Surviving The Unthinkable with John Ulsh

A family drives home from a swim meet thinking about Christmas plans and seconds later everything is unrecognizable. Our guest, John Ulsh, walks us through the head-on collision that nearly killed him and his entire family, the other driver’s death, and the recovery that followed: massive internal injuries, an induced coma, a nursing home stay, paralysis, and a long list of surgeries that kept coming for years.

We also talk about the parts people don’t see when they hear a “survival story” headline: survivor’s guilt, chronic pain, the loneliness of nighttime in a facility, and the moment hope feels like it disappears. John shares a near-death experience he still can’t fully explain, then gets painfully honest about what finally helped him move forward, including a simple reason he could actually believe and a willingness to rebuild his identity instead of chasing his old life.

One of the biggest pivots comes when his daughter tells him she misses her “old daddy.” That pushes John to take ownership of his rehab, find a new kind of training, and learn a powerful mindset shift: there is pain you can’t control and pain you can control, and controlled pain can become progress. From there, we get into resilience, self-advocacy in healthcare, why he’s fired doctors, how he built a personal “board of directors,” and the lessons behind his book The Upside of Down: A Survivor’s Guide to Turning Setbacks into Success.

If you care about overcoming adversity, trauma recovery, chronic pain mindset, resilience training, and turning setbacks into fuel, you’ll get a lot out of this conversation. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you’re applying this week.

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real people, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealPeopleRealLife 

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:30

This is gonna be a good one, Hugo. The Brad Wiseman Show. Real people, real life, and everything in between. So, what do your kids think of this?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Oh, they have slim terrorists.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

In order to be unstoppable, you simply don't give up. You get knocked down, you get back up again. Where curiosity opens the door to genuine connection. Men really struggle with their emotions. They really struggle with even understanding what's going on. Unfiltered conversations with the people shaping our world. What kind of show is this? And there's red quilted leather all over the walls. There's a swing hanging from the ceiling. I don't sweat you. And now, your host, Brad Wiseman. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

These weeks just fly by. Hugo, do you have your microphone up there, buddy? It was kind of hanging in there over there. I was like, what is he doing? I mean, I thought maybe you got taller and you were hoping to reach that microphone.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Still a shouty.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Still a shouty. That's good. That's good. We got a really awesome guest. Different story here. You know, that and what's really interesting is I I found him, I think, mostly through the Keller Williams channels, or I saw part of his story through there. And I know a lot of times we don't have that. We don't have somebody coming in here that's with Keller Williams or a realtor. Not there's anything wrong with that because I'm one too. It is kind of interesting. But his story was so captivating. He was in a really bad accident with his family years ago. I'm going to say 19 years ago, is what I think he told me. And he's here in the studio. We're lucky enough to have him here in the studio. His name is John Alston. John, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I am great. Thank you for having me. And yeah, we we can call each other realtors.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

We're allowed to do that, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

It's not it's not so bad. We're not used car salesmen.

The Head On Collision

SPEAKER_02 2:16

That's right. Yes. People curse at us, but that's okay. But no, you know, this story is amazing. And and you know, I think anytime when when you bring somebody in that there's this huge thing that happened in their life, we have to hear the story first. Because I don't know if there's any way to go into anything else without hearing the story. So I know you've told it gazillions of times, but it is your story, and I'd like to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah. So I will, I'm, I'm getting better and better at trying to take a what is a long journey into a shorter but I'll give you so we'll start with the details of of the accident itself. It was December 1st of 2007, and it was the Saturday after a late Thanksgiving. So we were on a Thanksgiving break. I was with my my wife at the time, and my eight-year-old daughter and my four-year-old son, and my eight-year-old daughter had a swim meet. And so I'm from Carlisle, outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And this swim meet was about an hour south of Carlisle, so down 81, almost into the Maryland border. And so it was an early meet. So we were up early. I was a marathon runner at the time. And that morning, there was December 1st snow on the ground. So same deal as around here. Not always snow in that early, but there was snowy morning. And I only remember because I had a 12-mile run that morning at 6 a.m. and it was a little hazardous out there. Yeah. And so the meet was early. So so we got down there and and my daughter was the one who was swimming. And so our son, we kind of bribed him and said, look, if you can behave yourself at this indoor swim meet, which you know are like Russian baths and hot and sticky. And I said, Look, we'll go get a Christmas tree, you know, when we're done, we'll go cut a tree down and and and bring it. So so the meet was over before noon. And it was it was a great meet. My our daughter was at eight years old, top of her age group in the six to eight, had won four blue ribbons. Everybody was leaving in a really positive attitude. And uh, so we were going to get a Christmas tree. So when we pulled out, it was out of high school, uh, James Buchanan High School is uh is a public school down there. And instead of going the exact same direction that we came there, we turned right out of the parking lot instead of left. And so we're driving Route 16, which is a 55-mile undivided road. Very rural area, a lot of farmland around us. And so we're driving out to get on to 81 just from the opposite direction. We stopped by Mercersburg Academy, which is a private boarding school there, just to see holiday decorations because doing something. And as we're you know, headed out to 81, out of the corner, we could see Whitetail Ski Area, which is a ski mountain, and they're blowing snow. And we were skiing family, even with the eight and four-year-olds. And the last thing I remember is somebody saying, Hey, they're blowing snow, we can go skiing soon. Car coming the other direction, cross the center line at the very last second. Uh, we went driver to driver, and the police report had the impact speed at 125 miles an hour.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yeah, because you gotta add the two together, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:15

And no skin marks on the red.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

So no So it's basically you're going, you're hitting and stopping.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, yeah. So other driver in a car by himself, a 22-year-old engaged to be married with a four-month-old baby, died instantly. That's tough. Yeah. The pictures of the car, which are in the book and on my website, you can just you can't imagine that there were human beings in either of these cars, they're so crumpled and and and beat in. Everybody in the car in my car survived. So that's the quick jump. Like both my children, eight and four, my my wife at the time. We were we all we are are alive. We were all unconscious except for my daughter. My daughter was in the back passenger seat, and when the first responders got there, they actually found her crawling between the front seats trying to get a cell phone, crying, Daddy, don't die. Oh God. And so again, she was conscious. And you're out, you're out, you're you're I'm out. So my wife was on the on the front passenger side, unconscious. She ended up with broken hand, broken foot, laceration across her stomach from the lap belt, broken everyone had broken collarbones. The seat belts did what they were supposed to do, but 125 mile impact speed. My son was the second most injured. He was sitting behind me on the driver's side in a in a car seat, booster seat. And my chair came back and snapped his fibula tibula in his left leg. He must have put his foot up. The seat came back. Yeah, my seat came back into his leg. Wow. He'd also end up severing his bow from the seatbelt without an actual cut in his skin. So he was, he was already, his leg was already set in the hospital when he started the vomiting, and they realized they scanned him and realized his bowel was ruptured and he was septic. But it didn't actually cut his skin. So that's wild.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

