Turning Darkness into Light: A Blind Man's Journey to Purpose with Chad Foster
Episode Details
Transcript
Discover the unexpected truth behind how a blind downhill skier and jiu jitsu practitioner transforms adversity into a strength. Get ready to be inspired by Chad Foster's incredible journey from darkness to resilience, and learn how discomfort can lead to a fulfilling life. Dive into this extraordinary conversation and unlock the secrets to overcoming adversity and achieving abundance. Stay tuned for a story of triumph and personal growth that will change the way you view life's challenges.
My special guest is Chad Foster
Chad Foster, the author of Blind Ambition, brings an awe-inspiring perspective to the table. Having lost his sight at 21, he has defied the odds and risen to remarkable success both professionally and personally. From becoming the first blind executive from Harvard Business School's leadership program to mastering downhill skiing and Brazilian jiu jitsu, Chad exemplifies the art of embracing discomfort and turning adversity into strength. His journey of resilience and personal growth is a testament to the transformative power of overcoming life's challenges. As a sought-after keynote speaker, leadership coach, and author, Chad empowers individuals to break free from the constraints of their circumstances and bounce back stronger than ever. His unique experiences and unwavering determination make him an ideal guest for the podcast, offering invaluable insights on cultivating resilience and finding abundance amidst adversity.
"Happiness is a decision that you make every single day when you wake up. It's linked to the gratitude that you have in your life. If you choose to be grateful for what you do have, what you'll find is that abundance follows, and you'll find that happiness follows." - Chad Foster
"I think it's important to be there in these experiences and in these moments and meet people where they are with empathy. But, it's also equally important for us as owners of our lives. I'm the owner of my life. You're the owner of your life. Your son's the owner of his life. We have to make a conscious decision." - Chad Foster
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Build resilience to conquer life's challenges and thrive.
- Learn how visually impaired individuals conquer the slopes with blind downhill skiing techniques.
- Discover the empowering world of Brazilian jiu-jitsu training for individuals with visual impairments.
- Uncover the art of turning disadvantages into opportunities.
Book and Resources
Connect with Chad Foster
Website: https://chadefoster.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/FindChadEFoster
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FindChadEFoster/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@chadefoster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadfoster/
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Speaker 0
Alright. Here's the deal. You work hard for your money. Isn't it about time you put your money to work for you? If you are an accredited investor, check out labrador lending dot com. Our integrity income fund provides monthly cash flow from an investment backed by hard physical real estate. Our income fund, which is uncorrelated to publicly traded stocks and bonds, invests in first lien mortgage notes diversified by geography, property value, and borrower type. So you're not investing in one project. You're investing in a diversified portfolio of first lien mortgage notes. Our Integrity Income Fund aims to pay its investors monthly distributions at a preferred rate of return of eight percent annually. Possibly the best part though, the fund showcases a short twelve month commitment, so you can invest your capital today and have access to that capital in one year. Check it out today. Labrador lending dot com. You are going to love this conversation with Chad Foster. Chad is the author of Blind Ambition, and the reason he's qualified to write a book like that is that Chad went blind when he was twenty one years old. And so he's lived a a good portion of his life, more than half of his life blind. And it's incredible what he's he's been able to do with that, with his life. He's, the the guy is a success professionally and personally. No doubt about it. He is a downhill skier, which is amazing. And we talk about that toward the end, how he's able to do that being blind. It's just incredible. He also is a jiu jitsu practitioner, which we get into. We talk a lot about the art of, being comfortable with discomfort. You know, being being okay with, things not being okay, and turning your adversity into a strength. He is really an ideal guest for my show. He was the first blind executive from Harvard Business School's leadership program, which is just incredible. He's done a lot of computer, coding and CRM work, which is is just fascinating, you know, the fact that he's blind. And so, therefore, he ended up writing code to, which benefited not only himself, but benefit the company he was working for, because he was blind. So that's really an underlying theme of this this episode. Just looking at what may be viewed as a curse or, something that's not fair, something bad in your life, and really turning that into a strength. It's easy to say. It's easy for me to sit here and talk about that. But you're gonna love how Chad unpacks this and how he details how he was, over time, able to do that in his own life and how he's now using this to as a blessing to benefit others. So this is a fantastic episode. You do not wanna miss it. Speaker 1
Welcome to From Adversity to Abundance, the go to podcast for real estate entrepreneurs seeking not just to thrive, but to conquer with resilience and mental sharpness. Each week, join us as we dive into the compelling world of real estate through the lens of mental fitness, where challenges transform into opportunities. Get ready to transform your mindset and expand your understanding of what it takes to succeed in real estate. Let's explore these stories of triumph and resilience together. Speaker 0
Welcome everybody to another episode of the from adversity to abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm pumped today to have with us Chad Foster. Chad is the, author of a book called Blind Ambition, and he's a sought after speaker. And we're getting get into, more of of what he's up to in a bit here. But, Chad, how are you doing today? Speaker 2
I'm doing great, Jamie. How are you doing? Speaker 0
I'm doing pretty well. I, had a call earlier, and I I said that the sun is shining and birds are chirping, and I'm I'm vertical. So you know? Speaker 2
It sounds a lot like what I say. Sometimes I'll say it to people and they wonder where's this guy coming from, but I'll tell them it's a great day because I'm on the right I woke up on the right side of the dirt today. You know? Any day you can wake up on the right side of the dirt is a good day. Speaker 0
I love that. That's awesome. So, Chad, before we jump into your backstory, tell the listener who you are and what you're up to today. Speaker 2
