♪ NORA MEINERS: And I see this listing.

It says, "Do you want your job to be all fun and games?

Come work for a jigsaw puzzle company."

NICK FAIRALL: And so, as I was lying there, crumpled in the snow, I weirdly asked one of the first responders if he could untie my boots because my feet were uncomfortable.

JOHN STEWART: I find the heart of the deer in the crosshairs, and I could still remember the steam coming off of the fur.

WES HAZARD: Tonight's theme is "Game On!"

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you-- thank you.

HAZARD: "Game on!"

When you hear those words, whether you are an active participant on the field or a spectator in the stands, you get nervous, you get excited, you get anticipatory.

It's crazy, right?

And whether you're actively on the field making things happen, or you're sitting on your couch, or you're just in your life, living your life, and, you know, striving, competing, like we all do every day, they hold so much possibility.

You might bring home the glory for your team.

You might collapse under the weight of expectations, but "game on" is all about getting out there and doing it.

And no matter what happens, win or lose, you always come through with a story.

♪ MEINERS: My name's Nora Meiners, and I am a marketing manager for a board game and jigsaw puzzle company.

I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I'm raising a ten-year-old son, and I was a slam poet for about five years.

HAZARD: I understand that the story that you're going to share with us tonight originally was a poem.

Is that correct?

MEINERS: So the story I'm going to share tonight was a poem that I read once on an open mic.

And then my boss asked me to revise it for the Christmas party, which was awkward.

HAZARD: And was the transition from taking this, you know, poetry, sort of Christmas office party piece, and bringing it to a point where you're going to do a live storytelling in front of a crowd, was that difficult?

Were there any challenges there for you?

MEINERS: Sure, it was really challenging for me, because the poem itself was a number of lines that I had intended to be, like, moving or funny.

But it wasn't a story about me.

It was really just, like, observations about what is fun and interesting about working at a jigsaw puzzle company.

But when I started working on writing this story to speak on stage, I realized I had to be in the story a lot more.

That was a huge challenge for me, and also just being kind of natural on stage and being myself.

Or, usually when I slam poems, they're fully memorized.

And I'm very intentional about what I'm doing with my body and my words, and this, I'm hoping, will be very natural, and people will just get to know me through this story, or get a glimpse of that one bit of my life.

♪ In 2010, I hit the reset button on my life.

I had been an entrepreneur for ten years.

I'd been in the same relationship for that decade, and I had an 18-month-old son.

But that relationship wasn't working.

It wasn't a good fit, and it hadn't been for a long time, and I finally decided we needed to break up.

But we owned a home together.

We owned a business together.

We were raising this child together, so when I broke up with him, I broke up with my entire life.

I had to start over from scratch.

I had to get a job, and I had worked for myself since college.

I didn't even have a résumé.

The last time I looked for work, the internet wasn't even a thing.

I didn't know where to begin, so I thought maybe I'd go to where I found my sofa, where I found my car.

Maybe I'd find a job on Craigslist!

And I see this listing.

It says, "Do you want your job to be all fun and games?

Come work for a jigsaw puzzle company."

And I think, "This has been a terrible year.

I for sure want a fun-and-games job."

So I apply and I get an interview, and I imagine a jigsaw puzzle company will look kind of old-fashioned.

Like, there'll be wood paneling on the walls.

It'll be dusty.

It'll have this whole throwback vibe.

But I walk in and it's gorgeous.

It's kind of this loft space, and there's soaring ceilings and modern art on the walls, and it's just beautiful.

It's also very professional, and I'm starting to get a little intimidated.

This is my first interview since I was 18 years old, and I'm sitting across from the CFO, and she tells me, "It's primarily a receptionist job.

"You'd be doing administrative tasks around the office "and you'd be answering the phone.

"And because of that, the unofficial title is 'missing pieces person.'"

(laughter) Now, I'm intrigued.

It had been a point of pride for me to be an entrepreneur.

I loved being a business owner.

My name was on the cover of The Wall Street Journal before I was 30 years old.

This was a hard thing for me to walk away from.

It was my whole identity.

So if I couldn't have that anymore, I'd take the next best thing, which is a super-weird job title!

(laughter) I could picture myself walking into a dinner party and people would say, "What do you do for a living?"

I would be, like, "Well, I am the missing pieces person at a jigsaw puzzle company."

(laughter) And that was the extent of my career planning.

But I get the job, and on the first day, I answer the phone, and a woman says to me, "I just spent eight hours of my life "working on this puzzle and it's-- I'll never get that time back-- it's missing four pieces."

I want to tell her, "Well, I spent my entire 20s in a terrible relationship.

