My brain injury's a gift & helps me stop people 'kicking rocks'!

Hey, new listener, thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you, Squirrel. Squirrel. In this episode, I'm going to tell you why a car accident and a brain injury was actually the greatest gift the universe ever gave me. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach at and welcome to the Weenie Cast. Starting my business was the best thing that I've ever done for myself. But honestly, I don't know that I would have done it when I did if I hadn't had a really serious accident and had to make some really dramatic changes to my life. And I think a lot of us go through this. You know, we have this dream, and it's like that someday dream, oh, someday I'm going to do this, and someday I'm going to do that. When the stars align, when I feel ready, when I've saved enough money, you know, when this happens, when that happens. And most of the time, unfortunately, those dreams just get kicked down the road like a rock until it's too late to actually do anything with them, or until you get down on yourself enough that you think, oh, well, you know, I haven't done it yet and I probably will never do it, then you just give up on it. I was absolutely on that trajectory. I had my very first coach when I was 22 years old, had an incredible experience, really thought, okay, I want to be a coach, quote, unquote, when I grow up. And I had this idea in my mind that I had to be like, a certain age and I had to have a certain level of experience and I had to be taken seriously and have a certain level of respect already before I could start a business, before I could go and coach with other people. And so, you know, I was in my 20s and I was figuring out life, and I was kind of like sampling everything. You know, I was in wine, I was a sommelier. And then I acted, and then I nannied, and then I worked in the solar industry and then the cybersecurity industry and the fitness industry and managed a yarn shop at some point in there and taught knitting. But every single time I got to that point in a job where I wasn't happy, where I was frustrated and just ready to move on to something else, I'd hire a coach. And that coach would help me figure out what I didn't like about that job and what I was kind of looking for in the next job. And more than once, I jumped without having anything lined up on the other side. And the magic of coaching is that I always landed somewhere better. I always landed somewhere where they treated me better, where they paid me better, where I was more interested in the thing that we were doing. And every single time I had this experience, it just reaffirmed, oh my God, I want to do this for people, I want to do this for other people. This is such an incredible thing to be able to do for others. But there was that voice in my head. It's like, well, you're too young. Who's going to listen to you? You've jumped jobs how many times, you've worked in how many industries, like, come on, no one's going to take you seriously. And I mean, the problem was honestly that I didn't take me seriously. The problem was that I saw all that as a hindrance rather than a superpower. And Fast forward to October 22nd of 2017. I remember the date I was driving back from visiting my goddad and his wife in Sacra and I went to take a left hand turn because I was lost into a driveway. And the person behind me sped up and tried to pass me on the left as I was taking the turn. She T boned me and totaling my car completely and giving me a very serious concussion. And honestly, having that concussion was one of the scariest things that ever happened to me in my life because the concussion actually turned into post concussive syndrome, which is basically where the concussion doesn't go away and it actually gets worse over time. And so. And the concussion was really bad. It was, it was really interesting because a couple days after the accident, you know, I was so sore and my car was totaled. And I called out of work, obviously, because I was recovering, and they told me to keep an eye on certain things that could be happening. If it was a concussion. I noticed that, like, I was having a hard time reading. People would send me text messages. And if they were short text messages, like one line, I could read it fine. If it was two lines, it got really blurry. And if it was three lines or more without any spacing, all the words started floating out of space and out of order. It was really frightening. I also was having a really hard time focusing. One of my roommate's friends came over to check on me at some point when I was home and I had the TV on. And she was talking, and I literally just couldn't track what anyone was saying. If you've listened to the podcast, I think you can probably glean that I'm usually a pretty fast thinker and I can absorb a lot. You know, like I have adhd. I can watch a TV show and have a full conversation and be texting other people and know what's going on with all three of them. So this was really disconcerting for me. And so I went to the emergency room and they diagnosed me with a concussion and they recommended that I take a couple weeks off of work, which I did. My. My manager, thank God, was so supportive of me. And after a couple weeks, I went back to work. And of course, like, during that time, I had to go and get my eyes checked. There was nothing wrong with my eyes, they concluded, and I had to get an mri and there was, like, nothing visibly wrong with my brain. And the theory was that during the accident, the part of my brain that deciphers what my eyes see just got bumped. Just got bumped and a little bruised. And it really did limit what I could do. And of course, I was working in software sales at time, same the time. So my whole life was on a computer. My whole life was looking at very, very fine print in Salesforce, trying to figure out, like, how to reach out to different people to close the sale and having those really complicated conversations because we were in Internet security. And it just, like, there was no way. I mean, I couldn't even read. So it was really not possible for me to go back to work. And, like, I even played with. Well, what if they just printed out a huge list of everyone and I could just call through and have everything in, like, really big block texts. Maybe that'll work. I think we even tried that for a day. But what happened is, like, I went back to work, and after an hour of trying to look at my computer, I had the worst migraine and I had to go home. And the next day the same thing happened. And the next day the same thing happened and I went to my doctor and I was beside myself. I was crying so hysterically. I was sure that, like, my brain was broken and there was just. There was no fixing