what if I told you that this key held
the secret to your independence freedom
and success how much would it be worth
to you what would you be willing to do
for it now before you all come up brush
here brush up here and try to grab it
out of my hand I should probably let you
know this is an ordinary house key
in fact I’m guessing that most of you
have a key that looks exactly like this
and your purse your pocket right now and
you probably carry it with you most of
the time during the day but chances are
that you don’t think about it very often
maybe only once or twice a day when you
pull it out of your pocket or your purse
to open the door to go and network out
work at night and other than that it
probably just stays tucked away and you
don’t really think about it too much
but sixteen years ago I was handed a key
that held the power to independence
success in freedom and when you have a
key that’s that powerful I can tell you
that you think about it all the time and
you don’t carry it around with you
because the key that has that much power
has to be protected and the key that I
was given 16 years ago we kept locked in
the box it looked a lot like this and
everyday this box was guarded by two
people who were willing to put their
lives on the line to keep this key safe
and that box was buried 60 feet
underground in a bunker that was
hardened who was stand a nuclear blast
and if that wasn’t enough there were men
and women upstairs with guns ready to
give their lives to protect that key and
I know some of you are thinking right
now those keys don’t exist there’s
nothing like that out there I can assure
you there is you see 16 years ago I
started my Air Force career as a nuclear
missile ear and for those of you who
don’t know what that is those are the
men and women who are trained to guard
that key the key that could turn and
launch nuclear weapons in our nation’s
defense and I
can tell you that is a lot of
responsibility and at 23 years old I was
thrown into that world where every move
I made was measured where every decision
I made had consequences so just for fun
I want you to stop for a minute and
think back
where were you when you were 23 years
old what job did you have who are your
co-workers what happened
if you made a mistake at work I’m
guessing that for most of you if you
made a mistake probably wasn’t fun your
boss probably wasn’t really happy with
you but the consequences probably
weren’t that extreme maybe someone’s
order got mixed up or someone got paid a
little bit late in my job if I made a
mistake our national defense was on the
line for us
mistakes were not tolerated perfection
was always required that’s a lot of
pressure and they trained us really well
so I know you’re thinking back to when
you were 23 near thinking who I would
not want that responsibility well I can
assure you they gave us training over
and over again
we had checklist for everything that we
did and those checklists were called
demand response and it meant that you
did those checklist step by step every
single time without fail because if you
didn’t someone’s life could be on the
line if I made a mistake at my job when
I was 23 years old I was gonna get fired
and it probably wasn’t me getting fired
my boss was probably gonna get fired and
my boss’s boss might get fired
you see when a nuclear missile er makes
a mistake the president gets notified
that’s how serious we take our jobs
there’s only one right way to do things
when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons
that makes a lot of sense
you don’t want 23 year olds at three I’m
getting crazy ideas
so again checklist for everything and
every time we were put in front of a
trainer and we were put in front of
evaluations they gave us this thing and
it went like this don’t do anything dumb
or dangerous or different because you
see the mindset was if you were doing
something dumb or dangerous
different you were doing it wrong
because all those months and years of
training led up to one right way of
doing things and I took that mindset and
I loved that mindset I loved having a
checklist to tell me exactly what I
needed to do with life because every day
was exactly the same you woke up and you
followed every single checklist and you
knew exactly what was supposed to happen
the problem is is we’ve taken that
mindset of not doing anything dumb
dangerous or different and we’ve applied
it to the rest of our lives I know I did
you see we start out our lives and we
believe there’s this kind of one right
path of how we’re gonna be successful
there’s one path to independence and
freedom that’s the American dream
we all love the American Dream I know I
was a big fan of it it goes something
like this see if this sounds familiar
you go to high school and you get good
grades you get good Gracie and get into
a good college you go to a good college
so you can get a good job you get a good
job see and get a nice paycheck you get
a nice paycheck and you get a nice house
you find a nice spouse and if you’re
really lucky you get a dog and your
American dream is complete and you see
that’s the path that I was on I went to
high school and I got good grades
graduated towards the top of my class I
went to college and got good grades I
found a great career that I loved in the
airforce and I trained and I did my job
exactly the way I was supposed to do and
I was very successful as a missileer
because I didn’t do anything that was
dumb dangerous or different I towed the
line and I went exactly the way I was
supposed to I got a good paycheck I
found a great husband we got married we
had our nice house we even got the dog
the problem is we can’t always see
what’s just around the corner and when
we live our lives believing that there’s
