Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPSnacks: Lessons From Nazi Camps, Near-Death Experiences, and Other Life Traumas | Dr. Edith Eger, Donald Miller, Benjamin Hardy, Amy Morin, Colin O’Brady, and Alex Banayan

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. Hey everyone, you're listening to Yapsnacks, a series of bite-sized content hosted by me, Hala Taha. Today's a little bit of a different topic, but it's definitely an important one. We're talking about trauma. Trauma can haunt us or trauma can motivate us.

Starting point is 00:00:41 And before we get started, I want to share my most traumatic experience with you all. And I'm freestyle in this. So I'll tell the story the best I can. I'll try not to get super emotional so that we can just get through it together. So in March of 2020, my entire family got COVID and we were one of the first families impacted by COVID.

Starting point is 00:01:04 And I get a call from my sister and at the time I'm living in Brooklyn with my boyfriend. I'm working at Disney streaming services. I've had this podcast for about two years. It's just a hobby. It makes no money. It's a notable podcast, but nowhere as big as it is now. And I got a call from my sister and she says, Hala, your mom, your dad, your brother, your aunt and uncle down the street, all have COVID. I'm going home to help them. She's a doctor. I want to know if you want to come with me,

Starting point is 00:01:30 I'll pick you up, you've got 30 minutes. And so I was like, of course, I'm going to come. So I packed my bag and little did I know, I was going to essentially be in watching New Jersey away from my boyfriend and my life and my work for three months because we went there to help my parents. We caught COVID. The shutdown happened. Everybody started working from home. And I stayed at my parents house because my friends and my boyfriend weren't going to see me. At that

Starting point is 00:01:56 point, it wasn't like you got COVID in 10 days later, you hung out with everyone again. At that point, getting COVID was like really crazy. And nobody wanted to hang out with everyone again. At that point, getting COVID was like really crazy and nobody wanted to hang out with me for months. And so I was super isolated. So my dad ended up getting super sick. And everybody else got better. My dad, after three weeks or so, we tried our best, but he was getting severely sick. We ended up having to send him to the hospital. And I remember as they wheeled him in the ambulance, he said, we're never going to see him again if he goes to the hospital. And he was right, we never saw him again in person. And it was just so tough. I think the most traumatic part about all of this

Starting point is 00:02:35 is that I wasn't allowed to see my father in the hospital. And my father was such a good man. He was my hero. He came from nothing. He pulled my whole family out of poverty and was was such a good man. He was my hero. He came from nothing. He pulled my whole family out of poverty and was just such a generous, good man who helped so many people. He saved so many lives. He was a doctor, a surgeon. He put like 20 people through college. He was an amazing man.

Starting point is 00:02:59 And it's like nobody deserves to die in such a terrible way. And like that really bothered me that nobody was there to like hold his hand. At this point, everybody was so scared of COVID, rightfully so, that even like nurses really weren't giving anybody attention. It's kind of like he was like left to die by himself for like 30 days in the hospital.

Starting point is 00:03:18 He was just like tormented and suffered. And every time I saw someone zoom, he was unconscious. He looked visibly distraught. He would be making crazy faces. Didn't look like himself. And it was really hard. And I would just sit there and try to just beg the nurses to let me go on Zoom. And I would try to sing to him. And I would notice that he would like sort of like relax when I sing to him. And like that made me feel better. But nonetheless, we were never allowed to see him. And I remember I was on a call, dishearing services, working from home,

Starting point is 00:03:51 at my mom's house, and we get a call that my dad died. And then he wouldn't give us like a chance to see him in his last moments. They didn't allow us in the hospital. But then they allowed us to see him when he died. So we get there and they only allowed us to go one by one into his room. More traumatic. I get there and I see my dad and he's so swollen and his eyes are open and his fingers are so swollen. I just remember how I remember how I'm in the room because he just looked so messed up and I just felt like,

Starting point is 00:04:26 God, why didn't you guys just let us be there? We could have helped him if he just allowed us to be there with him. And it was just so hard for me. And while he was in the hospital because I had nothing else to do, we weren't allowed to go see him or anything. And I had all this free time because my boyfriend didn't want to see me. My best friends wouldn't go to see me because everybody was scared of me. So I had nothing to do. And I was working from home. I had so much time that I ended up starting yet media. And I'm so happy that I was given the opportunity to have that moment in space to actually create this company. And I eventually broke up with my boyfriend of 10 years,

Starting point is 00:05:08 another traumatic experience right off the back of this one, because he started stonewalling me because I started this company and it literally blew up as soon as I started it. And as soon as my dad died, I took my role and responsibility in life a lot more serious. I decided I was going to be the number one female podcaster. I decided I was going to start a company that was going to enable me to accomplish that dream.

