Bear Insider Pocast #E106: Former Cal Rugger Robert Paylor - Video & Transcript
In today's episode, Cal Hall of Fame QB and color analyst Mike Pawlawski talks with former Cal rugby player Robert Paylor about his amazing journey from a likely life of paralysis to his inspiring road to recovery.
You can hear the audio podcast on Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or on most of your favorite podcast platforms or watch the video below or read the transcript below.
Mike: Hey everybody, welcome to Bear Insider Ultimate Insider Podcast. I am Mike Pawlawski, former Cal quarterback and your host here today. And today, I am really excited about this episode. There are certain stories in Cal history that we all know about, we've all heard that we feel a part of as part of the Cal family. And there are guys like Joe Roth that we talk about and guys who are inspirational in football in the other sports. Today, I have one of those guys on the show here, though it's not in football, it's in rugby, but it is a story that we all know, that we have all shared over the last several years, and it's an inspirational story that we should all listen to.
So I have been incredibly fortunate over the last several months to develop a friendship with our next guest and the insights from it and the the talks we've had have just been so powerful. So I'm so so excited today to bring Rob on the show. And Robert Paylor, welcome to the show. It is so great to have you on. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
Robert: Oh Mike, me too. I'm thrilled to be here. And like you said, friendship is very meaningful to me. What a better way than to share all these conversations we've had with the world.
Mike: No doubt. And I love the fact that you come on today wearing your Cal gear, the Cal stuff in the background. I've got my Cal helmet. Let me see, it's right back here. There's my Demons helmet. I got my Cal helmet over here. So all my Cal stuff in the background too, obviously, wearing my Block C hat, which matches my tattoo. So we're bringing some Bears to the program here today, but for people who don't know you, I want to let you introduce yourself, because I've I've been familiar with your story from the day that it happened, right eight years ago but to let you kind of introduce yourself to people out there. We all have our stories, but your story has been so inspirational to me and to so many other people. I'd like to let you tell it, because you're gonna tell it way better than I can.
Robert: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm a Northern California kid born and raised in Sacramento Valley, and growing up, it was just hot summers and sports of a lifelong athlete. Started off playing the big three traditional sports in America, with football, basketball, baseball. Went to Jesuit High School in Sacramento, which has the most successful rugby program in the nation. I think we're at 10 national championships now since they started competing for the tournament back in '99 so really just incredible level of success. And not only were they bringing in hardware, just a really good culture. Everybody loved playing for that team, and it was a really strong pipeline to Cal which, of course, has the number one collegiate rugby program in America. So just a couple hours away, historically, there's tons of Jesuit guys who would make their way over to Berkeley.
Mike: Oh, great high school rugby, leading to great college rugby. Just makes a ton of sense.
Robert: Makes a lot of sense, yeah, and just also a lot of focus on the whole individual. A lot of focus on really persevering in your academics as well. It's not something like, we're just a bunch of jocks, you know, hitting each other and stuff. We're really hitting the books hard, too. So it was super complimentary. I try out the sport of rugby because I just knew I liked hitting people, and I loved football, and I fall in love with rugby. It's this continuous game. You don't have a coach who's doing play calls and stuff. You've got your game plan, but it's really up to you. So you got a lot of creative freedom there as a player and how you decide to enact that game plan. What a cool, like, bit of camaraderie there's in the sport too. Like after a game in high school, we'd all have pizza and Gatorades and stuff. And then once you're in drinking age, you can go and meet up at bars and stuff like that, and you're talking about the game. And I felt like sometimes when I'd play someone on the high school field, itfor football, it would just be like, we're mortal enemies for the rest of our lives. And I loved this aspect about rugby that we always came together in that kind of like European fashion, of where the game was invented. And anyways, I get MVP my first year playing. We're runner up for best in the nation my junior and my senior year, a real bummer when you're number two in the nation, and then eventually work my way over to Berkeley in this number one program in the United States. Now, when I'm a freshman, I'm kind of like bottom the totem bowl, you know, big fish, small pond, just got thrown into the ocean, and everybody on this team was the best player on their high school team. They're All-Americans. I'm developing. But my sophomore year, this position I played, which is called lock, which is kind of the bigger guys in the team, kind of like tight end body type. It opened up, and it was like, okay, if somebody really puts in the effort, it's theirs. I was putting in extra work in the summers, after practices, anything I could do, and eventually earned this starting spot as a sophomore, which is not an easy or common thing to do in this program. And we're competing for a national championship game, which would become our 31st national championship in about 45 years. It is my dream. I mean, as an athlete, these are the moments that you dream of. National championship games, starting in big games. You're on national television. And when you become a national champion, it's not like you're just a champion for the day, and they give you a pat on the back. No, you are a national champion for the rest of your life. So this is a real moment of legacy for me. Everything's kind of going for me in my life at this point, it's a good time to be Robert Paylor, and I remember getting ready for this game, you know, I got the butterflies in my stomach, and you know what? I'm excited. We have a really strong game plan. Very much. Had a been there, done that kind of approach for Cal. 31 national championships that we're fighting for on this day. I think the only team that has more hardware than us in any level or any sport is the Harlem Globetrotters, and their games are rigged.