It never cut his skin, then it actually just it it did the work without it.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah. And so like everyone else in my family had bad lacerations and stitches from the lap belt. I had the I had the worst of it. Obviously, we went driver to driver. That the engine block collapsed onto my left foot. And like I was wearing a I was wearing a pair of Crocs because it was one of those deals where you got inside the swim meet, you could take off your socks and stuff. Yeah, sure. I was timing and so the crocs were a perfect pool side thing. They literally pulled me out later, and the crocs would still be under when they did the photos for the action report. The crocs were still stuck under the engine block. I'm 6'2, so when the engine block collapsed, it held there. That energy traveled up my my left leg, shattered my pelvis four and a half inches apart in the front, snapped the back of your pelvis. So doctors were like, it's like a lifesaver, it it'll always break in half. Then it traveled up my back, so it split my tailbone long ways, and then fractured L1 through L4, which are your four lowest vertebrae, just from the energy. Okay. Jeez. My spleen would rupture, my diaphragm ruptured, which caused my left lung to completely collapse. My right lung then partially collapsed. And I had you know a ton of internal, internal bleeding. The fact that I was a marathon runner, the fact that I was up 180 pounds and under 10% body fat and had you know strong lungs literally was one of the first things to save my life because left lung completely collapsed, right lung partially collapsed. We're in a very rural area. I mean, the closest non-trauma hospital was Hagerstown, Maryland.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah, I kind of know the area. I know we're yeah, there's not a lot going on. Not not down, not down there.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

And so Penn State Medical Center, based out of Hershey, keeps a helicopter. They you know they're they're the Nittany Lions, so they call their helicopters the lifeline. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

And so they kept two of them. They kept one at the Hershey Medical Center, and then they actually kept one in my hometown of Carlisle. And it was there for the sole purpose of reaching into this part of Franklin County, this rural area down towards the Maryland border, because there was no medical there, right? So that helicopter was sent out for my my son and I. We were transported to Hershey Medical Center. My daughter, because she was a child, was flown, even though she was conscious, was flown into Hagerstown Hospital. And then my wife was taken down by by ambulance. That so this was like 1 30 in the afternoon, you know, when it's when everything started happening. And you know, it took about an hour before I ever made it into to Penn State to to Hershey. So again, functioning.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Did you code at all during that? Did they that you did? I'm just I I mean, with all those injuries, you would think that a lot of times people will actually go and then they'll bring them back and go and bring them back.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

A couple times. And so put it in a you know, 180 pounds at the time. I took 32 units of blood in the first 12 hours. Oh my gosh. I was just bleeding out. All the internal injuries, all the all the organs that had ruptured.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Well, I think what people forget, and they talk about this all the time with head on or any kind of collision where you stop too soon. Because the you know, you you gotta get rid of the energy. Yeah. That energy has to go somewhere. And what happens is a lot of times your all your organs just slam in front of your body. Yeah. And it and it's it just it it just totals your organs.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So on a side note to that, what was this this is now information that's only been the last few years that's been shared about me because again, jump ahead. I've had 45 surgeries since this accident. I've last year was the first year I'd never had a major surgery since it happened for in a year. But what we now know, so initially when all these like spleen rupture, diaphragm rupture, I have ended up having the lenses in my eyes replaced because of eye damage. Well, later we'd find out my heart was damaged, and I'd had the only I was the only person they knew in the United States with a traumatic VSD, a hole between your right and left ventricle, like a child reborn with, but mine was caused by trauma. They would argue that you should have died. I mean, I was given less than less than a 3% chance, and I spent 18 days on a coma. So that was that induced, they do it on purpose sometimes. So by day 12 it was. Yeah, because a lot of times they do it because you don't want to wake up. I was on a ventilator and I couldn't breathe on my own.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Yeah.

Trauma Care And Coma

SPEAKER_01 11:10

But what we know now is back then they kept saying, oh, this is all from the airbags, this is all from you know, the collision. What they what they now have determined is that it was all from literally the impact and the reverberation of that impact. We know this now because of the fact that soldiers don't have to be out under the bomb, or that high caliber bullet doesn't have to hit them in the head, just going by their head, and the reverberation will cause aneurysms. Everything that was damaged on me, my spleen, my diaphragm, my heart, my eyes, all hollow organs. Oh, wow. Yeah. They're all ruptured from the reverberation of 125 impact speed. Yeah. You know, for for years they just told me it was from the airbags, the steering wheel. That was what's caused all the internal. Take a dodgeball and throw it against the wall. What does it do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

It goes boom.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, so that's that's what they now know. But yeah, so I end up, I end up in the hospital. My son ends up spending 15 days in there.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Now are you in the same hospital as he's no, he's probably in a children's hospital. Well, Penn State has a children's hospital. Yeah, which is amazing, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

So so we're in the same, well, because we're all in trauma. So that evening of the accident, so December 1st, my daughter, who had been conscious the entire time, my my my wife who became conscious in in Hagerstown hospital, were put in an ambulance and driven two hours up to Hershey because I was gonna die. Oh, geez. And so they wanted to move the family there. So you know, I always say that you know, what my what my wife had to go through at the time versus what I went through. I was unconscious. Yeah. I when I came out of my coma, everybody was home. My son got was the longest second, longest he was there 15 days. You know, she had to explain to you know to my daughter that you know everything's okay, but we're driving in an ambulance two hours to your dad because he's gonna die. Yeah, right. And so, you know, a lot more going on there. But yeah, so the all those internal injuries, my you know, putting my pelvis back together, dealing with my fractured vertebrae, dealing with my fractured foot, you know, all that orthopedic work, that didn't start for for a couple days. The first three days they left me open with the idea that they just trying to stop this internal bleeding. That's what taking so much blood.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

They obviously stopped it somehow.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

I mean eventually by starting taking out, you know. Again, I don't have a spleen any longer. I still had my appendix at the time. Like anything they could take out that you don't need that I don't need. You can't just start taking things out. Yeah, we don't.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Yeah, but it's something you don't need. Yeah, but put it in.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

And if it's bleeding, get rid of it. Yeah, and a ventilator was the only way to keep my lungs inflated at the time. And so after three days, they like, all right, we got to close this guy up because it's chance of infection is always too high. So so I was so swollen from all the from all the platelet and all the blood transfers and all the medications they were using, they couldn't pull my abdominal muscles shut. Oh, geez. So they figured if this guy survives, we're going to have to go back. So they just pulled the fascia layer, like the top layer of my skin, closed. Just to sort of for infection, just to get it, get it together. With just big blue sutures, like the kind of stuff your you know, your grandfather would have had from open heart surgery, just the big tick marks and a scar because it wasn't done by a plastic surgeon. And yeah, so they tried to get me off the coma or off the ventilator to take me off the coma. And so they tried it day 15. I couldn't breathe on my own, so they re-ventilated me. They tried day 17, still couldn't do it. Day 18, was able to breathe on my own. By that time, you know, my family was back in Carlisle.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