So name's Chad Foster. I am a keynote speaker, professional speaker, and author, leadership coach. I help people by empowering them to not be victims of their circumstances. So I break down the anatomy of resilience to equip people so that they can bounce back from their own setbacks better off than before. And I think I'm qualified to do that just in case people are wondering because as they'll hear, I went blind, totally blind from an inherited eye disease while I was in my early twenties and came out of that experience happier and more successful than when I could see. So that's a little bit unusual, but what I like to do is help people and and leaders and organizations empower people so that they don't have to be victims of their circumstances, and they can reach their full potential. Speaker 0
That's fantastic. And the fact that, you know, you you're a blind downhill skier, blind combat Brazilian jiu jitsu practitioner, and you've had a lot of corporate success as well. Obviously, that all speaks to the fact that you know what you're talking about, and you are absolutely qualified to to speak about overcoming adversity and getting to abundance, which is the whole whole purpose of this show. So this is, the ideal guest for for the show for sure. Speaker 2
Wonderful. Look forward to the conversation. Yeah. It's, it's funny. You know, it's a lot of times we look at adversity. I think a lot of people look at adversity I'd where I'm at today. If I hadn't faced what I've been through in my life, I probably wouldn't appreciate where I'm at nearly as much if things were just handed to me. But I had to work so hard when I went blind to, you know, to relearn how to learn and to to get a college degree and to work in corporate and to get promoted and all those things, doing it all with my eyes closed and, you know, teaching myself how to write code to engineer software without being able to see my computer screen. And all these things that I had to do were super duper hard, but it also makes where I'm at today all the more enjoyable. So I think the adversity actually helps us because without it, we wouldn't have a chance to grow. You know? It's the adversity, the obstacles Speaker 0
Absolutely. So Absolutely. So that's so good. I just, read a book a little while ago called The Comfort Crisis, and that's, it just, speaks a lot about, how as a society, we've just become addicted to comfort and having no problems, you know, getting rid of any kind of discomfort or, staying within your comfort zone twenty four seven and banned. Does that not lead to problems and and, not what you know, unfulfilled lives and and a lot of societal issues. But before we get to philosophical, there and and, before I get on my my soapbox, let's jump back into your backstory in more specificity. So you mentioned to me before we hit record that I think age three is when you were first diagnosed. Is that right? Speaker 2
Yeah. Three years old, they diagnosed me at Duke University Medical Center with retinitis pigmentosa. They weren't entirely sure. This is back in the late seventies. And so they weren't they couldn't prove like they can today what my genetic mutation is, but back then, they suspected that's what it was because I couldn't see well in poorly lit conditions. And so my parents took me there, and doctors there diagnosed me with RP retinitis pigmentosa. And they advised my parents strongly to put me in a special school for the blind, and they, instead, they decided to sign me up for soccer. So I ended up, you know, took a little bit of a detour there. Speaker 0
Yeah. That that was not in the, the the prescription, I guess, by the doctors. Got it. So okay. So so walk us through kind of, I know, from three to twenty one walk us from, you know, from three to twenty one. How was your life at that point? Speaker 2
It was bumpy, literally and figuratively. You know, learning the limitations of my eyesight, not being able to see in in poor lighting conditions, frequent trips to the hospital. You know, at at night, I would bump into things, be that, like, a a a downspout or, the pipe on the back of a water truck one time, split my head wide open. I was there so much just to give you a sense for it that the hospital staff questioned both me and my parents in separate rooms because they thought that they were abusing me. Wow. Excuse me. The the truth is they they were not abusing me. I just didn't know what I couldn't see because I couldn't see it. And so I was bumping into things. So that was very physically uncomfortable, and then I got older and learned the limitations of my eyesight at night, but could still see okay during the day. And, yeah, I got got to high school and couldn't really drive at night, obviously, because I couldn't see well enough to walk at night, so I I couldn't drive at night even with the headlights. So that was kinda socially uncomfortable, emotionally uncomfortable. And then in college, graduated high school, went to college where I was studying to go into the medical field because I wanted to help other people. And then I was in the premed field, with classes like anatomy and physiology, and I Mhmm. You know, know, I couldn't even see to complete my classes at that point. My eyesight really faded out to the point where I had to get a medical withdrawal both from my my classes and from my major, and and that was a really difficult point for me because I wasn't sure where where I was going to go from there. You know, we ask kids all the time what they wanna be when they grow up. And Sure. Yeah. There's a there's a good reason that none of them say they wanna be a blind person. You know? It's not on the shortlist of most people. And so Sure. I had to really reassess my situation because they were I was in college. I was twenty one years old. What do you wanna be? I didn't even know what I could be. I didn't know what was possible. I didn't know what tools were out there, what was available. And so I was just kinda stuck in this victim mindset from that point forward. Actually, it started before then, if I'm being honest. I had a victim mindset as a kid. Why this happened to me? This is unfair. None of my friends are going through this. And, obviously, when things faded out totally at twenty one years old, that didn't get much better. Speaker 0
Yeah. So, actually, speak to that a little bit because, number one, we're gonna be kinda moving the show, going forward to focus more on mental fitness and mindset, specifically for real estate entrepreneurs. But, speak to that, you know, as a as a young kid. I mean, you know, maybe as a teenager, just real quickly, I I'd, you know, my son has had a lot of, major challenges in his life. He's fourteen, and and, he actually has a genetic condition. And and, when we found that out, I I spoke with him, and and we told him about it. And and I told him, you know, and and now I will say this is this is easy for me to say. Right? It's much more difficult to actually internalize, but I told, look. Hey, bud. You can you can look at this. Like, why me? Why do I have this genetic condition? Why did God do this to me? Why why, you know, most kids don't have this condition. I I'm it's not fair. And or or you can look at this like, hey. Actually, most of the kids who have this genetic condition have have it a lot worse than I do, and I have a lot of things going for me. And, again, I'm not sitting here. I mean, Chad, I'm not blind. I'm I'm not I'm not I'm not saying this would be easy, so I'm not, you know, but this is this is the little pep talk I gave him, and he started to he's like, yeah. And, you know, it's all about your perspective. Right? So I guess, you know, when you were, say, a teenager, you mentioned the social aspect. What did that process look like to kind of, I guess, move from that victim mentality to kind of empowering yourself? Speaker 2