one right way and that we can’t veer
from that path or do anything that’s
dumb or dangerous or different when
things don’t go the way we plan it can
be really hard it can take us down some
really dark paths and that’s exactly
what happened to me you see I was living
my American dream I had my good job I
had my husband
had my dog we were living the perfect
life until we weren’t and my marriage
ended and in the midst of that I worried
about my family because in my family we
don’t do divorce my parents were made
for 56 years and my dad passed away and
it was important to me to not fail a
marriage because I’m not a quitter and
if you just work hard enough you can
make things work that’s what I always
believed and so when I hit that bottom
when the marriage was falling apart and
my faith was faltering because I
couldn’t see another way I hit rock
bottom and hopefully none of you have
experienced that but I can tell you rock
bottom for me was a really scary place
because when you’re at the bottom and
you believe there’s only one right way
to do things and that one right way
didn’t work you have no other options
and that no other options took me to an
incredibly dark place it took me to a
loaded gun at 2:00 a.m. with the belief
that that was my only way out with the
belief that taking my life was the best
choice I had because the one right way
hadn’t worked and I was really lucky I
had a couple of really good friends and
I made the conscious choice to send a
note and they responded immediately and
with a lot of help of those friends and
my support network I was able to turn
things around and through a lot of
counseling I realized that there were
other options for me that it didn’t have
to be that one right way that worrying
about being dumb dangerous indifferent
was okay so I want to ask you guys an
important question right now and I want
you to really stop and think about it if
you could do anything in your life and
you knew you couldn’t fail what would
you do
that’s that one more time if you could
do anything in your life
and you knew you couldn’t fail what
would you do see I’m guessing for most
of you something popped into your brain
when I asked that question
we all have dreams we all have hopes we
all have things that make us excited and
when I asked you that question it opened
up the possibility that there might be
something else out there and I don’t
know what that is for you I don’t know
what that dream looks like I don’t know
what that passion is but I do know if
you’re like most people that as soon as
that answer popped into your head you
heard another little voice and that
little voice said mm-hmm that idea is
dumb
don’t do that that’s two different don’t
take that chance that’s dangerous
because you see we let those little
voices in our head tell us that those
big ideas that we have that those things
that we’re passionate about that those
exciting dreams that we want to pursue
are outside of our reach and it’s
because we’ve taken that Missal
mentality that there’s this only one
right way to do things and we’ve formed
our lives in that direction
what I was going through my crash I had
to really analyze what was important to
me I was able to really take a step back
and think about who I was who I wanted
to be what I valued in life and why and
that really opened up my eyes to a lot
of new opportunities but I can tell you
as I was making some changes and kind of
changing my entire life I had a lot of
people that looked at me and thought I
have lost my mind you see one of the
choices that I made when I was going
through all of my separation and really
starting my life over again was deciding
to downsize I don’t just mean downsizing
into like a cute one-bedroom apartment
or a studio no I mean downsizing into a
tiny house for those of you who aren’t
familiar with those those are like
little tiny cabins on wheels my entire
house is 234 square feet I’m guessing if
you go home and measure that’s probably
smaller than your master bathroom or
your master closet and my entire world
was going into that space
and I have to say that when I first
found out about tiny houses this was
back before HGTV had made them cool I
read about them and I thought to myself
that’s crazy who would live like that me
it turns out through a lot of the
examination themself kind of going
through what was important to me I
realized that a tiny house gave me a lot
of flexibility and freedom that I was
really craving and I started kind of
planning and thinking about what would
that look like and could I really do it
I started living in smaller and smaller
portion of my 1,800 square foot
townhouse and I realized I absolutely
could downsize but everything that I
valued would totally fit in that space
and that it would really add value to my
life and I started getting a little bit
brave and talking about it at work and
again this is before it was cool so I
would talk about it at work and my
friends would look at me and go really
you’re thinking about moving into a tiny
house like yeah it’s really exciting and
I got a little bit brave about kind of
talking about it but there was still
these moments where that doubt would
creep in and I’d say to myself this is
the dumbest idea I’ve ever had what am I
thinking
and I comforted myself with the thought
that even if I gave everything away
target would sell me everything again so
there was still hope so over the course
of about three months I downsized from
1,800 square feet to 234 sold over 80%
of everything I owned
it was a huge life change this was less
than six months after my divorce was
finalized I was still a little nervous I
was still a little raw I still wasn’t
quite sure where my life was going and I
