And I say with so much confidence that you are failing it and you are allowing your gifts to help others. So I just want to thank you again for sharing your story with the failed it! Fam today.
Chad (42:52):
Absolutely. I enjoyed it.
Erin (42:54):
And to our failed it! Fam fail yeah. Fail frickin yeah friends. Thanks for tuning into failed it. I am so happy you were along for the ride. If you enjoyed this show, please head on over to iTunes, leave us a five star review and subscribe to the show. So you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Now, if you're really feeling today's show, please take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram @keepingitrealdiehl and share it to your stories so we can bring more people to the failed it! Family. I'll see you next week, but I want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm so proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next time.