We are not playing the Washington generals today. It's It's Arkansas State, and we felt very confident going into this game. And it was very early on, about a minute and a half into the game, that they commit a penalty. So we do what's called kicking it into touch, and we have an inbounds from about like five to seven meters from the goal. Very obvious mauling situation. Now a maul is one of the bigger guys. We group up in one unit, and then we push to advance the ball and the defense's job is to come straight in and stop us from pushing forward. So very much a boiler room. It's where the big guys thrive, sort of like when a running back gets stood up and the linemen move the pile. Like a goal line push kind of thing. In rugby this maul, we're just a little more organized about it. It's very much a part of the game and a very, a very intentional play that you make. And it is my moment. I mean, I'm six foot five, 245 pounds. I am on this field to move bodies. I'm like, drooling. I'm thinking, let's go, Rob. Drive this thing in. And then as I do that, the opposing players, they start making these illegal moves, and the referee's not calling anything. So the first three players were entering from the side, which are all infractions in rugby, things you can't do, but the ref is not calling it. And then their number eight comes in, and he binds my head in a head lock. Now he's got my chin kind of pinned down to my chest. Normally in rugby automatic yellow or red card. You do that, you're gone, but the ref's not calling it. And I'm not just gonna, like, stand up and throw my my arms out to the side. That's just not the type of player I was. I was just gonna keep moving forward. That's what I did. I keep my shoulder level down, pointed forward. I keep my legs pumping, and then another player comes in. He chops me down by my legs. So I start going to the ground. I'm trying to fight my head up. There's nothing I can do. This guy's torquing all of his body weight down in my neck, and I remember I just kind of like close my eyes for impact. Top of my head hits the ground. Body Keeps going forward. Pile lands on me, and then my forehead slams against my chest, I feel a snap in my neck, and then it's just poof. I can't move anything. I can't feel anything. And instinctually, I just kind of like, first try to just pop up. You know, in rugby, you get down, you get up quickly, often, but nothing's happening. And I'm kind of like taking an inventory and it's just buzzing intense pins and needles from about my collarbone down. You know like sensation when you're taking a nap and you wake up and your hand just feels like it's dead and you're poking it and all that. It was like that, just everywhere, as strong as you can imagine. And I'm thinking, oh my God, I just broke my neck, and my life might be over. You know, I'd seen stories like this before, and I was brought back to the story of Eric LeGrand, who was a Rutgers football player, special teams. He had a spinal cord injury on a kickoff play, and I remember seeing the videos of him laying there, stabilizing his spine, getting him to the hospital. And Eric is a fighter, and his spirit's incredible, but he deals with some very significant paralysis, and at the time of his injury, he couldn't even breathe. He can now, but it's just everything that he's gone through is not something that I was ready to sign up for, right?
And let's keep in mind, I'm 20 years old at this point, sophomore in college, D1 athlete like my body, my physicality is just so core to my identity and my purpose in life. And now it seems like that's threatened. I mean, I'm thinking am I ever going to be able to feed myself again? Am I going to be able to go to the bathroom, shower, anything? How can I do anything? And keep in mind that actually the plays still going on at this point, I mean, just in seconds, it was like that fight or flight type thing, total adrenaline dump. I didn't even feel the pain in my neck. I'm just really just racked with terror that these are some of the most terrifying moments you could possibly live. This is a nightmare that I've been thrust into, and I cannot wake up from it, right? I eventually get over to the hospital. We do some medical imaging, CT scan, MRI X ray. Doctor comes back. Not a good look on his face, very matter of fact, he says, Robert, your injury is bad, really bad. And the reality is, you will never walk again. You will never move your hands, and we are going to do our best so that one day you can do something like pick up a piece of pizza and bring it to your face. And if you can do that, you made it. If you can just feed yourself, you beat all the odds. And he doesn't stop there. He recommends a spinal fusion surgery to me. He explains that the disc in between my C5,6 vertebrae ruptured into my spinal cord, and I'm fracturing at my C5 and my C6 vertebrae, so the damage that was done to my spinal cord might only continue to increase unless we perform an emergency spinal fusion surgery, essentially permanently casting this area of my spine, which had been broken, then he said it was my best chance at stability and recovery, but it was a potentially life threatening surgery.
MIke: For sure. I mean, so quickly thereafter, right? You have all the inflammation, everything else on there. I actually have a fusion at C5C6 as well. I mean, we've talked about that a little bit from my playing days so it's a pretty common area to have injuries from impact. Mine was from same idea, head down impact on top, same thing so that surgery, I'm familiar with it.