still had a lot of fear and a lot of
doubt and in that moment I had kind of a
moment of clarity for me you see I had a
boss that I worked for that let’s just
say we didn’t always see eye to eye he
walked up to me one day and I’m just
sitting there working and he walks up
and he goes hey I heard you’re thinking
about moving into one of those tiny
houses what’s that all about I looked at
him I said well you know sir I think
this is great opportunity for me you
know I’ve gone through a lot of life
changes this really gives me some
financial freedom and flexibility I’ll
be able to move and he just kind of
looks at me
he says hmm he said aren’t you worried
you’re gonna end up an old single cat
lady and in that moment he hit every
fear that I had every fear that this
idea was too dangerous every fear that
if I had moved into this tiny house that
I would be so different that no one
would ever want to date me again every
fear that I was going to end up an old
single cat lady and I knew I had a
choice in that moment I could let that
fear and that doubt stop me or I could
be true to who I was and what I believed
and where I wanted to go and so I looked
at him and I said nope I like dogs
and as you can imagine that kind of into
that conversation he walked off I don’t
remember what happened after that but I
remember in that moment that I had
challenged myself to be dumb dangerous
and different and then I had I knew that
it was the right choice when I tell
people to be dumb dangerous and
different I get a little bit of
resistance right no one wants to be dumb
no one wants to do things that are
different no one wants to be dangerous
we have negative connotations with those
words in a lot of places and what I’ll
say is my message here today is not to
go out and be crazy and reckless it’s
not to go out and throw your life away
and make crazy financial choices and do
things that are truly dangerous and
different but it is to recognize when
you hear that little voice that says you
can’t do this you’re not smart enough
you’re not good enough you’re not
talented enough no one will ever fill in
the blank that you have the courage to
push back just a little bit and say yeah
this idea is a little bit different yeah
it feels a little bit dangerous I’m
stretching myself yeah some people are
gonna think this is really dumb be
confident in that
be courageous in that because here’s the
thing we never know what’s just around
the corner but what I know is true is
that each of you has a key exactly like
this a key to your independence and
success and freedom and that is your
unique story your talents your gifts and
everything that makes you who you are
and if you’re not brave enough to share
that story you’re wasting it so as you
leave here today I want you to go out
there and be a little bit dumb dangerous
and different thank you
[Applause]
the secret to your independence freedom
and success how much would it be worth
to you what would you be willing to do
for it now before you all come up brush
here brush up here and try to grab it
out of my hand I should probably let you
know this is an ordinary house key
in fact I’m guessing that most of you
have a key that looks exactly like this
and your purse your pocket right now and
you probably carry it with you most of
the time during the day but chances are
that you don’t think about it very often
maybe only once or twice a day when you
pull it out of your pocket or your purse
to open the door to go and network out
work at night and other than that it
probably just stays tucked away and you
don’t really think about it too much
but sixteen years ago I was handed a key
that held the power to independence
success in freedom and when you have a
key that’s that powerful I can tell you
that you think about it all the time and
you don’t carry it around with you
because the key that has that much power
has to be protected and the key that I
was given 16 years ago we kept locked in
the box it looked a lot like this and
everyday this box was guarded by two
people who were willing to put their
lives on the line to keep this key safe
and that box was buried 60 feet
underground in a bunker that was
hardened who was stand a nuclear blast
and if that wasn’t enough there were men
and women upstairs with guns ready to
give their lives to protect that key and
I know some of you are thinking right
now those keys don’t exist there’s
nothing like that out there I can assure
you there is you see 16 years ago I
started my Air Force career as a nuclear
missile ear and for those of you who
don’t know what that is those are the
men and women who are trained to guard
that key the key that could turn and
launch nuclear weapons in our nation’s
defense and I
can tell you that is a lot of
responsibility and at 23 years old I was
thrown into that world where every move
I made was measured where every decision
I made had consequences so just for fun
I want you to stop for a minute and
think back
where were you when you were 23 years
old what job did you have who are your
co-workers what happened
if you made a mistake at work I’m
guessing that for most of you if you
made a mistake probably wasn’t fun your
boss probably wasn’t really happy with
you but the consequences probably
weren’t that extreme maybe someone’s
order got mixed up or someone got paid a
little bit late in my job if I made a
mistake our national defense was on the
line for us
mistakes were not tolerated perfection
was always required that’s a lot of
pressure and they trained us really well
so I know you’re thinking back to when
you were 23 near thinking who I would
not want that responsibility well I can
assure you they gave us training over
and over again
we had checklist for everything that we
