Latest / The Power of Doing What Matters / Poise(d) to Win: Chris Shepherd on Doing the Hard Things
Transcript
- Chris Shepherd: [00:00:00] You know, they've asked me, they're like, "Why didn't you have the surgery?" I said, "Well, you know, that would've been the easy thing to do." But long term, that was not going to be the best... I don't think that would've been the best option and I think that sometimes you've got to, well, not a lot of times, you've gotta do the hard things. And so for me, when I committed to doing this, I'm like, "We're gonna see this through." Clayton Skaggs: All right. Well, today here I'm talking with Chris Shepherd, a resident of St. Louis. Chris, welcome to the Power of Doing What Matters podcast. Chris Shepherd: Thanks for having me. Clayton Skaggs: Chris, you've been with us now going on two and a half years, right, at the institute, a, a member there? Chris Shepherd: Correct. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. You know, I distinctly remember you coming in [00:01:00] and, you know, we've known each other before you became a member there. But, I remember you coming in, with the back troubles that we've been working on and, you know, I distinctly... You know, some cases I take them on and then say, "You know what? This is pretty straightforward." I distinctly remember yours coming in and thinking, "Wow, this is this is gonna be a little challenging." And I probably told you that. I said, "You know what? We, we're gonna give this a good shot." Oh, Chris Shepherd: yeah. Clayton Skaggs: And, but, maybe give the audience here a little review of where you were at that point. Chris Shepherd: Sure. So I really never had any physical issues up until I probably was 54. So five years ago or so, I was, I've been playing sports all my life. I, you know, I've been playing sports that weren't necessarily good for [00:02:00] your body. A lot of pounding. I played competitive volleyball until I was 40 years old, softball. And then I got... Then at 40, I decided I should start playing something else, so I picked up squash, which was really and probably a bad idea for my body, 'cause it's, as good a sport as it is devastating to your body. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Chris Shepherd: So everything was in pretty good shape. Knees, I've got two torn rotator cuffs from volleyball. I've got, I'm just kind of a, I'm an old, not necessarily a great athlete, but I'm an old athlete, you know? I've got, I've got the dents and dings. And then about five years ago, I was literally playing in a tournament at, at our... I was playing a doubles tournament at the MAC, and I couldn't... after the first game, I told my partner, I'm like, "I can't feel my feet." And he's like, "What?" I'm like, "I just, I can't feel my feet." And I thought it was, I've been stretching a lot. Like I could feel tension in my lower right back. So [00:03:00] we tried and tried and tried to get it loose. As silly as this sounds, I actually had our pro go get a double vodka just 'cause I thought that might help. Unfortunately, it, that didn't. But we made, I made it through the tournament. We got, we, ended up, didn't win, but took second, which is okay. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Chris Shepherd: But at that point, things just kind of started going downhill. I just, I couldn't play hardly at all. I, you know, couldn't, just couldn't get loose, and then it progressed, and I, well really regressed. And I got to the point where I couldn't walk more than 20 yards without my feet going numb. And, so at that point I went and saw, a neurosurgeon, and had MRIs and all this stuff done. And he's like, "You know, you've got spondylolisthesis. Yeah. I have stenosis, and I have a curvature. And he said, you know, "We're gonna do a two-level [00:04:00] fusion at least, and then no bending, twisting, or lifting the rest of your life." And I'm like, "Well, that's, I like to play golf, I like to play squash, I like to... I'm too young for this." So, I sought another opinion and another neurosurgeon, and he and I talked and became friends after a while. And he's like, "Look," he goes, "I would do everything you can not to have this surgery, just because it's not back surgery, it's, your first back surgery." So, I spoke with, Gary Gertner, who's my neighbor, Judge Gertner. And he's like, "You gotta go see Skaggs." So I said, "Okay." So I came and saw you, and, you were, you weren't, you know, all fluffy and flowery and say, we're gonna take care of you and it's gonna be great. You know, you were very, very direct and you're like, "No, this is gonna be difficult. No promises." And then, so, I [00:05:00] signed up and away we went. And I will tell you, it is a process. It takes, discipline's not the right word because if you're invested in your health, You don't need to really have discipline. You should be doing it. It should come automatic. But you gotta, you gotta get into the program and you've got to believe in it and commit to it. So I did. And probably, Clayton, I don't think I saw marked improvement for 18 months. Would you agree? Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. It took a while. I mean, we saw improvement objectively, you know, as we, as we did our assessments and... But you were still, you're still having signals, up in your feet and, you... I distinctly remember seeing you in the gym. You would, and the team would report to [00:06:00] me, "Chris, he's, he still has to bend over to relieve his back." and it, Yeah, I would Chris Shepherd: squat down- 30 times- During a session. