In Memory of My Grandmother

00:00:00.000 | I've been at a loss of words, but not at a loss of thoughts and memories when I learned that my

00:00:12.080 | grandmother passed away several days ago. I thought I would try to use this microphone,

00:00:22.400 | use this podcast to try to find the words to honor the woman who's responsible for much of who I am,

00:00:34.080 | who taught me, silly might be to say, but taught me how to be a man,

00:00:43.600 | taught me about strength, about wisdom, about compassion, love, and that I could do anything

00:00:56.240 | that I set my mind to in this world, that anything was possible, and that I, of all people, can do it

00:01:03.600 | and not to let the world tell me otherwise. She passed away in Moscow, Russia,

00:01:12.640 | she was 91 years old, soon to be 92. If you're listening to this, maybe the first words I can say

00:01:23.600 | is, at any moment life can end, so tell your friends, tell your family, your loved ones,

00:01:35.440 | that you love them. So I tried to write the words, I couldn't, I have some disparate notes,

00:01:44.080 | but I decided to just speak about some lessons that she taught me, and I hope that it's useful

00:01:53.600 | to some of you, to anyone who might be listening. The first lesson is to be mentally strong,

00:02:03.440 | never to complain, and her life was one heck of a life to test that lesson.

00:02:10.400 | She was born and raised near Kharkov, which is a Ukrainian city close to Russia.

00:02:16.720 | In her childhood, she lived through and survived Koldomor, which is a famine in the early 30s,

00:02:24.480 | 1932, 1933, that Stalin had inflicted on his own people, where millions of people have died.

00:02:33.440 | One of the great atrocities of the 20th century. Just to give you some context,

00:02:39.840 | the famine that we're talking about led to cannibalism. One historian has written that

00:02:49.120 | the good people died first, the people who gave food to others, the people who refused

00:02:56.480 | to participate in cannibalism, the people who gave everything they have to their children

00:03:02.160 | for the survival of their children, and therefore died before their children did.

00:03:06.480 | I'll leave it at that. My grandma survived it, and as a teenager, she lived through and survived

00:03:15.520 | World War II. Imagine a young teenage girl, a beautiful young woman in a fascist-occupied city.

00:03:25.360 | She rarely spoke of those times, but there were stories of no food, desperation, and tragedy.

00:03:34.560 | And once again, I'll just leave it at that. My grandmother survived, and in her eyes always

00:03:42.000 | remained this glimmer of hope amidst the suffering. It's a glimmer that I've seen in the eyes of

00:03:52.240 | others that I've met in my life, and it's just always inspiring to see that triumph,

00:03:57.920 | that triumph over tragedy. And there's something that kind of experience does to the human heart.

00:04:06.320 | It hardens it, it protects it from the outside world, but it also softens it

00:04:13.200 | to allow a deep connection with other human beings.

00:04:16.640 | And maybe you've seen that I've done a few things with David Goggins, and I'm drawn to that kind of

00:04:24.160 | mindset. In him, I see my grandmother, the toughest human being I've ever known. The

00:04:32.800 | second lesson she taught me was physical strength. There's all kinds of images throughout

00:04:40.880 | my childhood of my grandmother doing incredible feats of manual labor, carrying logs, just

00:04:50.400 | carrying heavy things without complaining, just getting the job done. I was a huge fan in Russia,

00:04:59.040 | there's something called Bogatiry, Bogatyr. I guess similar to America, that would be...

00:05:05.520 | America doesn't have centuries of history to where you can go to the period of knights

00:05:13.120 | or Vikings. So in America, I guess for a little kid, that would be like a G.I. Joe.