Starting point is 00:05:35 And everything took off, immediately took off. Within three months, I was on the cover of Podcast Magazine, interviewing Matthew McConton Hay. Right? And within six months, I was an entrepreneur and I was able to quit my job at Disney Streaming Services and my side hustle was generating over $150,000 a month. That was six months into it. Everything just snapped, took off. And a lot of people asked me, like, Hala, you went through such traumatic 2020. How did you make it the best year of your life

Starting point is 00:06:10 when it started as the worst year of your life? How are you able to just get over that trauma and create this business through all this pain and through all the things that you went through? And my answer to them is that I was lucky enough to be the host of this podcast. Every week I was listening to powerful people and every week I heard people stories and I heard how they overcame adversity and innately subconsciously I didn't think about it. Subconsciously I knew exactly what to do when that trauma hit me. I knew exactly what to do. I knew I had to turn my pain into purpose. And actually, that's why today I felt inspired to put out in this episode. You can hear it in my voice, maybe that I'm a little bit stuffy. I got COVID for the third time

Starting point is 00:06:56 and I'm getting over it right now. And so it reminded me of all the trauma that I faced. And that's why today I'm going to put out this episode on trauma and how you can use it to your advantage. So let's hear first from Dr. Edith Eager. She's a Holocaust survivor on how you can use your imagination to escape traumatic situations. When I was at the Latvian, a girl next to me found a mirror and I couldn't understand, where do you find a mirror in a place like that? And in no time at all, I see the same girl with the mirror and she told me, I'm a re-Antoinette in my Buddha-ar. See, you take your imagination, and I remember in Auschwitz, you know, they even took my blood like twice a week.

Starting point is 00:07:54 And I asked, why are you taking my blood? And the guy said, to eat the German soldier so we can win the war and take over the world, especially America. I couldn't yank my arm, my way, but I said to myself, with my blood, you're never going to win the war, you know, I was a ballet dancer, I was a gymnast and so they could throw me in a gas chamber, they could beat me, torture me, and yet they could never touch my spirit. Wow. But you can, nobody can.

Starting point is 00:08:32 What else happened in Ausa Witch? Like, what was daily life? Like, like you just mentioned, they took blood from you twice a week. What are those things to do witness? I think Ausaitz was hell. And right now we are experiencing a situation that we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And that's a very, very unfortunate place to be because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So I, I, to put on your curiosity and recognize that you never really think of suicide because you want to know what's

Starting point is 00:09:17 going to happen next. And that's what gave me a lot of my curiosity. And what we had was each other. So when I was asked to dance for Dr. Mangelen, who came to the bed, there was my school teacher from the Jewish school who taught me to do as I am told. And I remember I closed my eyes and I pretended that the music was psychosky and I was dancing the Romain Julia at the Budapest Opera House. So you had to go beyond the Mimi, Mimi, we had to commit ourselves to each other as we

Starting point is 00:09:59 do now. And it was very important. So you were just saying that you used your imagination when you were in the concentration camp to kind of keep your sanity. So you wouldn't get depressed. You wouldn't be suicidal. You used your imagination. Are there any other tactics that we can use today if we're in a bad situation, no matter?

Starting point is 00:10:18 You know, I don't think there's things as extreme as being in a concentration camp. But let's say you're in an abusive relationship or let's say you're in a bad work environment. How can we take these traumatic, any traumatic situation that we're currently in and make sure we protect our mental state? What do you suggest that we do? I tell you one word that is not in my vocabulary, I can't. So when I'm in a classroom, I run to the blackboard, I say, I can't equals, I am helpless. And then I take the eraser, I take the apostrophe, and the T, I can, why? Because I think I can. I think very importantly, because you see when cannibals and broke out in that camp where I was liberated, and people were eating other people's flesh,

Starting point is 00:11:16 my liberator told me that people were eating at that horse, which I did not see. But to see I was able to look up at God and I wanted to see the sound of music because it was there and I looked up at God and I asked God to help me and God told me just to look down and I remember I am choosing one blade of grass over against the other. So when people say I can't, say I'm helpless, that's not true. You can choose one blade of grass, even then I had a choice. So that's why I'm not a shrink, I'm a stretch. And today I'm guiding people to stretch their comfort zone and not to give up so quickly

Starting point is 00:12:14 ever because there is hope and hopelessness. There is the light after the tunnel. There is a rain, after the rain. It's just how you look at things. I think it's very important, not what happens, but everything, everything in life is an opportunity. I'm going to share a very, very personal story with you and I think it will help my listener. So COVID-19 happened and last March, my parents got COVID-19 and my dad ended up passing away in May from COVID.

Starting point is 00:12:50 And for a whole month, I watched my dad die on camera. Sorry. I watched him die. I'm so sorry. I'm so okay. For a month, I just watched him die every day and we weren't allowed to see him and it was terrible. And I remember my uncle, who's his best friend, he would refuse to even watch him on zoom

Starting point is 00:13:11 and he told me, you know, you'll never get those images out of your head. If you keep watching him like this, this is how you're going to remember him now. And it's true when I think about him, I keep seeing him in the hospital. So it's like, what do we do with traumatic images? Like how do we get that out of our head? Sorry. But I think this is helpful for everyone. I'm sure you've seen, you saw so much worse stuff.