Robert: Yeah and it's high risk. I mean, for me, I don't know if they came in through the front or back of your neck. For me, they decided they came in front. So they moved the esophagus over to be able to operate on your spinal cord, as you know, and a lot of important real estate right here. I mean, if you're just a little bit off, things get bad quick. Your nervous system is very delicate. And not only that, I was already holding a steady temperature at 103 degrees. I spiked up to 105 when I was sitting in that MRI for two and a half hours. Shoulders squeezed to the side and what felt like a coffin. And I'm just thinking, I woke up today, I thought this was going to be one of the best days of my life. And now I don't know if this is going to be my last day, and in that moment, I didn't have a lot of choices, but I was able to fall back on my training as an athlete. And what really stood out to me was this is a moment that requires extreme mental toughness. Now, on the Cal rugby team, we have a glossary of terms that we refer towards like this. The Cal rugby definition for mental toughness is the ability to focus on the next most important thing. So in a rugby context, ball hits your hands. You drop it forward to the other team. They get it, okay, mistake happened. Mentally weak person is going to pound their fist into the sand. They're going to be all upset. They're going to be thinking about the mistake. They're not going to be able to react to the player that's coming their way. And what's next? It can even domino effect from there. That's a mentally weak approach. Mentally tough approach is to be able to just internalize that mistake that happened, push it aside. Move on. What's the next most important thing right now? What do I need to focus on? That's from a rugby perspective. Now, let's bring me back to my injury. I'm sitting in a hospital bed. I don't have a lot on my side. I don't have some doctors saying that's everything's gonna be okay. I don't have statistics with me or signs of life showing up. I have a lot of terror that's going on in my mind, lot of anxiety and uncertainty that's coming in the future. But I have this decision to keep moving forward, to push out all that emotion, to not let that control me. And what I'm going to take in this approach, but to rather think, okay, what's the most logical thing for me to do right now? What's the next most important thing at this time? I had to get my affairs in order. I needed to decide whether or not I go into the surgery at about 30 minutes, to decide whether or not I would go into this potentially life threatening surgery. And I could decide that, okay, this is the best path for me, that I think this is an appropriate risk for me to be able to take, and it's going to give me a lot more higher chance of a recovery. And then finally, I decided I need to get my soul ready so that if I die, I'll be prepared for heaven. And I called my religious advisor at the time to ask if he says he could send a priest over. I'm Catholic and wanted to receive the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. That way, if I made it, I would have that peace and strength of God and His presence throughout this injury, and if I died, my soul would be ready for heaven. And he said he'd send over a priest, but he gave me this piece of advice that just gave me a lot of power in what should have been a powerless situation. And he said, Robert, throughout this journey, there's gonna be a lot of things that you just can't control, but the one thing you'll always have control over is your mindset, your positivity, your ambition. Your willingness to wake up every day and fight, this is up to you. This injury cannot take that away from you. And it just like it gave me something to focus on. It was like, in that, okay, what's the next most important thing? It's like, control my mindset, knuckle down.
MIke: That is such an incredibly powerful gift and as athletes, intuitively, we get that, but we get it in the perspective, as you said, towards our athletic identity, towards sports, and so we always apply it to our sports. And I'm always amazed at how many athletes can't then take that and then apply it towards something else outside, right? It takes a lot of training to be able to apply that to something else outside. But the other thing that you said was that you didn't have much choice. And I think oftentimes life puts us in that position where, what choice do I have? I just had Chase Lyman, who was a receiver, on the show, and he and, you know, he had so many injuries, and I asked him, like, how do you keep coming back? He says, Well, it wasn't like I had much choice, right? And so the choice, then, is to adapt that mindset. Viktor Frankl said it. The one thing that you have a choice is to choose the mindset you'll take into something, to choose your attitude. So I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just think that's such a powerful piece for people at home, for people who are listening, for Bears fans, to understand that about a athletes, but then also about you personally, to then take that to the choice. There's the biggest choice of your life right there. I'm gonna bring the proper, appropriate mindset to this.
Robert: I absolutely love that. Let's dive even deeper there. Like, how do you make it to have that sense of urgency where it's like you don't have the choice, because in a situation like mine, when you lose your ability to move your body, there's nothing more than you want than to be able to move your body. I mean, just imagine the desire that someone must have to be able to walk, move their hands when you had it and it was lost, it was taken away from you. And I think the way that you do it is you need to set a really bold, audacious goal. And you need to have time thinking about your vision really, like building that hunger, that appetite, writing it down when you're going to bed at night, thinking of those moments of success that you want in your life, like really visualizing it and building that appetite within yourself so that it becomes like I want this so bad. I don't have a choice whether to choose to hit the snooze alarm five times this morning or five times this day. And I don't have the choice if I'm just gonna like take this day off when I know I should really be putting effort, or not go to the gym or not go to work, or not do what I know is going to get me my goals. I've built this, this kind of appetite within me that is just insatiable. I have to keep moving forward. So I think for anybody who's listening to this, you can start to develop a sense of that desire to really make it happen.
Mike: No doubt. And this is why athletes who are focused on greatness focus on doing great things. They can persevere through incredible struggles. I call it making that Rubicon decision. You make the decision that you can't retreat from, right? You put it in a position where now there is no retreat from it and that's the only way to fully adjust your mindset to, no matter what the circumstances in your life. But it's incredibly powerful. You're a testament to it, obviously, with what you're going through. So I didn't mean to interrupt you there. I just think that's such a powerful piece for people to understand. So I wrote about in my book, and I by the way, we're going to talk about this. Robert's got a book coming out. It is awesome. I got to preview the book. It is amazing. A bunch of great lessons and stories in here that you're going to want to hear. This book will make your life better. We'll talk more about that the end. We'll put show notes down here where you can get the pre-order or get a get a copy of it, too, as well. But anyway, go ahead and continue with your story. I just didn't want to cut you off, but just such a powerful piece for people to understand.
