Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

My story starts on the morning of May 2nd, 2010. I was taking my son to a soccer game. We were traveling on a local highway when we were hit head-on by a drunk driver. She got on the interstate going the wrong way. That’s right, we collided head-on at 65-70mph. Somehow we all survived. I woke up in the trauma unit after being flown there by helicopter. We were all flown by helicopters that morning. My surgeon’s first words to me that I remember were, “So I hear you are a runner. Well, your running days are over.”

That was like having my heart ripped out. I loved running. I loved trail running with my then fiancé. As a matter of fact, I proposed to her on a trail run. And she said yes!

Fast forward. My wife was invited to be on a team to run an obstacle course race that following year. My recovery was coming along. I had gone from being bedridden for almost 4 months unable to walk in the trauma unit with many surgeries, then going to rehab in a nursing home. I slowly progressed out of the hospital bed to a wheelchair to a walker and finally a cane. So the day of her race I was a spectator and that’s when it hit me. Thoughts of wanting to do what she was doing that day and why did this have to happen to me? We will never get to do the things we are passionate about together again. It is not the same when I am just a spectator hobbling around using a cane to try to follow her around on the course to watch.

All the while my feet felt like heat and fire. You see, in the accident, I suffered 27 broken bones, and both my heels were crushed and needed to be reconstructed. I guess that was why my surgeon said I’d never run again. But something clicked that day. I thought, who the hell is he to tell me what I won’t ever do again? He’s not God, he doesn’t know me! He doesn’t know the warrior spirit in me! I never quit! The drive to continue no matter what obstacle is thrown in front of me! He doesn’t know the years of personal development I’ve studied with books like The Secret and thought processes to guide me through this thing called life.

My fiancé finished that race and said it was the hardest thing she ever did. A week later she was signing up for next year’s race. I was standing over her shoulder and said, “Sign me up too!” She just looked at me with this look like, didn’t you hear what I said about being the hardest thing I ever did? But she knew me and knew not to put negative vibes out. I said sign me up, I will crawl across the finish line if I have to!

To keep it short, I finished that race the next summer and many more since then. How? The power of thought, and everything you read in books like The Secret. People could not believe it. My surgeon couldn’t believe it. I’ve since completed an Ultra Beast which is 30 miles of mountain terrain in Killington Vermont with over 60 obstacles. Life is good!

A huge thank you to Rhonda for creating and writing books like The Secret.