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, intermittently. And then, and then gradually over time, I started seeing the reports, "Chris only had to offload his back twice." You know, and so it, We did see improvement and on our, on our measures we saw improvement. But yeah, it took a while, which I, anticipated. But your, your persistence, and I think that that's what you're speaking to, you do have to, you know, really remain persistent, for this to accumulate and have an effect. Chris Shepherd: Yeah, I think it's like taking your medicine. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Chris Shepherd: You know? Clayton Skaggs: Yep. Chris Shepherd: I had a friend that was an alcoholic and he and I talked about it one time. He's like, "You know what?" He goes, "If I don't go to AA, That's like me taking my medicine, if I don't, if I don't go, I'm done." Yeah. And this is the way I look at this. If I, if I [00:07:00] don't come here and work out three days a week at least, and even when I travel, I have like, we're going to Chicago tomorrow and I talked to my wife. I'm like, "I gotta find a gym," 'cause I need to go work out Saturday or Sunday or whatever. I need to, my body needs to move, and we need to keep everything firing and that's just the way it's gonna be, which is ... which is great, 'cause I feel, I would tell you I'm stronger now than I've ever been in my life, and I'm, I'll be 60 this year. Clayton Skaggs: Well, that, that's quite a statement. You were, you're, you know, still are, but, you know, a very competitive athlete, you know. So, for you to say you're stronger now than before, that's saying something. Chris Shepherd: Well, the problem with my athleticism was, I was a naturally pretty good athlete, and I never worked very hard. Clayton Skaggs: Mm. Chris Shepherd: So, I didn't spend a lot of time in the gym doing what I should have done to build a good base, and I just kinda did what I needed to do to get by, if you will. Clayton Skaggs: Okay. Chris Shepherd: And, what I said earlier, I'm not that great of an [00:08:00] athlete. I'm, I just like to play. I'm competitive. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Well, I think, and you know, you and I, in our younger days, we were, we're of an era, I was telling someone the other day when I was playing college baseball, they said, "That's the gym over there." You know, there was no- Chris Shepherd: Right, Clayton Skaggs: right, right ... there was no, there was no program design. You know after practice, that's the gym over there. Chris Shepherd: Right. Right. Use it if you want. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Chris Shepherd: Right. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Well, well, wonderful. And, and you know, a lot of what you just described really layers into, the insight for this week. And at the top of that insight, I had a Theodore Roosevelt quote where he says, "Only those are fit to live who are not, who do not fear to die." And I love that because I think the more fit you are, the more, the more resilient you'll be, the more confident you'll be ... [00:09:00] in all your movements. And I think what you're talking about is you have been pouring, into getting fit to live and, you know, that's a really big, you know, broad category, being fit. How... What would you, what would you say has been key for you, building this fitness? I mean, you've, you mentioned it a bit, but maybe, unwrap that a little more. I Chris Shepherd: think, and I think like for me, you know, I had a goal. When I came here, I'm like, "You know, I wanna, I wanna be able to play squash again." And, I, you know, I'm too young, at least in my mind, of course, to not be active and not do what I love to do. So that was, that was kinda my goal when I came here and you, you didn't promise me I would get there. Well, as it turns out, Padel came around, which is, I'm enjoying more than squash, but I could go play squash tomorrow now. So having that [00:10:00] goal in mind was always kind of, you know, you're looking down the road. That's what kinda kept driving me 'cause I'm like, I want to get back to where You know, I was at, you know, at least, you know, some modicum of familiarity where I, where I was happy and, this is gonna sound really stupid, but, you know, that's, playing a sport for me, it's more than just playing a sport, right? It's, it's a social exercise, right? Sure. Yeah. It scratches your competitive, your competitive urge. And, so one of my best friends, Chris Connell, and, we talk about it all the time. He's three years younger than I am, and he's like, "You know, you and I need to stay in top shape 'cause we've gotta beat these young kids." And that's kinda the way we, you know... I mean, I'm serious, and he's like, "You know, these, these kids, they're nowhere near where they should be, and then they're not gonna look like us when they're, when we're our age. They're not gonna be able to do things that we do at our age." So we've gotta, he's kinda the driving force behind that. He's like, "We gotta, we've gotta keep going, keep going, keep going. Don't ever give up." [00:11:00] So having that goal in mind of me wanting to get back on the court and kinda get back to, you know, where I was, I mean, it was a punch in the face when I couldn't play. It was, it was, you know, all that, that whole part of your life, and it sounds so silly at this age, to be honest with you, but it was a giant portion of my life. You know? Sure. Yeah. It was, it was two hours a day, three or four days a week. I'm with my