dictionary I’m here to propose that it
only takes one to change the rest of our
lives forever
now this one word can take us to the
tops of the highest mountains it can get
us to jump out of perfectly good
airplanes this one word can take you
into the most freezing cold water that
you have ever been in not to mention
moon walking across a barren road and
the back streets of Iceland and if we
can learn anything today from our friend
Karen I think it’s important to include
humor in our classroom so this one word
can get us to do handstand competitions
right in the middle of our college
classrooms by now I know you’re probably
wondering what this one word is but
before I share it with you I think it’s
more important to understand why it
works in the first place and it turns
out that we’re all familiar with a
concept that is built on something we’ve
never heard before we’ve heard of the
butterfly effect but most of us don’t
know it as chaos theory now the idea is
simple a butterfly flaps its wings on
one side of the world and over time
things start to change weather patterns
start to shift what happens is the
clouds Traverse across the sky now what
you’ve heard is that a tornado would end
up on the other side of but what I like
to think is that we’re left here with a
perfect sunset right here in San Diego
California so this idea of one word one
behavior one small action can lead to
infinite unpredictable unexpected
opportunity now I was wondering is this
something that you know just works for
me or is this work for more people so I
decided to recruit the best people I
think that there is to recruit for such
studies and you know who that is
my students so I recruited over a
thousand students over the semesters
that I’ve been teaching and I had them
engage in something I call comfort
challenges and what that means is these
students have to do something
intentionally outside of their comfort
zone like saying yes to something that
they’d normally say no to and after they
wrote up their reflections after I went
through 1,000 of these entries I found
one thing that absolutely blew my mind
this idea that stepping out of our
comfort zone that saying yes to
something that we typically say no to
drastically changed these people’s lives
in a positive way I think it’s time that
we meet some of these students so first
up we meet Brian Brian was a
happy-go-lucky young student at
MiraCosta college a lover of all all
things action sports he loved to skate
he loved to wakeboard he loved to surf
he did it all
Brian had the great idea before I met
him to build his own skateboard so he
took this skateboard out and he went for
a ride next thing you know Brian ended
up in the hospital Brian got into an
accident on his skateboard that left him
in a coma for five weeks in a place that
looked like this when he woke up there
was one word that circled around in his
mind and that word was know his friends
asked him to hang out he said no his
teachers asked him to participate in
class he said no he was a lifeguard at
the time and his lifeguard friends and
co-workers said you know you need to
make more small talk with the goers on
the beach the people on the beach
he said no and then I had the amazing
privilege to have Brian as one of my
students at MiraCosta college and after
working through a semester together of
him saying yes to things that he wanted
to say that word to that
word some things started to powerfully
change he started to say yes to his
friends asked him to hang out he started
to say yes to the people in the
classroom ask him the teachers asking
him to do these assignments and if you
given a thumbs up because his life had
drastically changed as a result of one
word now Brian’s not the only student
who this happened to our next student
his name is Jack
Jack was ex-military for 24 years a 42
year old student and Jack had a
difficult time readjusting to civilian
life jack was the kind of student who
sat in the back of the classroom
constantly checking the door constantly
scanning his perimeter to make sure that
he was safe and that the area was secure
Jack came up to me after class early on
in the semester and he said mr. C I
don’t think I can do these comfort
challenges I don’t think I can say yes
to the things I want to say no to
because why would I and so I said it’s
up to you and naturally as the other
student started to do it throughout the
semester Jack started to do it too now
Jack was unable to be with his family
his friends his children he didn’t feel
comfortable spending time with anybody
in fact he spent most of his time
sitting at home
remembering the battle that he was in
now after a semester long journey of
stepping outside of his comfort zone and
saying yes to things that he wanted to
say no to by the end of the semester
Jack hosted his very own barbecue for
all of his friends and all of his family
and he was able to clink beers and clink
sodas with all of his loved ones
something he had not done since he
returned home from the military at the
end of the semester Jack came up to me
and he handed me something called a
challenge coin he said mr. C this is
something we use in the military when we
want to thank someone for inspiring us
or for leading us to great change now I
wish I could stand before you and say
that I was the reason that it happened
to him but I told him Jack I didn’t do
it in fact you’re the brave one
you’re the courageous one I just gave