00:05:18.800 | But in Russia, that was Bogatiry, were kind of like the knights or maybe the Vikings,

00:05:27.920 | the warriors of ancient history. And I've always loved the stoicism, the power, the fearlessness

00:05:35.840 | of the stories told about Bogatiry. I mean, as a little kid, that's all I wanted to be,

00:05:40.480 | is one of those guys. And I remember at a certain point in my childhood, I can't quite place

00:05:46.240 | exactly the time, but I remember realizing, looking at my grandmother, that women could be

00:05:54.880 | those warriors as well. My little boy's brain and whatever toys we had, I'd play with. And I

00:06:02.480 | always imagined that Bogatiry were boys, men going out to war. And when they return as victors home,

00:06:12.000 | they'd be celebrated by the women, the children of their family. But my grandmother made me

00:06:18.880 | realize that women could be Bogatiry too. But more than that, she was this figure in my life that

00:06:26.560 | planted that Eastern European seed of admiring strength and physical power and just toughness

00:06:36.560 | in a very basic sense that's required to carry heavy things and to fight. I think if I were to

00:06:44.800 | really psychoanalyze myself, at that early age is when I fell in love with martial arts,

00:06:50.480 | with the whole concept of martial combat, before I ever, ever practiced anything like it. The kind

00:06:58.640 | of sports I played as a kid with soccer and tennis and swimming, all that kind of stuff,

00:07:03.920 | were very far away from martial combat. But she planted the seed that when I first stepped on the

00:07:10.640 | wrestling mat, it felt like home. And even for the first couple of years when I really had my ass

00:07:17.040 | handed to me on the mat, the fire that got me to train harder, to work harder, that was my

00:07:23.840 | grandmother. The third lesson is to think deeply, to be quiet and think until you know the situation,

00:07:36.000 | you know the right thing to say. And the right thing to say is the one that internalizes,

00:07:42.960 | considers and thinks through the big picture of the situation. So the emotion you feel,

00:07:49.520 | especially when you're young about a particular situation, the desire to be sort of a crybaby

00:07:55.440 | about things, about me, me, me, about being upset about this situation or that situation,

00:08:01.120 | there was something about the way she was quiet and the way she looked over the world

00:08:07.360 | and the moments when she spoke or words of wisdom, of calm and patience, that was so inspiring

00:08:18.560 | to a mind that was impatient. She helped me understand that the immediate emotional response

00:08:25.520 | to particular situations, the ups and downs of how you feel, influence the perception, the cognition

00:08:31.760 | of how everything's interpreted and taking your time, thinking, being quiet

00:08:38.480 | and speaking when you have something to say is the kind of man I should be. Fourth lesson

00:08:48.160 | she taught me was to believe in myself. She made me believe that I'm the most special person in

00:08:54.640 | the world and that I can achieve anything. And then she would tell me that since I was a little

00:09:00.960 | baby until I was a big baby. And her excitement about the little successes in my life really made

00:09:11.920 | me fall in love with the successes of others. She inspired me to enjoy the success of others,

00:09:19.920 | to believe in the people around me, to encourage them, to dream big, to work hard,

00:09:26.640 | to accomplish anything because she did that for me. And you know, it's heartbreaking

00:09:35.360 | to think that very few people in my life believed in me.

00:09:43.120 | I was always a dreamer. I reached for the stars and most people, even people who loved me,

00:09:50.640 | gave me what they thought was wise advice to stick to the safe path, to be reasonable, to

00:09:58.240 | find stability, comfort, all those kinds of things that seem wise in the grand scheme of life,

00:10:09.440 | to be normal. And she didn't. She told me to go big, to dream big,

00:10:16.720 | and that I could accomplish anything I wanted to. Everyone is different and I'm not a parent.

00:10:24.720 | And I think that kind of over-the-top encouragement can perhaps spoil some people or give

00:10:32.800 | them a false sense of ego. But for somebody like me, who was genetically full of self-doubt,

00:10:41.360 | and forgive me for saying even disliking myself, she was a breath of fresh air.

00:10:50.880 | And so whatever dream I have now that still stays with me is the fire she kindled,

00:11:01.200 | is the fire she kept going, and a fire that will never die because of her.

00:11:08.320 | Over the past several years, there's been many days that I'm grinding to a halt with self-doubt.

00:11:16.800 | I feel that in all kinds of ways I'm a fraud for daring to dream, to go outside of

00:11:27.920 | what I'm supposed to do, what other people much smarter than me are telling me I'm supposed to do.