Starting point is 00:13:34 So what I'm even crying about is nothing compared to what you saw. So it's like, how do we get these traumatic images out of our head? What do we do? You know, when a woman came to me and told me she was sexually abused, and I don't know how I can tell you, Edy, because you were in Auschwitz, and my answer to her was, you were more in prison than I was, because I knew the enemy. And so, when you have a feeling about your dad, what comes out of your body, they will not make you ill, crying is very good, very healthy, to go through the value of the

Starting point is 00:14:15 shadow of that, go through it. And how would value when your father died? you when your father died. It was just last year, so I was 30. So you can think that you didn't lose your father, you had him sent to you for that many years. And so sit down and invite the feeling, stop denying, stopped running from the feeling, it's okay to grieve. You know, I'm a psychiatrist now, and we're working on death, and they do not medicate grief. It's not clinical depression. You have to really acknowledge that half of you is your dad and you're carrying

Starting point is 00:15:09 good blood and you can't heal what you don't feel. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a 4-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University Podcast. The Millionaire University Podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Starting point is 00:15:41 Hosted by Justin and Tara Williams, it's the ultimate resource for those who want to run a successful business and graduate rich, not broke. Justin and Tara started from Square One, just like you and me. They faced lows and dug themselves out of huge debt. Now they're financially free and they're sharing their hard earned lessons with all of us.

Starting point is 00:15:59 That's right, millionaire university will teach you everything you need to know about starting and growing a successful business. No degrees required. In each episode, you'll gain invaluable insights from seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors who truly understand what it takes to succeed. From topics like how to start a software business without creating your own software, to more broad discussions such as eight businesses you can start tomorrow to make 10K plus a

Starting point is 00:16:21 month, this podcast has it all. So don't wait. Now is the time to turn your business idea into a reality by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. New episodes drop Mondays and Thursdays. Find the Millionaire University podcast on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Next up, let's listen to Story Brand CEO and founder Donald Miller. He talks about Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, Next up, let's listen to Story Brand's CEO and founder Donald Miller.

Starting point is 00:16:45 He talks about Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, and how you can still find meaning in your life even under the most unbearable circumstances. Well, Victor Frankl was a psychologist in Vienna in the 1920s and 30s. And he basically said, man's dominant desire is a desire for a deep sense of meaning, which feels like purpose in their life. And he developed something called logotherapy, a therapy of meaning in which he prescribed a certain way

Starting point is 00:17:19 of living to people, which gave them a deep sense of meaning and helped them overcome depression, anxiety, and a bunch of other stuff. And he applied it inside the Viennese hospital system specifically for suicidal high school patients. They had a serious suicide problem around the time grades were released. When he applied logotherapy, when he basically taught them to live as heroes on a mission, suicide rate dropped to zero. wide-logo therapy when he basically taught them to live as heroes on a mission, suicide

Starting point is 00:17:45 rate dropped to zero. And he was writing a book on his theories when World War II broke out. And the Nazis began to collect Jews and put them in concentration camps. Being a Jewish man, Victor Frankl was taken with his wife who was pregnant. His wife, Tilly, was pregnant with their first child. She was murdered. His parents were murdered, the manuscript in which the thesis was confiscated and taken from him.

Starting point is 00:18:14 He spent years, I believe, in four different concentration camps and survived. After he survived, instead of being despondent, Certainly he was in incredible pain, but he rose out of that victim mentality and began delivering lectures around the world on how life in fact does have meaning and is in fact beautiful. And of course, who's going to argue with him? Right? I mean, I'm sorry, your sugar cravings don't measure up to what this guy has been through. Yeah, if he's not a victim, then nobody has the excuse. Right. And so he was incredibly influential on this book and influential on me, you know, personally, I'd say you saved my life and maybe saved the quality of my life, but just a wonderful, wonderful person who has proven

Starting point is 00:18:56 that life, in fact, has been what's really interesting about Victor Frankl is he didn't actually tell us what the meaning of life was. He told us how to feel it. And he doesn't answer the question, what is the meaning of life? Or why does life have meaning? He just says, here's how you experience it. And so what it does is it makes the stuff I talk about in the book. And that's what the book is. It's a prescription for logotherapy.

Starting point is 00:19:23 And it makes the work theologically agnostic, philosophically agnostic. You know, I was meeting with a friend having coffee at an acquaintance, I should say, back in Portland many, many years ago. And they were, they were, they was very obvious they were in Nileist. And they said to me at one point, well, you know, life is meaningless. And I, I said something a bit offensive to them. I wrote about it in the book, but I said, what if life is not meaningless? What if just your life is meaningless? And of course, they didn't think that was very funny.