What do you remember? First thing you remember waking up. I'm sure you heard this question a million times, but so what is it?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

So it's funny, it's kind of funny. So there's there's two stories. What what I remember first is which is different than what people remember, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Exactly. So I have I have like like in my in my book, which I haven't talked to you, but I've all the I have a whole chapter on just the hallucinations because all the drugs that they use to keep me in induced coma, I was 220 pounds at this point. Because they they have for my medical records, the bed would weigh me. That's 180 pounds when I went in.

unknown 15:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

That was 220 pounds of fluid. Yeah, and inside all that fluid is all this drugs that they were using on me to keep me induced coma. I have the most crazy hallucinations. Wow. Like the very first thing I remember is waking up sitting on crates of Gatorade with nurses, you know, hooking me up to IVs and seeing all the different colors of Gatorade going around the top through these IVs that I could feel myself collapsing out of these plastic containers as they drained themselves. And then like the nurses throwing buckets of urine out into the hall. Oh my god. And I couldn't keep my eyes open. And every time I would close my eyes, I always see is flashing skulls like strobe lights.

unknown 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

That's my first memory.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Now, do you have any of those those, you know, you you hear people say that when the nurse situations that you you saw bright lights or you went to somewhere else and saw maybe family members or saw people that seemed like they were saying, No, you're not coming up here yet, kind of thing. You're staying there.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

I had one very, very real.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Near death experience is what I mean, it's what this is.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I I have a memory of of seeing myself in in in on a emergency room bed and then walking outside at night in a construction site in in mud and and plastic, you know, flowing around in in the wind. And I remember walking up to the door of the hospital and trying to open it and it wouldn't open. And all of a sudden I I hear a voice saying my name, and I turn around and it's my grandfather, who I'm named after. So my name is John Olsh. He was John Olsch, and it was a much younger version of him. Glasses, fedora hat, and and I said, I can't get in. He said, It's okay, your father's coming for you. This is my dad's dad. So of course I'm yelled. And and so and so he goes to walk away and and I start to follow him, and and he said, No, you stay here, they'll they'll get you. Wow. And here's the crazy part. So I was paralyzed, and and and I so after I was in the nursing or after in the hospital for for four weeks, I was non-weight bearing, so I couldn't even go to three rehab or home. I moved into a nursing home for eight weeks to lay flat on my back. Oh my gosh. And so the very first time that I went back to Hershey Hospital, like I'd be transported back and forth from the nursing home for follow-up, but I had six specialists at this point, and always by an ambulance, always by transport laying in a gurney because I was non-weight bearing. The very first time I ever went back, and I never told anybody this story yet about seeing my grandfather. And so we're driving over to Hershey and we're coming up to go to the back section where the appointments would be for specialists.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Dude, I think I know where you're going over this. And all of a sudden don't even tell me it looked like what you saw.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

All of a sudden there's a construction site. And I said, I said, my room when I was was right there. And my wife was like, Yeah. She goes, How do you know? I said, because I walked around right there. Now I could never, I was paralyzed and I was in full care. Like, and crazy, and I couldn't see out the window. I couldn't tell you when I was there if it was I'd look at a clock and it was said 12. I wouldn't know if 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. at all. And and she's like, Yeah, why? She's like, That's so weird. Like, and then I told her a story. I was the first person I told. And that would have been, you know, a couple months afterwards. And yeah, so like literally was a construction site. They were doing an addition to the hospital. Yeah. Steel beams, plastic on the sides, mud, exactly like I remember it.

Nursing Home Survival And Guilt

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Jeez. And you you know, those stories are all very similar when you hear these stories. You know, how many podcasts have you listened to with you know with those kind of stories? And and it's like, yeah, it's it's it's it has there's something to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Obviously, some to it. I mean, I I mean, I really, you know, I I struggled for a long time with survivor's remorse. Again, the other drive surviving. And, you know, you know, my my my journey was was the fact that I was given less than three percent chance. I'm here. I was, you know, the nursing home stay was was horrific. Yeah. I mean, you know, the difference between in in a hospital, you know, where they never let you alone all night every time. Yeah, you know, in in the nursing home, I moved in right before Christmas. So the staff was understaffed. The administrator wasn't there, you know, it was going into to New Year's, and so nobody was really there till after New Year's. I couldn't do anything. Yeah, and and I'm now going from from taking narcotics in our pain to sleep to taking taking it orally where you know the amount of excruciating pain that I was in, I couldn't move my legs, I was paralyzed from the waist down. I never knew if I'd walk again, you know, and and so I would just like there was a a bulletin board, like a peg board in beside my bed. I had a private room. And you know, on it was just stuff my kids, the eight and four-year-olds, had drew me at Christmas because I literally moved in the day before Christmas. And and so I it was a green thumbtack that would held this one photo. I can't tell you what the photo was, but I can tell you that green thumbtack like it's the back of my hand. I would stare at it and wait till I could get my next narcotic pill. Like how I would pass. I mean, I was paralleless, I couldn't move, so I could just like straight. It's uh it's terrible. Yeah, I mean, I had special mattresses not to get better.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Did you ever think at one of those times ever like yeah, there's times where you with with thought, man, I should I should have just gone. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

A lot, a lot of times in that in that nursing room. Because again, back to the nursing part, like the the the shift that came on the 11 p.m. till six a.m. that nurse and that nurse aide would check in on me at 11, say, hey, I'm in, I'm here. If you need anything, hit the buzzer. Otherwise, I wouldn't see them again until until 6 a.m. when they were there to get me ready and shift and a new shift to come over and again just check with me, right? So, you know, I always say nighttime is scary if you're if you're four or ninety-four, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:21

We all have we wake up and have those. Nobody wants to be in the dark.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, we wake up and have the stupidest thoughts because we can't sleep in the middle of the night. Yep, and then you know, and then it keeps you occupied for two or three hours in the middle of the night, and then it's you know, then the morning when you wake up, you're like, why the hell was I so obsessed with this thing in the middle of the night? It's no big deal. Yes. And that's how I live my life. And and just an excruciating and you are still on narcotics at the time.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Yeah. So you're but your brain, so you're I mean, your brain is uh it's it's taking away pain, the narcotics, so a certain amount of that kind of gets used up with pain, but there's still a certain amount that stays there that messes with your brain, too.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

I mean, the the sheer amount of you know, by that point I had already had 17 surgeries just to keep me alive. And and you know, before I got the nursing home, and then I had two more like procedure-related stuff while I was there, you know, my bladder was damaged, and so it was like a lot of this ongoing, like, okay, well, we're gonna go poke and prod you again with this. Oh, we're going to, you know, take out these stitches now today. You know, serve your time, really.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

