10% of Life

Hey team, Workshop Wednesday and here we are. Wow! January is moving right along and I’m excited to see you guys.

So, “life is 10% what happens to you, and it is 90% how you react to it.” I’m not going to tell you who said that because I want you to look it up. With phones today, and Siri, and all that kind of stuff, you can probably find that relatively easy.

But I want you to hear what I am saying. “Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.” I really believe that. I’m gonna tell you why, but before I do…

The reason I want you to look it up is because; the first on-site day, the first on-site night, the first patrol officer day, the first patrol officer night. Including dispatch, and CEIC. Whether you work day or night. The first person on each of those teams that reports back the answer to that question, guess what? Wheel spin! That’s right! I love giving stuff away. So, I’m going to give away five or six wheel spins for the first person that can tell me who quoted and said that statement. “Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.”

Alright, so now that you’re going to be looking it up, finish listening to what I have to say. Why do I say that it is “10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react.” Because how you respond matters greatly.

I’m going to tell you a quick little story. There was this little boy and his teachers thought that maybe he was slow. That he was maybe, not quite learning at a quick enough pace. So, they wanted to put him in special ed. So, they put him in special ed and that pissed that little boy off. He got so angry. He got so frustrated. That he became what they said. They held him back in the second grade. That little boy refused to grow. He had a lot of problems through life because he didn’t learn at the same rate and pace. He held back and kept from learning for such a long period of time. So, when it came to reading, and it came to writing, it came to those kinds of things.

He was really good at arithmetic; he was really good at math. And He did some really great things with some stuff. He was good at sports, he was decent at wrestling and running and doing those kinds of things. But not at reading, not at writing. So, he went through life. And he didn’t have a very easy time when it came to English and things like that.

When he got to a certain place in his life, he realized that he held himself back. He kept himself from growing and learning. It hurt him throughout his entire life. By the time that little boy got into his 30s and 40s, I started to realize that I held myself back because I reacted to a problem in the wrong way.

Because life is “10% what happens to you, but 90% how you react to it.” If you resist the change, if you resist the things, then you don’t advance. It took me many years to truly transform and grow out of that shell. I also had to learn how to do relationships differently and better.

Now some of you are sitting there going “wait a second, he was telling us about a little boy, and now is Chad admitting to being the little boy?” Yeah! See, I believe in transparency. I believe in being honest. Life is “10% what happens to you.” I’ve accomplished a lot of things in my life, but I’ve had great adversity. I had a speech impediment until I was ten years old, I couldn’t read very well, and so they held me back.

I ended up graduating from high school within three years instead of four. And I graduated a whole year early with a very piss poor reading level, to be honest with you. But I accomplished great things. I was telling team members the other day; I scored sixth highest in the nation in 1987 on a nationwide math exam for business mathematics. Maybe I missed my calling. I don’t know. Maybe I should have stayed in numbers and stuff. But I did some great things in my life, and I’ve accomplished an awful lot for having so many setbacks.

But they still hurt me. I want you to understand that. They still did hurt me. They still made it harder for me and I had to try that much harder. I had to work that much harder, later on in life, to overcome some of those things.

Some of those things I have never overcome. I still spell horribly. If it wasn’t for Siri, if it wasn’t for spell check, I would truly look like a moron, most of my life. If it wasn’t for my wife, and Codie, and Sonja, and having people in my life that are around me that proofread my stuff. I would look like an idiot.

I have grown tremendously, and I continue to grow, but it was a huge setback. It all stemmed from something happened to me and my reaction to it was negative. My 90% of my reaction caused me to have it more hard, more worse in my life.

I think that everybody that’s listening to what I’m saying right now and look at your own life, and you can say, “you know what, yeah, I’ve made some mistakes.” Take an inventory and recognize that when something happens you when somebody says something to you, you have choices, right? You can snap and burn out a relationship, you can walk away from that guy or that gal. You can walk away from that boss, you can walk away from that coworker, or friend.

But it’s going to not do the greatest thing for your relationship long term because you’ll run into another situation very similar. Because if you don’t learn how to deal with that 10% properly of what’s happened to you; and I’m not saying that it’s not nice, it’s not cool, right? I mean sometimes things that happen to us are wrong. They’re not fair but, end result is, it is life and life is hard. It hits you hard sometimes. So, therefore your reaction to it still can get you further down the road.

If I would have never turned around my reaction to life and what had happened to me when I was younger, the fact that I had slipped so far down. I could be still having a chip on my shoulder. Still having an attitude, and still, be that much worse off. Instead of turning it around for myself.

You can do the same thing. You can turn it around. I don’t care if you’re 70 years old, right now. I don’t care if you’re 50. You can turn it around. Whatever it is. You just have to try. You have to be willing to.

Respond. That 90% of it is you responding and reacting to what has happened to you. You can go back, and you can fix it. It is possible. Or you can at least fix what the problem is and move forward in a positive way.  Whether it be relationships, be schooling, be education. Whatever it be.

All right, that’s a pretty deep message. I want you to think about it. Remember. Respond.

Tell me who said it. First day shift, night shift, Longview, down here. I don’t mind giving away six or seven-wheel spins. Tell me. Throw me the answer. Who said it? “10% of life, right. What happens to you. 90% is how you react to it.” So, I want you to think about that. Let Siri help you. I know you’re going to use Google. Nobody’s going to, you know, just know it necessarily.

God bless you guys. I will see you next week. I look forward to this year.

Be valuable because, you know, nothing less will do.

All right, I’ll see you guys!