Well, let me let me start off with just a slight modification Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
To, to the framing because this is really is the essence of resilience, what you just said. And I I would I would take it a step further than than what you did, and and that's what I do in my life. I take it a step further in my life. So I could sit around and I could choose to tell myself that I went blind because I've got incredibly bad luck, which is sort of a knee jerk reaction for most people. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
We all have this this instinct to, you know, to ask why me. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
But after a lot of soul searching, I started asking that question with genuine curiosity. Instead of asking that question with the tone of a victim, the why me? This is unfair. I started asking that question with an open mind and open heart and genuine curiosity, and, eventually, the answer revealed itself to me. And the story that I chose to tell myself about my circumstances wasn't this happened to me because I've got bad luck. It became this happened to me because I'm one of the few people on this planet who has the strength and the toughness to overcome that and use it to help other people. And and by doing that, you reframe your weakness into a strength. You take something that is a perceived weakness like not being able to see or whatever your son's genetic condition is. Right. And you start telling yourself a story this happened to me because I'm I'm I'm dominant. I'm gonna own this thing. I'm gonna Mhmm. Be mentally tough enough to deal with it. I'm gonna be able to overcome it and make it look good. And I Speaker 0
love that. Speaker 2
That becomes a really powerful self fulfilling prophecy that lives in your mind, and it's not long, you know, before it exits the mind and into your behavior, into your words, into your actions, into the people that you hang around with, into the, you know, the everything. Every aspect of your life. So it sort of permeates everything. I didn't know that when I was a teenager. Right? When I was a teenager Yeah. I wasn't there. I was in the eye of the storm. I hadn't figured all this stuff out. And it I was very woe as me. You know? This is garbage. This isn't fair. And I'll tell you what changed it for me was when I went to get my first guide dog at roughly twenty three years old. And, you know, I was there with people who had it way worse off than I did. Some of them have, you know, they had mental impairments as well as being totally blind. So they're, you know, they have more than one disability. Some were on dialysis because they had diabetes that that caused them to go blind, and then there were these girls there who were literally deaf and blind. They couldn't see nor hear anything, but yet these people had the living courage to get a guide dog to travel the world independently on streets. And it just it blew me away, and it it honestly blew the pity right out of me and, you know, instantly. It it's hard to it's hard to be around somebody like that who faces such inconceivable challenges even relative to somebody who went blind. You know, you you live with these people for twenty six days like I did, and it's impossible to to leave there feeling like a victim. You have to feel like, oh my god. You know, I've been given so many things that I haven't really been appreciative of, like like my hearing, like my kidney function, like my mental faculties, all these things that we all very naturally take for granted. So Sure. What I learned in that crash course twenty six days at Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan, is that a lot of people think happiness is, is a feeling or it's an emotion, and it's not. You know, happiness is not a feeling. And I don't think success is an event. I think they're both choices that we make or or don't make. I think happiness is a decision that you make every set every single day when you wake up. Right? And it's linked to the gratitude that you have in your life. If you choose to be grateful for what you do have, what you'll find is that abundance follows, and you'll find that happiness follows. And with happiness comes success. And so the foundation of everything for me was learning that lesson and learning how to shift my perspective, not to what I lacked, but for the things that I've been given that these other people who, in my opinion, had far more challenging lives than I had. You know? And they were meeting with such living courage. It just it blew the victim mentality right out of me. Speaker 0
That's so good. And and I, I mean, that really is the intent of the show here is to highlight it's not to downplay the true struggles that anyone else, is going through. Right? And Speaker 2
Of course. Yeah. Speaker 0
The listener, you know, everyone deals with hardship and and adversity in their life. And so our intent with the show is not to downplay what someone's going through and say, oh, well, you don't have it as bad as Chad did or you know? But Yeah. But it's to inspire and say, look. You know? Look what Chad did. Like and and and use his story and the lessons that that you've learned, Chad, and and and we're trying to encourage people. So I think, that's that's that's exactly what happened to you during that twenty six day period as you were encouraged Speaker 2
by dealing with something. You Speaker 0
know? Absolutely. Speaker 2
And it's it's all relative to the journey that we're on. You know? My experiences are significant to me because it's relative to my life experiences, and the same is true for you and your son and all of your listeners. I'm not trying to measure anybody else's adversity using my measuring stick. That would be very unwise and unempathetic. But what I do wanna do is share that, you know, we all are in this, this common experience of Yeah. Of being human, and we're all going to experience some challenges and hardship. And I think it's important to be there in these experiences and in these moments and meet people where they are with empathy. But also, it's it's also equally important for us as owners of our lives. I'm the owner of my life. You're the owner of your life. Your son's the owner of his life. We have to make a conscious decision. How much airtime are we going to give these issues in our lives? How much space are we going to let them take up in our heads rent free? At what point are we going to decide that, you know what? I've given this how many ever days or hours or months or even years. I've given this issue a lot of time, and now we've gone from reflection and empathy, and we're now into rumination. And this unhealthy rumination is where it starts to become toxic, and we can't move forward, and it holds us hostage. And it's this victim mentality that's preventing us from moving forward and and, you know, even reframing the really, bouncing back better off than before from it. Speaker 0
I love that. And, it's it's so good because neither extreme is great. Right? You you can't just gloss over the adversity and say, you know, pretend like, oh, I'm not actually blind or or this is not a challenge in any way, shape, or form. Speaker 2
