UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL! Listen to this life changing, inspiring speech by Shelli Varela, the first female firefighter in Canada’s 6th largest city. Hack possibility, reach your full potential, and live a life of purpose and impact.
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00:00 I was a hot mess.
00:04 High on anxiety, low on confidence.
00:08 At the beginning of my journey, I'm a 108 pound, 20 year old misfit.
00:13 I feasibly quit everything I started.
00:16 It seemed like everybody around me knew exactly what they wanted to do with their lives.
00:20 They knew the jobs they would land, how many kids they'd have.
00:23 My buddy Steve, however, was a firefighter and he was the epitome of clarity and purpose.
00:29 As he talked about these amazing fires that he had and rescues that he conducted, I remember
00:34 thinking to myself, "Dude, that's your job?"
00:38 But weeks turned to months and stories turned to lessons.
00:44 And I was hanging off his every word.
00:46 And one day he turns to me and he says, "Shelly, why don't you just apply?"
00:52 Which was clearly the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.
00:54 I was 108 pounds, I had no related skills, knowledge or experience, but something inside
01:00 me that day stirred.
01:02 You know, just a little.
01:05 I went home that night and I'm lying in bed looking up at my white stippled ceiling.
01:10 And I said three words that changed the rest of my life.
01:14 And those words were, "Why not me?"
01:22 And in that moment something magical happened because I didn't care what it cost him, blood,
01:26 sweat, money, time or tears.
01:28 I was going to be a firefighter.
01:30 I battled and I bruised my body getting it ready and I learned about fire pumps and friction
01:35 loss.
01:36 Some days I was in so much physical pain I actually had to log roll myself out of bed.
01:42 And I battled for 1,162 days.
01:48 But on the 1,163rd day, my phone rang.
01:53 Shelly Varela, it's Deputy Chief Gordon.
01:57 We'd like to welcome you aboard as our city's first female firefighter.
02:04 And I realized the power of story and that the stories that we tell ourselves have the
02:12 ability to keep us stuck.
02:14 I realized that when we are able to reframe our inner stories, we're able to change what
02:19 becomes feasible and what we can project ourselves towards and what we can actually accomplish.
02:26 And when we do that, what we get to tell the world, that story that we get to leave behind
02:31 us when we're gone changes.
02:34 We're so busy thinking about the time we have and the possibility we don't, but we need
02:39 to think about the possibility we have and the time we don't.
02:45 I believe on the day we draw our last breath, the person we are gets to meet the person
02:52 we could have become.
02:54 Our job in that blink of time is to close the gap.
03:00 [Music]
03:20 [Music]