"I'll never get that time back, but you don't see me complaining."

(laughter) It is my first day, so I refrain, and I solve her problem and I solved the next problem.

A woman calls in, she says, "I can't imagine how I'm missing a piece," and there's, like, four dogs barking in the background.

And I'm, like, "Well, I have some suspicions, but... " Not all of our calls are complaints.

Some of them are just feedback about what type of artwork we should have on our puzzles.

One guy says, "If it has a wolf on it, "I'd buy it.

"I collect wolves.

When are you going to make some wolf puzzles?"

And I'm super-curious about what his home looks like.

(laughter) We get a lot of letters.

I've become very good at deciphering cursive writing.

If there was a Venn diagram of people who like jigsaw puzzles and people who like to write handwritten letters, that overlap portion would be just a circle.

(laughter) Some of these letters... (laughter continues) It's a lot of people.

(laughs) Some of these letters have addresses on the return address that are just longitude and latitude coordinates.

(laughter) I realize the folks that I'm talking to are very geographically remote.

They're pretty isolated.

Maybe I'm the only human conversation they're having that given day, and I was feeling pretty isolated.

I'd just moved into a new apartment, I had no friends at this job, so my compassion really grew for them.

The policy of the company was that we would send them a brand-new free replacement puzzle.

I thought folks would love this, but really, they just wanted that missing piece.

They wanted closure.

But all I had to give them was a brand-new free puzzle.

I found out that people don't really like to start over, and I wasn't enjoying my fresh start that much.

My favorite letter of all time was really dramatic, very poetic, and the best line was, "Can you imagine the frustration "of never having the ethereal satisfaction of putting everything into its final shape?"

And I thought, "Are we even talking about jigsaw puzzles anymore?"

(laughter) I stayed with that position for about two years, and I've since been promoted in the company.

I work in marketing.

I love my job.

I feel like I have a real career path now.

But every once in a while, there's an especially tricky missing pieces person on the phone, and they transfer them to me because I have the most experience in missing pieces.

I did piece my life back together out of nothing.

I did answer a teeny two-sentence ad in Craigslist, and it turned into this big picture of what I do for a living.

So now, it's a point of pride for me to say I'm an expert in the missing piece.

(cheers and applause) I like the thought that I could be in this low spot and just one little twist of fate changes everything.

♪ FAIRALL: My name's Nick Fairall.

I'm from Andover, New Hampshire.

I used to ski jump for the U.S. team, and I competed in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

I'm currently trying to get into public speaking, and telling my story, and the lessons I've learned as an athlete and throughout my life.

HAZARD: And what would you say was your biggest accomplishment in ski jumping?

FAIRALL: That's a great question.

One of my biggest accomplishments, I'd say, was definitely being selected for the 2014 Olympic Team.

That was something I knew I was working my entire life for.

Another one of my big accomplishments that I loved is, I've had a jump of over 208 meters, which is the equivalent of almost two-and-a-quarter football fields in length.

And it was the most... exhilarating moment in the sport I've had.

HAZARD: So, I'm interested.

Are you a storyteller?

FAIRALL: No, I wouldn't say I am.

I've, I've done some public speaking.

However, I've never really told stories in this kind of format.

And it was challenging for me to do it, because kind of in my public speaking that I've done, I've, I've noticed that I can tell what I've been through in the past, and just say what I've been through, and just bluntly say, like, the things I've learned.

But here in storytelling, you're kind of walking the audience through the story and kind of what you're thinking about, and being in the present.

♪ And so there I was, lying crumpled in the snow in Austria, at the base of a ski jump at one of the world's most prestigious ski jumping events, with tens and thousands of spectators in the crowd and millions of people watching on TV.

And as I was laying there, curled up in the snow, I had the most intense and severe sharp pain just jolting through my back.

And to think that just one year prior to this moment, I was representing the United States as a ski jumper in the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

Now, I have been a ski jumper and have loved ski jumping my entire life.

Just soaring through the air at 70 miles per hour and jumping distances of over two football fields in length, it is the most intense and awesome feeling in the world, and for me, it feels like flying.

Now, naturally, one of the last things that I want when I'm jumping is for my boots or for my skis to fall off while I'm in the air.

So I tend to tie my boots extra-tight, so much so that they can actually begin to hurt.

And so, as I was lying there, crumpled in the snow, with medical personnel working to stabilize me, and in the most intense pain that I've ever been in in my entire life, I weirdly asked one of the first responders if he could untie my boots because my feet were... uncomfortable.

And the man, he looked at me, and he looked down at my feet, and he turned back to me and said in his German accent... "Your boots are already off."

And my heart dropped.

