Life Setbacks: Regain Your Confidence and Direction Part 1

Ever feel like life threw you completely off course? Maybe a dream fell apart, a plan changed overnight, or you woke up one day feeling lost in your own life. You’re not alone — and you can rebuild.

In this episode, Certified Cognomovement Level 2 Practitioner Katie Wrigley sits down with Maverick Schippmann, a 20-year-old who survived a life-changing skydiving accident that unexpectedly ended his college football career. What followed was identity loss, emotional overwhelm, and the painful unraveling of everything he thought his life would be.

But Maverick rebuilt — with intention, courage, and support.

And so can you.

Together, Katie and Maverick dive into:

💥 How trauma reshapes your mindset and self-identity

💥 What happens when you lose the path you were “supposed” to be on

💥 Why acknowledging pain is the first step to real healing

💥 Rebuilding confidence after setbacks

💥 Creating a new direction that actually fits who you are now, not who you used to be

💥 How their work together helped Maverick reclaim purpose and start living fearlessly

If you’re navigating a setback, feeling stuck, or ready to reconnect with the real you… this episode is the clarity and hope you’ve been looking for.

🎯 Ready to get your confidence, clarity, and direction back?

 Let’s explore what’s weighing you down and what’s possible on the other side.

👇👇 Book a FREE chat with Katie 👇👇

Resources

• Website
• Learn more about Cognomovement
• Try Cognomovement for yourself!
• Book a call with Katie

Credit: Tom Giovingo, Intro & Outro, Random Voice Guy, Professional ‘Cat‘ Herder

Mixed & Managed: JohnRavenscraft.com

Disclaimer: Katie is not a medical professional and she is not qualified to diagnose any conditions. The advice and information she gives is based on her own experience and research. It does not take the place of medical advice. Always consult a medical professional first before you try anything new.

Transcript

Katie Wrigley (00:00.6)
Welcome back to the Catapult Effect podcast. I am your host, Katie Wrigley. I am bringing back a guest for the first time in a very long time, and I am so excited to introduce you to Maverick Shipman. He is 20 years old, and I want you to know that you are hearing him here for one of the first times before this man takes off. He is capable of amazing things, and I am so excited to watch him on his journey and share the journey with you today. So stay tuned. That is coming right up.

Maverick Schippmann (00:33.48)
Thank you for having me.

Katie Wrigley (00:33.71)
Thank you for being here Maverick. I'm going to give you an extra introduction in a minute here, so sorry. Already giving something for Gina to edit out. So Maverick Shipman, he is a 20 year old who turned adversity into purpose. He had a skydiving accident right after high school and ended his college football career. But Maverick has rebuilt his life by traveling the world and inspiring others to live fully before it's too late.

Maverick Schippmann (00:40.857)
Of of course.

Katie Wrigley (01:01.666)
Welcome to the Catapult Effect Maverick. I am so psyched to have you here with me today.

Maverick Schippmann (01:06.664)
Thanks for having me, Coach Kate.

Katie Wrigley (01:09.038)
So actually full disclosure the audience I've actually known Maverick and his family for over 20 years I actually remember when his parents announced that they were pregnant with him So when I had the opportunity to work with him as an adult I jumped at it and I was absolutely thrilled that the family trusted me to help you on your journey And I've been really excited to see your growth over the past several months Maverick. So thank you so much for joining me today

Maverick Schippmann (01:37.384)
Absolutely, I'm happy to be here.

Katie Wrigley (01:39.448)
So can you tell the audience what your life was like before the skydiving accident and what you were moving towards with football?

Maverick Schippmann (01:48.648)
Definitely. Yeah, football was my main thing. was my life. would say friendships were built around football. Goals were all built around football. And I feel like my life was definitely two one dimensional, but football was the main focus and I was planning on going and playing division one football. And so that was, that was the dream. And I signed, uh, May 20th of 2024. And so that was the plan.

At some level, I thought I accomplished that and that was my next goal and what was my next plan was to go play in South Carolina.

Katie Wrigley (02:26.444)
and then what actually happened to that plan maverick.

Maverick Schippmann (02:29.992)
That plan did not go according. But that's how life goes. A lot of things don't go according to plan. Only three days after I did sign to go play college football, I decided to go skydiving. This was a graduation present. So was actually the day after my graduation. And my brother is an adrenaline junkie. I'm an adrenaline junkie. But he...

is a little bit more successful at skydiving than I was. We decided to go and do non-tandem jumps, so we didn't want to, or at least I didn't want to, attach to somebody else. Thought I could handle it. Probably should have thought through that process a little bit more, but had an unsuccessful landing, crashed, and definitely hurt myself pretty good.

Katie Wrigley (02:59.864)
Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (03:19.936)
And what were the injuries that you suffered in that accident maverick? How severe were they?

Maverick Schippmann (03:26.374)
The main one was I tried to catch myself from falling and landing. So I ended up having my elbow come out of my skin. So that was the main worst injury, but I broke my nose, my wrist, my ankle, bruised my intestines. I knocked myself out very, very good as well. And then ended up spending the next week and a half in the hospital.

