My Car Accident (or, the Power of Grace and Intention)

When I began all of this, it wasn't out of like, I want to change the world, I'm gonna be an inspiration. I wasn't like, I want to be a thought leader or I want to be a guru or I want to be a writer or I want to do videos or I want to be on Facebook one day. None of that existed. And it wasn't even a dream of mine. I never even had a vision of any of this when I was a kid, right? None of this was in my purview. It was that I was a 19 year old kid and I was miserable and I was terrified and I was so upset with life and I didn't know what to do. You know, I was 19, I was in love with my high school sweetheart. We were that couple that was really annoying, you know, in high school. Like we were everything to each other. Like everything. I mean, we could barely just not kiss each other's face at school. It was just like everything. Our entire life aligned in this passionate life love affair in high school. Have you ever had that high school, just like complete, dreamy, oh my God relationship? It was more annoying than that. It was just like everything. I mean, I only went to college because she went to college. We finished high school and she was going to the University of Montana. And I thought, oh, okay, well, I'll go because she's gonna go. Cause I was just gonna start my own landscaping business. That's what I was gonna do. I was making some money pushing her lawnmower. I thought I'd keep doing that, but I thought, okay, well, she's doing that. I have some ambitions for myself too. I guess I'll go too. So we went to school together. We signed up for classes together, we shared a U haul on the way to school together. We lived in the same dorm together. We walked to class. We walked to breakfast in the morning and walked to class. I mean, we were just joined at the hip and we were completely crazy, infatuated in love. And everything was tied up in that relationship. And then halfway through the first year of college, she discovered beer and other boys on the same night and she cheated. And if you've ever been in a relationship where everything of you was tied up in the relationship, and then the relationship fell apart, then you fall apart. That's what happened. I completely fell apart. I was wrecked emotionally, Just devastated. I mean, I could not even operate in life anymore. I mean, here I'm this college. I didn't get out of bed. I stopped going to class. I barely ate Anything, Certainly nothing healthy. I stopped studying. I just stopped caring about the world. I know none of these five things are unique to college freshmen, so I'm getting there, don't worry. But the problem was I literally couldn't get out of bed. My friends would come in. Brendan, come on. They motivate me. You know, Some friends would drop by and they'd drop off a book. My brother was sending me wonderful books too. And I just. I just couldn't. I just couldn't live. I would go to class in my mind, I think, well, maybe I'll go to class today. But then I'd have to imagine sitting right next to her because we signed up for all those classes together and how could I be there? And it was just. I was wrecked. And I never thought about it until years later. Marketing changed my life. Reading changed my life because I was still reading. There was one thing that's brought me through everything. I've always been a reader. And I happened to pick up the school newspaper and I opened it up and there was this full page ad. And that ad changed my life. I never really got it until years later, but it was an ad that changed my life. And it was this full page ad. And it was this perfect white, sandy beach, turquoise water, blue sky, little wisp of a cloud, big green palm tree. And across the top of the ad it said, escape. Best headline ever, right? Escape. Yeah. Students needed for summertime jobs in the Dominican Republic. Oh, yeah. I didn't know. I didn't know where the Dominican Republic was. I'm from Montana, but I knew she wasn't there, so I signed up, took that job, went down with a friend and an entrepreneur. Then I was down in the Dominican Republican, basically as a glorified tour guide and assistant. Weren't around. And I remember how everything changed for me because I went down there and I just wanted freedom. Sometimes you just want to escape. You want to run away from hardships of life. That's what you want to do. You want to travel, you want to leave town, you want to leave a relationship, you want to run, you want to avoid, you want to escape. And that's where I was at. And I don't think it was necessarily a positive thing. I just had no tools to deal with the struggles I had. I didn't know how to deal with the emotional things that we'll talk about here today. I didn't know how to deal with developing practice in my life. I didn't know how to. I just didn't know how to deal So I escaped, I went down there and one night my friend Kevin and I, we hopped into a car after dropping off a client. And we were in the northeast part of the country, new developing part of the country. And