This doesn't bother me. I'm I'm actually I'm actually good with it. Right? Speaker 0
Right. I mean, that'd be ridiculous. But Yeah. Yeah. But like you said, you can't stay there for too long, because that that is not healthy for you. It's not healthy for the people in your in your life and, you know Absolutely. Your loved ones, etcetera. I I I saw a a little clip from, Grant Cardone regardless of what people think of Grant Cardone. He was just talking about the the crossover between mental health and mental health challenges and entrepreneurship. And so I think, specifically, he was talking about people entrepreneurs have a much higher level of ADHD than kind of the nonentrepreneur out there. And he made the exact point that that you made a little bit ago, which was because it it's not that entrepreneurship necessarily leads to mental health challenges. It may in some some level because it can be really challenging. Sure. But but the fact that you've overcome someone who's overcome, say, you know, ADHD or some some some other physical or mental challenge like that, anxiety, depression, whatever we're talking about, means that you're that much stronger, and you're now you're able to weather the storms that inherently come with entrepreneurship. And so, you know, it's almost like because you've been through, in your case, this serious challenge with blindness, like you said, now you're able to weather these other storms with business and relationships and whatever whatever else comes your way. And you can add to that. Speaker 2
Absolutely. It it's it's all related. Right? And I think even, you know, in my personal life, the fact that I, as an example, you know, demanded sort of physical fitness from myself at an early age. I've always been into sports. I've I started lifting weights at at fourteen. I started playing sports when I was three, four years old until I went blind, but, you know, continue to work out. And I think a lot of people will say, well, that's sports. What does that have to do with with mental? And I'd say everything because the mental discipline that it takes to to go train on days that you don't wanna train and to do the hard work and to push through when the body's not responding in the way that you want it to respond or you don't feel up to it, that discipline, I think it permeates all of our lives. And I think Absolutely. When I went blind and I had to relearn how to learn, yeah, it was hard work. It was hard work going from being a very visual learner to being a completely auditory learner where visual learning was no longer an option. But, I was used to doing the hard work. I was used to pushing through the discomfort because of what I've been through and because of, you know, what I've done in the gym. And then Yeah. You know, you you fast forward, you know, the things that we have to do in the workforce when job changes and you have to reskill or, you know, reinvent yourself to take on a new opportunity, all that, it it it it takes hard work, and it takes the right mindset. And I really believe that you can have all the effort in the world, but if you don't have the right mindset upfront, then you're you're going to get sort of diminished or diluted results. So it starts with having that foundation of the right mindset. Speaker 0
Absolutely. And I come from a a sports background as well, athletics. I played college, lacrosse. And, I mean, just, and and you and I were speaking. I did a little little jujitsu as well, and and just so much of that. Yes. Yes. It's important to be physically, you know, fit, and and I'm sure that, you know, you are more productive each day because you are physically fit for sure. But I think even more valuable is what you just said, which is the mental fitness, the men the the mental sharpness that you brought over from training every day, the diversity of lifting weights and then relearning how to learn, all that translates into facing additional adversity. So, Speaker 2
get comfortable with discomfort, brother. Get Get comfortable with discomfort. Speaker 0
That is definitely the number one thing I learned from jiu jitsu is just just get comfortable being uncomfortable, and that's okay. You know, you're gonna have stress and, you're gonna have hardship. You're gonna be uncomfortable, and that's that's where the growth happens. So it it just kind of accept it and and and be okay with that. So when walk us through, you know, from we left off at twenty three there. What did your life look like, professionally and personally from twenty three on? Speaker 2
So twenty three, I had to I'd I'd gone into business. I came back from leader dogs to the blind. I had a new outlook on life. Went back into the college of business administration, relearned how to learn. From that point forward, I made straight a's from that point forward, made the dean's list, and and got a job for a top consulting firm. And, a lot of that was because of my attitude, I think, you know, when you show up with the right attitude instead of being bitter about things, I was grateful for the things that I had been given. Doors started to open up for me. I found that abundance was all around me, and so professors were more more open to helping me. I got the resources that I needed from the school. My mom actually entered the scene here and literally read every single one of my business books to audio cassette for me because no options were available back then for audio, and so I didn't wanna let her down. So, again, I made did really well, made all a's. So I was a better blind student than I was sighted student at that point. And, ended up got a job for a top consulting firm, Anderson Consulting, Accenture, as it's now known today. Mhmm. And, you know, got a job there and was in the consulting business for a little while, shifted into commercial outsourcing, did market intelligence, and then eventually the pricing of these commercial outsourcing deals. So picture large multibillion dollar technology outsourcing deals. So that could be Okay. Infrastructure outsourcing, applications outsourcing, and or, you know, full scope applications and infrastructure outsourcing. And these are these are huge deals and very complicated and a lot of spreadsheets. And some people may be wondering how's the world how in the world does a blind guy use very complicated financial models? And the short answer is I taught myself how to write code so that I can engineer my software without being able to see my computer screen. And, I wrote a lot of back end code to make my software talk to Microsoft Excel so that it could do it I could get what I needed out of the spreadsheet. So there's this whole back end library of objects that I could tap into. And so then I'd sort of leverage that into, you know, not only doing my job well, but automating a lot of what we were doing in these financial models. So we'd work on a deal, and we might have, you know, five or six hundred individual files that we're working on for a large global deal. And so picture trying to manage five to six hundred individual Excel files all linked together, doing all these calculations, you know, tens of thousands of calculations inside each one of them, and then managing that with multiple iterations and multiple stakeholders inside of a really large technology services firm. And so I ended up writing automation tools for a lot of that, in Visual Basic to automate what we were doing. So that disadvantage actually helped me. And, you know, next thing I know, I'm taking a job with, with a large technology company in the Washington DC area because I wanted to to get some federal experience. And so then what Speaker 0