Starting point is 00:19:49 But what I meant by that was, what if the stuff that you were doing inside of your story is giving you a bad experience? And what if it's not life itself? In other words, what if you're writing a book and what you're actually saying is, this book is not interesting. And the good news is if we can get ourselves to believe it

Starting point is 00:20:09 and understand it, is that the book can change. If you know how to live a certain way, the book can get really, really interesting, really fast. And I'm a living testament to that because I really like my life. It's not always easy. It's not, I cried myself to sleep when I really like my life. It's not always easy. It's not, you know, I cried myself to sleep when I had to put my dog down. There are painful, painful

Starting point is 00:20:29 elements to it. There are hard things. Today, we took Himalayan to get her last shots at the doctor and hold your crying baby while she doesn't understand why somebody's poking her with a needle. They're just tough scenes in life. And of course, I'm being very, very light in the people listening have some very, very painful scenes. And yet, we can choose to do things with our life that give our life a deep charge of meaning and beauty and go to sleep every night being grateful for the incredible experience that we're having. Yeah, the thing that keeps coming to my mind was this concept of personal agency.

Starting point is 00:21:06 As you're talking about the fact that it's not that life is gonna be perfect. There's gonna be ups and downs, but it's how do you treat those ups and downs? How do you have perspective towards them? Can you talk to us about personal agency and what that is? Yeah, personal agency is similar to internal locus of control. It's belief that you have the power.

Starting point is 00:21:26 The one thing that you have the power over that nobody can take away from you is your perspective on life, including your perspective on very, very difficult things. When painful things happen to us, we can either have a victim perspective, which as well as me, I'm doomed, please send a rescuer, or we can actually say to ourselves, wait, this is painful, and also, it somehow benefits me. It's both, and that's the prescription that Victor Franco would give to his patients.

Starting point is 00:21:57 He would say when something very painful happens, acknowledge it, don't be a delusional optimist, acknowledge it, grieve it, and also realize it comes with benefits. And when the most, in other words, redeem our pain. I met a young man who, his son, he came home from church, his wife had stayed back at the church, came home from church and his three-year-old son, they went to take a nap and three-year-old son woke up, went into the garage, got back into the car, closed the door and died of heat exhaustion.

Starting point is 00:22:35 And he came to me and he said, Don, I wanna write a book about this, I need to process it. And he ended up writing a book and now he travels the country and he helps people understand how to grieve the loss of a child. He did something with it. Now does that bring back his son? No. But what it does is it redeems the pain and uses it for good. And that has given his life a deep sense of meaning. So any of us can do this. And what's the alternative?

Starting point is 00:23:08 The alternative is buy a truckload of whiskey, get a divorce, and drink yourself to death. I mean, well, you know, that's the victim life. And we're not going to do that. We're going to redeem our pain. It's never healthy to stay in a victim's mindset, yeah, fam. Here's Benjamin Hardy echoing Donald Miller on the importance of having hope for the future.

Starting point is 00:23:35 So the reason Fronkel is so important, and again, man search for meaning when the most important books in the world, he was a Jewish person who in 1942 was taken into the Holocaust, right? One of the German Nazi concentration camps. And what he found with people who are living in such dire situations, we really, I mean, unless you actually study the Holocaust,

Starting point is 00:23:56 you don't even understand what I'm saying. It's gibberish right now. It was almost unfathomable how bad it was. Like the people were starved, they were thrown in gas chambers, people were shot in the head right next to you. Like you're sitting doing grunt work. For months, months, months, years, and years, and years,

Starting point is 00:24:13 everything's been taken from you, even the clothes off your back. You're standing there naked, deprived of everything, deprived of your dreams, deprived of everything. And what Franco noticed when he was in those situations, because he was a psychologist, and so like he was paying attention to this stuff, he was very in tune with what was going on in people's heads and like, why are some people resilient and even be happy in these crazy conditions, and why some people would get desperate, lose their minds. And he started to draw an interesting

Starting point is 00:24:41 correlation, which was in those dire situations when you're kind of deprived of everything and you're also starved physically. I mean, they were only given like a small piece of bread every day. Is he saw an immediate correlation that like when someone lost hope toward their future, within days they died in those situations, like their body didn't have enough to sustain them. If you and I lost hope in our future, we'd start to fall apart physically. We'd probably lose our health.

Starting point is 00:25:07 And hope from a psychology standpoint is like air to your physical body, like food and air. Like you need hope because who you are right now is largely dictated by your views of the future. So basically what Fronkle found was that unless you had a specific goal, which is a huge aspect of hope, without a specific goal that gave your life a specific goal, which is a huge aspect of hope, without a specific goal that gave your life meaning and substance, you couldn't handle the present,

Starting point is 00:25:30 especially when it was that bad. And so that's why he always quoted Nietzsche, which is when you have a why to live for, you can bear almost any how. And so everything he did, and he literally, he layers it, and I share the best quotes of it in future self, but he says, you know, when you lose hope in your future, you know, you're doomed But he also said that everything we did in the concentration camps to give people hope or to even help them to be able to

Starting point is 00:25:54 Manage their mind or manage their motions was we had to give to them a goal in their future Which they could work towards and he himself He literally stated the goal that gave him towards. And he himself, he literally stated the goal that gave him purpose and gave him meaning and allowed him to endure the trials. And for him, it was he wanted to be reconnected with his wife, Tilly, who was taken to another camp. He didn't know that she'd already been killed, who and she was pregnant with their baby. But he didn't know that he wanted to be reconnected with her. But also he wanted to rewrite his book, which was almost done being written when they got basically