I mean, so so when when was there this point there has to be a point where you're like, all right, I'm gonna make I'm gonna be okay? Or or it i if things are getting better, you see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, obviously, when you see your kids, you know, that that's a big thing, you know. It makes you it gives you that will to live even more. But when was that was there a point where you're like, damn it, this it's gonna be okay, and I'm I'm gonna get past.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah, again, the nursing home was just such a pivotal point because my kids probably rightfully so. My you know, my parents and my wife and my brother were making all my decisions. I didn't have any, nor should I have been. But you know, my kids never saw me till Christmas Eve, the when I moved to the nursing home. So the first time I saw them, my son was still in a wheelchair because his leg was broken, his collar was broken. Yes. And so, you know, well, for his yeah, he was at cast up to his growing. It probably weighed more than he did at the time, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I saw a picture of it. Yeah, that was that was like some serious cast.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and so so, you know, in the nursing home was just this transition to, okay, I I'm paralyzed. In that 10-week period of time that I spent, you know, not be able to go to rehab and in the nursing home, I eventually was able to start to move my right leg, could not move my left leg at all. All that energy traveled on my left leg when my pelvis were shattered, my back, everything was on the on the left side. So even though I had to be laying on my back, they'd come in and use like a plastic slid board and and allow me to move my legs and try to get me, you know, they'd move my left leg so I wouldn't get atrophy in it. And so, you know, there was a point where the realization came that, you know, I was maybe in a wheelchair the rest of my life. Yeah. And, you know, as a guy who was a marathon runner, and I I ran track in college and it'd been part of my life, you know, to be a runner and active person. And so my first thought was, I am, you know, I'm not going to let m anybody push me in a wheelchair.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

So I had railings on the side of my bed because that's the only way I could rotate for they could change my sheets or put or you know, put a bed pan. Yeah. I always say, you know, yeah, they have those rails. I know what you mean. Yeah. I always had this, I always jokingly say, uh, sponge baths are overrated. Yeah. They're not as good as good as you think they're as you think you're.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Well, typically it's not in a hospital. Just so maybe if you're home or something, I don't know. Maybe, yeah. Maybe Hershey, the the the spa spa, maybe that could be a place for that was not the sponge bass I I was getting at all.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

And you know, so nicked up that yeah, sometimes just somebody touching my arm hurt. I think it's just rubbing my fingers across it. And and so, you know, when when I kind of came to that conclusion that I I might be in a wheelchair the rest of my life, I had them, I had the therapists tie stretchy bands to the side of my uh of my rails. And I would just pull on those things with my arms to keep my keep like so. When I got out of nursing mass 155 pounds. Wow. Just I mean, I spent you're 6'1. Yeah, yeah, six two. And I started losing I was down to nothing. But I'm your legs weren't doing anything. I was trying to keep as much muscle because again, this idea that my that my kids would be the ones who were going to be pushing me around in in a wheelchair was just a lot more than than than I was able to process. I could deal with a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

But when I kind of made the turn, I think the most, you know, biggest jump forward was probably, you know, I'd again I'd said a struggle with a little survivor's remorse. I'd talked to therapists, didn't find any value in it at the time. Uh today I can say yes, but back then it didn't, it didn't. I grew up at a time when people just pull your bootstraps up and go back at it. And I talked to priests and I talked to pastors, and I, you know, lots of people that I th would consider, you know, mentors or people who, you know, I would, I would, you know, look to for guidance, business-wise or otherwise, right? And I had a I was running a real estate team then, even a small one, and I had an assistant, and her husband was a Presbyterian pastor. And when I moved to the nursing home, I moved back to Carlisle because I was not going to be able to do anything. So I wanted to be close to family and not have family travels far. And so he would come in and visit with me all the time. And when I got out of the nursing home, his his wife would sometimes bring me over to their house so I could do some work. I was don't in a wheelchair. And and you know, so Pastor Jeff one day when breakfast said, How you know, having some coffee with him. He said, How you doing? I said, just don't know why I'm here. Oh, wow. Trying to deal with like, you know, why did I survive the other guy didn't? Why, you know, yeah, you know, you know, this he lost a there's a now a 19-year-old who've never known their old dad, their dad ever in their life, because he was couple months old. And and he's like, Well, maybe just survive so your kids would have a dad. And if all the things people were telling me something very simple, that was that was legitimately uh a reason that I could wrap my head around best reason. Yeah. So, you know, when when I'm kind of coming to terms with that, I also started to come to terms with the fact that I would tell people like in the nursing home, oh, next year I'm gonna run again. I'm gonna run again. And you know, nobody believed that I would ever run again, but nobody was willing to say you're crazy. Right. You know, you're so they just kind of played along with it, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

And see, now I think anybody runs a marathon, whether you're in an accident or not, is crazy. Yeah, just so you know. I just want to put that out there.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Well, I talk a lot about about that learning. Like, you know, later on we'll talk like you know, you know, how you fall in love with with the process of things, and yeah, nobody ever sets out to run a marathon. Everyone says, like, let me try to run a mile.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yep, exactly.

Rebuilding Life With New Priorities

SPEAKER_01 27:42

And then you end up there, right? Yeah, but but what I started to understand is you know what? Everybody kind of looks at me differently, everybody treats me differently. That's what that was for sure. Like a lot of people didn't know how to approach me in a wheelchair or me paralyzed in a bed. And and I started to realize I have a like a kind of a clean slate. Yeah. You know, I have to deal with all this shit that's going on, and it's not gonna get, you know, it's not turned out that it was never gonna get better. But but the reality was no one's gonna push back on me if I say this is who I am now, absolutely. Or this is what I want to do now. And so when I stopped trying to get my old life back and just realized that it was never going to be what that was, and that, you know, I could kind of reinvent how I wanted to take things on. I can say after the when I could finally get, you know, out and about, I never missed one of my kids' soccer games ever again. Again, we're real, we have a little bit of flexibility. Yeah, it was a time block. This became a time block. My kid, my son played competitive golf and and like was a the top junior player, and I never missed the matches. I just time blocked them in because that became priority. Yeah. And when you know, life got turned upside down, I didn't I had family, I had good advocates, which is a huge part because financially this is a huge situation as well.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Very huge.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

We had a good support group. Uh while I was, you know, to put some real estate back on this. Well, I was in the nursing home in oh this is now into 08, because it's just January.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Oh, 08 was not a good time in real estate.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

No, it's just the crash of the stock market. I I jokingly say I was in a coma when the stock market crashed. Yeah, I wish I would have been.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Yeah. Trust me. Just kidding, just kidding, not trying to make light. No, no, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I get it. But but what I I sold three houses in that 10 weeks. Oh my gosh. Two to nurse aides and one to a nurse.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Oh, good for you. You're still selling while you're in the nursing home. I love it. How to pay some bills. But now this is still Nobody wanted to get in the car with you. This is still five-part forms.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

So I'm so I'm writing these on my cheeks. Oh, yes, yes. Now I had a I had we the the the KW office I'm with now purchased the KW franchise before that was Hook Hook and Eckman. It was it was a small Dave Hook, if you know Dave, and a big big agent team. And and so they were they were there. We were just eight or nine of us at the time. And so they I they took out the the the nurses and their families and shut their houses. I wrote these offers. You wrote the offers? I guarantee you they rewrote them.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I'm pretty sure they did. Yeah, they're like, yeah, we're gonna make him think he wrote the offers, and we're gonna just do it ourselves again. I'm gonna clean it up a little bit. I'm sure I could do this. Let me do it. It was this he was being sponge bathed at the time and it just wasn't working out well.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

I think I think it's probably one of the nurses or aides I sold to Oh, that's funny. That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

But so let's go ahead. So I have this book here. Yeah. From all of that, from all that you went through, what what made you well, how'd this come about?