Robert: Yeah, I love that Rubicon decision, and that was it right there. When I was in that hospital bed on day one. I'm thinking, My Rubicon decision is I want to be wheelchair independent one day so I could be in a walker, crutches, cane, nothing at all. I just want to stand up out of this wheelchair one day and never sit back down and like, that's what helped me keep moving forward. When I was controlling my mindset, it was framed around that decision. So I eventually go into the surgery. I kind of closed my eyes, they put the gas mask on me. I'm counting down from 100 I think I make it to like 97 and I'm knocked out, right? I wake up and I'm groggy. My body's still buzzing. I can't move. I'm thinking, like, okay, that wasn't just a bad dream yesterday. This is real, and I had to start fighting for my life. This is where the challenges really began. I could not swallow, so I couldn't eat or drink. They put a tube up my nose and into my stomach. It took three days to get in there, because I broke my nose so many times playing rugby. It was one of those things, like, I don't have a choice.
Mike: Yeah, and not swallowing, by the way, is one of those things that suck about that surgery too, right? When they pull everything to the side, everything is so irritated on top of the injury that you already had so bad so far.
Robert: Yeah, horrible. When I would try to swallow, the flap that covers your windpipe when you take a swallow, it would get caught. So then I'd have water food entering into my lungs, but I couldn't cough, right? So my diaphragm being mostly paralyzed, I would just sit there choking, and I'm like, I mean totally lucid and conscious here. I mean, I'm tired, but I'm conscious, and I'm looking at my O2 stats dropping. I'm just trying to get the words help out. So they had to literally come and slam on my diaphragm to try and generate some force so I could start breathing. And so I get through that, but I'm shedding weight like crazy. I lost 60 pounds in a month, so literally, an average of two pounds a day I'm losing, and my body's just withering away in front of me. In my eyes, I just I can't do anything to stop it, and then let's make it worse. I get pneumonia, so which is dangerous for anybody, but I couldn't cough, right? So this phlegm would be stuck in my windpipe, and there was nothing I could do. I had breathing treatments. Every three hours, someone would come in and start loosening the mucus off the walls of my lungs. Every two hours, someone would come in to move my body so I didn't get a bed sore. And every one hour, someone would come in to check my vital signs. I didn't sleep, and I would just crave getting, like, a 20 minute doze here or there. And they weren't coming in and coordinating stuff. I mean, it was just a little revolving door of staff members coming in. But again, it kind of came into that, like, I have no choice, control your mindset. What's the next most important thing? Keep moving forward. Eventually I get through that and I go over to a new hospital in Denver, Colorado called Craig Hospital, where they specialize in spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury recovery. Incredible outlook. And I show up in like, these patients, they've got smiles on their faces. They're like, Robert, welcome. You're gonna love it here. And you kind of wanna, like, grab them by the shoulders and shake them. I would be like, are they drugging you? Like, blink twice if we need me to help you, get the heck outta here. But that was this place, the staff looked at us and they saw potential.
Mike: And that's such a dynamic match for that athletic mindset for you, right? Because that's what athletes do. They push forward, they work. They're always looking for that little bit of improvement, right? So you get the right place and the right people around you in a place like that, like Craig Hospital, it changes everything for you, because now you have people who match your mindset. Initial trauma, initial everything else, the people are like, fix them. Don't let them die. Do their thing, And that's not the mindset you need when you're now trying to when you have set your audacious goal, right? When you have said, I am going to walk again, when you are focusing on the next most important thing, you need people around you who are saying, How can we facilitate that?
Robert: Yes,I mean, this was it. And I remember my first conversation with my doctors. They took that approach. They fed it right away, and they're like, Robert, what happened? He was terrible. But we don't know where you're going to progress from here. I'm not going to try to predict the future. You could walk out of these doors one day, and you very well might not, but we are going to give you everything that modern science and medicine has to optimize this recovery. You've got the full strength and support of this team. So it's just the perfect approach, because it was not false hope, it was not false hopelessness, which I think that other doctor kind of ran into giving me. It was just support. It was just like we're giving you a chance. Give it everything you have, and we'll and we'll give you everything that we can we can give you. And I went for it. I mean, it was eight to nine hours of very intense rehabilitation today, hardest I've ever worked at something in my life. But I went from no motion at all to where I could twitch a finger and I could twitch a toe. And a year later, I got up into my walker and I walked out of the hospital doors, and by the way, I also went over to get that piece of pizza and put that thing up. Just a couple pizzas in my day too. I go back to UC Berkeley a year after my injury, my rugby team sets up a spreadsheet to help me get to and from my classes and more workouts to get through the hills at Berkeley. My the associate head coach of the Cal rugby team and the strength and conditioning coach Tom Billups does my rehab with me like five, six days a week for two years, some of my most important progress has actually been under Coach Billups, the rugby coach. I find my purpose in speaking. I graduate from UC Berkeley and stand up at my own two feet to get my degree from the number one public university in the world. And brothers, yeah, sorry for the UCLA fans out there. We're kind of number one here. We can talk about that later, but I mean all these just incredible accomplishments to where here I am. I got married to the love of my life in November, and I have dedicated the rest of my life to helping people overcome what paralyzes them on those mental, emotional levels during this experience, and these tools that just helped me to live an incredible, fulfilling life,
Mike: So amazing, and such a powerful story. And you talk about Tom Billups and Jack Clark. I couldn't respect people more than those guys at Cal knowing what they do, what they've done for the program, but the type of high character individuals that they are, too. You know, so often times we look at the negative things in our life and and I know that you have been able to take the negative and then find the positive within it, and it's so powerful. And you had a couple guys there and turn and your spiritual leader, and your faith and all those things like and family. Human connection is so important and, and it's a big piece of it. I want to kind of start there with you, because in one of the chapters in your book, you talk about talent. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly and that human connection, and it's not just about what others can do for us, it's about what we do for others as well, right? So I know that's become a huge part of your journey at this point. Talk about how that human connection, both from Jack and Tom and the other people in your life who have been there for you has has helped you, but also now how having a connection to do the same for others has really driven you.