did and those checklists were called
demand response and it meant that you
did those checklist step by step every
single time without fail because if you
didn’t someone’s life could be on the
line if I made a mistake at my job when
I was 23 years old I was gonna get fired
and it probably wasn’t me getting fired
my boss was probably gonna get fired and
my boss’s boss might get fired
you see when a nuclear missile er makes
a mistake the president gets notified
that’s how serious we take our jobs
there’s only one right way to do things
when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons
that makes a lot of sense
you don’t want 23 year olds at three I’m
getting crazy ideas
so again checklist for everything and
every time we were put in front of a
trainer and we were put in front of
evaluations they gave us this thing and
it went like this don’t do anything dumb
or dangerous or different because you
see the mindset was if you were doing
something dumb or dangerous
different you were doing it wrong
because all those months and years of
training led up to one right way of
doing things and I took that mindset and
I loved that mindset I loved having a
checklist to tell me exactly what I
needed to do with life because every day
was exactly the same you woke up and you
followed every single checklist and you
knew exactly what was supposed to happen
the problem is is we’ve taken that
mindset of not doing anything dumb
dangerous or different and we’ve applied
it to the rest of our lives I know I did
you see we start out our lives and we
believe there’s this kind of one right
path of how we’re gonna be successful
there’s one path to independence and
freedom that’s the American dream
we all love the American Dream I know I
was a big fan of it it goes something
like this see if this sounds familiar
you go to high school and you get good
grades you get good Gracie and get into
a good college you go to a good college
so you can get a good job you get a good
job see and get a nice paycheck you get
a nice paycheck and you get a nice house
you find a nice spouse and if you’re
really lucky you get a dog and your
American dream is complete and you see
that’s the path that I was on I went to
high school and I got good grades
graduated towards the top of my class I
went to college and got good grades I
found a great career that I loved in the
airforce and I trained and I did my job
exactly the way I was supposed to do and
I was very successful as a missileer
because I didn’t do anything that was
dumb dangerous or different I towed the
line and I went exactly the way I was
supposed to I got a good paycheck I
found a great husband we got married we
had our nice house we even got the dog
the problem is we can’t always see
what’s just around the corner and when
we live our lives believing that there’s
one right way and that we can’t veer
from that path or do anything that’s
dumb or dangerous or different when
things don’t go the way we plan it can
be really hard it can take us down some
really dark paths and that’s exactly
what happened to me you see I was living
my American dream I had my good job I
had my husband
had my dog we were living the perfect
life until we weren’t and my marriage
ended and in the midst of that I worried
about my family because in my family we
don’t do divorce my parents were made
for 56 years and my dad passed away and
it was important to me to not fail a
marriage because I’m not a quitter and
if you just work hard enough you can
make things work that’s what I always
believed and so when I hit that bottom
when the marriage was falling apart and
my faith was faltering because I
couldn’t see another way I hit rock
bottom and hopefully none of you have
experienced that but I can tell you rock
bottom for me was a really scary place
because when you’re at the bottom and
you believe there’s only one right way
to do things and that one right way
didn’t work you have no other options
and that no other options took me to an
incredibly dark place it took me to a
loaded gun at 2:00 a.m. with the belief
that that was my only way out with the
belief that taking my life was the best
choice I had because the one right way
hadn’t worked and I was really lucky I
had a couple of really good friends and
I made the conscious choice to send a
note and they responded immediately and
with a lot of help of those friends and
my support network I was able to turn
things around and through a lot of
counseling I realized that there were
other options for me that it didn’t have
to be that one right way that worrying
about being dumb dangerous indifferent
was okay so I want to ask you guys an
important question right now and I want
you to really stop and think about it if
you could do anything in your life and
you knew you couldn’t fail what would
you do
that’s that one more time if you could
do anything in your life
and you knew you couldn’t fail what
would you do see I’m guessing for most
of you something popped into your brain
when I asked that question
we all have dreams we all have hopes we
all have things that make us excited and
when I asked you that question it opened
up the possibility that there might be
something else out there and I don’t
know what that is for you I don’t know
what that dream looks like I don’t know
what that passion is but I do know if
you’re like most people that as soon as
that answer popped into your head you
heard another little voice and that
little voice said mm-hmm that idea is
dumb
don’t do that that’s two different don’t
take that chance that’s dangerous
because you see we let those little
voices in our head tell us that those
big ideas that we have that those things
that we’re passionate about that those