Starting point is 00:26:25 taken by the Nazis and they took the manuscript and tore it apart. He literally states this in Mansourch for meaning he said, my deep desire to rewrite that book and new and publish it allowed me to overcome the rigors and the pain of the camps. So when you have a wide a live for you can bear almost any how if you don't have a wide a live for if you don't have hope and commitment in your future, then you're not going to be very productive. I mean, little things in your day can throw you away off. But for him and those situations, it was life or death. It's literally life or death. Now, from a scientific perspective, there's a lot going on in the brain when it comes to trauma. Neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf taught me that just like a tree is made up of branches

Starting point is 00:27:06 and roots, a thought is also made up of branches and roots, which essentially are our memories. Memories are literally what's inside of a thought, all the knowledge in the form of details, information, emotions, choices, and perceptions. And just like in real life, your brain is full of healthy and unhealthy trees. And unhealthy trees store negative thoughts and negative memories. Dr. Caroline Leaves says the trauma is probably the hardest thought pattern to work on, but it's so essential because these structures in your brain are super powerful. They carry high energy and intensity due to the data and emotions that are attached

Starting point is 00:27:41 to the traumatic event. The good news is, is you can actually reverse these unhealthy memories by reframing the events and memories of your past. So, basically, you need to pay attention to what triggers your negative memory, and the negative thoughts you have around that memory, and then choose to think about that experience differently in that moment. You essentially redesign the thought. So, for example, if I have a thought around my dad suffering and being isolated in the hospital when he had COVID, instead of thinking why me, why my family, why this happened to us, my poor dad, I feel so terrible, I just feel so guilty, how did I not convince the hospital and all these bad

Starting point is 00:28:15 thoughts that I always have whenever I think about him in the hospital, I can choose to reframe that thought and think about things like he knew that we would be there if we could, if he was conscious. He lived a great and blessed life. His last memories don't define his legacy. There was a high probability he was unconscious and didn't even feel the pain that I think he did. Or other thoughts that make me feel better or neutral about the situation. Essentially, I'm going to try to redesign my memory of that experience.

Starting point is 00:28:41 But keep in mind, it takes at least 63 days to reconsensualize one-thinking pattern. So you have to be consistent with it and really give it a try. If you wanna learn more about reconsensualizing toxic thoughts, check out my episode number 114, eliminate toxic thoughts with Dr. Caroline Leif. So while I'm talking about redesigning your thoughts, in the moment and right after a traumatic event happens,

Starting point is 00:29:04 you are allowed to grieve and you do need to process your grief. We're allowed to give ourselves time to heal, and there are ways we can make the process of grieving a traumatic event a little bit easier. Here's Cycle Therapist and author Amy Morin on that. So one of the things when I think about trauma and what I know about grief and loss and trauma is that a part of what makes it even more difficult are the rules and let's call the regulations that other people or we ourselves try to abide by. So we have a timeline or our job has a timeline or we read somebody's book that talked about, you know,

Starting point is 00:29:48 a timeline and how they went back to work or they started dating or after six months or, you know, a year and a half and so you figure, okay, if I'm, you know, if I'm okay, then I can do that as well. And so one of the things that is so important as it relates to COVID, but just grief and loss in general is that there really are not any rules other than

Starting point is 00:30:14 what your own heart dictates in terms of what it needs. And a lot of that requires slowing down. I mean, slowing down even right here, right now in this room, and asking yourself this very bold and brave question, which is what does my ache need? Roomy, the great writer and thinker and philosopher has a quote that I love and I think it fits so well here that the wound W-O-U-N-D, the wound is the place

Starting point is 00:30:51 where light enters. And so often we are covering our wounds up and we're ashamed of our wounds and we're trying to get our wounds into gear. People will, if you hear, when I do, you know, my clubhouse events every Sunday morning at 10 a.m. in the east, people often will call and if they begin to cry, they'll say, I'm sorry.

Starting point is 00:31:17 And I'll say, what are you sorry for? And isn't it interesting that when we, when our tears show up, and I believe our tears are our teacher, that we apologize for our humanity. So a piece of what this moment is offering is that we really lean, and I mean, lean all the way in to what it means to be fully human. And that is to have losses. And, you know, as we've heard each person share that sometimes it's the birthday or the anniversary. But sometimes it's not connected to anything in particular,

Starting point is 00:31:57 except for that your heart aches. Or how about the times where someone feels joy and then they feel guilty. Like, am I allowed to smile? Am I allowed to ever laugh again after the death and the loss of someone who suffered and died alone in COVID when we think about what happened to, you know, so many people in COVID

Starting point is 00:32:24 and how I know you've shared about this, people who had to say goodbye to their loved ones over a device, over FaceTime, and where physicians were serving as priests and rabbis simply because family members could not, were not allowed into the hospitals. But I want to caution all of us and those who are suffering tonight