Robert: Yeah, it's just critical. And when I explain my story, I say, I quite a bit, but nothing important is accomplished alone. There's not a moment that I spent by myself on the first day after my injury, had my entire rugby team sitting there in the lobby ready to come greet me one by one, like I said when I got back to Cal. We know how the campus is, right? I mean, it's hills for days, like they make movies out of these things, right? I needed help, and they set up that spreadsheet to get me to and from all my classes and workouts. I was never alone. I was always a part of that team. We have Coach Billups, who's an incredible rugby coach. I mean,mI think if I have this right, he has the second most wins out of any rugby coach in America. I mean, it's like, you know, if, like Nick Saban was sitting in there with me, helping me do my workouts, it's it's literally like that, yeah, and who does that? Who does that? And I mean, Coach Clark. The only reason I'm even here today speaking is because of Coach Clark and him helping me find my purpose in my life and how I can use this to benefit others. We sat together once a week for at least six months straight, going through a message, talking about how I can take these experiences from years of battling quadriplegia and use it to help someone else going through their challenges. He continues to help me greatly through this day, and was a huge part in helping me in this book. I just I could not have done any of this without them. And I just it's something that I try never to forget whenever I sometimes maybe bring it back to myself sometimes and think like, you know, oh, I've done amazing things. And it's like, it's never I, it's always we. It's just incredible how much these people have helped me in my life, and how I just have to continue drawing back to that, to never try to go it alone. None of us should, because there's so much more that we can do. But then to the second part of your question, they're doing for others, and that changed for me about five days into my injury with a story of talent that you mentioned. And to kind of give some context here, I used to coach youth rugby camps when I was playing rugby at Cal I'd come back to Sacramento, over at Jesuit High School, where I learned to play rugby, and I'd coach youth rugby camps. Everyone was like 10 to 14 years old, and there was this one camper there, Talon, who was one of the smaller kids on the field, but he kind of played with heart. He's like a Rudy type, and everyone kind of roots for them.
Mike: Always my favorite kid in my camps, 100%.
Robert: They're the best and but a lot of times they need help to really be involved. So I would give him the ball and pick him up so we could go score. So like, imagine me, I'm a D1 athlete in a sea of 10 year olds, like putting a Heisman on Little Jimmy so he could go score. We had this real bond. And it was around the time my injury, again, kind of going back to this five days later thing where my high school is hosting a prayer service for me to pray for my healing and my strength. And then it's on this day that my dad shows me a picture on his phone of someone who I do not recognize, and he's obviously fighting for his life. His hair is white and thin, his body is skin and bones. His skin is very pale. And my dad tells me that this kid is Talon, and Talon is fighting stage four cancer, and it was a part of this picture that his mom wrote a caption that read along the lines of Talon wanted so badly to be at the prayer service to pray for Robert today, but instead has to be in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy, and he's wearing his Jesuit rugby shirt that the team gifted him in his first round of chemo. He wants to go play rugby when he beats his cancer, and Robert inspired him to do that. And the message closes with this sentence that's just seared into my soul, and it changed everything for me. And it said, stay strong and keep smiling, Robert, your strength helps. Talon stay strong too. I cried like a baby because I just realized in that moment that overcoming this injury isn't about me, it's about him. It's about all those people who are inspired when I choose to fight another day and today we're recording this interview, I am exactly 2902 days since that injury. Coming up on eight years on May 6. It is a very intentional effort for me to keep persevering through this each day. It's not fun and it's not easy. I don't do it for just the pleasure of going from point A to point B on my feet. That's not what motivates me and will keep me going for the rest of my life. It's a selfless commitment to others that I'll take what happened to me, which many people would think would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and I'm going to turn it into a gift that's a gift that I can share with other people. And it was that message from Talon's mom and Talon's support that made me think of that new purpose in my life, and to kind of close the loop on his story, just an absolutely incredible human being, and it was after a four year battle with his cancer that he eventually passed away. But Talon died a winner, and he died a fighter, and his spirit lives on in me and so many others that will try to live like he did, selflessly. Because when he was about 16 years old, battling stage four cancer in chemotherapy, he wasn't thinking about himself. He wasn't praying for himself. He was thinking about me. And I just think what an incredible example for all of us to live by. It's a thing that gets us to push through what he's been through, from what I'm going through, and just the greatest challenges that we all have in our lives. That people component is so important to have those amazing people on our team to keep us moving forward, but then to be able to use the purpose that we've been given through our challenges for the benefit of someone else. Just so critical.