Hearing I Miss My Old Daddy

SPEAKER_01 30:45

So because of you know my journey. Now, one of the parts that you know we have to kind of jump to real quick is about two years after the accident, I'm now able to move around with a with a cane. If I have to go any distance, I have to get on get on a wheelchair. Like if you needed to move me into a stadium or you needed to get around that wheelchair. If I have to cover some distance. Yeah. And so I'm sitting in my home office, which we built onto the house just for the purpose of working from home as a real estate agent. And my now daughter, who's 10, is out in the front yard juggling a soccer ball. I said she's a huge soccer player, ended up being a very good soccer player. And and I look up and she's not there anymore. It's after school, and all of a sudden I hear the front door open and she walks into my office and she's crying. And I'm just assuming she hurts herself, right? So I call her over and I started to sit in my lap and I said, What's wrong? She said, I miss my old daddy. Oh, oh God. I missed, I miss, I missed the one who would come out and train with me. Yeah, that's oh, that's hard.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

And I thought, you know, I've had people say, You should just be happy you can walk with a walker now. You should just be happy that you can move. I had to go through having my abdominals reattached, and it would turned out to be a fun they my organs shut down because they were so used to being out there. So I had just been through that, and and I just thought I was doing a good job. Yeah. And she quickly pointed out in a nice way. You're not. So the next day I go to my outpatient rehab, which I'm doing three days a week, and I go in at 9 45, and it's 10 o'clock when I'm supposed to be there. And I tell my therapist that I quit. And I said, you know, I was a college athlete. I was all American in division three. I could run marathons before this happened. I could lift a lot of weight. I'll push myself harder than anybody else is willing to push me. And I and I walk out of this rehab in Carlisle, drive down the street just a few miles to my local YMCA where I used to work out before the accident. And I walk in at 10 a.m. and and coincidentally, United Cerebral Palsy UCP, it has a program that could partner with the YMCA with teens with Down syndrome. Oh my goodness. And I just get up to this first circuit machine thinking I'm just going to go through. And I'm using, you know, at that point, I'm using a walker because I had to get in from the from the car. And and, you know, this young man with Down syndrome is on there, and he's doing the press machine, and he gets up and I go slide into it, and I, you know, I go to just push without looking. And I don't can't even budge the damn thing. This kid, this kid, you know, significantly. I just reach out to move that pin like five legs up. I go to the next machine, and I don't even bother. I just start raising the pin. I get through four or five of these, and I'm like, this sucks. I'm not going to do this. So I go on the on the elliptical bicycle, and it's a recumbent bike. So it's like what I used to use in therapy. The pedals are kind of in front of you. I get in that thing and I set it like at a two and I start pedaling, and sitting beside me is a young woman with Down syndrome. And, you know, I'm a couple minutes in and I look over and and she set at an eight. She's got 35 minutes in on this damn thing. I'm dying, and I'm two or three minutes in. I'm like, this sucks even more. Right. And so I go home and I'm just like, this just didn't go well. And so I I I call my wife and I said, Look, I I quit rehab the day. I didn't tell her I was going to do it. And she said, You did. And I said, Yeah, and I went to the Y, and there was a UCP program with these kids with Down syndrome, and they were all stronger than me, and this sucks. So I hate the whole thing. She said, Don't forget to get the kids at 220 when they get out of school. I'm like, God, because running a family, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Of course. And that doesn't stop.

Pain You Can Control

SPEAKER_01 34:21

And so I'm living in chronic pain at this point. I'm taking 90 milligrams of morphine twice a day. Oh my function. But I had built up that much tolerance. That's what happened. I was going to say, it's totally different than just taking the phone. Yeah, for the epidemic as well. So so they weren't trying to cut me off of any of it. And so I'm dealing all the time at night in a lot of pain. I sleep on a bed that's like a like a massage mattress. It's just hard as can be because everything hurts. And I wake up at two or three in the morning and my shoulders are freaking killing me. And I'm like, I wake up my wife, I'm like, my shoulders are killing me. She's like, okay. And I'm like, no, no, they really hurt. And she's like, okay. I said, this is the first time in over two years. I woke up, and the first thing I didn't think is my back is killing, my legs are killing me. Was it from the lifting? Yeah, it's from the lifting. Yeah. And the muscles rebuilding. Yeah. And and and I now started for the next year, three days a week, working out with this guy, kid Danny, with with Down syndrome. Unbelievable. Based off the theory that there was pain I couldn't control, and then there was pain I can control. So like you look at me today at 54, I still bench over 325 pounds. That's unbelievable. I still squat like 450. It's crazy. And it's just only because I just it's like anything else, right? It's like, how do you become a marathon runner? You run a mile. Exactly. How do you become a guy who can bench that? You just keep doing it. And you know, the more I had to push myself to make it hurt, the more I would push myself. But it's a different hurt.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

That's what's interesting about it. And there's results from that pain.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

There's not a lot of results from the other pain.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah, that's what it was.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah, there's results. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

So so the book came out of me doing those things. So so because I was doing it at the local YMCA, and because I was working with teens with Down syndrome through UCP, all that stuff regional magazines and newspapers would always want to write articles because it was great publicity for the Y, it was great publicity for UCP. It was, you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, this is 13, no, this is 15 years ago, 14 years ago now. You know, magazines were still a big thing. Yeah. So People magazine saw it and wrote a little article about me. Oh, that's right. And then and then Men's Fitness Magazine reached out and they ended up doing this big feature piece about my story and and my journey. Those things kind of sprang me into having other people say, Oh, we don't just speak for organization. Now we're in like 13, 14 financial world is is shot. Yeah. I I became like the keynote speaker at conferences for financial like Morgan Stanley, Goldman, Edward Jones.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

And was that with the book? That's without the book. Without the book. Yeah, no book exists.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

And they're just wanting me to come because everything sucked.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

