3 Life-Changing Lessons from a Near-Death Experience You Can't Ignore

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

The Lead on Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages. Learn more at NZMortgages Co NZ what can a near death experience teach you? And I well I'm about to share that with you. Very recently I sat down with an amazing human and I wanted to let you in on that conversation before it gets released in its full feature length episode. This guy is called William pike and he survived a very near death experience. He had a passion for the outdoors and and as a young man was hiking at Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand which is a volcano, and was camping in a bit of a shed kind of form, like an old beat up shed slash cabin at the top of the mountain overnight was rudely awoke by a massive eruption and.

Lost his leg, lost consciousness, thought he was going to die. The person that was with him had to run down the mountain, find help, come back up and for weeks afterwards was in hospital on the brink of death with gangrene and many different complications, sepsis, all these different issues and it really made him think about life, about what was possible and I cannot wait to share the full length episode with you. It's truly mind blowing. Why do I bring people like this up in conversation? Well, they can teach us so much. Maybe you have had a near death experience and it's shaped how you live your life, but many humans haven't had that experience and so I think it's really incredible that we can actually learn from others and hear about their experiences and how they've shaped how they See the world. So I want to share just a couple of things with you that I think will really help you to live on purpose, to be more productive and effective with your time and to do what matters most. First things first. William, through his stories, through his experience, reminded me that we must always try to focus on possibilities, focus on what's possible. You know, a lot of those positive psychologists, like Martin Seligman, like Dr. Ellen Langer, they focused on what's positive and possible in times of chaos, fear, uncertainty. One of the best things we can do is look for what our options are. I often say to my one to one clients, whammo, wamo. When you're stuck and it looks like they've got no options, whammo, wamo. What are my options? Write them all down. There are always options of some description. Sometimes that option is just to breathe. Sometimes the option is just to focus on where your mind is and where you're placing your awareness. So that reminded me in talking with William that he had a possibilities in front of him to focus on all of the negative that his life might end. But instead he focused on what he did want. That takes me to the second thing that he shared I want to remind you of because I needed this reminder for me was get outdoors and embrace nature. That's his biggest passion, getting his boots on, hiking. He loves spear fishing, he loves fishing, he loves tramping, hiking, all the things you can think of. It was such a great reminder that we do live once. And William now has a prosthetic leg and gets outdoors more than you or I guaranteed. He climbed 10 years after his accident. He climbed Mount Scott in Antarctica. He's just an incredible, incredible human. So reason I'm sharing this is that often we can get stuck in our own heads, go around in circles, be in a bit of a rut, feel sorry for ourselves. Look, we can do that for a bit, but when we start to make that habit, it doesn't serve us at all. We've got to focus on what's possible and move towards that. And if we are lucky enough to have influence on other people, if we have the privilege of being leaders and helping others achieve goals, we've got to help them adapt that mindset of what is possible. That's my challenge to you. Now, before I share the last one with you, this last lesson from a near death experience, I just want to ask you for one favor. Please share this episode with one person. It would be a huge help. Now last insight. Now this didn't come directly from William's words, but I brought my journal with me after the session. On the plane ride home, I was reflecting on what I'd learned and how it impacted me. The thing I've wrote down here is live today like there's no tomorrow. And to me, that is just so powerful. And he did say those in different ways, in different words. That might even be a quote, I don't know. But live today like there's no tomorrow. That's how I felt on my way home. Like, don't wait for tomorrow. Today's the day. This is it. Be joyful today. Be accepting today. Be courageous today. Be patient today. Be still. Whatever it might be, be that, be curious. But today's the day. It's not tomorrow, it's not the next day. Yeah, we've got to prepare for our tomorrows, but we've got to live for our todays. And just talking to William, his life could have ended so easily on a number of occasions, but he kept moving towards what was possible and staying truly in the present. He kept talking about small steps, super small steps. And he's been on to form a number of companies that are doing incredibly well. One's a very global company called Pro Armor. What an inspirational guy he is. So I just wanted to share those little tips with you. If you're at a point now where you're stuck, frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed, I just want you to think about a near death experience and how that has shaped so many humans to think differently. And so hopefully you can learn something from William and bring that into your own life. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. The Lead On Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages. Learn more at nzmortgages.co nz. Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.