Reborn Resilient: A Journey Of Overcoming Adversity And Thriving With Tiran Jackson
True leadership is often shaped by resilience, and no one embodies this more than Tiran Jackson. In this episode, host Sean Olson welcomes Tiran, a life coach, author, and business owner, to discuss his incredible journey of trauma recovery and transformation. From surviving a devastating accident to rebuilding his life and purpose, Tiran shares valuable insights on how challenges can lead to profound personal and professional growth. Learn how adversity can foster leadership, connection, and a deeper understanding of what it means to overcome. This conversation will leave you inspired to embrace resilience in every aspect of your life.
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Reborn Resilient: A Journey Of Overcoming Adversity And Thriving With Tiran Jackson
Everyone, welcome to this episode of the show. This is a show where you hear the real stories of people just like you who become extraordinary leaders. You'll learn valuable tips from their lives, tips that you can apply to become the leader that you were created to be. When leaders are intentional, lives are changed. We're glad to have you here for our latest episode.
I encourage you right now to hit that subscribe button and hit that like button and have all of our platforms and YouTube and everyone else just build up those algorithms for us. We greatly appreciate that. Hit that now. I'd like to welcome our guest, Tiran Jackson. Tiran is an author, a speaker, a life coach, and a business owner himself of a company called Reborn Resilient. Tiran and I had a chance to meet about a month ago. An incredible man who has been on an incredible journey. I know that you all are going to be moved by his story.
Tiran, great to have you on the show, welcome.
It's awesome to be here, Sean. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
The Life-Changing Event In 2018
Thank you, man. I appreciate you. It's just been a joy to get to know you a little bit over the last month or so and to see some things you're doing. I know our listeners are going to feel great things from this. We always open up with the same question. Walk us through your professional career and leadership lessons learned. We're going to do that, but your story's a little bit different. I want to hear some of that early career, but obviously, 2018 is where your life pivoted. That's where we're going to dive in but tell us a little bit about Tiran and who you really are.
Getting To Know Tiran
My transition has been interesting to say the least. I was a very STEM-oriented math and science student growing up. I went to school to get an engineering degree, got a bachelor's in mechanical engineering, a master's in systems engineering. I thought I was going to be an engineer all my life. Started out working at Rolls Royce, where I was designing components for aircraft engines. Shortly after my time there, there was some movement of resources. Due to some of the things that I was doing, I found myself in a leadership position very early in my career, where I was managing four other engineers in cost reduction efforts partly due to a creative and innovative approach towards some of the legacy designs that we already had.
Coming in fresh out of school, with new ideas, and new thoughts, I was able to prove myself. What I realized at that point in time is there were certain lessons that had to be learned that just you can't get past the lack of experience in order to really be able to be a strong leader. Even though I was technically astute, there were things from a personal relationship standpoint or just a leadership standpoint that at 24 years old I just didn't know. It did teach me along the way and like a lot of things you learn as you do. I did that for some time while I was an engineer at Rolls Royce.
My wife, Maleka, we had actually met in college got married and we were living our careers our lives at that point in time. She was doing her thing as a teacher and then wanted to shift gears and go into business. Both of us went back and got MBAs because we thought business was going to be connected to whatever we were going to do. We both had high ambitions, very aspirational on what we wanted to do. Early in our career, we ended up leaving Indiana because both of us were from the South and wanted to get back closer to home. After eight years at Rolls Royce, I left and started working at a smaller company that was producing gas turbine engines for different applications as well.
Similar technical concepts, but completely different businesses. I went from a company where there were 5,000 employees to where there were 30 employees. I went from positions where there were departments of 40 people to I am the department. That was a completely different animal. At that point in time, I'd gotten some experience as far as leadership and realizing how important relationships are in order to create success. Did that for a period of time, actually shifted gears, and worked for GE for some years as an engineering manager before moving back to this smaller company after my mentor retired.
From 2014 to 2018, I was working for this small company, VeraCore, and I had been moving up and preparing myself for being director of engineering for the company. At that point in time, my wife, Maleka, she had moved on from being originally a teacher to someone who was in the accounting business side to someone who had gotten another master's in human resources. She was moving up the ladder, and she had just gotten promoted as director of human resources for their DEI initiatives for a large Fortune 500 company.