And sorry to cut cut you off, but just so because of your blindness, you had to create that code. And and because of that, the company benefited due to the automation scripts that you were Speaker 2
Yeah. They did. Sorry. I kinda glossed Speaker 0
over there, didn't I? I mean No. No. No. I just just wanna make sure I highlight that the the company, you know, it it may be be viewed like, oh, well, may it's a could be like a a charity case or, you know, hire this blind guy and that, obviously, you know, the Right. I I wanna be sensitive, of course, but but it turns out, no. Yeah. This is actually a huge benefit for the company. Right? Speaker 2
Yeah. It it's ended up we adopted the the tools that I wrote globally. In fact, every now and then, I'll still get and this is this is back in, jeez, two thousand five, two thousand six. I've I've had emails as recently as a couple of years ago like, hey. You know, could you help us with this part of the code that you wrote? They're they're still using it in a car across the entire global department to save everybody, you know, time. And you think about when you're negotiating one of these deals and you've gotta make last minute deals, you want people focusing on the value at hand, like, whether that's the Sure. The analysis or what the data is telling you, not not focused on trying to collect and make sure the data is accurate. And so Speaker 0
Right. Right. Speaker 2
It helped to helped to save a a lot of time. And it also you know, honestly, it helped me to be a better new business finance lead on on these deals because my blindness forced me to be a more technical person. And so because of that, I can understand in a deeper, more meaningful way the technology services that we were we were providing. So I understood, you know, I could really wrap my head around, okay, how does the help desk services that we're providing affect deskside support, and how does that affect, you know, tier three dispatch, whether that's deskside support, or or, you know, desktop engineering or or servers or applications? Or how are all these things related, and how do we manage the risk associated with it when you're billing on a fixed unit basis and you're you're costing based on, you know, the actual cost for services and you've got people, you gotta hire equipment, you gotta buy transition transformation costs, that sort of thing. So I could wrap my head around that in a way. I think that's, maybe a little more technical because I went blind. Right? Speaker 0
Most other people wouldn't be able to. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So so did you you move to the DC area or or you were working? Yeah. Speaker 2
We were living there. So we were in Atlanta when I was with Anderson, and then we moved to DC. It was back in two thousand three. And, I was with Computer Sciences Corp. They're now DXC after a couple of transactions, but then went to Unisys, helped them with their single largest account, two billion dollar account that they hired me to help with. And, ended up only stayed there a year because I realized that, culturally, it wasn't a great fit. So I ended up going to SRA and had a lot of success there at SRA International. And, yeah, several promotions there. Went from being a senior pricing lead, three or four promotions later. I was a senior director running the pricing strategy and solutions group for the company. Brought in over forty five billion dollars in contracts with my pricing decisions and strategies, and they were so appreciative for what I did for them. They asked what they could do for me. And, for some crazy reason, I told them to send me to Harvard. And for some crazy reason, they said okay. They agreed to write a six figure check and send me to Harvard Business School. Speaker 0
Wow. Yeah. I was just gonna mention that. So you were the first blind executive to graduate from the Harvard Business School's leadership program. Is that right? Speaker 2
That's right. Speaker 0
Yep. That's amazing. When when was that? Speaker 2
Fifteen, sixteen when I was there. Got it. So two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen. And that's sort of what put me on the path that I'm on today. You know, I was there. A lot people think you go to Harvard Business School and you're gonna learn about business cases and metrics and all that. And we did, and certainly, but I think what I took away that was even more meaningful for me was the time that I spent studying with Bill George. He's a former chairman and CEO of Medtronics, and, he's an executive fellow there at Harvard Business School. And he teaches people how to discover their true north. And a lot of times, it has to do with challenges that people have faced in their lives, and a lot of my one of my fellow classmates are grappling with what theirs could be, and mine just sort of reached up and smacked me in the face. I've never really done anything with my personal journey of going blind. I I just I didn't see it as any all that different or anything all that different. I just did what I had to do to get to my next goal. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
But after sitting in his class and realizing that there was opportunity to use it to help other people, I started to contemplate that, and then my classmates elected me to speak at our graduation. And so I felt that that was going to happen, so I prepared for it. I'd flown to Texas to meet with a professional speaking, consultant, professional speaker, and we wrote, like, a a twelve minute talk together before I'd even been nominated or elected. And so needless to say, when I was elected and and, you know, I was prepared, and, that sort of changed the course of my life. I saw firsthand what what good I could do. And Yeah. That And I can't unknow that. Once you feel that and you sense that, you can't unknow that. Yeah? Speaker 0
Well, that's so so important. And now you're now you're helping so many more people than you you probably would have been had you kinda got, you know, just gotten another another another job. I'm not saying you didn't help people before, but now you're on a whole different purpose driven path. Now I, Yeah. I went it reminded me, I, last night went to a little my my daughter is a junior in in high school, so she's looking at colleges and things. And so there was a panel that, presentation that we went to, and they were talking they four people who were representing different colleges and universities talking about the, you know, just the process of applying and college, etcetera. And for me, it's like I hadn't really thought too much about college recently. And it just struck me that what kinda what you just said, which was, you know, does it really matter what your what your major is? I mean, you know, and I guess if you're gonna be a a doctor or something like that, that does. But, in most cases, you're gonna change your mind anyway. It's really the value of college is not so much about the academics. Right? It's about the internal work that you're doing and the relationships that you make, which is real really what you just said about your experience at Harvard Business School. The internal work that you did to evaluate what does my story mean, what could that mean to others, and the relationship that you relationships you made is what I hear you talking about having the most value as opposed to the classes you took and the lessons you learned about, you know, business, business principles. Is that fair to say? Speaker 2