Katie Wrigley (03:51.182)
And they had to care-flight you to take helicopter to get you to the hospital, right? Yeah, those who are not familiar with more severe accidents, if you need a helicopter ride, you're not having a good day. They don't use those if there is a chance you aren't going to survive by ambulance. So when the helicopter comes for you, yeah, not a good day at all.

Maverick Schippmann (03:55.154)
That's right.

Maverick Schippmann (04:03.077)
Absolutely not.

Katie Wrigley (04:12.224)
So what were the months like and weeks like after that accident Maverick? What were some of the things that you were starting to notice that had changed from before that accident?

Maverick Schippmann (04:21.672)
Yeah, my mindset was immediately recovery. would say I spent the week and a half in the hospital, but I was still struggling with some things because my teeth came through my mouth. So I was unable to, it was not, not a fun experience, but I was unable to eat and keep food down. So then my sodium levels were all messed up. So I ended up throwing up and I was just in a, in a bad state for a couple of weeks, but immediately as I started to feel better.

I remember just the mindset was recovery, heal as quickly as I can. I got back in the gym, I mean, three days after I got home from the hospital. So, and doing as much as I could, wasn't, I wasn't being not smart about it. I was, I was pushing myself, but also staying within my limits. But the main focus was recovery as much as possible. And my main goal was still to go and the next month was to, to go and play at that division one level.

Obviously I knew that that season was probably not going to happen, but my main goal was to still be out there, be with the team, and so I wanted to recover as fast as I could so I could be in the best state to be with them.

Katie Wrigley (05:34.23)
Nice. And we didn't call it out specifically, but did they diagnose you with any sort of head injury at all, like concussion, TBI?

Maverick Schippmann (05:43.214)
Because I got knocked out and the time and duration that I was knocked out was between three and seven minutes, something like that. There was a lot going on. So what I have heard is I was knocked out for as little as three minutes. And I've also heard somebody tell me that I was knocked out for seven minutes. Obviously I don't remember any of that. But because I was knocked out for so long, they definitely diagnosed me with a severe concussion.

Katie Wrigley (06:09.324)
Yeah, and that, and I wanted to point that out because so often we don't correlate some of the things that happen after an accident, especially one with a severe head injury like yours, with some of the changes that occur. And so I wanted to make sure that we call that out as you're sharing this story. So you're ready to go to this Division I school, trying to get yourself in the best shape. And then, so you actually did go to that college, correct? All right, and then what happened once you got there, math?

Maverick Schippmann (06:34.919)
That's right.

Maverick Schippmann (06:39.206)
Yeah, I left before the football season. The season normally starts like mid-August and then classes, they really pick up mid-August as well. My duration at that school was only two weeks. I stayed just over the summer. I just had one class, but I was having a hard time, absolutely. I wasn't able to do the workouts with the team. I wasn't able to participate in the team activities. I felt like I was in this small little prison dorm cell.

And it wasn't feeling like it was aligning with me and what I wanted to do. I think I didn't think that decision through with leaving or anything like that. I wasn't really talking to my parents about it. I stayed only two weeks and yeah, one night I just got fed up and I packed my things up and I just left. And then I ended up going to my girlfriend at the times house and kind of just camping out there for two days before I even got the courage to tell my parents.

No, not my proudest moments or my proudest time in my past, but it's allowed me to grow.

Katie Wrigley (07:45.8)
And then what happened over the next couple months from that point where you had left the school to the point where you had reached out to me for help.

Maverick Schippmann (07:54.352)
Yeah, I was working a couple different jobs. think trying to find purpose is a good way to put it. I was feeling extremely lost, especially with I had this purpose before I left and that purpose was to play football. I felt like I was a part of the community. I was contributing to the community. I was known in the community and it felt it felt good. I had a piece of me that was fulfilled and when I returned, I almost felt very shameful and very guilty and

just not proud of myself for one, abandoning what my mission and my goal was, but also just coming back to not having that same purpose, not having that same community to be around, not having the same things to do. So was very tough for me. I immediately started trying to work a couple different jobs. I mean, that varied from personal training to roof contracting, just doing whatever I possibly could to.

see what my new thing was because at that point I thought it wasn't football anymore. And so none of those gave me that same fulfillment that football was before I had had the accident and before I left for that school at the time.

Katie Wrigley (08:58.124)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (09:08.14)
You know, and I want to pause in your story here because what you experienced is really, really common when someone's either had an emotional or physical trauma.

And when you're talking about the level of accident that you had where your life was literally on the line and you could have died, that's considered an emotional and a physical trauma at the same time because the emotions are high. And the thing that we like to overlook is we're one human, one body. Everything's happening in here all at the same time and nothing is happening in a silo. And it's common to feel like we're lost, have that loss of identity, especially when you feel like you can't do the thing that you've been focused on.

even with people who don't have that same disruption like you did in football, they can still have that same feeling of loss after a significant trauma like what you had experienced. So I just wanted to kind of pause there to help highlight some of those things. And then before we start to get into the work that we did, what happened to the relationships in your life in that time? Did they get better? Did they get worse? Like what were you noticing about the people who had been your support group around you and your biggest cheerleaders?

