Erica Baier: What If You Had 20 Seconds To Live

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Erica Baier teaches all of us a lesson on fear, after an unexpected diagnosis turned her life upside down.

Transcript

00:00If you had 20 seconds left to live, what would you do?

00:05I stepped outside to take the phone call

00:07I had been expecting.

00:10Hey, Dr. Dean, this is Erica.

00:11I'm really, really sorry that I missed your call.

00:14Hey, we got your results back from your biopsy.

00:18We ended up finding some abnormal cells,

00:20so we decided to put it through a couple more tests.

00:24And, Erica, you have Hodgkin's lymphoma,

00:31which is a form of cancer.

00:36Cancer?

00:42I did not hear the rest of that phone call.

00:47First thing my mind immediately thought was,

00:49how could this even happen?

00:52Now, what happens if I lose my hair?

00:54People are gonna think I'm weak and incapable of doing this.

00:58What happens if I don't even have much time to live?

01:04And over the next couple of days,

01:06we spent a lot of time Googling

01:08practically everything under the sun

01:11about Hodgkin's lymphoma, chemotherapy.

01:14Those weeks, gosh, I tried so hard

01:18to not let anybody know how scared I actually was,

01:23because I had read a lot of articles,

01:26and there's a 90% success rate

01:28with treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma,

01:30but for some reason, I kept thinking about that other 10%,

01:36and I was scared out of my mind

01:37that that was going to end up being me.

01:41And as I was sitting there thinking about that,

01:44I ended up putting myself into a certain scenario,

01:47and I'd invite you all to join in this scenario with me.

01:51If you had 20 seconds left to live, what would you do?

02:0410.

02:0610.

02:0710.

02:0810.

02:0910.

02:1010.

02:1110.

02:1210.

02:1310.

02:1410.

02:1510.

02:1610.

02:17And just like that, time is up.

02:25What were you thinking?

02:29Who did you think about?

02:33In 20 seconds, we were able to identify the things

02:36that we've probably been too scared to do before now.

02:40I think a lot of us know in this room

02:42that our time is limited,

02:43but for some reason, we choose not to take that to heart,

02:48me included.

02:50And because we don't take that to heart,

02:53we end up letting fear stop us in our tracks.

02:59But as I was sitting in that doctor's office

03:01for the first time in my life,

03:04it occurred to me that my time actually might be limited.

03:09I hit one of the lowest points in my life

03:12that I've ever been.

03:13I was scared of what everybody was gonna think of my story.

03:16I was scared of what life is gonna be like

03:18after all of this ends.

03:20Gosh, the list goes on.

03:22What fear do you need to choose to fight today?

03:26And if you're that person in the crowd today saying,

03:29Erica, I'm not really scared of anything.

03:33My life's actually going pretty good right now.

03:36Then it's time to show up for somebody who is scared.

03:39I decided I was done letting fear control my life.

03:44The real enemy is not our situation.

03:48The real enemy wasn't the cancer.

03:49The real enemy wasn't the doctors.

03:51No, the real enemy here is fear.

03:55And we have to stop fearing the fight

03:57and start fighting the fear.

04:00I gave myself 20 seconds to get up off that floor

04:04and do something more with my life

04:06than just be scared all the time.

04:09Ladies and gentlemen,

04:11tonight is our night to stop letting fear

04:14control our lives.

04:16In fact, let's throw 20 seconds up on the screen right now.

04:21Right now is our turning point to leave fear behind.

04:27It takes 20 seconds to take that first step,

04:30to make that choice, to reach out to somebody,

04:33to start that conversation, to write down that dream.

04:36Our time is ticking.

04:37We have the opportunity to say no to fear.

04:40We need to stop believing the lies

04:43that fear has continued to feed you

04:44and start believing that you were made for a moment

04:47such as this.

04:48We stop fearing the fight and we start fighting the fear.

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