As we were in this position, we were looking forward and excited to a lot of different things in our career with our family but really we were looking forward to a momentous occasion. We were getting ready to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. A lot of people decide that they do something great on their anniversary. It wasn't out of the ordinary for us to decide to go on a vacation, to take a little break from everything within our careers, within our family, and just reconnect and prepare for what was to come because she had like I said, just gotten promoted from being an interim director to the official director, and they were going to make the announcement after we got back from vacation.
We had a couple of reasons to celebrate. In the midst of figuring out what we were going to do, we decided to take a trip to the Bahamas. Going to the Bahamas, didn't think anything of it. Five days in paradise. The day before we went, we dropped our son, Cameron. He was twelve years old at the time. Off with his uncle and said, “Don't worry, we'll be back in one week to pick you up. Mom and Dad are going to go have a great time and reconnect, enjoy ourselves, spend our time on vacation, and then pick up with him for the rest of the summer.”
We get to the Bahamas, first two days are great. You get there, you start to feel that relief of being disconnected from everything and just enjoying life. We had a phenomenal time. Time at the beach, some fruity drinks, time at the pool, pictures, all the great things the couples do on vacation. On the third day, we decided that we were going to do something a little more adventurous. We were going to take an excursion. We're going to leave the resort, take an excursion toward the island, and get a little bit more activity into the trip.
We woke up that morning, we picked up a flyer from this small company that was promoting and you see these all the time when you go on these Caribbean vacations. We had a decision to make. We were trying to figure out if we wanted to do a half-day tour or a full-day tour. As we were going through this, Maleka and I decided we would do the half-day tour because I did want to go back to the resort and golf that afternoon. She wanted to go to the spa. We were trying to figure out how we were going to fit it all in. We decided to do the shorter tour that morning.
As we pay for our tickets and we walk down a pier, we see the boat for the full-day tour, and we see the boat for the half-day tour. We board our boat for the half-day tour, get on the boat, and take off at 9:00 in the morning. As we're taking off, thinking that everything is great. I'm enjoying the atmosphere, the environment, everybody's happy. Maleka and I are truly making the most out of this time. The unexpected happened. Five minutes into the ride, unbeknownst to us, there was a fuel leak that was emanating from the fuel tank.
Maleka and I were sitting above the fuel tank. A spark happened. The next thing I know, I'm waking up face down on the surface of a burning boat. This led to a horrific explosion and out from nowhere, as I'm starting to come to from being unconscious, I woke up because my right leg was literally on fire. I glance down to my left, I see my left foot dangling. I see my ankle bone, blood rushing. I don't know what's happened. Now we were still in shallow water. We weren't too far from where we took off.
This second boat wasn't too far away from us. I could see passengers on that boat yelling, “Get off the boat.” I try to push myself up and I crumble. Try to push myself up again. I didn't know it at the time, but I had a broken left collarbone, a broken right foot, fractured vertebrae, fractured pelvis, and bruised ribs. I was horribly injured. The only thing that I could do was reach my right hand out, and put my fingertips on the surface of the deck of the boat, just to drag myself away from the flames until I pass out again.
Now a lot of things were going wrong. Maleka was thrown into the ocean with one other passenger in a different direction. Another boat came and picked her and that other passenger up and got them to shore. Passengers from this boat, they took off the same time that we did. They actually risked their lives to pull me off the boat before the second fuel tank exploded. As they got me to shore and trying to process what was going on, I'm waiting until Good Samaritan who happened to have a pickup truck could put me in the back of the truck and take me to the clinic where Maleka was.
They get me there, they put me on a stretcher, wheel me in and that's the first time I hear Maleka. I hear her moans, her agony, her suffering and I can't do anything about it. We're in this remote island in the Bahamas. There's one doctor there and when the one doctor finally comes to me, I ask him how is my wife. He tells me, “We're sending you and this other passenger to the good hospital and your wife will come later.” Even though I didn't get a chance to speak to Maleka, I'm optimistic thinking that she must not be hurt as bad if they're rushing to send me and this other passenger off to the Nassau, to the main island where they have a good hospital.