a new road had been paved. And we start flying down this road, going back to where we were staying. So we're going down this road 85 miles an hour in this car. And we've got. I still remember all of the feelings of the entire thing. Cause all the windows were open and the windows were open and that air was coming in, that amazing, humid. If you've been in the Caribbean, that just gorgeous, amazing humid air is coming in. And just this life and this vibrancy felt like it was in the car. And we're driving down the road 85 miles an hour on the road. On the radio is playing Tom Cochran's Life Is a Highway. And we're singing this song at the top. Life is high. We're just singing this thing out, having this great time. And then we came upon a corner that here in the US or more developed area would have had one of those signs. Watch out, sharp corner, you big U turn shaped sign. 15 miles an hour. Be careful. Sharp corner ahead. Slow down. New road, part of the country, undeveloped. We take that corner 85 miles an hour. And that corner became the turning point that put my feet on the stage for you today. We go around that corner. Kevin grabs the wheel, he goes, hold on. And I remember this fear and this terror shoot through me. I could see the headlights. We're not gonna make this corner. I can see the jungle. We're gonna go off this road. Hold on. And I brace. And these feelings and the emotions and what happened to me in the next several minutes are where my turning point was. Because. And I didn't know if it was in the moment that I figured all this out or if it was in weeks and months later of going through and processing what had happened to me. But I'm very clear about what happened now. Because when you brace at the end of your life, if you have a moment of cognition, you question your life, you're going to wonder whether or not you're ready to go. You're going to wonder whether or not you lived a life that you loved and you were proud of. You're going to wonder a lot of different questions about your life. I don't know what might be exactly for you, but you're going to ask questions at the end of your life to evaluate whether or not you are happy with it. My Urging has always been figure out what your questions are going to be so you can live intentionally. Live with purpose. You can't live with intention and purpose if you don't even know how you're going to evaluate your life at the end, you're just going through the motions of what you think is self awareness. You can't have real self awareness unless you're cognizant that life is short. You can't have self awareness unless you're cognizant of that. At the end, you're gonna evaluate what kind of person you were. Well, I went through that experience as a 19 year old kid and it was the greatest blessing of my life. Kevin, hold on. I brace and I feel this energy and this fear in my body. And I know what it was later. It's that when you're at death's doorway, when you're right there, you have questions. And one of my questions was, did I live? If this is it, did I live my life? Was I alive? Was I passionate? Was I joyous? Was I cheerful? Was I present? Was I here? Was I really here? Did I live my life? Not someone else's life, not the parents life, not your spouse's life, not your team's life, not your obligations life. Did you live your life? You want to know? Did you live your life? Because you got one shot at it. So did you show up and do well? Did you live your life? Did I live? I hated the answer to that question. I hadn't. I hadn't lived. I'd been thinking about how to take my life, not live it. Because in the weeks and the months before I went on the trip, I'd become suicidal. And not just thinking about it, planning it. And I was already thinking and planning what to say to my family notes After I was gone, I wasn't living life. I was the worst of life. And I hated that answer. Did I live? No. And it wasn't all those thoughts in that one little moment. But sometimes we extract the meaning from the moments of our life and it changes us sometimes. One little thing with your kids can change you. One little things in a moment of either fear or inspiration or heartache or something shifts you. And that was a shift for me, a big shift. But it wasn't all right there because in the accident it was this fear and the car starts sliding sideways and that weird slow motion thing happens. If you've ever been in an accident before, this weird slow motion thing takes over you. And I felt the car sliding sideways. Kevin's gripping the wheel trying to make the corner. And all of a sudden, smack. We hit this little retainer wall of bricks and boulders that they had built for irrigation ditch for a nearby sugarcane field. Bam. Pop. That smack my head. And I start seeing all these images and I start seeing all these images of my life when I'm surrounded by people that I care for. And it wasn't like those big movies, you know, you watch a movie and end of life stuff where that person watches a whole big long movie of their life from beginning to end. The little you