And it was in that moment I knew that this fall wasn't like any of the falls that I've had before.

And so I was quickly rushed into emergency surgery because I had fractured and dislocated my L1 vertebrae, I had broken two ribs, punctured my right lung, bruised my kidney, and was suffering from internal bleeding.

And my injury had left me paralyzed from the waist down.

Now, the next few months were pretty crazy.

You know, a lot of it, honestly, was really a blur just because of the drugs I was on.

And we also had to relocate my hospital room just for a little bit of privacy, because of all the media attention surrounding my injury.

And then there was also the acting.

Acting like everything was all right to my family and friends, acting like I was fine, and that I was all right.

But really, I wasn't all right.

And every time I was alone, all I could think about was how for 20 years, I'd dedicated my life to the sport of ski jumping.

And then all of a sudden, it was gone in 20 seconds.

And I went to a state of deep depression, and I began to spiral deeper and deeper into a hole.

And I was filled with so much uncertainty, I realized I had to start taking control of my thoughts, because although I might not have control over my body, I still have control over my mind.

And so I would do things to start helping me out.

And I would post things on the wall in my hospital room, inspirational quotes that said things like, "When life gives you lemons, add tequila and salt."

(laughter) And then my teammates, you know, my teammates, aside from all the candy and the very inappropriate magazines that they sent me, they would even sneak beer into the hospital for us while I was still in the I.C.U.

(laughs) We were just trying to make the best of the situation that we were in.

And it was right around this moment, right around this time, when one of my dearest friends, Jess, who was also our team's physical therapist, she said to me, "Nick, this injury doesn't change who you are, "and you can still do whatever it is you want to do.

You might just have to do it slightly differently."

Now, I still had my doubts, though, and I wanted to believe her.

But really, I was just thinking she was just telling me some of that motivational BS.

However, it got me thinking.

I am an athlete at heart and I need to be active.

But I have no clue what sports are available, let alone what sports I can even do.

And that's when a lot of people just started offering me suggestions.

Whether it was, you know, wheelchair basketball, or, or hand-cycling, or adaptive alpine skiing.

But besides from ski jumping in the winter, I really love to water ski in the summer, and so I started to look for places to go water skiing.

However, due to how recent my injury was, my doctor was very reluctant.

But after a bunch of poking and prodding, and I'm sure annoying the heck out of him, he finally gave in and gave me the okay.

And then just six months after my injury, the next thing I know, I was sitting on top of this seven-foot-long, one-and-a-half-foot-wide adaptive water ski in the middle of this lake in Mississippi being towed behind a boat, and it just feels amazing, having my ski gliding across the glassy surface of the water, making these long and beautiful carving turns.

I just feel like I'm flying again.

And I realized that this is perhaps one of the best days that I've had since my injury back in Austria.

And when I return home from that trip down in Mississippi, I finally realize for the first time what it was that Jess was really trying to say to me in the hospital.

That I can do things.

I just have to do them differently.

In fact, I have to do a lot of things differently as I adjust to my new life.

Whether it's learning how to drive a car with adaptive hand controls, or when I go out with my friends, and there're steps leading up to the bar.

(chuckles) But what I didn't realize, and what I didn't know, when I came back from that trip, was that just two years later, I would be representing the United States again at a world championship, but this time as an adaptive water skier.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) As an athlete, I was in a great position to realize that each day, I could decide, "Is this good result or bad result going to define me?

Or am I going to use it and move on?"

And that translated directly over to my injury, and realized that this could be something that made me a stronger person and a better person in which I could help so many other people, or I could take a victim mentality and let it... ...just succumb to this injury, but I didn't want to do that.

♪ STEWART: My name's John Stewart and I'm originally from Dallas, Texas.

I'm actually fifth-generation Texan.

And I moved here to Boston to be an organizer for a social justice organization called Corporate Accountability, and we challenge big transnational corporations for their abuses of human rights and the environment.

I've been there for about ten years.

HAZARD: Wow, and as I understand it, your current job, you know, storytelling plays a role in that.

I was wondering if you could please tell me a little bit about that.

STEWART: Yeah, storytelling definitely plays a role in my day-to-day.

You know, I, I'm an organizer, and organizing is basically getting people together around a common goal.

And in order to get people off their couches and into the streets, you got to tell them a good story about why they need to do that, what their role is in that, and how they can take action and inspire hope that they can actually make a change.

HAZARD: What was your process for creating your story tonight?

Did you have any rituals, did you demo it in front of people?

I'm just-- what was that like for you?

STEWART: This particular story, I'd actually taken a fiction class many years ago and wrote a fictionalized version of it.

