Full Transcript for How to Build Unbreakable Resilience

essentially got shattered. ⁓ like to the point where friends were coming into the hospital, I was going to say hotel, hospital room. And, ⁓ I had no idea who they were and I was like flipping out. Megan Devito: Not really. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ my gosh. Sav: So yeah, I have no memory of the accident. I have like one flashback maybe of a lady in sunglasses like trying to calm me down. And it's crazy because I actually received a photo from a bystander and like there's a lady with sunglasses holding me. ⁓ but aside from that, I mean, kind of the blessing I guess is that I don't have any cognitive memory ⁓ of the accident. Yeah, it is. Megan Devito: ⁓ huh, ⁓ huh. Wow. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. So you were not running, you were actually biking. And I know that you had mentioned once that you were preparing for a triathlon. So ⁓ fast forward, you're still doing it. Sav: Yeah. Okay. Yes. I'm still doing it. Yeah, thank goodness. Hey, we're still here. Megan Devito: Yeah, and people are like, whoa, hold on a second. How did you keep going? Because that's scary. Sav: Yeah. Yeah, kind of funny timing because I was just writing about this actually for my own reflection. Because it's kind of coming into the season again where it's warm enough, my bite comes out and I feel a full body resistance to getting back on the road. Just like when I take them off, I just am like, ⁓ my gosh, like that could happen again and my mind goes to the places. So it's still very much alive, but Megan Devito: Mm-hmm. Sure. Mm-hmm. Sav: I always say like, never discount the power of passion. Like, if you're passionate about something, just lean into that because I have personally experienced it overpowering every other sensation. Fear, grief, loss, name it. Like, it has always won for me. Megan Devito: I Mm hmm. Yeah. So passion is your driver. It's it has to be there. Right. Like you don't just jump back on a bike after something like that. I mean, there's an episode of Tad Lasso about this. I swear to you, I talk about Tad Lasso in almost every single podcast episode. And that's not on purpose. I really don't mean to. But I was like, there's something for every single person in every single episode. But no, like the therapist gets hit by a car when she's riding her bike and she has to decide to get back on the bike. Like it's literally in there. Sav: Yeah. Really? Megan Devito: And I'm wondering, like, when you think about that resilience that it takes, you think about having to make that choice and you said it's a full body reaction, I mean, I think that's true for people. You have this huge thing that you had to overcome, but there are so many people that are like, well, I tried and it didn't work. Or, I mean, it's just so hard. That's not normal resilience that we're talking about with you. Like, that's, passion. Sav: Mm. Mmm. Megan Devito: How do you channel that? How do you get it from, how do you move past that feeling in your body where you're like, yeah, I'm not sure

if I want to go out on that bike. Sav: ⁓ man, I think... it's this mindset shift of like, it's gonna suck either way. Like it sucks to sit in that feeling of like, ⁓ I've got that fear. I've got that hesitation, that anxiety. It's in me whether or not I'm on my bike. So then the question is like, well, do I go and access the joy that the sport brings me? Do I go access the joy of competing and being out there? And still maybe have, you know, that anxiety, that fear as a passenger in the car, but at least I'm driving it. that's like something so many people allow to kind of paralyze them. It's like I feel it so therefore I won't do it. It's like you can have both. Megan Devito: Yeah, that's such a good thing. And that choosing your heart is really, I mean, there's such, I think that we will look at something like, ⁓ that makes me so nervous or, ooh, I just don't feel like I'm good enough. This person's better than me. I'm gonna lose, I'll fail. All of those things that we fear. I mean, literally, yours was more almost like, like, I don't wanna say life or death, but kind of life or death. I mean, honestly, that's a big deal injury. Sav: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no for sure. It definitely was life or death. I think, yeah, I don't know. It's like, why not just choose? Yeah, like you said, I like how you said, like you choose your heart, right? It's like, there's going to be difficulties anyway, and at least like, at least enjoy the empowerment of choosing yours. So. Megan Devito: This is Right. How did you, so the first, do you remember the first ride you took after you, after your accident when you were able to go back? Did you cry? Like through the whole thing? I don't want to do this. Sav: Yes, I did. Yeah. Yeah, it was funny. my mobility was so bad in my neck that I waited a while to get back on my bike. Cause I couldn't turn my head, ⁓ which is kind of an essential element to not getting smoked again. And so I, I practiced a lot on like, I had a trainer inside and like, Megan Devito: Yeah. Right? Sav: Literally, I remember day one was just like grabbing the handlebars because I couldn't do that. Megan Devito: Uh-huh. Sav: My mind didn't remember, but my body did. I don't know how else to describe that. So like day one was literally like I'd get on the bike and I would just hold the handlebars and I would like be in a full body shock. And I was like, okay, five minutes. I'm good. We'll try again tomorrow. And I built it up. And then I like took my bike outside and it was still on a trainer. It was still stationary, but I would practice the next day. And eventually I was like, okay, I'm ready to go out and take this bike. I wasn't super