Rattled: Crazy A** Stories of Extreme Resilience to Help You Go from Shook to Solid

WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF RATTLED...

1. BE BRIEF

2. TRUST YOURSELF

3. STAY HOME

4. SEEK TRUTH

5. EXPECT ACCIDENTS

6. LOVE DEEPLY

7. STOP GUILT

8. BELIEVE INTUITION

9. REHEARSE LIFE

10. KILL DISTRACTIONS

11. BE MINDFUL

12. PRACTICE CONFIDENCE

13. FORGET DEFEAT

14. RECOGNIZE YOU

15. INTIMIDATE ME

16. QUESTION REALITY

17. NOTICE DECEIT

18. PREVENT REGRETS

19. REWRITE LEGACY

20. SILENT GOODBYES

21. FOLLOW BLUEPRINTS

22. CATCH DREAMS

23. START OVER

24. PROTECT YOURSELF

25. ENTER CONTESTS

26. CONFRONT CONFLICTS

27. BURY CLICHES

28. DENY ARROGANCE

29. CHOOSE SELFLESSNESS

30. CHANGE FEARLESSLY

Be Brief

By Ross Shafer

Why Read This Story?

We all get frustrated with people who talk too much and end up saying nothing. Maybe that’s what you do? If you want to get more done with less words, this story is for you.

One minute I was the King of the world.

The next minute I was dreadfully humbled by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

In 1984, I was hosting a comedy/talk TV show in Seattle, Washington, titled Almost Live!

We could snag big name guests like Jerry Seinfeld, Joe Walsh (the Eagles), and Ellen DeGeneres. But we could never land the world’s richest man, Microsoft founder Bill Gates. (He lived nearby.)

We asked him often, but he always refused.

I dare say, he could benefit from being on our show. Our audience was young and we had just launched a national campaign to change the Washington state song to Louie, Louie.

We were hot. Surely, Bill Gates knew who I was.

Getting to him was still difficult.

As the relentless man that I am, I finally tracked down somebody who knew a guy, who knew a woman, who was acquainted with another woman, who was Bill’s personal assistant. Even better, this woman was a fan of our TV show and talked me up to Bill.

I sent her T-shirts, coffee mugs, DVDs, and one day she called to say she had set up a meeting with myself and William Henry Gates III.

I knew Bill liked cable knit sweaters so I wore one I thought he’d admire. (Pardon me, that just sounded like I was dealing with pre-date jitters.)

I got to the Microsoft campus early, met the assistant, and she invited me to visit their well-appointed, private employee commissary. All of the food and drinks were free. I had a thick grilled cheese and turkey sandwich. As I sat down, I was immediately recognized by a group of maybe 20 employees. I signed some autographs and took some pictures.

What a welcome! This was going to be a cake walk!

An assistant (to Bill’s assistant) collected me from the commissary saying, Bill is ready for you.

The jitters returned.

Nervousness was new to me. I don’t get starstruck. I’ve met a cavalcade of stars and I’ve performed for 20,000 people in stadiums.

All I was there to do was meet Bill, make him laugh, gin up a little rapport, and invite him to do a six-minute guest spot on my fashionable talk show.

I made my way to the outside foyer of his office and his personal assistant grinned, Go on in.

My back straight and my smile gleaming, I dashed over the door’s threshold to see him.

At 5’ 10" tall and thin, Bill Gates looked smaller than I expected.

I was casual and ready to wing this. (I know celebs don’t like to be treated special.)

I said, Hello, Bill.

He didn’t look up. Ross? he said as he was staring down at what looked like a nine-inch thick dossier on world domination.

He finally lifted his eyes to mine and said, Be brief.

Be brief? No pleasantries? People who change the world are apparently in a big hurry.

I think I laughed a little, but he was not amused. He was telling me, don’t dawdle, sonny.

I felt like a kid who had been scolded.

I was mentally editing what I should say next, cutting and pasting intentions in my head. I was literally unable to organize thoughts. Nothing was coming out and he was looking at me like, Somebody gave YOU a TV show? I finally spit out a couple of broken phrases, in no intelligible order.

Bill short-circuited my bumbling with, Thanks for comin’ in, and he slipped through a side door.

Bill Gates was never a guest on my show.

Be brief was a Bill Gates test and I blew it.

And, you know what? I should have beat him at that game. I got my start in show business as a stand-up comedian. I succeeded as a stand-up by editing every joke down to its five-second essence. More laughs per minute. In his 1602 play Hamlet, Shakespeare coined the phrase, Brevity is the soul of wit. And for the ensuing 400 years, everyone knows we are at our most interesting when we are BRIEF.

I have never been as disorganized since.

We should all have a policy of BEING BRIEF. Being brief is getting to the point when you are talking to your boss. Being brief is cutting to the chase when you’re telling a story at a party. Being brief is listening to other people talk and not trying to out-verbalize them.

My mistake was trying to impress Bill Gates with who I was (a clown who wings it)…instead of preparing to understand who he was (a man who is vigorously prepared).