Yeah. I I think it is. It's the business principles are are are helpful, but I think, yeah, the relationships and the introspection and the broadening of horizons and in particular for me as it relates to sort of finding my true north, my purpose. And a lot of that comes from, yeah, what we're learning, but also not just what you're learning from your professors, but what you're learning from your classmates and what you're learning from yourself and really leaning into what's going on inside of us. You know, a lot of people think vision is about what you see. I think vision is, you know, what's inside of you, not what's outside of you. Mhmm. And so that that sort of occurred to me then and there. But I think particularly as we move into the future, the rate of change being what it is Speaker 0
Oh, man. Speaker 2
I think, you know, the the ability to transform oneself is going to be more important than it's ever been. So self reinvention Mhmm. How do you have the flexibility to to do that? Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
In an environment that is going to be changing so much, I think it's it's crucial, and it gets down to the openness. But, certainly, the tools that I talk about in mindset shifts, and it's, you know, choosing the right response. It's telling yourself the right stories. It's visualizing how to make unfavorable circumstances work for you instead of against you. It's getting comfortable with discomfort, and it's taking advantage of your disadvantages. Because every disadvantage offers us some advantage if we use it in the right context. And so how do you use the tools that you need to reinvent yourself? Because whether or not you wanna change what you wanna be when you grow up, which I've done a few times now. And I'll probably you know, it's probably going to happen again, you know, at least another time or two or three. Who knows? Right. But I think you have to follow your heart, and you have to be able to evolve and adapt. But I think particularly for people coming into the workforce now who are, you know, maybe twenty, thirty years younger than I am Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
That rate of change is going to give them a lot fewer options. I think we had more options when I entered the workforce. Technology was starting to advance the the rate of change, but now it's just it's light years faster than what it has been. And so I think it's just going to be the catalyst to force that as opposed to waiting on people to discover that for themselves. Speaker 0
That is that's just gold right there. I I've I'm you know, my daughter doesn't doesn't, listen to me too much anymore, but I think I'm gonna force her to listen to that little clip there because it was literally what we were talking about in the car ride home last night. She was saying that almost like it doesn't even make sense to learn a specific skill because it's gonna be different in four years anyway with AI and everything else. I mean, in in on some level, she's probably right, if we're talking about an academic, you know, skill, but, or particular field. But what you just said is the ability to reinvent yourself. I mean, you had to re relearn how to learn. Yeah. And just the ability to respond and reinvent yourself and adapt is gonna be so much more valuable than it already is. Speaker 2
Yeah. Speaker 0
Just due to the rapid the rate of change that that's really good. Speaker 2
Absolutely. Speaker 0
So talk about what you're up to in, you know, today in a little bit more detail. I know you have, speaking arrangements, so you have your book. Talk to us about what's going on today. Speaker 2
Yeah. So the the book's been out for couple of years. I, I speak kind of all over the world. I'll probably do sixty to eighty events this year, ranging from, you know, audiences as small as sixty or seventy to as big as five or six thousand so far. Here in the US, mainly, I've got some in Canada. I've got some in in, Europe and and South America and Southeast Asia. So kind of all over where wherever, you know, wherever conferences are and people think that they could use someone to come in and help them empower their organizations so that they don't have to be a victim because of their circumstances, whether that's economic uncertainty or the rate of change or whatever else is going on, market disruption, all those different things. And so I help leaders and organizations do that and equip their teams to understand the anatomy of resilience. I think resilience is kind of an overused word if I'm being honest. I think a lot of people talk about resilience, and it tends to sound to me a little bit like platitudes. You know, try harder or don't give up. And that's not really helpful when you're in the middle of that change curve, whatever that is. And so I'll break down how specifically people can think more resiliently using my the, you know, the lessons that I've learned in my own life. Obviously, I didn't read these in a book somewhere. It's stuff that I've I've lived, my own lived experience. But so I help people with that and, you know, I do some coaching as well. And, shorter than that, I mean, I I really enjoy, you know, like, we talked about earlier in the before we started recording. You know? I like to get roles in, so I train in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Yeah. Absolutely. Traveling. Yeah. Love that. And and do some downhill skiing at least two or three weeks a year. Speaker 0
That's that's I mean, that's amazing. So, how long have you been doing jiu jitsu for? Speaker 2
Just under two and a half years. Speaker 0
Okay. Speaker 2
Just under two and a half years. Speaker 0
I did it for about three years, and it was you know? But I I wasn't there every day or anything, two or three times a week for three years. And it is it is, man, it is hard to put into words the just the life lessons you can learn from that. But, yeah, that's that's awesome. Speaker 2
We wanna talk about facing your fears, and getting comfortable with discomfort. Like, the, you know, the first few times a black belt's you know, they take your back and they put you in a choke hold, and you don't feel like you have a way out, it's pretty terrifying. And it feels like your head's going inside a vacuum cleaner bag. But the more you do that, the more you go train, the more you learn to settle into that discomfort. And the funny thing is the more you get comfortable with it, the more you learn to relax in the face of terror. Yeah. And then you start to find ways out of the situation. And, ironically, a lot of times, those seemingly inescapable choke holds actually do have a way out if you can just stay calm and relaxed enough to look for them. And it's not just applicable on the mat. You know? I mean, how many of us feel like life or work or something in our, you know, our whether it's medically related or it's something in in our our business is putting us in a choke hold, and we don't have a way out. We feel this sense of constriction and and hard to breathe and anxiety, but what if we could all get really good at just settling into the discomfort and getting really calm in it? And we could find ways out of situations that we otherwise wouldn't be able to. Speaker 0