comfortable on the road, but ⁓ I didn't have access to just go purely on a bike path. So anyways, I threw it out on Instagram. I was like, does anyone want to come ride with me? And ⁓ a little group assembled and I just kind of stayed in the middle of them. And I was like, okay, I'm feeling everything right now. ⁓ But I think... Megan Devito: Yeah. Sav: the vulnerability to vocalize that and to invite others to witness it, ⁓ it took away the shame and it took away the pressure to not feel it. I was like, this might just be a component of me cycling from now on is that like, I lose my breath sometimes and a car comes too close and I have to stop and, you know, recalibrate. ⁓ And so I think, yeah, just inviting people into that allowed me to create a lot of resources to make a successful return. Thank Megan Devito: Yeah, that's big deal. And so much of what you've said about how your body remembers, even if you didn't have that memory, except for the lady in the sunglasses, but that your body's like, whoa, no, no, no, no, we already did that once, don't do that again. And we can use that to our benefit or not, right? I it's maybe not muscle memory, but we do store all of it in there. I mean, we toss that muscle memory thing around, like it's like, you know how to... Sav: Yes. Mm. Megan Devito: swim or to run because your muscles will do it. You could do it asleep, but it also will keep you stuck on purpose. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Sav: Yeah, it will. 100%. Yeah, I just learned that concept of like, the body doesn't hold time. Like time is irrelevant to the body. So if something happened 10 years ago or five years ago, and maybe there's new infrastructure that would make ⁓ a similar accident impossible. your body, your brain isn't taking that into account. So it's kind of up to you to challenge it. And I don't want to say like, don't trust your brain, but I had to question it. I had to be like, whoa, like. I'm okay, I've got this, and maybe a degree of surrender is involved in that too. Like, okay, maybe something will happen and I'm just gonna, I lived through that, so it's okay if something does, you know? Megan Devito: There's so many questions right now. First of all, I love that degree of surrender. The more you try to control it, what are we controlling? It's like, only going to get, you can stay on the stationary bike in your garage, and never go anywhere. But that idea of surrendering in so many different things, think that, whether you're talking to somebody who's trying to do a triathlon, Sav: Mm. Yeah, exactly. You could. Megan Devito: or you're talking to somebody that is going to go in. Cause I know that you recently, you started an AI company. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you know what the heck is going to happen with that? I feel like AI is different every five seconds. I mean, it's just growing so quickly and growing so fast. mean, there's, there's resilience in there too, because how do you know what worked and what didn't work with something like that or what to let go of? I mean, I, I'm baffled by it. Like I look at AI sometimes I'm like, Sav: Yeah, I did. Yep. is yeah. Hmm. Megan Devito: Shouldn't it all have the same answer? Shouldn't it do this? I'm so confused by it and I'm so grateful for it but also terrified of it at the same time. But

how do you take this idea of I'm starting something that the entire world is starting at the same time and build it? There's got to be a level of I'm to have to just let go and try this a million times. Sav: Yeah. Hmm Yeah, so much so. There's so much surrender in, I mean, yeah, like in sport and business, it's all relevant because I find even in starting it and like kind of the endeavors that have spurred out from it, it's like I never expected half of them, but I let people kind of tell me where they see it relevant. And then it's like, okay, can do that. I think it's a degree of trust of like, I just, I don't know, like. Yeah, how do I feel about that? That's a good question. I get a ⁓ client request and it's like, Whoa, okay. like crazy. I never thought about using AI in that way. But if you ⁓ want to tell me how you see working out, like I'll get on board. I'll brainstorm with you. I'm kind of willing to go through those weeds and like just kind of fumble around with someone. Megan Devito: it's like to me, when I think about it, mean, going from somebody in my experience, not maybe, I mean, it's just likely very different than yours, going from one career to another career, where I had to try, I mean, I've talked a lot about leaving the classroom and going into coaching and how it was like, I don't have any freaking idea how to run a business. Like, I didn't go to business school. Sav: Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Megan Devito: didn't know all of that stuff and I'm like, well, I guess we'll just try that and try that and try that and try that. And let me tell you, there were a million and one times where I thought this is insane. I should probably just not be doing this. And no way, because I love what I do, but it does require a level of resilience. And I just can't imagine going into something that's still so new and changing so quickly. I feel like we have the foundations of coaching, but AI? Sav: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Megan Devito: It's just it's huge and changing and you're let's go. Let's just see what happens with this. Sav: There's no foundation. Yeah. ⁓ man. You know what I think it comes down to is, the same thing we develop in sport. It's like, it's a willingness to try. And it's like this belief that nothing's beyond repair. So it's, it's, it's like, well, why not? Like, and that's maybe the beauty of AI is like, you can lean into the fact that it is so