you a platform so I’m here today to say
that each and one each every single one
of you has the bravery and has the
courage that Jack had I’m not the reason
you might start saying yes I’m not the
reason you might start going out of your
comfort zone you are and that takes us
to our final student a student named
Sasha also ex-military and forty-five
years old a single mother of two sasha
was deathly afraid of heights I’m not
talking like you know she couldn’t be up
in a crane or of an elephant she
couldn’t step up onto a bench without
freaking out and if we can learn
anything from Mike today about fear it’s
a manipulative emotion that holds us
back from the life that we want to live
so I worked with Sasha all semester on
getting her to step literally outside of
her comfort zone and to say yes again to
things that she wanted to say no to so
you might be surprised to find out that
where we began was actually just on a
curb outside of our classroom for most
of us that’s not a big deal for most of
us we strict step up on a curb all the
time for Sasha she couldn’t step up onto
a curb without feeling her heart flutter
just a little bit so our first challenge
step up onto this curb and I’m happy to
say that she did it but not without some
hesitation as we moved through the
semester about halfway I said Sasha can
you step up on this bench for me she
said no no no no no I’m not gonna do
that
I said Sasha what’s the one word we
talked about and she said
okay I’ll give it a shot so of course
she was shaking and she was panicked and
she grabbed my hand and she stepped up
onto the bench and the smile on her face
after that something I’ve never
forgotten now after a series of these
ten challenges of her stepping outside
of her comfort zone by the end of the
semester she did something that
absolutely blew my frickin mind she
jumped out of a plane and she went
skydiving for the first time and for the
only time that she ever thought she
never would I’ll say that again she
never thought she ever would she came up
to me the end of the semester she said
mr. C I don’t even know what to say all
I can say is that taking your basic
public speaking communication course
taught me something I never expected to
learn and that’s that anything anything
in life is possible
so now I’d like to share my own story
with you of how powerful this word and
this stepping outside of your comfort
zone can be this story begins in a small
suburban town in Ohio I was studying in
my grad school master’s degree trying to
decide whether or not to get my PhD
trying to decide what I was going to do
with my life trying to finish my thesis
there was a hundred things circling my
mind and right then while I’m sitting in
and the text message is simple it says
this hey will you help me with my
business now you can imagine I had a
hundred things in my mind I was choosing
whether or not to go get my PhD I was
choosing which school to go to I was
trying to do my thesis oh and not to
mention I was
dick throughout this whole time I was
coughing I was hacking and I could
probably imagine that most of us in here
would have the same thought right now so
I typed out no but I didn’t send it just
yet I put the phone down and instead I
took a breath of fresh air went to the
bathroom coughed sneezed through
whatever I needed to do came back to the
room picked up the phone and I still
don’t know what caused me to do this to
this day but I picked up the phone
deleted the no and instead I typed out
yes hit Send
put the phone down that word yes took me
to a coffee shop in Santi where I met
with this person about their business
and what I thought was going to be a
one-hour coffee meeting turned into a
four and a half hour unforgettable
meeting in fact the owner of the coffee
shop came up to us and said hey we’re
closing we’ve actually left it open a
little bit longer for you to but we’re
closed now I couldn’t believe it
what ifwhat felt like one minute had
turned into four and a half hours
fast-forward and we start traveling the
country together we start to jump off
bridges together we start to explore
forests together can you even fly the
plane not the one that we jumped out of
don’t worry about that
when I think back to that small room in
Ohio and had I said the word no I can’t
imagine how different my life would be
had I said no see I think that there’s
there’s something that we can all take
away from this and it’s this idea that
we have a giant door in front of us when
people ask us to do things that make us
uncomfortable when people ask it when
they request of us things that we don’t
want to do when we want to say no
there’s this giant door that comes up
but I do want to be clear that yes is
not the only word that opens this door
now for those of you that have seen the
movie with Jim Carrey I’m not here to
say that we need to crank down 8 Red
Bulls and sleep with the elderly instead
I’m here to propose that in every moment
in every decision there’s a countdown
and that countdown is right to our
decision where we decide do we want the
rest of our life to stay the same or do
we want our life to change in a positive
way so one word can drastically
unpredictably and infinitely change our
lives now the next time that you’re
faced with 170 1476 words of whether or
not to do something I challenge you to
think of the one word that can possibly
change your life forever because you
just never know what might happen thank you