exciting dreams that we want to pursue
are outside of our reach and it’s
because we’ve taken that Missal
mentality that there’s this only one
right way to do things and we’ve formed
our lives in that direction
what I was going through my crash I had
to really analyze what was important to
me I was able to really take a step back
and think about who I was who I wanted
to be what I valued in life and why and
that really opened up my eyes to a lot
of new opportunities but I can tell you
as I was making some changes and kind of
changing my entire life I had a lot of
people that looked at me and thought I
have lost my mind you see one of the
choices that I made when I was going
through all of my separation and really
starting my life over again was deciding
to downsize I don’t just mean downsizing
into like a cute one-bedroom apartment
or a studio no I mean downsizing into a
tiny house for those of you who aren’t
familiar with those those are like
little tiny cabins on wheels my entire
house is 234 square feet I’m guessing if
you go home and measure that’s probably
smaller than your master bathroom or
your master closet and my entire world
was going into that space
and I have to say that when I first
found out about tiny houses this was
back before HGTV had made them cool I
read about them and I thought to myself
that’s crazy who would live like that me
it turns out through a lot of the
examination themself kind of going
through what was important to me I
realized that a tiny house gave me a lot
of flexibility and freedom that I was
really craving and I started kind of
planning and thinking about what would
that look like and could I really do it
I started living in smaller and smaller
portion of my 1,800 square foot
townhouse and I realized I absolutely
could downsize but everything that I
valued would totally fit in that space
and that it would really add value to my
life and I started getting a little bit
brave and talking about it at work and
again this is before it was cool so I
would talk about it at work and my
friends would look at me and go really
you’re thinking about moving into a tiny
house like yeah it’s really exciting and
I got a little bit brave about kind of
talking about it but there was still
these moments where that doubt would
creep in and I’d say to myself this is
the dumbest idea I’ve ever had what am I
thinking
and I comforted myself with the thought
that even if I gave everything away
target would sell me everything again so
there was still hope so over the course
of about three months I downsized from
1,800 square feet to 234 sold over 80%
of everything I owned
it was a huge life change this was less
than six months after my divorce was
finalized I was still a little nervous I
was still a little raw I still wasn’t
quite sure where my life was going and I
still had a lot of fear and a lot of
doubt and in that moment I had kind of a
moment of clarity for me you see I had a
boss that I worked for that let’s just
say we didn’t always see eye to eye he
walked up to me one day and I’m just
sitting there working and he walks up
and he goes hey I heard you’re thinking
about moving into one of those tiny
houses what’s that all about I looked at
him I said well you know sir I think
this is great opportunity for me you
know I’ve gone through a lot of life
changes this really gives me some
financial freedom and flexibility I’ll
be able to move and he just kind of
looks at me
he says hmm he said aren’t you worried
you’re gonna end up an old single cat
lady and in that moment he hit every
fear that I had every fear that this
idea was too dangerous every fear that
if I had moved into this tiny house that
I would be so different that no one
would ever want to date me again every
fear that I was going to end up an old
single cat lady and I knew I had a
choice in that moment I could let that
fear and that doubt stop me or I could
be true to who I was and what I believed
and where I wanted to go and so I looked
at him and I said nope I like dogs
and as you can imagine that kind of into
that conversation he walked off I don’t
remember what happened after that but I
remember in that moment that I had
challenged myself to be dumb dangerous
and different and then I had I knew that
it was the right choice when I tell
people to be dumb dangerous and
different I get a little bit of
resistance right no one wants to be dumb
no one wants to do things that are
different no one wants to be dangerous
we have negative connotations with those
words in a lot of places and what I’ll
say is my message here today is not to
go out and be crazy and reckless it’s
not to go out and throw your life away
and make crazy financial choices and do
things that are truly dangerous and
different but it is to recognize when
you hear that little voice that says you
can’t do this you’re not smart enough
you’re not good enough you’re not
talented enough no one will ever fill in
the blank that you have the courage to
push back just a little bit and say yeah
this idea is a little bit different yeah
it feels a little bit dangerous I’m
stretching myself yeah some people are
gonna think this is really dumb be
confident in that
be courageous in that because here’s the
thing we never know what’s just around
the corner but what I know is true is
that each of you has a key exactly like
this a key to your independence and
success and freedom and that is your
unique story your talents your gifts and
everything that makes you who you are
and if you’re not brave enough to share
that story you’re wasting it so as you
leave here today I want you to go out
there and be a little bit dumb dangerous
and different thank you
[Applause]
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