Mike: So critical. And we are literally biologically wired to connect in that way, right? As infants, we are the longest in terms of our development, our growth, our brain development, nervous system development, so we learn to rely on each other and that's built into our DNA. So when you have somebody to push for, but also to root for, those both play directly into our human psyche. And it's such a powerful thing. I know it's part of what you speak about. It's part of what I speak about, you know, trying to bring our message to people, but to truly find that creates a real purpose in life. And so I just it's one of the things, I think immediately, that that, when you and I first started talking, that kind of was a bond for us to be able to give that back. My story completely different but to be able to give that back to people, because oftentimes they need that. Let's get into the book, because that you have a bunch of really, really great lessons outside of that, which is, I think, incredibly powerful. They're all great lessons. I don't want to give the whole book away. I want everybody to go out and buy this book. You need to buy it immediately. It's fantastic. Bears fans, especially Cal guys, let's help Robert hit the best sellers list immediately. So, but a bunch of great tips in here for people to take to heart. And one of the biggest ones for me, because people look at you now, and you talked about the kids who sit, look at you say, oh, why can't you walk? So we always look at the finished product, and we never understand the ingredients that bake the cake, right? And for you, one of the big ones that I think people will miss is keep your sense of humor during all this. I love the stories in there, because oftentimes, they'll look at something else like, oh, how tragic, and that's the only picture they can see. But keeping your sense of humor about things is so important. Talk about how it played into your story.
Robert: It's so huge. I love how you bring up that why can't you walk thing that's kind of one of the funniest things, because kids have no filter, right? And they come up and they look at me and they just, they'll ask that question, like, over and over and over again sometimes, and if they ask now, sometimes, I'll just say it's because they didn't eat my vegetables, and it's awesome, like, oh my gosh. like, eyes are like wide as saucers. So if there's any parents who are having a hard time getting their kids eat the green stuff, just let me know, and I can help. So it's just such an important part that I don't often like speak about in, like, a keynote speech, but I really wanted to include it in this book, because it's critically important, and it's something that was starting on day one for me, when I was had my injury, I was getting ready to apply to get into the Haas School of Business, which is a really competitive application. You got to have your essays and your resume. Sometimes you'll do interviews as well. And I remember one of my buddies came into the room. Was the first one who came in, Tyler, Douglas, my best friend. And he was in Haas. And we had been talking about this before my injury and I was like, Tyler, I am going to be able to write a hell of an application essay. Now this is going to be the application to end all. Essays with the story. And so I think they came in there expecting to probably see just a completely broken version of me, not even able to look them in the eye. And instead, I'm choosing humor, and I'm making some light of this situation and showing everybody that I'm still me, that I'm just a guy in a room with my friends joking around. Yeah, now I'm sitting in a wheelchair, or at that time, I'm laying in a hospital bed, but this is still me, and I'm not gonna let the injury claim victory over my spirit, and I'm not gonna let it break that. And there's another funny story where one of my buddies came into the room and I, at this point, I started having spasms. So my legs are like, cannonball up sometimes, like knee to my chest, my legs would shoot out and start shaking sometimes. And at first, I had no clue what was going on. Very normal part of these injuries. It's actually kind of good. It shows that there's some neurological activity going on, but nobody really knew what it was. And it was the first day someone came by after I started having these spasms, and we're talking, and he put his hand on my leg, and it triggered a spasm, so my legs, like, shoot out. They start shaking uncontrollably. And I'm like, John, what did you do? I think you healed me. I can move now. He's like, what's going on? And a few seconds later, I'm like, it's a spasm. He's like, Dude, you are a jerk, right? Another one of those moments just kind of like, make light of the situation where it was never all doom and gloom. I mean, it was always that escape to where I could just be a guy with my friends. And I think that's something that we all have to try to do. Once we lose our sense of humor, I think we're losing a really important part of ourselves. We have to maintain that as best as we can.
Mike: No doubt about it. So I came into that saying people see you as this picture of it, and they have this mental outset, and then as soon as you inject humor, you become so approachable to other people, and then the story becomes so digestible, because now it's not just this big picture thing. The ability to use humor over these things makes it accessible for people. Otherwise, your nervous system is on guard, right? So like, but it's just amazing to hear it, and people need to hear that over and over and over again, because being able to laugh at something is super important because, and we'll get to the next idea here. Oftentimes the challenge is the gift, right? The challenge. I pray every morning I go up. I've got nice knee space, you and I have talked about this, but I've got knee spac and I pray every morning, and I thank God for the challenges that he's put in my life, too. Because a lot of this stuff that I've had to overcome is the stuff that I can now give back to other people that I can understand, and I and you never understand it at the time, like, why me comes in all the time, and I'm sure it did for you. But then in the end, you can look back and you can thank God for those challenges, because it creates that purpose. You talk about it big time in the book you talk about as one of your lessons,