They put me on an airplane, flew me there, go into emergency surgery. I woke up in the ICU hours later thinking that my wife was going to be here now. As I wake up in ICU, two doctors come into the room and my first question to them is, “Where is Maleka? Where is my wife?” The two doctors look at each other in confusion and they leave the room. I'm thinking to myself, she should be here by now.
After about 4 or 5 minutes, they come back in and they tell me, “Mr. Jackson, we hate to inform you, but your wife didn't make it.” Maleka passed away at that clinic before they put me on an airplane to fly me to the hospital. They didn't want to tell me that news. What was supposed to be a tremendous, enjoyable celebratory time, turned out to be one of the most tragic occurrences you could ever imagine.
That's incredible Tiran. I know that you've told this story many times, but still, I thank you and our readers, thank you for sharing that because those unbelievable things that none of us want to experience. None of us want to have to go through that. The fact that you're here and where you have come since then is a testament to you. It's a testament to the people that God puts in our lives and just the power that can come through life. I can't imagine the pain that's in that. Pick up from there. What's that like coming off of that news understanding what's it like when you go home to Cameron and you talk to him?
That next morning I actually had to make a phone call I didn't want to have to make. That's when I had to break the news to him over the phone on what happened that his mom's never coming home again. Now that was heartbreaking as well. I was telling him that we were going to get through it and I was going to be all right even though I didn't know I was going to be all right. Now fast forward, a lot of things were happening and I ended up having to figure out what life was going to look like. I ended up being taken to a hospital in Florida where I ended up having to go through multiple surgeries and they were able to save my life.
That's when they amputated my left leg and said, “You're going to survive, but there is going to be a lot of recovery that was in place.” Physically, I was broken, emotionally, I was broken. I was at that point starting to process what life was going to be like. I'm a spiritual person and I was praying throughout this time, but God spoke to me clearly. He told me that I had to be resilient. That I had to make a conscious choice to be resilient. That the obstacles I've overcome just to be alive still were nothing compared to the obstacles I was going to have to face.
I didn't realize how much of a transition and change it was going to be becoming a single father, being disabled, not knowing what my future was going to look like. He told me that I was not going to go back to engineering, but there was going to be a different path for me and that I needed to be obedient and follow that. Imagine the state of mind when you're so used to doing a certain thing and then you're an expert at what you do and then everything changes. This is what I was having to deal with, that complete pivot.
At the same time, the brokenness in trying to figure out how you're going to put it back together was part of it that led to Cameron. Parenting is hard enough when everything is right. When circumstances are great. I had to not only go through my emotional recovery and heartbreak but then to manage the emotions of a twelve-year-old who at that age, he was turning 13, you know how teenagers, they can pull away from you to some extent, naturally. Now he is going through ups and downs and not having the only woman he was ever really close to around his mom and then having to figure out how to process, how to live life from that point without her.
For me having to adjust to trying to be not just a dad, but in some ways mom too. It was a lot dealing with the emotional heartache and difficulty. I say this because there's a situation, where Maleka and I used to have to travel quite a bit. When she would be gone on a work trip, it would be Cam and I at home and we would manage to function. Trust me, I'm not the best cook. I couldn't do everything but we got by. In his mind because of not really wanting to process it and being in denial of it, he rationalized it as if mom was just on a long work trip and hadn't come back yet.
It took a while to get to a place of accepting that this is our new reality. This is our new normal. For a period of time, I was in a wheelchair, on crutches, and couldn't walk. Even once I was able to walk again, now he has to have a dad with the prosthetic going to his football games and all, and having the kids pointing and asking questions and those types of things. These are things that we had to learn to adapt to as a result of the circumstances. What it did was it brought us closer together and we had a great relationship before, but going through that adversity led to bringing us even closer together.
As we talk about leadership, if I transition a little bit, sometimes the greatest connection or bond can come through times of adversity. When we as leaders, especially in the business world, are seeing challenges come up, we can find our allies, our teammates, our employees, and our staff to work together in those times and see it as an opportunity to increase that connection with one another because it just doesn't hold true in life, but it holds true when we face challenges out in the real world.