growing up into the bigger, better, better looking you. No, I didn't see that. I just saw. I didn't even see me. I saw scenes of my life. It was not me and little Brendan, little birthday cake, his friends, mom singing a song. There's little Brendan with his sister Helen swinging on the backyard swing set with that one pole that keeps coming out. It was, there's a cake in front of me. Here's my friends singing, my mom leading him in that goofy song. There's my sister just swinging and smiling right next to me. And you see all these scenes in your life when you're surrounded by people that you love and it makes you wonder, did I love? Did I love openly and honestly and completely or did I hold back? Because that one time I got hurt, which is also my story, you know, I got so hurt, I hadn't felt my heart in months. You know, I hadn't felt anything. Did I love? No. I shut out everybody, we all do that. You get hurt and now you want to be more buttoned up after you get hurt. You want to be more cautious, more strict, more careful, less vulnerable. Not putting yourself out there because you got hurt one time. So you put on the mask, you put on the facade, you build the walls, whatever the metaphor is for you. But you know, it is. If you build the walls to keep out the bad guys, who else can't get in? The good guys. I say it all the time. In our own self protection, we often end out blocking the very thing we so desperately desire, connection. We're self protecting, but we're blocking out connection. And that was my story. The car skid off the highway. When it popped up, popped up into the air several times. I smacked my head when it hit the ground, rolled several times. I got knocked out completely. When I came to, I looked over and Kevin is screaming at the top of his lungs, get out of the car, Brennan, get out of the car. And I look over and a whole big chunk of his head is open there's blood everywhere. His eyes are wild. Get out of the car, get out of the car. And I'm scared and I see him get outside the driver's side window and I go to get outside the door and I can't. There's not even a window. The whole car smashed on me and all I got is this little opening that used to be the windshield of the car. And so he's. So I pull myself out of the windshield of this car and he's screaming over here. And I stand up eventually on the hood of the car looking down and he's screaming over here and. And I look and I notice all this blood on me and I feel like this shock and this terror going down. 19 year old kid having his little mortality moment. Cause I look down and I see that blood and that slow motion thing is kicking in. And I'm watching the blood come off of me onto the hood of the car and this fear just comes out and drains all over the hood of the car. And I remember just looking down in that slow motion thing's happening. I just thought, did I even matter? Was there purpose to this? Was there a reason for all? And I didn't like that answer. Did I matter? 19 year old kid. I hadn't really thought about other people. I hadn't really thought about making a difference. Legacy 19 I hadn't thought about that stuff. I felt like I was going to pass out. And I felt sad. And I saw the blood going off the hood of the car. And just as I was about to pass out, I noticed a glint, like a sparkle, something shiny, a reflection in the blood going off the hood of the car. And it made me look up and there was this bright, big beautiful moon that night. I hadn't even seen it earlier, this moon so big that the blueness was emanating across the whole sky. And I just immediately felt this connection, like I knew I was going to be okay. From this moment of fear to just this immediate moment of connection. I felt like I was going to be okay. And I felt like the big guy upstairs reached down to me and handed me life's golden ticket. It was like he reached down, said, here you go kid, you're still alive. You can still love and matter, but now you know the clock is ticking. I remember getting that ticket, like that feeling of gratitude for being here, that feeling of a second chance. And I just remember feeling that feeling, I'm going to be okay, but I wanted to do something. I just felt like, I will earn this. I will Earn this. Because I think when you get a blessing, you want to earn it. And I felt that. And I remember feeling like this connection, like, I'm still here, I'm okay, it's going to be alright. But now, like I said, I knew that time was limited. Mortality motivation. Mortality motivation. I got it as a 19 year old kid. People say, why are you so successful? I'm like, I got mortality motivation when I was 19. That's a blessing. Most people don't get that till they're 60. I got real lucky at that. But I got it too. I got it. I got it now. Don't worry. Kevin and I, we both survived. See, I'm still here. It's okay. I made it through. Kevin made it through. We made it. Bumps, bruises, lots of blood, broken bones, we survived it. But the one thing that I took away from that entire thing was that moment and those questions. Cause I remembered them and I thought about them as I was healing. I was like, what was that about? Why did I feel so unhappy with that moment? Because I thought, you know, in the last moments of life, there must be this transcendence. And I was not happy. And I realized it was because of how I'd been living my life. And I wasn't living to my questions. I knew I got those questions. Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? And soon as I got that, those were the questions I'm going to evaluate myself with at the end of the life. It gave me the power of what my late mentor, Wayne Dyer taught, the power of intention. I got it. When you know how you're going to evaluate your life at the end, you got real intention, you got mortality motivation, and everything changes. How many of you, I'm curious, in a room like this, how many of you, by raise of hands, how many of you feel like you've gotten at some point in your life, a second chance? Raise your hand, say, that's me. If you feel blessed to be in a room like this right now, just say, I'm here. I'm here. Yeah, you're lucky to be alive. Do you have this breath right now? A second chance doesn't happen once or twice every single day. That breath you just took, feel it. Feel a breath. Take a breath in. What a blessing that is. You got that life. What a blessing is. You got that breath. What a blessing. Because that means you still got time. That means you still got something inside. That means you're still here. And now you just got to earn that blessing. You got to work for it. You got to contribute for it. You got to give for it. You got to lead for it. You got to love for it. Because you still have something. Not just in you. You're still here for a reason. That's my belief, anyway. And when you know your questions, you can change. So you got to figure out your questions. Maybe they're not my questions. You should know your questions. Maybe you have a whole list of questions that you're going to ask yourself at the end of your life. You should know those questions so you can live your life intentionally to live those answers. Everything changes. I know. That's why I'm here. Because guess what? I go back to college, remember the depressed, sad Brendon who can't get out of school, can't get out of bed, can't go to class, can't shower? A different Brendan came back. My demarcation line had been drawn. My demarcation line was, I am not going to fail to live, love, and matter anymore. I'm not going to be that old Brendan. I'm going to be this person, this more intentional, loving, connected, contributing person. And I went back to college on fire year two. All of my friends from year one, oh, my God, guess what they did. Same thing people do to you when you go home on Monday. What happens when you change and the other people around you don't go through the same experience? Who's ever had that before? You drew your demarcation line, but no one else around you even knew what a demarcation line was. You drew your line in the sand. You changed, but. But you change. You step forward into a new you, but you step into the same old place. Everybody. What do they say to you when you start living your life more on full? What do they say? You live in full now. What do they say to you? What's wrong? Yeah, what's wrong with you? I come back to college, everyone goes, what's wrong with you, Brent? I'm like, what? What's wrong with you? You're so happy. I'm like, what's wrong? What's wrong with you? You seem dead. Why aren't you more happy to be alive? You're here. Everyone say, I'm here. Turn the person left, right, shake them, thank them for being here. So that's why I'm here. That's the only reason I'm here. Thanks for watching. Make sure you subscribe to my new podcast, the Brendon show. It's available on itunes and stitcher and wherever else you get your podcasts. And it's the exclusive place where I share my thoughts about life, about current events, about what I'm going through, about my advice for you as you seek to live an even more extraordinary life. It's called the Brendon show and it's available anywhere you get your podcast. So make sure you subscribe. And if you're ready to take your life to a whole new level, make sure you grab my book, High Performance Habits How Extraordinary People Become that Way. It's available on Amazon right now and when you order your copy, you're really supporting my channel and the message. And you're also getting a book that will reveal to you 20 years of my research into what is it that helps people go to a new level of success in their life? What does it really take? What habits are proven to help you reach long term success in your career, your health, your personal life, your relationships? It's called High Performance Habits, How Extraordinary People Become that Way. It's available on Amazon right now. And finally, make sure you subscribe to my channel so you get notifications every time I release a new video and by subscribing you support me, my message and this channel. 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