So it's like it was a two, it was a two-day event, right? And they all they heard was bad numbers about their financial world. And on the last keynote breakfast, I was the speaker. And I think the point was everybody in that room.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Let's get the guy out has it much worse than us to come up and tell us how great it is.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Yeah. The guy who was just leaving a swim meet with his family, which everybody in that room who who had kids did the exact same thing. Yeah. And they're like, oh, I guess it could be worse, right? Yeah. Oh, and by the way, look what he's doing. Look, look at us bitching. And this guy's and this guy at that point, I'm now getting sponsored by Spartan to do Spartan obstacle races because I couldn't run anymore, but I could walk right and I was strong. So I could do the 12 obstacles. I'd come up here and do Blue Mountain. Oh, yeah. Uh climb.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

You know, I can remember, you know, you could crawl through cow shit and get shocked by electrical cords and things.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

One of the the hardest things was it was carrying a 50-pound bag of sand up a black double diamond hill that had no snow on it, yeah. Just carrying that thing up there. But because of that, you know, they started wanting to sponsor me because and sp and reebok had just taken an investment in them. So they wanted the me to be that person that again in the email newsletters and stuff. Hey, he can do it. Come out and do it with John. Oh, that's all. We're doing their very first ones. And they just we'd all I'd communicate via emails or in newsletters that they would do, and we'd go do them together. And then that put me on Good Morning America and Times Square, demonstrating.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

I'll have to look that up. I didn't see that when I was looking things up. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

These obstacles and so that's when the book came, the first book deal.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Yeah.

Fame, Loss, And Lasting Damage

SPEAKER_01 38:35

So that book's a two-part book. And the first part is really this journey from what happened in the very beginning to the to right up to doing all the speaking and and so it's a memoir. It's a memoir of my journey through through that stage. Then we were talking a little bit off off mic earlier. I kind of was get getting a lot of of speaking. You know, I I I had spoken you know at a at an event where Magic Johnson was speaking with us. It was just it was getting to be pretty cool. And then my best friend, the guy who that's the godfather of my children, and who was literally the one who drove my my wife over to Hershey Hospital when I came out of coma because she had a broken hand and broken foot, and who would later sit with me constantly in in the nursing home, committed suicide. Unbelievable. In in in August. And and it was the most pissed off I had probably ever been in my entire life. To be honest, it took me a long time to understand, and today much different. But back then, I was just like, you gotta be kidding me. This is the guy who pushed me constantly. The guy who took me to the gym when I probably couldn't, you know, shouldn't be there. Yeah. Just constantly pushing, pushing, pushing me, constantly making sure my family was okay. And then gave up on himself. Gave up on himself. Now, you know, he had mental illness that he hid very well. He was manic depressant. And when he was manic, incredible guy. He he was in the orchard business and it was August. So it wasn't uncommon for us not to communicate a ton or him not to show up for family events because it was harvest season and he worked a ton of hours at that time. But when that happened, I I literally quit my I quit my entire fourth quarter speaking. And I just really struggled to figure out where again I felt like I had a message. I was checking myself a lot to make sure my motivation was for the right reasons. And and as I was getting more celebrity before social media was a huge thing, I I just quit and said, I can't do this. And so I I let that happen for for a long period of time. I I would speak for Hershey when Penn Med Medical Center when they needed something. If UCP or the wide needed something, I would still go down the water read and see soldier. Like there were things I still believed in that I felt the rehab centers could still call me and say there's a guy who's going through, like young guy got a stuff.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

I would think that would be pretty pretty amazing to have you win and speak to people that are going through these things.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

But I didn't want to speak on big stages and events anymore because I felt like one, I couldn't tell the whole story. I couldn't, and so I just didn't even have to explain why I quit. I just focused on the real estate team. I started a construction remodeling company and and just just said, like, you know what? This is my story. People can hear it if they want to, but I'm done kind of to telling it. And so my my youngest, James, the one to the four-year-old, is about to graduate from from Villanova. Is and so I I over the last couple of years started saying, you know what, I would coach on my teams.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

And I would give, you know, that level of coaching. I had I had coaching clients, some CEOs, and some other companies uh that I was working with, just again, dealing with adversity, right? How do you take your your adities, whether they're relationship driven, health driven, company business driven, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Yours was yours was not planned.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah, no. But but and and and you know, those are the two types of of, you know, there's the I had this happen over time. Yeah, I let that let this happen over time, the relationship broke down, the my health got worse, uh, the company started going the wrong direction, sales numbers went the wrong way, and then there's something like the car accident, it just flips the over and it's just your life's changed instantaneously, right? And it doesn't really matter. But you know, slowly I'm like, you know what? The the people that I was coaching, my team, you know, at one point I had up the 15 agents and on a team that I sold because I had having health issues. I kept having surgeries and that's do you have you have recurring health issues because of you do? Yeah, so so you know, uh the last 14 surgeries that I've had, uh doctors would tell you you're having this problem because you survived. You shouldn't have survived. Oh, interesting. You should have never survived. I ended up getting a hole in my heart that that again at the time was the I was the only person known in in the United States with a hole between your right and left ventricle. Now we know it was from the reverberation that killed the tissue over time. But they're like, you should have died from about 12 other things before this ever happened. Right. I have all these vein issues from scarring. I've been as high as 85% chance of losing my left leg, which was the more damaged one. I walked in here today, and the only reason I walk is I can't feel any of my left leg. It's like it's asleep, like pins and needles constantly. I can feel my big toe, which if you ever see somebody who's diabetic or if somebody's got frostbite, they always try to save the big toe. It's the balanced toe.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yeah, like yeah. It's actually it's the pinky and the big. Yeah, my grandmother had was diabetic, and they when they took her toes because she had gangrene, they took this whole thing. They left her her her big toe and her little one. Yeah. And they said those two are the for balance, they are very important.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Yeah. So I can only walk because the part of my back that was damaged and and this in the spine, it's different, it's a different pathway down to my big toe. And so, you know, as I'm trying to figure out this, you know, workout balance life, I just keep having more problems. And so today, you know, I'm stented from the folds in my legs to up to my kidneys through my feminine veins, 100% stenced, like you would have for like uh to keep the vessels open. Yeah, because the scar tissue just would keep closing them and closing them. And so, you know, I would get the you know, I threw so many clots from all these surgeries that all the flaps would have been damaged again, like a diabetic would have. Yeah. And so, you know, we just really started searching out doctors, and there were only two doctors back then who could do these types of procedures. One was at Water Reed, yeah, because unfortunately, soldiers getting blown up have the same damage that I have below the below the waist, and a doctor in at UNC in Chapel Hill and and and threw. My wound doctors up here, because part of the problem with with the circulatory problems and why my leg looks purple, like I showed you earlier, is because uh ulcers open up from the skin breaking down, from all the swelling, info, you know, because your body can't get the blood circulating back out again. And that's why you'll see diabetics with big swollen ankles.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