Robert: It is something that is so not easy to embrace when a challenge first hits us. But I think it's the most beautiful thing that comes out of adversity. And once you have that perspective and challenges start coming your way, you're able to kind of take a step back and reflect about like, okay, what can this actually do for me? And it stings when our expectations change and we're working really hard at something, and then it just kind of gets thrown off track by a lot of times, something that we have no control over. But the best way we can move forward is to see the gift in that challenge, to where it's not making us bitter, it's making us better, as the saying goes. And for me, it all came in sharing the story. And early on, we started up a GoFundMe page to help pay for my rehabilitation expenses. I'm sure, as anyone can imagine, breaking your neck is not a good financial decision. It's expensive, and we needed help. So my buddy Tyler Douglas, his mom, started up this Go Fund Me came campaign to help pay for some of these rehabilitation expenses that insurance wouldn't cover. And the support just came in droves, I mean, from the rugby communities, especially the Berkeley community, my Sacramento community, of people given their monetary donations and also sending messages of support, letting me know what they were going through, some of them extreme situations. I mean, we're looking at people like Talon, other people battling cancer, people who have suicidal ideations, just incredible things that are really difficult to wrap our heads around. How they were going through something immense. But by my faith and my perseverance, they were also receiving that faith and perseverance, and it showed me that gift in these challenges that I now have an ability to make a positive impact on people that I never would have had if this injury didn't happen to me. And it really shaped my views, and really matured my views on adversity. Me, and it matured my faith in a lot of ways too, because I always thought, like, okay, God has a plan for me, and that plan is good, and then this injury happens, and I'm like, how is this a part of a plan? This isn't good if it is a part of a plan.And, you know, as things go started going on, and I started having these interactions with other people I could see, like, oh, this is so much more good than anything I could possibly imagine. And it just goes to show that if you continue to persevere and you trust in that goodness, you are going to get better. And I'll finish it off with, there's this thing I came across where there was a person and I'm gonna probably, like, butcher it, but there was someone like, praying to God, and he was like, God, I asked for more courage. And he's like, okay, well, I'm going to give you very frightening situations in your life that you're going to have to move through. And it's like, okay, well, I want more patience. And it's like, I'm gonna have, I'm gonna make you wait for a very long time for the things that you want in your life. And you can kind of see where this is going here, like when we if we want to get stronger in our lives, to have more patience, more courage in our lives, it's really only through adversity that we can have that. So when adversity strikes us, it's important to realize that there's a gift in this, if we choose to persevere 100%
Mike: 100% a gift in it, and you never see it and you never see it until you look back on it. It's, it's, it's amazing. I had cystic fibrosis as a kid. I didn't see it as a gift at the time, obviously, as a kid, I just wanted to breathe and run and play and be good. And you look back and you're like, oh, that's what gave me the drive to beat the illness, to become the professional athlete that I can now give back to those people and talking about the same way you do about resilience and those kind of things. So oftentimes, the thing that sucked the most are the things that that give us our powers that we're supposed to use in life. So I'm just, I'm amazed at your resilience, at your ability to do that in your situation. And the one I got, I saw, I was incredibly lucky. I got, I went to go see Robert's TED Talk. And so he did it TEDx Berkeley. It was awesome. It was the highlight of the night for me. Highlighted my week that week. And we'll put the link to that down there too, by the way, go on there. Hit that, that talk. And just, it's really good to see. But one of the things that you said that struck me in the moment, and I had not read the book yet, was compared to what and that just that thought is so powerful. Talk about that and how you use that in your life,
Robert: Huge. I mean, I think it might be like the most powerful tool that I've really gained throughout all this. It's just an essence of perspective, and it's really using perspective intentionally in our lives. I think sometimes we just kind of let our circumstances or the surroundings around us just form that perspective. I think it's a muscle. I think it's something that we work on, and we can really influence intentional control over and this whole phrase, compared to what started for me in Lourdes, France, I got invited out on a pilgrimage there. It's a place that's known for miraculous healing. I got invited by the Order of Malta exactly one year after my injury, and I'm going over there, and I'm kind of like, I mean, a miracle is kind of like, not in my favor, you know, like I'll just, like, bathe in these waters, get up and just kind of like, do dances around town. But I'm like, hoping for it surely. And if there's any sliver of of hope, infinitesimally small as it may be, I'm gonna hold onto hope. And I go over there, kind of expecting that physical miracle. I bathe in the waters and I come out physically the same. But when you look at my spirit and my emotions and mental capacities, it was so changed. Because I'm looking around here, we've got 25,000 sick or injured people from all over the world, some people who are battling stage four cancer. And I'm talking to them, they're like, Yeah, Robert, I've got tumors blown out through my entire body. My doctors tell me I have three months max to live, and I've got a beautiful family, beautiful wife. I would give anything to just have time with them. Or another guy I met there who was going through ALS, and you know, my injury is, of course, not progressive, so I went through a really difficult spot. But in ALS, you know this guy, his speech was very strained. He had a hard time walking. And he's he's saying kind of, I move less and less and less every single day to an eventual reality, to where I won't be able to breathe, I won't be able to blink, but I'll be totally clear and conscious, aware of what's going on in my mind. Again, beautiful family, how do you give anything to just have more time with and I'm like, remind me not to complain about anything ever again, right? Because if these people were in our situation, would they be upset when they have to get up out of bed early in the morning, or excited that they just got to get up out of bed? This kind of have to get to type paradigm shift, and this compared to what phrase gets encapsulated by, I was having a couple beers with a priest who was there, talking about this real transformation that's going on deep inside of me that I'm realizing, and we came up with that phrase compared to what. So it's like, I'm going through a lot right now, but compared to what, or I'm really tired, but compared to what, there's a lot that I can do and there's a lot that I do have. And that statement, I want to point out, is not meant to dismiss our challenges. I think it's really unhealthy if we dismiss our challenges. If we just do that, it ignores it, and the challenge will never go away. What that statement is meant to do is put our challenges into perspective, so not maybe not see a mountain of a task that's in front of us, but to be able to boil it down to what we're dealing with right in front of our own two feet to realize just that there's millions of people in this world who would rather be in our situation than their own, that compared to what phrase I think really good for, just like quickly shifting your perspective to realize I'm blessed, and I should be grateful for all these things that I have in my have in my life, and I should use all these things that I have in my life.