it. And she was so kind with me. She listened to everything I had to say and did some tests. And she's like, you know, I think you have post concussive syndrome, which is something that happens. And it's very common with women who get concussions. And it's basically where the concussion just doesn't get better. And it's basically the concussion becomes mild traumatic brain injury. And her prescription was two months off of work. And, like, I was hysterically crying before. I was crying even harder after hearing that. For one, I was scared. I was scared to lose my job. I was scared for, like, my income and would my insurance be taken away and all that stuff. The things that, you know, Americans really have to stress about. But also, I love working. I love working with people. The idea of having to stay home was just excruciating to me. A side note, I was having a hard time reading, so I was also having a hard time, like, texting correct things. One of my co workers, Forrest, had asked me, like, text me after your doctor's appointment. I want to hear how you're doing. And I texted him, and I thought I texted him. My doctor gave me two months of sick leave. Except when you text, the S and the D are very close to each other. So I accidentally texted him that my doctor prescribed two months of dick leave, which was great anyway, which he thankfully thought was very funny. He didn't. He. He didn't get weird, thank God. But anyway, the road to recovery was really hard. I ended up having to take eight months off of work. In that time, I started working with a neuropsychologist who really helped me understand my new limitations. You know, when you're. When you have a mild traumatic brain injury, you can't listen to music. You gen like, you don't realize how much brain power it takes for you to actively listen and decipher music. You don't realize how much brain power it takes to make sense of ambient noises like cars driving by. So when I went walking, because walking was the only exercise I was allowed to do because they didn't want me upping my heart rate and maybe causing a brain glitch bleed if there's something that they missed on the mri. I had to wear earplugs to block out the sound. I couldn't hang out with friends for more than about a half hour because it was just too draining. And, like, the amount of energy I had to do basic things was abysmal. If you're enjoying this episode, would you do me a small favor? Will you please leave me a review? Don't worry, it's super easy to do and it only takes a few minutes. You can leave your comments in Apple podcasts, castbox, Spotify, and Podchaser. Just go to weeniecast.com reviews and scroll till you find the chosen app. That's weeniecast.com forward slash reviews. And the reason I'm sharing this a is to, like, explain how I ended up doing my job and to kind of give you some insight as to what it took for me so that hopefully it calls bull on you kicking the stone down the road. Right? Because I know you have a dream. I know you have something that you want to do, and I know there's that voice in your head, just like I had, that's telling you, well, not yet. You can't do this yet. You have to wait. And here's all the reasons why you have to wait. And you're not good enough yet. And I don't want you to have to wait until the universe is like, shut the up. Here's a car accident. Now go do it. But also, I wish there had been a resource, something for me to listen to when I was going through this and trying to make sense of what was happening in my own head and trying to, like, not freak out that this is just going to be my life forever. So I invite you, as you're listening to this, if you know anyone who has a concussion, if you know anyone who has had a mild traumatic brain injury and they're recovering from it, send this to them. Send this to them so that they can see that they're not alone and that things do get better. And really, you know, I've talked to several people who've experienced traumatic brain injuries. And what's really interesting is that if they didn't have ADHD like, symptoms before, they tend to have them after. And of course, there's a lot of research that talks about, like, the overlap of PTSD and adhd. But I also think that there's a fundamental way in which the brain changes once you've had a traumatic brain injury. And I can tell you there are things to this day that I still find challenging, not debilitating. It's not limiting. It's not. It's just. It's just different. My brain started working in different ways. But if you have had a concussion and you're listening to this, I want you to know that you only have a few spoons per day. Going grocery shopping, a big spoon. It's going to take a big spoon for you to do. And don't be discouraged if you're exhausted afterwards. Watching a movie is also. Usually that's something that's seen as something that's restful. It's not when you're recovering from a brain injury. Absolutely not. It takes so much for your Brain to decipher. Understanding how to ask friends to be there for you is something that I never figured out until afterwards. It was probably one of the most lonely parts of my life because my friends would go out and they'd want to go out to bars, and they'd want to go to dinner or brunch or they'd want to go to the park. All things that I love doing, but I couldn't do them because it was too taxing on my brain. And the things that make a concussion worse, that prevent it from getting better, is physical activity and thinking. Literally, your brain thinking and processing stuff makes the concussion harder to recover from. And in hindsight, I wish, because I had a lot of friends I could have asked this of. I wish I had just asked people to just come over and bring a book and just read around me, just body double, just be in my space. Just for an afternoon, order food, hang out. Like, just be in my space. And if you're going through this, I want you to have full permission to reach out to some friends and explain what's going on with you and invite them to do something like this, because the loneliness is the hardest part. Something that I didn't realize was happening, that got reflected back to me after I got better is that my temperament changed during this time as well. I had one colleague who used to be. We were very, very close before this happened. And apparently I was. I was awful to him. I was really mean. I like, I. My temperament, like, my. And he said this. Your temperament completely changed. You snapped so many times at us. And of course, like, I don't actually remember it. My brain was working so hard to just make sense of the world around me. And thankfully afterwards, you know, I was able to apologize, but I don't think that our friendship actually ever fully recovered. So if you're