What’s In This For You?

You will get more respect in life if you learn to Be Brief when explaining what you want. Be brief when you write an email. Be brief when you are defending your point of view. Be Brief when telling a story to your friends and family—unless, on the off chance, they ask to hear more.

Trust Yourself

By Allison Dalvit

Why Read This Story?

You have probably been faced with dozens of gut-wrenching decisions in your life. You got advice from friends, family, and experts. Did you ever wish you had the courage to ignore everyone and trust your gut? If so, this story is for you.

Your baby is dying.

My OBGYN’s verdict crushed me. No one prepares you for a failing pregnancy. For 20 weeks, my life was all about belly touches and choosing baby names (we picked Mikaela). Suddenly my doctor is lobbying to abort.

What does that mean?

The doctor ignored me, It’s too soon to tell why your child isn’t growing. We suggest an abortion while you can still get one.

I was barely able to conceive. My last pregnancy took three years to arrive—with a fertility drug. I burned through countless boxes of pregnancy tests and each time I got my period, I sobbed in the shower, knowing I wouldn’t be a mother.

The doctor was droning on while my mind reached its only conclusion: Losing my child is not an option.

I won’t abort.

The doctor was finally listening.

Okay then, he said, We believe her amniotic fluid has a virus, meaning your daughter will be born very ill or with Down syndrome. None of this mattered, I wanted my baby.

The doctor hedged, Our best outcome for your child is rare. We would be hoping the umbilical cord has not developed. An undeveloped umbilical cord was rare but meant she was very sick. Your daughter will be born with complications.

Now, I was the one doing the ignoring.

If you tell me what I can do, I will end this year with a baby girl in my arms. The doctor tested my resolve with, If you insist on keeping her, you will need full bed rest. Eat non-stop. If you aren’t eating, you should be drinking Gatorade. You’ll need to see me every day to get ultrasounds.

This was the glimmer I needed to save my baby.

I followed the doctor’s orders with the rigor of a Special Ops Lieutenant. My doctors injected me with hormones that covered my body in rashes. I consumed more Gatorade in one day than the entire NBA did in a season. I would not fall asleep at my post. Not for a second of the next five months. I was driven by the vision of seeing that baby girl smiling back at me.

I’d soon learn the news wasn’t getting any better.

In the 28th week (of a typical 40-week pregnancy), my daily ultrasound showed Mikaela was still losing weight. I was whisked to the hospital to get amniotic fluid extracted for testing. The procedure required I remain dead-still as, what looked like, a foot-long needle was inserted into my abdomen. Any involuntary twitch could misdirect the needle into the fetus. Staring at the ultrasound, I watched the needle swim within millimeters of Mikaela’s head.

Within seconds, the amniocentesis revealed another 5-alarm emergency.

The medical team immediately wheeled me to the birth ward for a C-section. I didn’t expect to be laying on an ice-cold metal slab, flanked by a team of doctors. Frightening metal tools were everywhere. An anesthesiologist numbed the lower part of my body. After enough time, the surgeon used a kind of laser knife against my stomach. Giant plumes of smoke from my burning flesh filled the room with a stench that disgusted my nostrils. Think burning hair and roasted roadkill. My eyes darted across the room to find my mom on the other side of the body tent. Her eyes bulged, reacting to the sight of my bladder being gently removed and placed beside me on a metal tray.

It wasn’t until this moment that doubt crept in. Had I made the right choice? Did my iron will make this worse? Did my unbridled optimism under-prepare me for failure? All I could do was surrender. I’d done my best. I tried.

Completely spent, I saw the doctors hold up something impossibly small. Mikaela was here in some form. Her features were un-carved. Her eyes and ears were smoothed over by a translucent layer of skin. Was she alive? Must be because the nurses rushed her into another room to start tests and incubation. In the rarest of miracles, my baby had survived a three-month premature birth and the disconnect of an umbilical cord.

Weak as I was, I needed to see my baby. My doctors knew better than to argue. They slumped me in a wheelchair and pushed me to my daughter’s incubator. I recall whispering to my little girl, We did it, we beat the odds to meet each other.

Mikaela was kept in an ICU 24-hour care incubator to finish growing. I never left her side. As much as I wanted to bring Kaela home, we weren’t out of the woods. At her two-pound featherweight (down from three pounds), she could easily forget to breathe while feeding. To take her home I would need to take an overnight test to prove I could resuscitate her if she stopped breathing. That night at the ICU was spent with Mikaela on my chest. I don’t know if I could rescue a baby with CPR today, but I certainly did that night. Throughout our stay, she stopped breathing a few times and I passed the test. Mikaela could finally come home.

Mikaela slowly became a perfectly normal, healthy, strong baby. Herculean, I’d say. She could lean against my hip and wrap her fingers around my arm, clinging to me like a monkey. Despite the terrifying possibility of her being physically or mentally challenged as a child, our fears never materialized. She went on to be a superior athlete and captain of