Resilience: Sometimes the greatest connection or bond can come through times of adversity.
It does. Now that's an incredible point. I remember a phrase I can't even remember who said it, Tiran, but chaos reveals character and your character reveals how you communicate. When you have that chaos, whatever it may be, be it personal and physical, like your situation or a tragedy or even just a business transition. Some things are as simple as a new ERP, but everything in the business changes. It creates chaos. Chaos reveals characters and how are we going to respond and how are we going to get through that?
I just want to say really quickly, I love how you describe how Cameron made his way through it and how you walked alongside him. From the way you're describing, it sounds like you weren't trying to tell him how to work his way through it. You were there to support him in working his way through it, which I think is a huge leadership lesson, because as leaders when there is chaos, when there are things, we almost feel like we need to take over and tell people when really we just need to walk alongside.
Relearning Life And Finding Resilience
There's a big difference between, and I've learned this through my recovery, having the proper support versus being told, and being instructed without having the freedom to learn. I use this quote from time to time. It's really about doing. Teaching is repeating until learning takes place. Learning is knowing and doing until understanding takes place. We have to get an understanding about things in life.
The only way that we get that is from doing. That comes back to experiential learning. I think a lot of times when we make it easy for other people and we just put every step in front of them and say, “This is what you do. You take away that ability for them to figure it out, to do it, and to be able to truly understand what they're getting into.” I know and understand that there are risks associated, but these are the ways that we improve and get better. I had to go through a number of areas in life. I had to relearn life again.
I had to relearn it in a place where I was not the same person as I was when Maleka and I got married. Over the course of the time from 25 when we got married to 40 when this happened. I had changed a lot more than what I had realized and trying to get back out there and figure things out in the world. The mindset is different. I like to state that when we're connected with someone for so long like that, the things that you like to do are the things that y'all like to do.
You're connected and everything and you start to merge personalities but then when that certain person is taken away from you and you're left on your own, how will you stand up? You don't necessarily know how to do those things. That was one of the areas and from an adaptability standpoint.
I had to go through and realize, and it really taught me to learn more about who I was, which led to being able to gain a new level of empathy, a new level of vulnerability, a new level of authenticity, and a true understanding of the importance of being real with myself and being honest. I think as leaders sometimes we don't always look in the mirror and really dissect who we are, why we do what we d,o and what we're thinking. That was a real reality check for me in figuring out how I was going to move forward in life.
That's a great point. The whole aspect of self-awareness which is the foundation of emotional intelligence. I'm a firm believer that EQ over IQ when it comes to leadership, it's not what we know, it's how we understand life and people, but even understanding ourselves. You're really tapping into that realm of identity of who am I? We so often build our identity around what we do, your job or something like that, or sometimes even who we're with. Yes, our marriage is important. You want that bond, you want that oneness, but you are not your spouse.
You've got different elements of your identity, but understanding our identity and really just who God created you to be. The good and the bad, because from that, that's where we find our creativity. From that creativity is where we find our purpose and value in life. It's the identity. It's crazy sometimes I've had nothing anywhere near the type of trauma and the story that you've had, but it's through trauma, whatever level you want to put it at, that makes us look inside if we're willing to do it.
I wholeheartedly agree. I don't wish bad things on anybody, but that gets into the core of resilience because I look at it from the standpoint of the fact that we will have to have those breakdowns, those challenges, and we have to be able to cope with that pain. It's not just dealing with it, but what are you doing with it? Are you able to use it to create positive growth in the grand scheme of things, to create positive change, to be a better person, to be able to think more clearly, to analyze situations, and make more intentional productive moves in order to help your organization, your group, your team?
It isn't just about bouncing back and getting back to a place of equilibrium, but we want to become better. Sometimes we don't realize that until we have the stress and the pain that comes from these bad situations. It's a key part of being able to reframe certain situations in a positive light and look for those lessons so you can be better in the future.
It's not just bouncing back but becoming better. We don't realize that until we have distress and pain from bad situations.