It's just some... a story that's been told in my family for many years by my dad, actually, but I kind of wanted to reclaim it for myself.

♪ I'm eight years old, and I'm sitting in the front seat of my dad's blue Ford pickup truck.

It's dark, it's cold.

We're driving in the middle of nowhere in Texas, and I am nervous.

Because tomorrow, I'm going to be shooting my first deer.

In between me and my dad, there's this big gap where my older brother Colin should be.

But he's not with us on this trip.

My dad loves hunting, grew up hunting.

There's family legends that he would trap animals in the front yard, like squirrels and rattlesnakes, and take them back to the house and scare the crap out of my grandmother.

So he loved it, and I think what he loved the most about it was just being out in nature, and he wanted to share that with us, so me and Colin went with him a lot.

And he especially loved going with Colin, because he was really good at it.

In fact, Colin was really good at most things that my dad really liked-- sports, you know, shooting cans in the backyard.

Things came easy to him.

He was kind of like an outdoors kid, and I was more of, like, an indoors kid.

I was good at reading.

(laughter) And video games.

So being without him on this trip, I wasn't feeling great.

We finally get to our destination, it's still pitch-black, and it's a big ranch where the hunt's going to take place the next day.

There's a bunkhouse, and there's a campfire, where there's a bunch of dads and sons gathered around.

So we unload the pickup truck.

We put the stuff in the bunkhouse, go over to the campfire, and I'm kind of looking around the campfire to see if there's any other kids who look just as uncomfortable as I'm feeling in that moment.

And I see this kind of wimpy-looking kid, and I get hopeful, and I, like, sidle up next to him in the glow of the campfire.

I actually realize that he's got a buck knife and he's kind of handily skinning a deer like he's done it thousands of times.

And I realize, "Oh, man, I am alone in this."

So we go to bed and wake up at probably 4:00 in the morning-- that's another joy of hunting.

It's still pitch-black, and the weather-- the, the weather has dropped.

The temperature is really, really cold.

My dad calls these storms "blue northers."

And I still remember walking out of the cabin and the crunch underneath my feet, as the ground had frozen.

And I'd never felt that before as a kid growing up in Texas.

So I'm in my oversized camo gear, I have the rifles on my shoulder, and I take all the stuff-- crunch, crunch crunch-- out to the blue Ford pickup.

And we drive out to... a box.

(laughs) If you've never been hunting before, this is literally what you do is, you sit in a box for hours and you wait for the deer to come, and you shoot it.

Simple as that.

So we get into this box.

My dad brought along a sleeping bag because it was so cold.

And he stuffs me into the sleeping bag and puts me in the corner, and I zip up the sleeping bag over my head.

And I'm just shivering in there, just praying that this deer does not come, so I don't have to shoot it.

But sure enough, a couple of hours go by, and my dad whispers, "John, John.

"Come on over here, son.

"There's a big doe over here.

This is your chance."

So I unzip the sleeping bag, and I walk over to the stool where my dad's sitting.

I take his place on the stool, and I position the rifle just like he showed me, on my shoulder.

We had been preparing for this moment for months-- going to shooting ranges, target practice.

I knew exactly what I needed to do.

And he's kind of hovering over me, helping me position the gun on my shoulder.

And I get it in a good place, and I've got the rifle pointed a couple of hundred yards away, and I look through the scope, find the crosshairs, and I'm looking for the neck or the heart.

That's where you're supposed to shoot the deer.

One shot so it goes down quick and it doesn't suffer.

So I find the heart of the deer in the crosshairs, and I could still remember the steam coming off of the fur of the animal, it was so cold.

And I steady my breathing.

I've got my finger on the trigger, and all of a sudden, I notice that the crosshairs start going blurry.

And I realize that I'm crying.

So I lower the rifle, and I look over at my dad, and I say, "Dad, I just can't do it."

So he picks up the gun and he shoots the deer.

(chuckles) Years later, I was thinking about this moment, and I asked him what he was feeling.

He must've been so disappointed in me.

And he kind of grinned and chuckled.

And he said, "Are you kidding me?

"It takes a lot of guts to stand up to your dad like that, "not to mention all those other people.

I'm so proud of you, son."

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) I think it makes him nervous a little bit the way that he's portrayed in the story.

But I think, for me, it's really a story about why I love my dad.

He had a really controlling father himself, and he adopted a parenting style that was really just, like, laissez-faire, "I'm going to expose my kids to stuff.

"If they like it, then that's great.

"If they don't, then I'm not going to force them to do anything they don't want to do."

ANNOUNCER: This program is made possible in part by contributions from viewers like you-- thank you.

♪