Starting point is 00:32:47 with grief and loss and trauma. You may have thought that your best friend is gonna always be there and understand. And every time you talk to him, or every time you talk to her, you leave feeling disappointed like they didn't get it. You know, they didn't get it or my sister's not getting it. And so what I really want to encourage you to do is pay attention to that part of you that feels that somebody is

Starting point is 00:33:18 missing your grief and sorrow because it's sacred and you don't want to share it with anyone who isn't able or willing or doesn't have the capacity to hold it and hold you in ways that really are constructive and nurturing and soft and tender in such a tough time. So don't grandfather anyone into being close to you unless they have earned the right to walk with you and next to you. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Your dog is an important part of your family. Don't settle when it comes to their health. Make the switch to fresh food made with real ingredients that are backed by science with nom nom nom delivers fresh dog food that is personalized to your dog's individual needs. Each portion is tailored to ensure your dog gets the nutrition they need so you can watch

Starting point is 00:34:21 them thrive. Nom nom's ingredients are cooked individually and then mixed together, because science tells us that every protein, carb, and veggie has different cooking times and methods. This packs in all the vitamins and minerals your dog needs, so they truly get the most out of every single bite. And Nom-nom is completely free of additives, fillers, and mystery ingredients that contribute to bloating and low energy. Your dog deserves only the best, and Nom Nom delivers just that.

Starting point is 00:34:49 Their nutrient-packed recipes are crafted by board-certified veterinary nutritionists, made fresh and shipped to your door. Absolutely free! Nom Nom meals started just $2.40, and every meal is cooked in company- owned kitchens right here in the US. And they've already delivered over 40 million meals, inspiring clean bowls and wagging tails everywhere. Ever since I started feeding my dog Nom Nom, he's been so much more energetic and he's getting older, he's a senior dog, but now we've been going on longer walks and he's much more playful.

Starting point is 00:35:21 He used to be pretty sluggish and sleeping all the time, but I've definitely noticed a major improvement since I started feeding him nom nom. And the best part, they offer a money back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, they'll refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just nom nom. Go right now for 50% off your no risk 2 week trial at trinom.com.shap. That's trinom.nom.com.shap for 50% off trinom.com.shap. You hear that sound, young and profitors? You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify.

Starting point is 00:36:02 Shopify is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you sell edgy t-shirts or offer an educational course like me, Shopify simplifies selling online and in person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Shopify is packed with industry leading tools that are ready to ignite your growth, giving you complete control over your business and brand, without having to learn any new skills in design or code. And Shopify grows with you no matter how big your business gets. Thanks to an endless list of integrations and third-party apps, anything you can think of from on-demand printing to accounting to chatbots, Shopify has everything you need

Starting point is 00:36:40 to revolutionize your business. If you're a regular listener, you probably know that I use Shopify to sell my LinkedIn secrets masterclass. Setting up my Shopify store just took me a few days. I didn't have to worry about my website and how I was going to collect payments and how I was going to trigger abandoned cart emails and all these things that Shopify does for me was just a click of a button. Even setting up my chat bot was just a click of a button. It was so easy to bot was just a click of a button. It was so easy to do. Like I said, I just took a couple of days.

Starting point is 00:37:09 And so it just allowed me to focus on my actual product and making sure my LinkedIn masterclass was the best it could be. And I was able to focus on my marketing. So Shopify really, really helped me make sure that my masterclass was going to be a success right off the bat and enabled focus. And focus is everything when it comes to entrepreneurship. With Shopify single dashboard,

Starting point is 00:37:29 I can manage my orders and my payments from anywhere in the world. And like I said, it's one of my favorite things to do every day is check my Shopify dashboard. It is a rush of dopamine to see all those blinking lights around the world showing me where everybody is logging on on the site. I love it.

Starting point is 00:37:47 I highly recommend it. Shopify is a platform that I use every single day and it can take your business to the next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-sash-profiting. Again, go to Shopify.com-sash-profiting all lowercase to take your business to the next level today.

Starting point is 00:38:04 Again, that Shopify.com-sash-profiting, Shopify.com-sash-profiting, all lower case. This is Possibility Powered by Shopify. Now, for the remainder of the episode, I want to play some clips that showcase stories of others who have successfully overcome their trauma. First up is Adventure and author Colanohe, who suffered a terrible accident. He was told he would never walk again, but with the help of his mother, he instilled a possible mindset

Starting point is 00:38:33 and he went on to accomplish many unthinkable feats. I found myself in Thailand many months into this adventure and maybe because I was 22 and didn't have a fully four prefrontal cortex, I'm not sure, but I saw some guys jumping a flaming jumper up. Literally a caracene soaked jumper up and I thought, gee, that looks like fun.

Starting point is 00:38:54 So I jumped that rope and in an instant, my life changed. It literally lit my body, the sprayed caracene across my body, lit my body, I'm fired in my neck, survival mode and kick, didn't want to need it most. I jumped into the ocean to extinguish the flames, but not before. About 25% of my body was severely burned. And I was in remote and rural Thailand. There was no ambulance ride. I had a moat head ride down a dirt path to a run-room nursing station and I was on island so I couldn't get to a big city or anything like that. I had eight surgeries over the next week.