like malleable and changing and nothing's quite concrete with it. It's like. if you can kind of embrace that and ⁓ and lean into it, then it actually becomes exciting. Because I guess that's, you know, thinking about like our last conversation on anxiety, like anxiety and excitement are the same chemical makeup. And so it's like, ⁓ am I, am I nervous about like how unpredictable this is? Or like, do I find that kind of exciting? And I guess that's, that's been my approach to that business is like, ⁓ let's just see what we can do. So it's fun. It's really fun actually. Megan Devito: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know, I think it's so fun to see that crossover and how, especially if you grow up doing a sport, whether it's biking or running or swimming or basketball or anything else, all of those things that you learn at that point in time are always setting people up for. the skills that they're going to need later on. If you're going to be a weenie, you should just definitely not try and do anything hard. how, again, going back to that idea of, are you going be happy with that? Is that what you want to choose for yourself? Sav: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, I really profoundly believe like you cannot let the comfort of today compromise what you're willing to work for in the future. Because I mean, if you if you make your decisions off of what's easy and what's comfortable, I mean, does it cancels out so much growth and with that opportunity and just, I don't know possibility in general. So yeah, they open. Megan Devito: Yeah, and that whole idea of staying open and like your mind not getting stuck in that, don't know, this feels really bad. I don't know how to do it. Or I got injured, severely injured. ⁓ That's a lot of people struggle with that. And it's such, I think it's such an important thing that like we just, we've done such an incredible job of keeping our kids safe to the point where they, I see so many people struggle with resilience because we've learned to make things easy, right? Like make it so easy on yourself. And I almost feel like we've just put. Sav: No. Hmm. Megan Devito: bubble wrap around everyone so much that our resilience is tanked. And do you feel like it's something that you're just born with? Or do you feel like were you born with it? what do you think that is for if people are like, wait a second, though, I'm not resilient. Sav: Yeah. you Yeah, that's such a good question. I guess my access to it feels supported in the sense that like, you know, I think you could have gotten another Sav right beside me, the exact same makeup. And I imagine that like the experiences that I had just continued to promote resilience in my life. And that was also through the support I received in challenge, because I think Megan Devito: Yeah. Sav: It's like if the challenge is so intense and the support is so non-existent, it has like the power to really do some damage. And I credit the support that I received and just like how I was able to lean into people ⁓ as a big component of that resilience. Cause it was like, okay, if I don't believe in myself, they do. So I'm going to keep going. And I imagine somebody in the exact same situation, you know, if they didn't have certain environmental supports, ⁓ might be might be compromised in how they developed resilience, but it doesn't cancel out their ability to now access it. Like I do think it's like a muscle. Like you work it out, you practice it, and you further develop it. And I think the key to developing resilience is to not to not flee from difficulty, like to saddle up and you

know, like the whole buffalo mentality of like they run toward the storm, like be a buffalo. toward it. Megan Devito: That should also be on a t-shirt. Like, you can get the big yellow truck and like be a buffalo and people will be like, I have no idea what that means. But yeah, running towards things that scare you is very counterintuitive. But it is, mean, I think that there are probably, my perspective on that, I guess, is there are probably some people who are born a little more willing to go after it on their own. Maybe they have that fire inside where they've kind of got that feeling or they're contrarian. Sav: I think so too, be a buffalo. ⁓ Yeah. Megan Devito: Bless them. And some people are waiting for permission. Sav: Yes, it has. Mmm, yeah. Megan Devito: You know, like that idea. I like what you said about having somebody there to support you and learning how to give yourself permission, maybe. Sav: I like that. Actually, it kind of spurs the thought of like curiosity as well because I think when my surgeons gave me my diagnosis, it was not good. And they were like, you won't be doing this. You won't do this. You won't compete again. Like hang up your bike, forget everything. And I wasn't, maybe I was a little bit defiant, but I wasn't trying to be. I was genuinely curious. I was like, I was in my brace, like a full neck brace. And I remember just being like, I wonder if I could. Megan Devito: Okay. Sav: just run like 500 meters in this thing. Like definitely was not supposed to. It wasn't supposed to run for like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not encouraging this. It just, it ties in, I swear. But I remember like, yeah, it was curiosity that drove me. It was like, I wonder if I could do this. I'm like, I wonder if this would work. And I experimented so much with like so many different modalities and like, I don't know, rehab exercises and stuff. Megan Devito: In your neck brace? Lord. Sav: And so I think like a degree of like the resilience that I saw come out of the accident was like kind of spurred by like, I just wonder what would happen if I tried this. So yeah. Megan Devito: There's something to be said for like curiosity and gamifying things like, I mean, what if we just made it a game? What if I could just go five feet? Then what? Yeah. And it does help. I mean, even the most afraid person is willing to take a risk if it's game. They do it all the time. Yeah. ⁓ Sav: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's so true. Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of being in, I just was in Spain in November competing at worlds and we were doing a training swim the day before with my coach and there's like, you not like five foot waves? I hate the ocean to start with. So I was like, I'm like, not into this. And I was starting to get that panicky feeling. Like I've got a tight wetsuit on. I've got like, I feel like I'm getting waterboarded by the waves and like the sex and my coach like. Megan Devito: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sav: grabs my shoulder and she's like, it's either scary or

fun, you choose. And then she like threw me in. And ⁓ I actually feel like that's an approach I like continue to live by because it's so true. It's like the feelings insane and it's intense and it's either like, ⁓ my gosh, I got to get away from this or like, ⁓ holy crap, like let's go. So yeah. Yeah, exactly. Megan Devito: love that. It's just scarier fun to in the ocean. Or it could be a little bit of both. This is really fun and really terrifying at the same time. Yeah, so good. Right. So you're in Spain last year. What's coming up? Sav: Yeah, probably the healthier way of looking at it. Well, next weekend is my first race of the year. It's backyard ultra, so it's the last man standing style. And then we've got a world record attempt three weeks after that. And then, yeah. Megan Devito: Yes. Good. Yeah. The world record in what? Tell everybody what your world record is in. Sav: ⁓ well, it's in fastest 50 K barefoot. So that should be fun. Yeah. Megan Devito: 50K barefoot. Sav: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I will need it. Megan Devito: Thank Like is it on grass? A track, okay, because I'm like, rocks? Ow. Okay, on a track. Sav: It's on a track. Yeah. I know. Okay. Not my first choice, but it has to be like a pre-certified course for Guinness. But yeah, we'll see how it goes. Megan Devito: Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, that is super fun. And you will let us know so that we can say world record holder and ⁓ get that in your LinkedIn bio. Right? World record holder. That's amazing. Like you are the toughest human I think that I've ever met, literally. Sav: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, exactly. That's cool. Thank you Megan Devito: No, I'm serious. I'm like, no, I'm like dying that first of all, that you run that far. And second of all, now you're to do it with no shoes, the broken neck and how far can I run with this brace on? And that's incredible. Sav: No. Yeah, ⁓ thank you. Boredom, man. Megan Devito: Yeah. So how do you tell people what you do with your AI stuff? Like I want you to like share the love here. What do people, what can you offer the world here? Give them, give them a reason to call you up. Sav: Mmm. What can I offer the world? Okay. Well, phone me up if like me, you hate being on the computer and you want to spend your time out on your swim or your bike or your run. Cause generally that's usually what I do. I never will automate the things that like this, you cannot replace this. The human connection, the authentic reach it's so valuable, but it's the goal is to make it so there's no backend stuff that's weighing you down. You have greater capacity. Megan Devito: Yeah. day. Right. Sav: these types of things so yeah I automate boring stuff this is what I can say yeah Megan Devito: love that because who doesn't want more like real like face to face go outside and touch some grass and run and swim and have some fun and no I think that's perfect that's my hope I'm like AI like give me all the things that can detect cancer really early and make all of the mundane things go so that we can all go be more human instead of less human that's so good I love it all right so where do they find you like late I know you're on LinkedIn Sav: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ well, Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. So LinkedIn, ⁓ what's my name? Sav Wilds on LinkedIn and, ⁓ and Instagram is stories of Sav. So it's my two main platforms. Megan Devito: and scram. Yeah. Yeah? Love it. And all the links will be in the show notes so that everybody can connect with you and come run with you and bike with you or get some AI help from you, which is amazing. Yeah. This is so good. I feel like you have a thousand more stories. I mean, I feel like there's so many. Sav: Yeah, let's go. Sounds awesome. ⁓ We try it. Isn't that like the goal of life? Just collect as many stories as you can. Yeah. Megan Devito: So many more. I know, it is. I think so. I think so. As your Instagram name would suggest, Yeah, no, I think that there's so much more and I just appreciate you coming and talking about this with us because I don't think there's anything that, I mean, if you leave this episode and you're like, yeah, I don't think I can have resilience. I mean, I think you can. If you, if Sav can do that. I think you can, I think you can do the hard things and I think that you can stretch yourself and just say, you know, what would be worse? And what if I just tried to do that much more right now? And that's a big lesson. It's something that we can all learn from and challenge ourselves to do. And when we do that, I think the world is a better place. Sav: Yeah. Yeah, spot on. Megan Devito: Yeah, we need more of it. ⁓ Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Sav: Yeah, thank you. Megan Devito: Come back anytime.