I've seen it in there.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah, and so so my wound doctor was trying to keep these wounds from going bad and turning gang green and having me lose my leg. Was at a conference and saw this doctor, Dr. Marston, great, I mean, save my leg. And and and he said no at first. And my my doctor, my wound doctor, was became such an advocate for me that he I saw him two months later at another conference, and this time had my file with him. I just handed it to him and said, Can you just look at it? And he agreed to, and I agreed to be driven down to UNC in Chapel Hill, six hour drive, because I couldn't fly if I that you know, because of the procedures. And sure enough, he looked at a bunch of stuff, ran a bunch of tests. I think I can fix you with some experimental stuff we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

And and he ended up doing he's done eleven surgeries on me to and this is for your legs, or this is yeah, yeah. So they're all they're all the damage of God. My whole chest cavity was all damaged, and so the feminal vein, you know. So arteries like every bypasses and yeah, all the blocked arteries. Arteries are pretty simple. They say that's like plumbing. Yeah, you have like five times as many veins in your body, and nobody can really do it. So it's sort of a new thing in the last 15, 20 years that you can do any type of this stuff. And again, it's diabetics and and fortunately soldiers having these injuries. And so, yeah, they've been putting these things in me because I didn't die.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

Again, it's just sort of the it is wild. It's it's it's interesting how the reason because you survived, you're actually having more issues because of that.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Yeah, it was only recently, like in the last few years, that literally a doctor said that to me. I was like, all right, I feel better. I mean, it makes sense. Like the alternative is being dead.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah.

The Upside Of Down Framework

SPEAKER_01 46:46

So having these ongoing maintenance, if you will, types of procedures. And you know, plus I'm now 54. So there's I I get the things change because of that, too. I get the blame, I get to blame everything on the accident.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Yeah, right. Yeah, I can't. I can't blame any of that on there.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Never mind my rotator coverage.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

It's the accident. Everything's the accident. That's funny. So then let's get on. I want to get into this book because we're gonna have we we can't, we could be here all night, I can tell you right now. We could be here all night telling stories.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

What's the name of that book?

SPEAKER_02 47:13

The upside of down, and I love the idea of it. I love the name of it, and I love the arrow that goes up through there, which obviously was on purpose. Yeah. And it says A Survivor's Guide to Turning Setbacks into Success. So tell me what has this done and what what goes on? I haven't read it yet. And you're gonna be doing audio of this, you said too, which is really a book out now. There is it, it's out now. Is that on Amazon? Where do we get that? Audible.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Audible, audible or or Apple's So tell us about this.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Like what what you know, what's in here? What are the lessons that you've learned that you can now share with everybody if they've either gone through what you've gone through or just other things that we all go through.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Yeah. So so about a little over two and a half years ago coming up, I just I just decided I would I would re-embrace at least speaking. Thank God. I started working with some with some consulting people for speaking, group called brand builders. You might be familiar with them as well. Rory and AJ are incredible. And so I got partnered up with this podcaster, his name's Matt Matt Lebris. Decoding success is is is his, and he works with brand builders as well. And and so we just started like saying, okay, well, he he he knew my stories. I was still speaking a lot and on other platforms, and and and he'd be like, All right, but what are the lessons? Yeah, like like you like what are I I hear you speak and I hear you do, you know, and you talk about adversity and you talk about these, but let's just start putting them down. And we ended up at 12. And he said, 12's a lot. And so we just started, you know, okay, well, make a story from your journey. And and these are all things that I was doing, but if it's a perfect example of like in in the business world or in your personal life, when you name it, you start to own it, right? Absolutely. And and so we started building these pillars, you know, first one being commitment, the uh second one being source of your problem, the third being written plan. Like we go through these now eight pillars, and they're in the book, they're the second part of this book, and and they're really just a framework to to take you know an adversity. And you know, the name of the book is you know, setbacks into success, but what really what we've developed more over since I started writing that book is to really turn them to fuel. You know, success is a relative thing, but when we have a setback, if you can turn that setback into a fuel, fuel propels you, right? Fuel is fuels what moves something forward. Yeah, so you know, ultimately that's that's the goal. How do we take that's this setback and and how do we move it forward?

SPEAKER_02 49:48

It's funny that you say that because I I just said something recently. I'm working on a book, but was winning, winning gives you the the energy to fail again. Yeah, yeah, which is kind of the same thing. Like when you win, you get the energy to fail again. When you fail, you learn. Yeah, because fail everybody used to talk bad about failure, but we're all finding out that failure is the best thing in the world. Yeah, because we wouldn't learn without it. We wouldn't be able to go forward. Yeah, exactly. So that's I love it.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

I love the whole concept. Yeah, it's so you know, so the eight pillars, the one I probably speak on the most, and and and and the one that I think is crucial is the seventh pillar, which is falling in love with the process. And it goes back to my time with with Danny and the other UCP special needs. They just were there and love what they're doing. And what what my time there taught me anything. If you've ever spent any time with with people with down syndrome, they're the most positive human beings you've ever been around. Yes, they are, which is who I needed to be. Smiling usually all the time. Yeah, who I needed to be around at that time. Yeah, I didn't want to be around my peers. I didn't want to be judged for the you know where I was. It was a judgment-free place with lots of positive energy. I love that. And and what I've started to learn is like they, you know, Danny was strong as a freaking bull. Yeah, strong, strong. Yeah, you know, but but it didn't make a reason. He just wanted to be there. And he just he would be sad, he would be upset when he had to go and all his friends had to go, and he'd be like, see you on Wednesday, John. I'm like, see you Wednesday, Danny. That's fine. And he bear hugged me most of the time. Yeah, but but that falling in love with the process became a real eye-opening experience that I get now the benefit of like talking to a lot of people, like college, division three athletes, you know, you know, people in in in going into high school and and into jobs where like if you love what you do, like I can tell you, you know, I'm I'm working to now to start to talk to some professional athletes, and you'll never meet a professional athlete who didn't love practice. They don't exist, right? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, so you know, that's the you know, they love the locker room, they love practice, they love working when no one else is watching them. When you talk about division three athletes now at college level, now you're really talking about somebody who's committed to a sport since they were eight years old, maybe six years old, yeah, and they're about to graduate doing something that they've never been paid to do, and have you know put in extra off-season work and done all these things. And I always tell them, like, you know what? One, you go find a job that's like your sport, you'll never work a day in your life. Absolutely. And two, you're built for failure. Yeah, like you're built for setbacks and for redoing it again. Nobody wins a championship on the first day of practice. Yeah, like you're built for the law.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Speaking of championships being one, you know who was in that seat just a little bit ago. Yeah. Chris Jenkins. Really? Yeah, he was here. Biggest taller. No, you know what? He was the tallest guy ever in the studio.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Yeah, he was the tallest guy ever in the studio. You're six two, right? He's he was six six. Yeah. No, he was just sitting here. We just didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