Absolutely. And what and I could tell you from, I'll tell tell you one thing that doesn't work on the mat, which is, you know, trying harder and getting tense and, just just muscling through. Amen. It just doesn't ask me how I know. Speaker 2
Oh, I know because I did the same thing for the first year, year and a half. Right? And and I still have a tendency to do it every now and then. I mean, I'm not gonna say that I'm cured. I've I got my purple belt recently, so I'm I'm learning. Speaker 0
Wow. That's awesome. Speaker 2
I'm a I'm a slow learner when it comes to that. You get on the belt with, excuse me, on the mat with somebody who's really strong and technical and Yeah. It's the knee jerk reaction. It's like, how do you untrain that behavior? Because Yeah. The thing is when you're tense, you can't feel or see the openings because you're too you're too constricted. You're not loose enough. And Yeah. You know, it's just it's one of those things. Like, what if everybody could just stay calm and relaxed? How many more cracks and and life's choke holds could we find? I just I feel like there's it's so broadly applicable. Speaker 0
It is. We're missing opportunities every day because we're so focused on our own fear and our own, you know, just limitations. We're just missing that. And so there there's that's that's we could have multiple episodes just on on that topic right there. But, so I've got a few, few rapid fire questions. You ready? Speaker 2
Yeah. Let's do it. Speaker 0
Alright. This one sometimes trips people up a little bit. Speaker 2
Okay. Speaker 0
What is one thing that people misunderstand about you, Chad? Speaker 2
One thing that people misunderstand about me, they may look at my situation and think that, you know, Chad two point o, never faced, like, real internal emotional struggle, and I did. But I think, like, they'll they'll see me today and wonder why that guy went blind and and, wow, he seems completely unfazed. And the truth of the matter is you're seeing Chad two point o. Chad one point o was in a really bad spot. And, that was years ago, but, thankfully, I've been able to navigate that situation. I came out in one piece, but I I definitely you know, there were there were some dark days, pun intended. There were some dark days figuratively figuratively and metaphorically and and literally speaking. Mhmm. Mhmm. And so I can I can empathize where where people, you know, are are struggling? I I Yeah. Really know what it's like to be in that spot and and to feel whether it's fear, whether it's it's hopelessness, it's anxiety, a sense of not wanting to be dependent on other people, a sense of not feeling comfortable with who I am because I didn't wanna be a blind guy, And shifting all of that, now I've I feel I'm super comfortable on who I am. I can be unapologetically authentic to who I am without any fear. I don't really I mean, I have fear now, but I step through fear, and so fear doesn't control me. Mhmm. And, but but it used to, and that's and that's okay. We're all on our own individual journeys, but I think people look at me today and just think, wow. That, you know, that there's, did did he ever face you know, did not did he face something, but did he ever, you know, get into a a really bad spot? And the truth is, yeah, I was in a really bad spot twenty five years ago. Speaker 0
Got it. And, yeah, thanks for sharing that. And and we don't, yeah, it's it's very easy to gloss over a lot of the hardship people have been through, the guests have been through on on the show. And and, you know, and and we're not saying that Chad or I will never be in a hard spot again. I mean, that's that's the whole point is, like, life will bring us more adversity, and that's okay. So if you could go back and give your eighteen year old self some advice, what would that be? Speaker 2
Oh, I mean, start, start doing the start doing the work sooner. I sort of when I went blind in college, I I had the woe is me mentality, and I was I did some some some fairly nonproductive things just like, okay. I'm gonna see what I I can see while I can see it. Instead of putting my nose down and doing some of the hard work, I would, I'd I'd get myself pointed in the right direction a little bit sooner. And and, you know, those those, nonproductive years kinda made me who I am today, so I say that with a with a little bit of trepidation. But I feel like I, you know, could've could've been a little bit more effective in getting getting on the right path. It was it was hard, though. You know? You get Sure. You, you have something life happened to you like that, and and I honestly I would start training Brazilian jiu jitsu before I'm forty six. I would have started in my in my my late teens. Yeah. If not sooner. Speaker 0
Absolutely. What is a book or two besides yours that's called blind ambition? What is another book or two that you would recommend for our listeners? Speaker 2
I think Chris Voss's book is really good, Never Split the Difference. Speaker 0
That is a really good one. Speaker 2
Yep. Really like his book. Like Bill George's book, True North, another really good book for people looking to do some self reflection. But I've I've got a probably, I've got hundreds of books that I I I just I love reading, so I got a long Speaker 0
list. It's awesome. What is one question that I have not asked you that you wish I had? Anything you wanna cover we haven't touched on? Speaker 2
Maybe about, you know, some of the people may yeah. About the downhill skiing. So people may wonder kinda how that works and Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
And, you know, whether or not I I do experience fear. So how does a blind guy go down a a black diamond at fifty five miles an hour and, and and why, maybe more importantly? You know, the the why is is maybe a little a little simpler, and it's just because I'd always been tethered to something as long as I have been blind, you know, whether it's a person, a dog, or whatever guiding me around. And the first time I I got on skis at thirty eight years old, I felt something I hadn't felt in sixteen years. And so I I was kinda hooked at that point. And, obviously, I wasn't a very good skier back then. I was just kind of somewhat controllably hurtling down the mountain, which was, not it's pretty hard to learn how to ski when you can't see. Gotta have really good balance, really good technique, neither of one, neither of which I had at the at at the time. But, eventually, you sort of you you do learn how to do it, and it it helps you continue to kinda push your edges. And when I say that, I don't mean the edges of the skis, but I mean the edge of your comfort zone and face your fears. Because, you know, when you're going downhill and you can't ski, you you can't see, excuse me, then you really do have to, you know, you have to face your fears, what's in front of me, and you have to trust the person next to you or behind me in in this case, and they're using a Bluetooth earpiece and microphone, and they're telling me which direction to go. And and so that's kinda how we navigate it is just with Bluetooth communication gear with, with microphones and and earpieces and things like that. So it's it's not bulletproof. You know? We've had a few hiccups that have happened and, you know, you you you learn and and move on. Sure. But at at the end of the day, you know, I don't wanna live my life Yeah. To try and just maximize years. Sure. I I would love to live a long, healthy life, but I also wanna maximize experiences. And, I just don't feel like for me, personally, it's about the number of times we rotate the sun. I feel like for me, it's about the experiences that I get out of life and how fully I live, what what life has to offer. So that Speaker 0
