When you are suddenly faced with a challenge you don’t know how to overcome it’s easy to go into overwhelm, or be overtaken by fear or grief.
Show notes
There are moments in life when challenges threaten to overwhelm you, when you are faced with what you see as your limits.
In these moments, you may wonder whether you’re up to the challenge at hand. It is tempting to fall into fear, despair, self-doubt or grief. In these moments you get to choose whether you will grow and open, or shrink and close.
While I wouldn’t wish these painful moments on anyone, they do invite us into a new relationship with life. They instigate a deepening of relationships with ourselves and others that doesn’t happen when life is easy.
Today’s Man Alive Podcast guest is a two time kidney transplant survivor. Gregory S. Works is the author of Triumph: Life on the Other Side of Trials, Transplants, Transition and Transformation. He is an example of a man who faced life-threatening challenges, more than once. He overcame them, rather than being overtaken by them.
In our conversation we discussed…
- How to avoid being overwhelmed when you are faced with challenging news
- Navigating shock
- Replacing panic with intentionality and a sense of urgency
- Why externalizing rather than internalizing could save your life
- How your end goal can help fear dissolve
Greg talks about how he created and executed a plan in the midst of a life-threatening challenge, with a baby on the way! He also talks about how gathering a village, and how his relationship with faith, helped him through the hardest times.
If you haven’t seen yet, my book Honest Sex is now available on Audible. You can listen to a short clip here to get a sense of the book and my narrational style. It is discounted for a little longer, and if you are new to Audible you can get it for free.
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Links:
Connect with Greg
Connect with Shana James
Website: shanajamescoaching.com/3ways
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Bio:
A two-time kidney transplant recipient, Gregory S. Works was exposed to kidney disease for over half of his life. It literally affected everyone in his immediate family. Based on his experience, Gregory has been able to counsel others on this disease, how to approach a transplant and dialysis, living post-transplant, and how faith can be a cornerstone of addressing this challenge. Gregory earned a BBA degree in Accounting from Howard University and an MBA with concentrations in Marketing, Finance & Organizational Behavior from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
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What a great interview, Shana! You did a wonderful job guiding Greg in his sharing his story concisely. His tone was a combination of traditional masculinity and open innocence that was very engaging. I loved his comment that God must have a sense of humor!
His insistence that one must have a network of support and example of how it worked was powerful. He effectively leveraged what might be seen as traditional support networks – family, friends, church, workplace and social connections. Many of us have distanced ourselves from these connections in our spiritual pursuit, and it’s interesting to reconsider their value.
Greg seemed to embrace the fact that this is an imperfect world, that there are always many failures preceding success, and so life kind of like a treasure hunt, and fun in that way. I found his straightforward perspective refreshing. Thanks again!