He's not the tallest guy in the studio.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Hugo.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Hugo's not the tallest guy.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

Closest, close to that. Hey, I'm not that much taller than Hugo, but did you go get a photo with him? Yeah, we have a photo right here with this. You'll see it. You'll see it. It's coming up. Yeah. But that's funny. But yeah, I get it. And and it was interesting, you know, when you talk about that, he talked about, you know, he had how much he had practiced and how much he had done from the time he was, what, eight years old playing basketball on his drive with his with his mom. And and that he had done it thousands and tens of thousands of times. Yeah. So when he went to do that, that uh up that shot, he knew in his mind. What was the question that Scott Teller asked? And Scott Scott said, Did you know it was going in when it left your hands? And he said, Absolutely. Yeah. So he said, because he knew everything was right in what he was doing. And then, of course, swoosh.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

So 10 million times over. So he knows that. Yeah. But again, that's the other part that is sort of why we're looking now and having conversations with professionals, because the truth is they're going to get out of their sport. Even if they had the longest career ever. Doesn't matter. Even Tom Brady eventually got to do something else. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

I think he's pretty set financially, though. I'm pretty sure he's pretty set.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

But he probably doesn't know what the hell he had to find something to do with himself. That's there's a reason he's back on television. Of course, you have to in the game. And and so I think it's also a lot of that. Like, you know, there's just this whole mentality built around a finish line.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

And I'm much more about taking wins. And I just look around here and I would say that you know, your wall is full of trophies.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

And you these are all kinds of people that were in here.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Yeah. Or they would all be related to something that will be a memory for you. Sure. So I'm still about taking wins. And we're in an industry that that we're all going through awards coming up if we haven't already done it. And and I always tell people, look, you know, that's the biggest challenge in the world, because now you have to go, so oh, I'd have to how do I repeat it? But if you just keep moving the finish line and you don't make the goalposts or the finish line be the stopping point, then you just keep pushing it. Yeah. And then you you take the win, but you don't look at it as like I just finished something.

Finish Lines, Doctors, And Advocacy

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Yeah. No, absolutely. I agree with that. There's a couple things in here I wanted to bring up that I thought was that was from quotes and stuff that I saw, and then we're gonna wrap it up. Is I love this. If you're avoiding hard things, you're missing an opportunity to grow. That was a quote that you had on your Instagram. Absolutely love it. But the one thing that I was thinking of that was really interesting to me after now hearing it again, your story, and that I realized is you know, I wonder how many people are not walking today that are in wheelchairs because they listen to the doctor.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

That is actually very, very depressing in a way, but it also makes us realize that hopefully this show is is gonna show anybody that is in a wheelchair. I just had an injury and reading your book that that you you can't always listen to to the professionals or the the experts in in that industry or in what they're doing because it's actually sad because they told you you wouldn't walk again.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

Imagine if you would have listened to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

So you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 55:47

That's it's that's terrible. So I I and that's our that's our that's people that are supposed to know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

You know, I fired doctors. I mean, I fired a lot of doctors, and and a lot of times so like Dr. Marston, the the doctor down at UNC, who's put the stents in, when I finally got the meet with him, he said, I don't have anybody else like you, but I'm interested in what you can do.

unknown 56:07

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

That's all I needed to hear. Yeah, right. I needed somebody to say, I like I don't know what you can do, this or not, but I'm interested. It'll be an interesting journey, and and I'll I'll And there's no guarantees. Yes. And I'll benefit from whatever happens with you because you know, I'm at a teaching hospital. I'm the I'm the leader in in this area of of veins. And yeah, and so whatever you do, like I like I said, you know, this what you might have heard is I went to appointment with a cardiologist who told me I should be happy that I was just alive. And when I went to one of those appointments, I got dropped off uh about a mile away and jogged in and and uh set up all sweaty. And he's like, What happened to you? And I said, I jogged here. He said, You jogged here? I said, Yeah, a mile, and I'm getting a new cardiologist. Um that's great. Good for you. But but I that's you know, advocacy it goes two ways, right? Like you, you know, having mentors and having people who who advocate on your behalf are are one thing, but then having what I call a board of directors, you know, it's the easiest way I think for for men particularly to take help, yeah, is to have a mentor, or in my case, I needed a couple because I needed medical, I needed spiritual, I needed like a lot of mentoring besides real estate at the time. And so, you know, I called it my board of directors.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Yeah.

Where To Get The Book

SPEAKER_01 57:27

And one of the things I think is is critical for that I learned is look, it's one thing for like you to tell me today, hey, you know, if you ever had this, you know, issue, John, with something, you know, feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to help you with something going on for the transaction or anything. It's very different for me to say, hey, Brad, you know what? When it comes to real estate, I'm trying I try to build this like board of directors and just people that I can count on. I don't expect you to get back to me immediately if I text you, but you know, you know, are you open to being that person for me as it relates to to real estate? Now we made a connection. Now, when I do text you, you're gonna feel a little bit obligated to respond back to me. So I built my doctors and I've built numerous people that that I've had to ask them and and nobody said no, by the way. But but now when I do text them, then you know they might not get back to me for a day, but they're gonna get back to me because I already kind of, you know, didn't make an assumption or they didn't say, hey, if you ever need anything, let me know. I literally said to them, this is what it is. It's made up of you know, people and certain well, what they do, yeah, that's relatable to my journey. And I'd like you to be that person when it comes to you know dealing with this. I don't plan on having to use you a lot. Yeah, but if I do, uh can I count on you to be on your side, just yeah, read on my side, be an advocate.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

And you know, and it made a huge difference in just building that.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Is there anything else that you want to talk about or that you want to say? Because there was so much stuff in here. There's so much stuff. What where do we get the book? Where do we how do we get the book?

SPEAKER_01 58:53

The upside it down is available on all the online normal Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, all the normal places. It's it's a well-published uh book.

SPEAKER_02 59:03

And it's for anybody. It's not just I mean, it's for anybody. It's for it's for business, it's for you know trauma, it's for all anything that you can think of that you're facing in life.

Final Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Yeah, I mean, again, it's uh it's a lot of like, okay, let's let's find the source of the problem. I'm very much about being, you know, being purposeful more than perfect. Like I would rather have every person, you know, take something that's going on, purposefully make a first step. Yeah. Because life is just a bunch of first steps, right? Like every day is another first step. We just decide how we're gonna go about it.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

Very cool. Well, thanks for coming in, man. Thanks for the book. Thanks for having me. You guys gotta pick up a copy of this. There is that is just an incredible story. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming in.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

All right, there you have it. John Gulch, you gotta pick up this book. The Upside of Down. Uh, it there's it's just amazing. The story's incredible. I think you'll probably listen to this podcast a couple times and get a lot of things out of it. Um, but get the book or listen to the audio on Audible and other places. That's about it. Thanks for stopping by this Thursday at 7 p.m., like every other week. We'll see you next week. Number night.