Mike: Yeah, gets you out of that nervous system state where you're kind of a victim of it out of control, into a gratitude state, where you can now take advantage of what's the next most important thing, right? So it's just a whole mindset shift that it's just a paradigm shift on everything. Turn it on its head. I love that. Finally, the people in your life who have helped you. I think you've had an incredible support staff. You've had not just staff. You've had family, right? You've had, I'll let you tell it better, but, but you've had some people there who have really meant a lot on your journey, and I would love to hear about them, because that's really our people are our purpose.
Robert: Yeah. You know, I've mentioned my rugby coaches, my rugby team, my family. I mean, so many people, but I think the person I want to call out most is my wife, because this is something I share in the book that has just the relationship I'm most grateful for in my life. Because when I first got hurt, I really thought I was unworthy of love. And that's a pretty horrible feeling, you know, I was so rooted in kind of, like, my physicality before my injury. So, you know, big guy, like, I'd walk in a room and people kind of turn heads, you know, guys come up like, hey, man, what sport do you play? I really enjoyed that. I took a lot of pride in that. And then I get to the situation where I'm rolling into a room and people are asking me questions that are very different, and I no longer had like that physical presence that I really took a lot of pride in. I was always really optimistic guy, but I knew I was never going to play rugby again, so that's gone. And I looked in the mirror, I could see the ridges in my sternum, the atrophy in my limbs, I'm just like, looking at a body that I don't even recognize, and then thinking of the challenges that I have to go through. I mean, I've made incredible recovery, and I'm so grateful for that, but there's still a lot of really significant things I go through every day. And my wheelchair is not a prop. I mean, I need this thing. There's a lot of things I can't do that basically everybody else I know can do for me. I don't have a choice whether I take that on or not, but for a life partner, that is a choice for theirs to make, and Carson made it, and I am just so incredibly grateful for her and the support that she shows to me every day. Because I think the biggest thing she's shown me is that my worth is not on my physicality. It's not on my accomplishments and my accolades. It's who I am on the inside that deserves her love. And showed me that it doesn't matter what I look like and it doesn't matter what I can do, that I have inherent value in me as a person that is worthy of love, that romantic life partner kind of love, and it just changed the entire way I viewed my life to where I didn't have to always keep just pushing, pushing, pushing, that I had someone there who's gonna love me no matter what happened with me, and I'm so incredibly grateful for her. She's also a Cal grad, so that probably explains some of just the amazing parts about who this person is, and a Cal athlete as well. But just like any critical relationship for me and for anybody who's out there, feeling that they're unworthy of being loved in that moment, I hope that a story like this really helps that, because I know it is a universal truth that each one of us are worthy of love.
MIke: Brother, so so powerful, like all of your lessons are so powerful, and we've just literally scratched the surface in this conversation here today. Anybody, if you want to learn more, where can they find your book? Where they can where can they hear more about you? Where can they hire you to come in and talk? Yes, absolutely.
Robert: So there's a free chapter giveaway on my website. Go to robertpaylor.com/book, you'll find it there, and that'll get you in there. And you'll also have notifications to be able to buy the book once it's fully released on May 6, which is the eight year anniversary of my injury to the day, it's also. Going to be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble online, basically every major online retailer. And then for those folks who want to follow along on this journey online, pretty much all they've sold big social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Robert Paylor look me up. It kind of got a monopoly on the name Robert Paylor. Not a lot of Paylors out there so it makes a lot easier. I post daily rehab videos, and me getting after it, and really just try to share this story as much as I can, showing that that consistency in the grind is so important and put some positivity in people's feeds so and I try to respond to every message I receive as well. So anybody who's inspired would just love to connect.
Mike: So awesome, so awesome. Love it. All of those will be in the show notes down below as well. So you can, you can see all that stuff there. You can connect with Robert any way you want to get the book. It is so worth your time. It is so worth, you know, the $14.95 or whatever it's going to cost, it would be invaluable. Don't just get the book. It's, it's, I've read it. It's fantastic. The lessons are so powerful, so important. Thank you for coming on today, brother. So good. The Cal family, I'm sure, is going to take care of you on this. You know, it's you've been part of our lives. You know, we've known you a as a rugby player, but then as part of your story, kind of following along as well. So as always, I look forward to that dinner together, and I've got some camo. I've got to get you get that out. But there'll be other times. We'll have you back on Yeah, we'll follow up after the book. Do other things, but I just appreciate you, man, appreciate your lessons. They give me power daily, and appreciate you being one of my people,
Robert: Mike, all my gratitude goes to you. I will not forget this conversation for the rest of my life. Most importantly, though, Go Bears!
Mike: Go Bears and everybody else. I'm Mike Pawlawski for Bear Insider. That's a powerful episode for you guys. Hope you enjoy it. I'll talk to you again soon. Go Bears!
Visit Robert’s page here