buddies. You know, we're betting. We're having fun. We may have a beer afterwards. Well, all that was gone, right? So I'm going home, and I'm reading, and I, there was, I couldn't replace it with anything, right? I couldn't even ride my bike. Clayton Skaggs: Yep. Yep. Chris Shepherd: So it was really bumming me out, but- thankfully through, through your work and your guidance and the team here, it turned around. Clayton Skaggs: So, before I get into our reading here, let me speak to that 'cause it, that is a, that's a consistent, time point we, we have with a lot of our clients where we tell them, "Look, you gotta stop doing these, [00:12:00] random activities within sport because that's just gonna be a withdrawal for us recovering your situation and building that stability back in, getting you fit. You, you're not gonna get fit if you don't stop these other things." And so you, you had this, you know, pretty significant period of time. We said, "Stop those things you love." Chris Shepherd: Mm-hmm. Clayton Skaggs: And still you, you were still having signals, right? You were still having... I remember you saying, "Look, I go to the grocery store, and I have to, I kinda calculate how much time it's gonna take me to walk around the grocery store." And, and so with all that going on, but you kept going. So what, what helped you keep going? What helped you have certainty, that this was gonna work for you? Chris Shepherd: Well, the alternative was, was, So unappealing. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Chris Shepherd: You know, and I would say this, [00:13:00] I think it's important to do the hard things in your life, right? So, you know, like I tell my kids that. Clayton Skaggs: Mm. Chris Shepherd: And we've talked about my back and I never complained about it, ever. I just did what I did, right? And we... You know, they've asked me, they're like, "Why didn't you have the surgery?" I said, "Well, you know, that would've been the easy thing to do." But long term, that was not going to be the best... I don't think that would've been the best option and I think that sometimes you've got to, well, not a lot of times, you've gotta do the hard things. And so for me, when I committed to doing this, I'm like, "We're gonna see this through." And we... And you saw improvement. While I didn't necessarily, I wasn't where I wanted to be necessarily, you and Greg and Kelly and everybody else, they, they would see these little improvements and to me, they were, they were so [00:14:00] slight that it didn't necessarily register with me. But that encouragement and knowing that we're going down the road and things are improving, that's what kept it going. Clayton Skaggs: That's Chris Shepherd: great. And, you know, and not just that, I would see guys around here that were way worse off than me, way worse off, and they're running around like nothing's wrong. So the fact that the process does work, and why shouldn't it work for me, right? Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, yeah. That's wonderful. That's fantastic. All right, let me read this, Chris, here, just, just over a couple minutes and, I think a story in here, is gonna prompt, another story that I wanna get to with you. So here we go. Poised To Win. Imagine you're 25 years old, and you have recently been named the best in the world in your sport. In the last year, you've won Wimbledon, the Australian Open, [00:15:00] and several other world-class tournaments. You're doing things that few women in history of tennis have done. At this age, you will be able to make more money and achieve more fame and recognition for many years to come. In today's world of technology, your potential to wield influence and power will be immense. Again, you're number one in the world, and billions of people know you by name. This was the scenario for Barty, and this was the moment that she made the decision to retire from tennis. She wasn't injured or having mental problems. She did it smiling. She knowingly relaxed. Of all her extraordinary performances, in my opinion, this was her most impressive move. Following our poise principle, to be relaxed or poised ahead of a stressful event will give you the best chance of having a poised and good response and the best chance for a good outcome. And the more [00:16:00] poised your response, the more likely you are to have an immediate relaxation and poise following the stressful event. Barty seemed to want to be poised for the rest of her life more than she wanted anything else. A CIHP client recently exhibited an example of this phenomenon on a smaller scale. Bill was seventy-seven years old and had had some back-related problems for many years. Anytime he did something out of the ordinary, he might be stiff, suffer pain, and be standing crooked for days to weeks. He'd been a client for approximately six months and had been very diligent with his breathing, behavior, and awareness exercises. At a family outing, he was barbecuing using a Weber grill. The Weber grill has a unique hook on the top of the lid to allow you to hang the lid on the grill while turning the meats. It is a valuable design for giving you somewhere to put the lid while you tend [00:17:00] to the grilling. If you've used this type of grill, you know it is easy to miss hooking the lid onto the grill. When you miss, it's like expecting to have one more step on a staircase, but there isn't one. On this occasion, when Bill went to hook the lid on the grill, he missed hooking the lid and went tumbling to the ground and hit a nearby wheelbarrow. Family members