Building Reborn Resilient
You're just six years removed from all this, which in the big scheme of things is not very long. I know here we are six years later and you were speaking around the country. You're doing various things around that, but you formed this company Reborn Resilient. You've written books about that. At what point in this healing process for you did you really sense God saying, “This is what I really want from you?”
Sometimes we are naive to the messages that are becoming clear. The way that things happened was unexpected as far as I was concerned. As I was going through my physical and emotional recovery, after I got out of the hospital, I spent two months having to live with my sister. I was in a guest room and I had a lot of time to have to go through this initial healing process physically as well as emotionally. I was getting past the PTSD. I had nightmares of waking up on that boat and a lot of different things.
Note that I mentioned that the only part of me after the explosion that was really functional was my right arm. I'm right-handed. The only thing that I could really do is I had all of this time was start writing out and journaling. It helped me begin to process what had happened. Start to think about what the future options may be. Get my thoughts and emotions out.
Let me start off by saying or I wasn't a writer but ironically, having that time and dealing with you know recapping what happened in my life and what could have caused it. All of these questions led to my first book Choosing Resilience: All Things Work Together For Good was not the plan at the time, but that's how it came about just me going back and reflecting through some of the conversations Maleka and I had and certain situations. I know this is touching, but it's crazy. I recap about a conversation that Maleka and I had about a year before the accident.
Choosing Resilience: All Things Work Together For Good
We went on a vacation and we were in our basement and we were watching this movie. In the movie, the lead character who you thought was going to be there the whole time died suddenly early on in the movie. After we finished watching it, it led to one of these what-if questions. What if something were to happen to you? What would you want me to do? It triggered the conversation and Maleka thought about it and said to me, “Tiran, if something happens to me, I would want you to go back out there and find happiness again. I wouldn't want you to mourn and grieve for too long.”
She said something funny. She thought for a second, she came up with this list. On this list were the names of seven women that she said, “Under no circumstances whatsoever. You better not let them in my house, be around our son, burning them casseroles. No, none of that.” She said, “I'll come back and hunt you if you do that.” Ultimately she told me, “I want you to do everything you can to make sure that the only part of me that's still left on this earth is well taken care of.” That was a huge dream. When I started to think back through the times that I didn't want to push, I didn't want to fight, I didn't want to go to therapy, I didn't want to go do any of these things.
I had to think back to that promise I made to Maleka. The way God works, you don't think about the importance of having that seemingly insignificant conversation before something happens. Anyway, going back, I mean, these are some of the little nuggets that sometimes we don't pay attention to things at that point in time but they can come back and have a tremendous impact on the way we think we operate down the road. As I was getting all of these thoughts together, like I said, it led to me writing the book.
Months later, as I was still going through recovery, a friend of mine asked me if I would come and speak at a conference and just tell my testimony. It was at a life insurance conference. They would resonate with having to go through a loss at such a young age. In doing that, I was nervous. This wasn't my thing. I wasn't supposed to be speaking.
I wasn't supposed to be doing it but I put something together and I say to this day, it was the worst talk I've probably ever given in my life in front of people. I broke down part of the way through, but I realized that it impacted the way people looked at life and things as a whole. It led to others being asked again. I'm thinking to myself, “This was not good.” It wasn't planned but then when you realize how much power your words and your story and your experiences can have on helping people who are going through things, then I realized, “God, maybe you may be opening this door up for me.”
That's when I was like, “Maybe I should look to take it seriously, learn how to do it, and see because I realized that the impact on people was on your new purpose now. It was a different purpose than just being an engineer and providing for Maleka and Cameron that I thought it was.” That's how I started speaking. From there, it's just gone ever since.
That's incredible how that's played out. I know you formed your company and it's the baseline for your books and speaking called Reborn Resilient. Talk about that first word, reborn.
Here's where my business comes from, Reborn. Tiran Jackson 1.0 was the person up until June 30th, 2018. When that boat exploded and I woke up from that point, in a sense, the person who I am, it was a new person. There was a rebirth. The way that I think, the way that I approach, the person who I am overall was a new person. Now it didn't just happen instantly, but the transformation that came as a result from that created the person who I am today. What I realize is when we go through tremendous trauma or tragedy, or we have these life-altering situations, in some ways part of us really is reborn.