Starting point is 00:39:25 There was a cat running around my bed in the ICU. I mean, it was a bad place to be for this circumstance. And the physical pain was immense. For sure, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But I will never forget the emotional pain of the moment that Dr. Wawksany looks me in the eyes and he says, hey, I hate to tell you this, but based on how badly your ligaments are burned and your ankle, what's your knees, etc.

Starting point is 00:39:47 I don't think you're ever going to walk again, normally. You're never going to regain full mobility and range of motion. And that was just devastating. I think that would be devastating for any person at any age, but you know, as a 22 year old kid who was like, very in his body as an athlete and whatever, it was just like my identity. It was just like, in an instant, I made one mistake and like boom, like who am I without this physical capacity that I've kind of dependent on throughout my life. The heroine to this story, really the turning point of the story is my incredible mother.

Starting point is 00:40:16 She shows up in Thailand, kind of finds me, it takes her four or five days to kind of track down. I'm in such a remote part of Thailand, it takes her a while to even find me, but she gets there in the hospital, and I can only imagine as a mother, what it's like, she tells me now that she was crying in the hallways, pleading with the doctors for some ones of good news, not getting in.

Starting point is 00:40:35 But she actually never showed me that fear at all. And this is the crazy part of this story. Like this is the turning point. This is a thing that changed my entire life. She instead came into my hospital room every single day with this huge smile on her face, this huge air of positivity, daring me to dream about the future.

Starting point is 00:40:52 Say and look, you messed up. We're not gonna sugarcoat this. This is a bad situation. I'm freaked out, but life isn't over. What do you wanna do on the other side of this? And she kind of pushed me on that, and pushed me on that, pushed me on that, and finally I closed my eyes, and I said, I just visualized myself crossing the finish

Starting point is 00:41:08 line of a triathlon. And again, turning point moment, she could have easily said, yeah, I said set a goal and looked towards the future, but like the legs and the bandages and the blood, like maybe something more realistic triathlon, probably not in the future. But instead, she didn't do that. She was like, actually, great. You know what? Let's start training right now. And she yells out to the doctor. She goes, hey, doc, hey, doc.

Starting point is 00:41:31 Can you bring in some weights in the doctors? Look at what are you talking about? Yeah, my son's training for a triathlon now. So I have this picture of me. I'm lifting 10 pound dumbbells. There's this tie doctor looking at me like, this stupid American kid never had a walk in the room. He's telling me he's trying to wear a trap.

Starting point is 00:41:45 This is ridiculous. But it was fixed in my mind. And definitely no way I would have had that without my mother's daily support, not just in that moment. It was several months I was in the Thai hospital, flew back to Oregon, where I was from. I was in a wheelchair. I hadn't taken a single step when I got home. She taught me how to walk again, and one step at a time.

Starting point is 00:42:03 Fast forward, I did want to get out of my parents' basement and get on with my life and start my career. So, as you mentioned, that the one time I had a quote-unquote real job, I took a commodity's trading job in Chicago, thought I'd work in the finance industry. And yeah, I was still banged up and bandaged shut when I took that job, but I started my career. But I signed up the Chicago Trafton to honor this goal. And just 18 months after being burned in this fire, I started this Trafton, started the race. Completed the race, mile is swimming, 25 miles of biking,

Starting point is 00:42:34 6.2 miles running, I get to the finish line, I cross this finish line, I can't believe it, I've overcome this big setback and kind of proven to myself that I can be able, potty and whole again. But to combine a complete another surprise, I didn't actually just finish the race. I actually won the entire Chicago Draftfall

Starting point is 00:42:51 on placing first that of nearly 5,000 other participants on the day. I don't share that story as saying, like, oh, I guess that just means I'm a superhuman athlete and I can do whatever the hell I want, like whatever, that's not the point at all and that's not the way I feel about it. What I feel about it is exactly what we're talking about

Starting point is 00:43:06 before, is that I was living in a moment of fear, a moment of doubt, a moment of understandable limiting beliefs. And as you said, the doctor put that limiting belief on me. You are never gonna walk again normally. Doctor says it diagnosis, it's very easy to just be like, yep, okay, like that's the deal. He's the expert. Right, he's the deal. He's the expert. Right, he's the expert.

Starting point is 00:43:26 But in the end, my mother opened the door to what I now call very fondly a possible mindset. She says, look, this is bad, but there's limitless possibilities on the other side of this. And so what I realize is all of us as humans, and this not just a story about me, this is a story about all seven billion of us on this planet

Starting point is 00:43:43 is that we have reservoirs of untapped potential to achieve extraordinary things in our life, but it all starts with our mindset. And then we can cultivate and flex and develop that muscle. I love to say the most important muscle that any of us have is the six inches between our ears. And we can flex and develop that. The possibilities are limitless.