going through this, know that your temperament is going to be different. Know that you're going to have a shorter fuse. And part of it is just the frustration that your brain isn't working the way you're used to it working. And prepare the people around you. You know, make sure that they know, like, this is just a symptom of this. And you're preemptively apologetic for anything that you say that's sharp or unkind, or for losing your temper in any way. And pay attention to that, because it's usually a sign that you're taxing yourself too much. Now, because I wasn't allowed to watch tv, I wasn't allowed to be on computers, I Wasn't allowed to, like, look at my phone phone for too long because literally the backlit thing was way too taxing on my brain. A few months into recovering, I was going absolutely insane. And it got to the point where I was like, okay, well, like, what if I can't go back to work? What if I literally cannot go back to a sales role where I have to look at a screen all the time? What do I want to do? And my mind kept going back to, well, you've always wanted to be a coach. You know, that's always been your dream. And I'd been stalking this website for forever for the coactive training institute, which one of my coaches previously had told me was the. One of the best training programs that I could possibly go to. And, you know, having a brain injury and being bad at math at that time, I signed up even though I couldn't technically afford it. And it started me on this path where I was no longer kicking that rock down the road where I'd actually picked the rock up and was doing something with it. I decided, you know, like, I could have died in that car accident. If my car had moved one foot forward, her bumper probably would have come through my door and caused either incredible injury beyond the brain injury, or been fatal to me. And also, I just had a ton of time on my hands. So I went through the training. As I got better, I also went through certification. I went back to work. And going back to work was really painful because, you know, my brain no longer worked the same way. Looking at screens was really hard. It was very emotionally taxing also, and partially because I discovered what my calling was. Hey, quick question. Did you follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app yet? It takes just a few seconds. I personally love Apple podcasts, but you can find us anywhere, even on YouTube. So, as the kids say, smash that button and make sure you never miss an episode. I had figured out the thing that I wanted to do that I had always been searching for, being able to help people get what they want. And of course, you know, like, I started off with three other niches before I ended up helping people with businesses and really honing into helping people with adhd. But regardless of the fact that I wasn't in the perfect niche yet, I couldn't do anything else. Like, literally, I couldn't make my nervous system do anything else. And one of the greatest gifts was that going back to work was actually. Everything had changed. We had a new manager. It was incredibly toxic. And honestly, thankfully, when I went back to work. My manager had changed. The head of our department had changed. Everything had gone from being so supportive and so kind to the most toxic environment you could possibly imagine. And that mixed with me understanding, like, this newfound passion and understanding that, like, I really wanted to do that as my business was the perfect combination to really, like, push me out of the nest and make me just go for it. I think back and honestly, if. I think if I had gone back and had the same manager and I had gone back and had, like, the same job with the exact same responsibilities as I had when I left, I don't know that I would have had the guts to actually leave it and go and start something different. Going back and having that, like, the complete structure of my day and my work and the respect that was paid to people on the team changed was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me. If you have a concussion or a mild traumatic brain injury or a very serious brain injury, I want you to know that you're going to heal over time. It takes time, though, and it takes rest. And it takes rest that you are probably going to be very bad at because you're ambitious and you're a hard worker and you're intelligent and you're going to hold yourself to a higher standard. And you're not think, oh, my God, well, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do this thing? And it's just that you can't do this thing now. It's just that you need your brain to have a break. And there are going to be moments where you're like, oh, my God, this is my new normal. I'm always going to be this messed up and it's never going to get better. And that's honestly just the nature of being human. We adjust to different circumstances incredibly fast. It's a survival mechanism. It's how we survive really traumatic events. You know, it's how our ancestors got through wars and famines. You know, we just kind of adjusted. This is our reality right now. And then our reality changes. And that's our reality now. So know that that's not always going to be your reality. But for you to move through it faster, you actually have to do a whole lot less than you're trying to do now. And for those of you who have an idea for a business or who want to scale the business, you have, and you keep kicking that rock down the road. Cause you're like, oh, I'm not ready yet. Oh, it's not the right time. Oh, I'M not old enough. Oh, I don't have this. Oh, I don't have that. Shut the up. The thing about the universe is that the universe wants you to win, and the universe doesn't give a damn how it gets you to go there. If you're dilly dallying and you're kicking that rock down the road of all your dreams, everything that you want to have come true, the universe is going to get tired of it at some point and the universe is going to send something like a car accident gives you a mild traumatic brain injury to get you off your ass and to go and do the thing. And let me tell you, it's not great. I definitely would have preferred to have just like stopped being weenie magically and decided, okay, now's the time I'm going to do this and just made it work from there. And I hope after listening to this, this could be that thing that gets you off your butt and gets you going for it. If you're enjoying this episode, would you do me a small favor? Will you please leave me a review? Don't worry, it's super easy to do and it only takes a few minutes. You can leave your comments in Apple Podcasts, castbox, Spotify, and Podchaser. Just go to weeniecast.com reviews and scroll till you find the chosen app. That's weeniecast.com reviews.