We could have and we have people who may fight it or may be in denial or may not want to go through change, but change is the only constant in this world. The sooner that we're receptive towards that positive change, the sooner we can truly fit into our real purpose in life as leaders, as individuals, and as contributors to society. I strongly agree or feel that when we face these challenges, if you're receptive to what the positive change that can come out of it, you are reborn in a sense. The resiliency, if it wasn't for resiliency, I wouldn't even be here today.
That's the theme behind my business and I help those who are going through trauma, tragedy, or transitions in life make the transformations they need to be triumphant. Bad things are going to happen, but it's all about how we approach the challenges. It's not the adversity, but it's our reaction to our adversity, the terms of our life story. I think that we need to be mindful of whatever happens is going to happen, things that we can't control, but now how are you going to react? What are you going to do differently? What are your next actions in order to overcome whatever's come your way?
With your business today then, you have the books. I know you speak often at conferences and to different groups and events. From that when they're hearing that message, that's where your life coaching comes into play where people that are going through those things can come in with you. You can be their coach to help them build that resilience. Is that accurate?
That is correct. I work with different people from different perspectives. For those who have gone through a significant type of loss. Loss of a close loved one. My program is called Happily Ever Interrupted. That's based on that sudden unexpected loss and what it does to really shake you to your core and help people get out of that paralyzed state because you do feel like, how am I going to move forward with everything that has changed and happening? The change happens fast, the grief is heavy. In some cases, such as, people feel this survivor's remorse, this responsibility for that person no longer being there.
That is a completely different layer of having to rebuild somebody after something. Now I also work with life coaching clients that haven't gone through the same level of tragedy. It's all about just building resilience for challenges in the future and being able to map out and design, from where you are today to where you want to go. Creating a clear path on how to get there and developing the right habits, the consistency, the discipline, and the accountability needed in order to reach those goals. Those are the two types of people that I really work with within my coaching.
Core Foundations Of Resilience
You hit on some keywords there. You're not in your office, but I've seen you in your office, and in your office on the wall behind you are some of these core principles that build resilience. Why don't you just hit those really quick and let our readers understand some of the core foundations for resiliency?
One of the big things that I understand is life is about action and what we do. I'm a firm believer in planning strategy, thinking through what needs to happen, and not just wandering around aimlessly. The engineer in me wants to make things as efficient and as effective as possible. It's a unique twist on how to be able to work with these emotional types of recovery skills in order to help people. As far as what's important to me, the execution is important. That's where we've got the plan. Now we've got to start doing the work.
Life is about action. We can plan and strategize, but execution is important. We've got to start doing the work.
The consistency, I had to take a system to a whole another level. I ended up from a physical standpoint getting to a place where they told me that I would walk after 8 to 10 months and it would probably look a little awkward. Consistency with physical therapy, with working out, with doing the right things, had me walking in three and a half months. I was running five Ks after six months and I never run a five K before. Learn how to swim with one leg. All of these were the results of continuous progress towards the goal and getting small wins every day and building upon those wins.
In doing so, definitely accelerated my healing process physically and even doing the shadow work to be restored after the heartbreak and the loss helped me get to a place where I could be comfortable with life again faster than what it would have been if I'd been left to my own devices. These are some of the things. Like I said, the discipline, I believe in repetition. The more time that we do something, the less we think about it. The less we have to think about it, the better we become.
It goes back to just the whole idea that practice makes perfect. That's part of what I believe in persistence. As you said, these are all things that are in my office and all, but having that persistence to keep going in spite of we're going to always have resistance, but we have to recognize that resistance and understand that our will is stronger than whatever is stopping us from getting there. These are just complete mindsets as reminders for myself, but it's also reminders to others on part of what goes into becoming a resilient individual and strengthening that resilient mindset.
Resilience: Persistence: Keep going in spite of resistance. Recognize that resistance and understand that your will is stronger.