Sounds like sounds like the skiing just makes you feel alive. And and, you you know, like you said, living quality years, I think, and and having those quality experiences with people Yep. Is just more valuable than just living a long life. I mean Yeah. Certainly, those can go hand in hand. Right? Speaker 2
Yeah. It can be. And and we're we're as careful as we can be, and we try to minimize, you know, the the likelihood of incidents. But you don't have to look too far for somebody who can see who's been injured out on the mountain. Right? Right. Right. When it does happen, and you just sort of accept that going into it. Like, okay. We're gonna try and minimize this. Hopefully, it it doesn't happen. But if it does, you know, sort of is what it is. I have to live at the same time. Speaker 0
There's also you know, it's it's it's also, in my opinion, risky to not live. Right? To just, like, play too safe in life. Right? There there's some risk there. Speaker 2
Well, there's a big risk of having regrets. You look back on your life, and that's the one the one fear that I can't get over. And that's looking back on my life if I'm so fortunate to make it to the golden years, and I look back and it's, wow, I wish I would've. Oh, I I could've. And, you know, we only get one left to live. You know, we have to make it we have to make the most out of it. I'm not getting a do over and and neither you or neither or any of your listeners. So we have to Right. We have to Speaker 0
make the Speaker 2
most of this one. Speaker 0
Awesome. Well, as we wrap up here, Chad, real quickly, you mentioned you have I think it's vacation rentals. What what does that look like since we have a lot of real estate investors who listen? I think you and your wife do that. What's that look like? Speaker 2
Yeah. We have vacation rentals at different places we like to go, whether that's at the beach or in the mountains. Obviously, I like to ski, and my my wife's a Brazilian, so she likes to go to the beach. And I like to spend time on the mountain, and, so we've we've got a we've got a bit of that and hope to continue doing that. That's gonna be our retirement plan, if you will, the passive income that we create from the vacation properties that we get to go use, you know, both when we're working and also in retirement and, creating passive income from that. And if we stay within the IRS limits, obviously, creating a tax deduction, for for those visits. So it's it's kind of a win win win. And, you know, I just I feel like vacation properties for me is the the poor man's dividend paying stock. I don't have billions of dollars so that, you know, two percent is enough to to really live on. But if you can kick off ten, fifteen ish percent off of and passive income off of a piece of real estate, then then why not? Especially with Speaker 0
the the Speaker 2
tax advantages that you get from some of the write offs. Speaker 0
Hundred percent. Alright. Two more questions. I normally ask this one. I'd skipped over it. If if you were given ten million dollars tomorrow, what would you do with it? Speaker 2
I'd probably put I'd probably put seven of it in real estate. There you go. Yeah. I I would. I would. I would. Because the next place we wanna buy, I've I've we've we're we're checking it out, but, you know, we're not we're not buying that expensive. We're buying, like, like, four bedroom places, but I'd I'd probably probably get a place in France, south of France, because it's, like, it's close to the beach, and it's close to the French Alps. Mhmm. There you go. Yeah. Kinda Nice. Guilty birds with one stone there. So I probably put seven of it in, in in real estate. Keep probably, a million and a half on hand, and then I probably would probably end up spending the other million and a half on probably cars and and stuff like that. That that's that's my guess. Yeah. There you go. I've got a bit of an affinity for for going fast. Speaker 0
Sounds like it. Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm not I'm not a not a great driver, but my wife is, thankfully. Speaker 0
Awesome. Alright. Last question before we wrap up. Where can our listeners find you online, Chad? Speaker 2
Go to chad e foster dot com forward slash a two a, and that's the letter a, the number two a, and the letter a. Chad e Foster dot com forward slash a two a. Speaker 0
Awesome. Fantastic, Chad. This has been so, so good. Really, really good stuff. Speaker 2
Had a great time. Thank you. Speaker 0
Super inspiring and practical. Just I wish you nothing but the best, Chad. And, to our listeners, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us. And act actually, I'm gonna start changing this. I used to say it's your time, but now now I think it's your attention. We have so many things we give our attention to these days. Thank you for spending your attention, listening to Chad and me, and we wish everyone nothing but the best. Thanks all. Take care. Speaker 1
Thank you for joining us on from adversity to abundance. We hope today's episode has equipped you with valuable insights and practical advice to elevate your real estate journey. For more inspiring stories and resources, visit us at w w w dot adversity to abundance dot com. If this episode has inspired you, please share it with a friend who could also benefit from our conversation. Together, let's turn adversity into abundance. Until next time, keep building your mental fitness and your real estate empire. Speaker 0
Hey, everyone. This is Jamie Bateman. Real quickly, I wanted to share with you something, that's been pivotal in the growth and success of my businesses, and that is my partnership with Haven Financial Services. I've been working with Haven for over a year now. Christine Valdez was on episode seventy of this podcast. So go check that out if you wanna hear her story. It was a fantastic personal story for sure. But Haven has been awesome. They provide me with monthly reports that are super clear and discernible, and it that provides me with clarity and focus so that I can do what I do best, which is running my businesses, not preparing financial reports. Again, if you're in the market for top notch financial service company, or if you just wanna check one out, go to w w w dot jamie bateman slash haven and check out Haven Financial Services. Again, that's jamie bateman slash haven. Can't recommend them enough. Christine and her team have been fantastic. So I definitely recommend you check out Haven Financial Services at w w w dot jamie bateman forward slash haven. Let's get back to the show. 