rushed to his aid and to gather the meat that scattered from the grill. The meat was spared, and Bill seemed to have only mild abrasions. Importantly, after such an abrupt fall directly on his back and hip, Bill had no pain or stiffness that night or for days following. It is most likely that Bill's resiliency was in part due to his buildup of stability and relaxation before the fall. He had trained his relaxation, his poise for the stressful event. Bill's decision to take the time and effort [00:18:00] to do the exercises every day seemed to have paid off. His poise and prowess really showed through. Imagine if he continues to develop this. Over the years of working with and being around professional and elite athletes, I was often curious why and how certain athletes seemed to handle stressful events better than others, whether it was healing from injury or making a game-winning play. My observation was that these individuals, conscious of it or not, deliberately relaxed. They maybe didn't eat the best or do their exercises as prescribed, but they knew how to be at peace You might call them no hurry, no worry kinds of people. If my observations are correct, and if we utilize the framework of the poise principle, they healed from injuries faster and rarely got nervous in big moments because their reservoir for being relaxed was [00:19:00] vast. Therefore, when they were called on to contract or respond, it was powerful and potent. And importantly, they would settle back into relaxing quickly and fully. It seems that what almost everyone else would have perceived as more was not Barty's desire. To know that is exceptional. To act on it so decisively, to completely relax is extraordinary. It is hard to put Barty's decision and response into perspective. She could have had years of fame and fortune, and instead she chose no hurry, no worry. She chose to be poised. She chose not to squeeze the glass. I think it will pay off. All right. Yeah. So, a number of stories, [00:20:00] weaved into that, that passage, Chris. Chris Shepherd: Mm-hmm ... Clayton Skaggs: and, just to add there at the end, so I have recently looked up, Ashleigh Barty, and she retired in 2022, and has had two young kids and, is still seemingly, in a poised spot and enjoying life. Chris Shepherd: Well, good for her. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, yeah. Well, how about you? What does that bring forward for you? Anything there? Chris Shepherd: I think it's a lot of that's preparation, right? If you, if you do the work beforehand, I think that, you'll be ready to deal with whatever's in front of you. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Yeah. And I, as we, talked a little bit before the reading, sometimes it's not doing things, right? So what... You know, we talked about- Chris Shepherd: Right ... Clayton Skaggs: pouring into being [00:21:00] fit for life. You had to pour in not playing for a bit, and that was part of, you did, that was part of the preparedness. Chris Shepherd: Yeah. And, look, this has not been a straight line, this recovery- Oh, yeah ... because you're, as you and I discussed. You know, and then I tore my shoulder up playing padel probably, I don't know, maybe a year ago, and I was out for four months for that. And so, what I have learned though is from you guys and maybe just getting older is if I'm hurt, I'm not trying to push it to get back anymore. I'm getting fully healed, symptom-free, and then give it another week or two, 'cause I know how long it takes to recover at this age, and I think the idea that I'm gonna... you know, we're not professional athletes, by God. We're not, we're not making any money at this. The idea you need to push it to get back out there and risk doing more damage is just beyond the pale, right? It's just- it's just ignorant. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Chris Shepherd: But something that [00:22:00] I did all my life. Clayton Skaggs: Oh, yeah. Chris Shepherd: Right. Clayton Skaggs: Most of us did. Chris Shepherd: I've got an aching hamstring. Well, it'll be okay. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, grind through it, grind through it. Chris Shepherd: Right, right, right. Clayton Skaggs: Well, I wanna cover the recent challenge that came your way that you responded to. It's a little more than missing the lid of the Weber grill. A little more of a fall I think than that. And, so maybe tell us about the horse, you know, the horse situation. Chris Shepherd: Oh, yeah, so we went, we took our kids to Breckenridge for a little vacation, and my middle daughter wanted to go horseback riding, and I told my wife, literally I woke up that, that morning, I'm like, "Honey, I don't think this is a good idea. You know, I've been doing all this work on my back, and I just don't think that it's, this is the right thing to do." She says, "You know what? You need to go. Your daughter wants to go. It's a family event." And I'm like, "Well, what if... I don't wanna..." I was less concerned about falling than anything [00:23:00] else. I was thinking we're gonna trot. Clayton Skaggs: Mm. Chris Shepherd: I didn't think the, the trotting would be good for my spine. So she said, "No, it's, it's a path or you're walking along a path." So- Clayton Skaggs: Yeah ... Chris Shepherd: sure enough, we load up. I get on this draft horse named Winnie- ... and, tried to, tried to make friends with Winnie the whole time, was petting her and telling her how great she was, and everything was fine. We're about halfway through the trip and, we went down to this kind of like a