I love that. It's fun to listen to you and to watch you say this because your pace picked up, the strength of your voice picked up. It's like, you've got this thing inside of you. I think what's so important for people to realize we all have it inside of us, just we're afraid to tap into it. I love how you framed it though, you've got to have that goal. You've got to have that thing you're going after. For you, it was to walk and then it was to run. It comes into different elements of life. Scripture says if there is no goal, the people will perish If there's no vision. We have to have something we're going after and then go after it.
Overcoming Challenges With Support
We live in a culture today where so many people are waiting for a break. I'm like no, go make the break. Figure it out and go after it. I do want to ask you one question because this is a crucial piece. You lost the love of your life, your partner, and you had to go through this journey and you're being a dad. I have no doubt you and Cameron relied on one another in different ways, but I have to assume too that to overcome those hurdles and to drive through that, you needed other people to walk alongside of you. I want our readers to understand that they have to go out and do it, but it's also important to put a team around us. Just talk briefly about the people around you and how they helped push you through.
I like to say this. I had a tremendous group of people who were supporting me and I understood in going through this. I was in a hopeless situation. When you're in a situation, and I mentioned being at my sister's house, I literally had to be rolled out of bed into a wheelchair and wheeled to a recliner every day to sit. I couldn't do things by myself. I don't advise people to learn how to depend on other people as a result of being in a situation like that. What it taught me was that we have to recognize the right help and be willing to ask for that right help when we need it.
There's only so much that we can do it for ourselves. I have a portion when I share with others about the filtration of your friends, family, and followers. Part of what I mean by that is that when we do seek advice from other people, we have to be cognizant of what we‘re asking for, and what we’re looking for. We have to understand that. We also have to be mindful of the experience and expertise that they bring. Everybody who's going to give you advice is not the person who should be giving you advice.
Everybody who is supporting you and helping you, there needs to be some level of qualification. I've had great doctors, great nurses, great people who helped me from that standpoint. One of my biggest breakthroughs and one of my primary care physicians, he was actually the doctor for myself and Maleka and after everything happened, he was there for me. I reached out to him and I asked him I said, “Doc I need somebody to help with this emotional pain that I'm feeling. I need somebody to help with the grief that I'm going through.”
He got three therapists and he said, “I know these people. These people will be good for you and Cameron. Go ahead and talk with them.” Knowing that this was somebody who knew people in that space and was familiar with what was necessary was important for me to find the right help in order to be able to help pull me through. I encourage you to make sure that you do with very serious matters and make sure that you're not just trusting everything that everybody is telling you, but finding the right help. Being open and willing to identify what your needs are and how to accomplish those needs.
Doing that, led me into being able to get the right coaches to help me learn to be able to speak in a great way and in a way that was effective to others, to be able to get the right entrepreneurial coaching to be able to start a business and be able to do those things and really be able to take care myself and Cameron because going back to my story with Maleka, that was my promise to her. On top of all that, I'm getting to fulfill my purpose and doing it in a way that is aligned with my spiritual belief and what I truly believe in my contribution to helping others in this world.
That's awesome. Tiran, thank you so much for sharing your story and your lessons. Readers in the show notes, you can find links to reach out to him and to bring him in to speak or to be a coach for you. Tiran, we finished every episode with the same question and a quick practical tip. What is something our readers can intentionally do today to be a better leader?
The point that I want to make for those who want to be a better leader is, I like to say that sometimes rest is necessary for healing to take. What I mean by that is sometimes we have to pause and take a break and really be able to allow us to recover from situations. There's going to be situations and your personalized situations professionally. A lot of us have that knack to just keep going, and keep pushing through.
Rest is necessary for healing. Sometimes we have to pause and take a break to recover. When you're restored, you think more clearly.
Understand that when you're restored, you think more clearly and you actually can approach situations better when it comes to decision-making. Make sure that you're not allowing yourself to get burnt out when you're starting to see those signs but know when it's time to hit that pause button. Maybe just sit back, think, and reflect before making the next move. It'll do good in certain situations and keep from just creating more chaos at times.
Fantastic tip. I appreciate that very much. Tirant, it's been great to have you. I look forward to our paths crossing again down the road. God bless as you keep going out there and trying to impact people.
Thank you, Sean. This has been a pleasure and I appreciate you for having me on.
Thank you. Take care.
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