Guy Reams (00:01.646)
Today is day 171, resilience is earned. So there's a lot of talk about resilience in our society, especially in American society.
We just seem to have a universal admiration for resilience in people. It's oftentimes portrayed in popular culture. We always are emphasizing humanity's innate survival instinct. We even have reality shows that demonstrate people's ability to survive on an island naked for a day. That's how enthralled we are with resilience. But this is a lot of times fake.
And it's annoying at times. I see and hear people talk about how resilient they are because they suffered through. And, you know, I have to admit this. I have never had my true resilience tested. For the most part, I've led a very comfortable life. I mean, I've had some hardships. I mean, I've had some failures. I've had some disappointments. I've lost. I've lost and I've won.
I've been sick, I've had some health challenges, but honestly, none of my issues are anywhere near what a lot of people have to deal with or what my ancestors dealt with for that matter. So I really don't have a claim on the label or the badge of resiliency.
So what is resiliency is an interesting question. But I do know one thing, all humans have the ability to be naturally resilient. It's like part of our DNA for us to overcome the odds and survive. Like our desire to survive is probably one of our single greatest ambitions as a human.
Guy Reams (02:06.424)
as a species. So we never know how we're going to react when we're put into a situation where we just have to survive. And we look at people that have gone through something harrowing and we admire that and we're like, how could they do that? But we never really know how we're going to respond until we're in the situation to be resilient. So I believe we have this inherent capacity.
And unfortunately, it's unacknowledged and unknown because most of us live in a modern society now where our life is not generally in threat. I mean...
There is obviously world conflict going on. There's obviously extreme poverty going on. I don't want to undermine that or diminish that because it's true and that's tough. But we live in a time in our world today where more than any other time in the world, we live in relative comfort compared to what it might have been a long time ago. Now we have a lot of room for improvement. However, most of us, especially in modern society,
have not really gone through anything close to testing our true results.
So a while back ago, I interviewed Greg Gadsden, who was a former colonel in the army. He gave a speech at a company retreat I did, or was at, and he was just really motivating to me. So Greg Gadsden, if you don't know, he's been in movies. He's kind of a popular person. But he had an incident when he was in the army where he got hit by a bomb.
Guy Reams (03:52.846)
It was either a mortar shell or a roadside bomb. I don't remember which, but he got hit by one of these and ended up losing two legs and losing most of the use of one of his arms. So I remember he was telling me the story of how he woke up the next day. Now, the story of the heroism to save him is really quite incredible. I recorded an interview on this on my podcast channel.
But but and and you can go at Google it and he's got other you can hear his story personally on Google on YouTube or something, but he But what was really impressive to me was the moment that he had when he woke up at the hospital that then a couple days later and he realized the state of affairs that he was in and it's kind of like he had this moment where I had to look in the mirror and really ask himself, you know, I
Who he was or who he was going to be or can he go on? And, and I just thought now that is somebody who, who really demonstrated true resilience. Cause he did pick himself back up. He did figure out how to live and thrive and survive. Uh, you know, being so crippled, um, and, and having his life completely change out from underneath it. And I'm sure he went through some tough times. I'm through, I'm sure he went through depression because I certainly know I would have.
but he overcame that and he's turned it into something magnificent and great. So in my mind, he earned the badge of resilience. And so true resilience is not something that you can manufacture. I think it's something that you gain through profound adversity that's forced upon you. You can't really claim it for yourself. Now, you can, however, make a choice.
You can choose to surround yourself with individuals who've had these experiences and you can learn from them. In many cases, you can help them because they may need help. You can gain growth and inspiration from their resilient test. And that's the way you can gain some of the benefit that they've experienced. Now, unfortunately and sadly, there are many that are faced with this type of
Guy Reams (06:19.086)
life -threatening or destitute type of situation that don't survive. They don't survive for many reasons, but they don't make it through. And that's sad. I remember reading a poem by Emily Dickinson that talks about that. It talks about the only real true hero is the one that dies on the battlefield because they know the ultimate cost. So we don't really.
understand or never will know until we're in that situation ourselves, but we can learn and we can grow from them. And I think that's inspiring to us and to many others. Now, so anyway, I do try to reach out to people that have gone through these experiences that have really had their ultimate resolve tested, and I've gained a lot from it. So thank you.