little, little gully, and we're all, and we're on this, I don't know, four or five-foot wide path that is, has giant boulders everywhere. And then smaller sized rocks that probably weighs 20 pounds. But I mean, it's, it was treacherous for these horses. And I felt terrible for them, but they, you know, this is what they do. And we're kind of down this, at this little spot, and all the horses had stopped. I was, my horse was the last one in line, and my horse, something spooked it, and he reared up, or she reared up, and I was holding [00:24:00] the reins, and I mean, she basically just kicked me off. I had a hard time getting my right foot out of the stirrup, but I fell to the left onto the path, and I fell right on my lower left back. I'm very lucky. I could have hit a big rock. The horse could have dragged me. The horse could have kicked me. I mean, it's- Clayton Skaggs: Sure. Yeah ... Chris Shepherd: I walked away from this really banged up, but very fortunate. I mean, never ride horses is my suggestion from now on. But, so, long story short, we went back to the, condo and got in the hot tub and, you know, I tried to do whatever I could. My, actually, my first call was here, and I called Kelly, my trainer. I'm like, "Look, here's what happened." She says, "Let me see if we have anybody in Breckenridge that's, you know, has the same philosophy that we have." And, unfortunately they didn't, but I mean, I could barely move. It was... I could, I could [00:25:00] move everything, but it was like someone was stabbing me in the lower back with a hot poker. It was, it was brutal. So we were leaving the next day, so we drove back, drove back to Denver, got on a plane, came home, and then got a hold, Kelly got a hold of Jim, Dr. George, and he came in on his day off. The, the office was closed, but he came in and opened it up for me to put hands on me and make sure that I didn't do any structural damage. That was unbelievable. It was great, and also gave me a lot of peace of mind knowing that, you know, I didn't re-injure or worsen my spinal issues that I'd had. And it was just really at that point it became, you know, I was still training here, but we were doing a lot less and just doing what I could without aggravating it, and within a matter of three or four weeks, three weeks, I was symptom-free again, and it's been brought up, and I do feel this, [00:26:00] that I'm, had I done that same thing three years ago, I don't think the outcome would've been nearly as positive as it has been, and the recovery would by, by, by far would've been longer, than it was if there, unless there was other damage. I think, I think the work that we've done here to get my core and you know, everything else in shape has, was definitely a positive influence on the injury. Clayton Skaggs: Great. Great. Yeah, I often, and when our clients have these, have these falls or challenges, I get, I get a little excited sometimes because I know they're likely to, have a, you know, good response. They're gonna bounce back. I don't get excited that they have a fall or anything, but, it's gonna be an opportunity for your resiliency to really, come [00:27:00] through and, that, you know, that trauma is a really good test. That is a, an extraordinary test and, yeah, I was, I was really grateful to hear you were back into activity within, you know, within a month or so. I think you were back playing padel within a month, I think, right? Chris Shepherd: Well, I'll read your text to me. "Hey, you okay? What were you doing on a horse?" Clayton Skaggs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, when I got that message from Dr. George, yeah. "Hey, Chris, Chris fell off a horse." I was like, "What? What, what was he doing?" Chris Shepherd: Yeah. You, you'll not get a text like that again, I promise. I may fall off of something else, but it will not be a horse. Clayton Skaggs: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, grateful, yeah, that it was, there wasn't more and, and it shows you what you have built, what you, that [00:28:00] capacity you've built that, that's just really fun. And, you know, I think it provides, you know, some good, some good story for others to know that, you know, all that stopping and taking a break, resting, allowing some restoration to happen can pay off. And, you know, we see it time and time again. But it's hard and when you're in the middle of it. There's no doubt about it. It's, it's hard to see that light. Chris Shepherd: I think it, and that not just, you know, the fact that you're... you're used to doing certain things, right? And when that's taken away from you, you get... You know, you want it back as fast as you can. In our, and in our society, you know, we are what have you done for me lately, right? Yep. Yep. You, we want immediate gratification. And so you've got to just learn to slow things down [00:29:00] and just relax and know that you're not running out of time. It's gonna be fine. Just let the process play itself out, and you'll be better off, so much better off down the road. Clayton Skaggs: That's wonderful. Wonderful. Well, just, great, great stuff, Chris. And, it's all part of what we're trying to do with these, these podcasts is bring, bring those stories forward, for folks to hear. Hopefully, they're reading, reading our work too. That just makes it double, double benefit and, you know, just can't thank you enough for taking the time and sharing all that. Chris Shepherd: Happy to do it , and I didn't cuss, so there you go. You don't have to edit that out. Clayton Skaggs: Exactly. All right, sir.