Starting point is 00:44:03 And so it's weird to say, but sometimes our biggest setbacks and our biggest hardships buried in beneath of the stress and the anxiety and the fear and the pain of those moments are gold, are lessons. And I wouldn't be sitting here with 10 world records. It's crazy to say, but like all of my world records, I use those legs, but the legs after they have been burned. Not before they have been burned, after they have been burned burned because my mind was so much stronger on the other side.

Starting point is 00:44:31 To further inspire you, I want to play a clip from author Alex Benayin. When he came on the show, he shared the story of Maya Angelou, which whom he got to interview in person, and she told him how she transformed her darkness into light. One of my favorite interviews is actually from Maya Angela. And those of us who are familiar with Maya Angelou's work know that she's one of the most celebrated poets in American history. She is one of the best-selling authors of all time. Her book, I know why the Cajeport sings, is still one of the top books. But what most people don't know is where her life came from. My angel is born in Stamps, Arkansas, or raised up in Stamps, Arkansas at a time where

Starting point is 00:45:18 the town was strictly divided between blacks and whites. And as a young black girl, she grew up at a time where you could see crosses burning and lynchings and it was a very, very dark time in American history. And at about age eight years old, she got raped by her mother's boyfriend. And when she told her brother what had happened a few days later, the brother of course did the right thing and told the mother and the man wasn't only arrested, but a few days later

Starting point is 00:45:49 he was found dead behind a slaughterhouse. And what the eight-year-old, my angel, who thought, as this is how kids' brains work sometimes, is that she thought that her using her words caused this man to die. So she became a mute and didn't speak to anyone for years. And her life continued to unfold full of tremendous challenges. She faced tremendous domestic abuse. She faced teenage pregnancies. She lots and lots and lots of challenges, you know, face racism at every corner. But what's so amazing about Maya Angelutamae is not the darkness she endured. It's how she turned that darkness into light.

Starting point is 00:46:34 It's how she channeled her experiences into works of art and transformed them into ways of healing for millions of people. And one of the things I asked her is if and everyone in their own ways goes through those cloudy times. I know I've been through it. My dad got diagnosed pancreatic cancer and passed a year later. I've had people I love go through, you know, bouts of abuse and have to get out. And I was asking her almost selfishly, when you're stuck in the storm, when you're stuck with the clouds, what do you do? And she said, I want you to write.

Starting point is 00:47:12 She literally, and she has a beautiful way of talking. She goes, young man, I want you to write this down on your no pad right now. And I said, yeah, of course. And I said, what do I do? And she said, I want you to write this down. This is a line I once heard from a country song, and I think it answers your question perfectly. And I said, of course, and she goes write this down.

Starting point is 00:47:32 Every storm runs out of rain. Every storm runs out of rain. And you just have to get to work. And what's so powerful about Maya Angelou is that And you just have to get to work. And what's so powerful about Maya Angelou is that because she has had endured so much, she had this ability to help me get some perspective that, yeah, hard things happen, but they're impermanent. But you got to get to work. And one of my other favorite things she said,

Starting point is 00:48:09 so I interviewed her the year before she passed away. And one of my final questions for her was, you know, what's your final piece of advice for the next generation? And she said, get yourself out of the box. Read Caesar Chavez, read Martin Luther King, read Nelson Mandela, read, you know, not everything will work for you, but try it out and see what does work. There's all this wisdom out in the world.

Starting point is 00:48:38 And if we stay hold up in our little boxes, we'll never see all of the wisdom and all the riches the world has to offer. And then she said this beautiful final line, she said life is short no matter how long you live. Get to work. What a good way to end this yaps, Naxe. Like Maya Angelou says life is short. Get to work. The sooner you can get out of a victim's mindset, the quicker you can live out your wildest dreams. If you're going through something right now, I hope this episode gives you tips to get

Starting point is 00:49:11 through your trauma and grief, or at least some assurance that you can. I'm rooting for you. And if you like this YAHPSNACS, be sure to check out the full interviews we're going to link all the interviews in the show notes, and don't forget to drop us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. You guys can find me on Instagram, at YappwithHalla, or LinkedIn, just search for my name, it's Halataha. And if you like watching your podcast, check us out on YouTube. Big thanks to our amazing Yapp team, stay young and profit.

Starting point is 00:49:40 This is your podcast princess, Halataha, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits.

Starting point is 00:50:29 Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time, energy, or money. Suggestions such as follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like, are you an over buyer or an under buyer?

Starting point is 00:50:48 Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever? And every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happiness. Listen and follow the podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin. When you look around your home, what makes you smile? Personal touches? Beautiful light, lines, colors, things of quality that enhance your life. California Clauseids specializes in making space for what belongs, with richly textured finishes and quality materials that last.

Starting point is 00:51:17 From the bedroom to the pantry to the mudroom, everything we do is custom-designed, built and installed by people who take pride in serving you. Think of it as practical magic. Book your free design consultation today at CaliforniaClosets.com.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPSnacks: Lessons From Nazi Camps, Near-Death Experiences, and Other Life Traumas | Dr. Edith Eger, Donald Miller, Benjamin Hardy, Amy Morin, Colin O’Brady, and Alex Banayan

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.