00:11:32.000 | In those moments, when I say I listen to my heart, I listen to my gut, I really listen

00:11:41.040 | to the thing that my grandmother left me. It's that fire, the belief in myself

00:11:51.040 | that I can do anything, that the dreams I have are not just silly dreams.

00:11:58.720 | They're visions of a future that I can create. If I work hard, I can create.

00:12:14.160 | And finally, the fifth lesson she taught me through words, through her actions,

00:12:20.800 | is about love, is to put love out into the world.

00:12:27.200 | Her husband, Grandpa Gregory, died when he was 58 in 1986.

00:12:42.080 | She loved him her whole life. She loved him after he passed away. And that love, while quiet in terms

00:12:51.200 | of her not talking to me about it, was always there in the background, was always in her eyes,

00:12:57.360 | the unshakable love. So that's the love between her and her husband, my grandfather.

00:13:07.680 | There's something about loyalty, about deep, unshakable human connection in that,

00:13:14.880 | that stayed with me. I seek that kind of love with friends, with really close friends. I seek

00:13:23.120 | that kind of love with the world around me. And I definitely seek that kind of love with a life

00:13:29.040 | partner, with a person that I could, how does the saying goes, ride or die with. I can bury the

00:13:37.760 | bodies with them. It's kind of a bond that's stronger than any other thing in this world,

00:13:46.080 | a bond that's stronger than any fundamental force of physics. I could see it in her,

00:13:53.520 | and something in that stayed with me. But bigger, just love, love of life,

00:13:59.600 | love of the ups and downs of life, love and gratitude of everything around me.

00:14:06.320 | She had that, this glowing joy. That's not a simple joy, but a deep joy that acknowledges

00:14:14.320 | that life is suffering, that life is hard, and that love is hard. But to appreciate it anyway.

00:14:23.600 | The whole of it, not just the ups, the whole of it. She taught me to love people, love life,

00:14:32.640 | love the world, no matter what the world does to you. And to love unconditionally, simply.

00:14:40.320 | And to not be afraid to be cliche, to be simple, naive. Because that's what love is.

00:14:53.040 | It's quite simple.

00:14:55.680 | Love is the answer, as some guy on some podcast once said.

00:15:05.040 | So I wanted to honor this woman that was a great human being in my life and the life of many others

00:15:16.640 | with these words. And the few folks who listen, I hope, can draw some inspiration from the lessons

00:15:23.520 | she's given me. To be strong mentally and physically, to dream big, to work hard,

00:15:31.520 | and to put a little bit of love out into the world. And on that point, let me, if it's okay,

00:15:42.560 | read a poem in Russian that my grandmother enjoyed called Любовью дорожить умейте,

00:15:48.160 | loosely translated to Learn to Treasure Love by Stepan Shepachev.

00:15:57.120 | Любовью дорожить умейте, с годами дорожить вдвойне. Любовь, не вздохи на скамейке,

00:16:04.720 | и не прогулки при луне. Все будет слякоть и хороша, ведь вместе надо жизнь прожить.

00:16:12.880 | Любовь с хорошей песней схожа, а песню нелегко сложить.

00:16:18.640 | It's a simple poem that a couple of Russians listening out there right now

00:16:24.800 | perhaps could appreciate. But the gist of it is that love is not easy, life is not easy,

00:16:33.200 | and the best we ought to do is to learn how to treasure love, to treasure the few years of life

00:16:40.880 | we have on this earth. My grandmother's name is Anne, and my brother and I in Russian would

00:16:48.800 | call her affectionately бабаня. So, бабань, я уже слушаю тебя.

00:16:56.240 | I promise I will work hard and hope that your strength, your brilliance,

00:17:04.640 | your love lives on in my thoughts and in my actions.

00:17:12.000 | This drop of vodka is for you.

00:17:18.800 | You know, I have shot glasses, but I think she's looking down and

00:17:32.480 | knows I'm drinking in her memory, so she would want me to drink it out of a real glass.

00:17:42.080 | So, бабань, I miss you, I love you, I hope to make you proud one day.

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In Memory of My Grandmother

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