Robert Paylor: ‘What’s Paralyzing You?’

Born and raised in California, Robert Paylor attended prestigious UC Berkeley, where he enjoyed success on the rugby field under 29-time National Championship coach, Jack Clark. But living the dream can change just like that. On May 6, 2017, while playing for a National Championship, Paylor was severely injured. Just five yards from scoring, an opposing player yanked his neck and his body went numb below the collarbone.

At just 20 years old, he left the field on a stretcher and was told he’d never walk again. Paylor, however, sought recovery. Exactly one year after his injury, he visited a religious order in Lourdes, France, known for its miraculous healing powers. It was there where he developed a phrase with a priest that changed his life: Compared to what?

Speaking the words helped bring on a new perspective. “When you use that phrase, and you use perspective the right way,” said Paylor on a recent episode of the Corporate Competitor Podcast, “it cuts those challenges down to size. It puts them into perspective and helps us realize that what we go through is overcomable.” The phrase isn’t about dismissing any of the challenges in front of you. Rather, it’s about seeing them in a new way.

Paylor gives the examples: I’m tired… but compared to what? I’m having a tough day… but compared to what? Instead of making the problem at hand into a giant, looming issue, the three-word phrase reduces its power. “Those ‘why me’ questions don’t even come up,” Paylor said. “Because you’re thinking about the positives you have in your life. You’re thinking about all the things that millions of people in this world right now would give anything to have.”

It’s this way of thinking that helped Paylor stand up from his wheelchair on his own. On the podcast, Paylor highlighted several other key lessons:

• Move from ‘why me’ to ‘why not me.’ Paylor said the strongest tool you have when dealing with a challenge is your perspective. When he struggles, he remembers the times he couldn’t eat or even breathe on his own. But if you’ve never experienced something like that, he said to find empathy by uniting your emotions with the struggle of others.

• Set essential goals. When it comes to setting goals, Paylor said, you have to want them more than anything else. They have to become near-obsessions. “If you don’t want it that bad,” he said. “Don’t waste your time. It’s not a goal.”

• Forgiveness is the answer. Paylor said he never received an apology from the rugby player who injured him. Yet, Paylor has forgiven him. “I forgive him and I wish him well,” he said. “Forgiveness is always the answer.”

It can be easy for anyone to feel powerless and consumed with thoughts of what you can’t do, instead of what you can. But Paylor challenges each of us to ask the question of ourselves: What’s paralyzing you? If you consider what’s holding you back and see it for what it is, you can cut it down to size and take the first step toward breaking free.