Maverick Schippmann (10:16.272)
Yeah, the relationships definitely went downhill. I'd say mainly because the relationship with myself went downhill first. And because I wasn't there for myself, because I was not loving myself, I wasn't able to be there for others or love others at all. And it definitely did not, did not help my relationships. They got worse.

Katie Wrigley (10:38.862)
Yeah, and again, that's a common outcome from trauma is we can lose ourselves, we can stop to care for ourselves, and part of that is physiological. A lot of the brain function goes to the right side of motive side of the brain. So it doesn't mean then that's also where the creativity side is, but it doesn't tend to mean that you're suddenly more creative. It tends to mean that you're more explosive, you're more moody, you're more depressed, you're more irritable, you're more angry. Those tend to be the things that come up.

after a physical or emotional trauma or in your case both. So would you say that was kind of true with what you're experiencing at the time, like pretty short fuse and it gets really hard to be around that person from the people who love you because you're showing up differently and they don't understand why or what's happening too. And so there's kind of multiple things adding in there.

Maverick Schippmann (11:29.116)
Yeah, sounds good.

Absolutely. Yeah, I'd say every single one that you listed I would say I resonate with all of it and I can only imagine and now looking back now feeling like I've healed and growing and on a path of on that path of healing and growing and improving I look back and I'm just like it's definitely tough. feel bad that I put my family through that and I feel bad that I was but it's also hard to say because I wasn't able to show up for myself because I was truly experiencing something that I just didn't understand at the time.

Katie Wrigley (12:03.532)
Yeah, absolutely. And no one really understands that when we're in it. Even with the expertise I have, I still catch myself of like, okay, this is what's going on. Dive into the compassion here. When it's in my personal life, with my work life, that's one thing. So as we started to work together, Maverick, what did you notice starts to change for you?

Maverick Schippmann (12:26.312)
I'd say the number one thing was that I felt like was a weight had been lifted off of my chest because for a long time I felt like I was suppressing what had happened and what I was experiencing and what I had gone through. But I feel like once I started to acknowledge the trauma, once I started to acknowledge the pain, the hardship, all of the above, I felt like the amount of freedom that I felt from that was extremely nice and it was was a great weight lifted off my chest because I wasn't suppressing anymore. I knew it was going to be a lot of work but I was acknowledging the trauma, acknowledging the pain and then once you acknowledge it you can work through it.

Katie Wrigley (13:07.052)
Yeah, that's a really great way to to board that. So as we started to work together, what else started to shift in your life, Maverick, that's led you to these world travels that you are now embarking on?

Maverick Schippmann (13:20.26)
A lot changed. I started asking myself and with your help of course, asking myself what I really wanted rather than what I thought my family wanted for me or what the community wanted for me or what I kind of the sunk cost fallacy of I've already put so much effort and time into this that I have to keep going with it. I felt like that at some points and you helped me and with our work I was able to actually ask myself what did I really want and get to the deep root of that to start doing these world travels and to start listening to my intuition and start listening to the higher calling that I felt, which is to go do this and see the world and start a new business with my brother and all of these things that I thought weren't possible until I was going to finish college football or do the things that other people wanted of me.

Katie Wrigley (14:10.674)
And I'm so psyched for the work that you've done. I want to dive more into that. And I also want to point out, if I'm remembering correctly, and if I'm not, please, please correct me on here.

We did some work around the identity around you as a football player and some of the things that football gave you and some of the things that you really loved with football is the camaraderie. It was the team members. It was the feeling of knowing that you're a part of something. It was being a leader. It was a lot of these things that you actually realized, I can have these without playing football.

And I want to point out when people have had the level of injury that you've had, we start to look at things like football very differently. We start to honor and look at our bodies very differently when we've lost the ability to do something. Like that's our kind of like, shit, I'm not immortal. I am breakable. Shit can happen to me.

what do I want to do with this? And so I'm curious, like, what was that process like for you Maverick as you work through these things and started to connect to these pieces that were the most important pieces of football for you?

Maverick Schippmann (15:25.106)
I think the note of you saying that I am breakable and I am not invincible is very important to note because I think every young man and every young person kind of has that mindset mentality of, I feel great. My testosterone speaking, it almost feels like you can't be broken. And that was a very humbling experience for me was to be reminded that I am not invincible. And I do have a time clock that's ticking and I do want to be able to use my body when I am older so I don't want to push past or push through anything like that. And not only just the physical, but of course the mental. And I was totally neglecting that for a very long time until you and I did do that and started to do the work together, which was something and it was a piece of the puzzle that is so important, but I felt like was totally neglected and I didn't...honor it as much as I should have and as much as I do now.

Katie Wrigley (16:26.7)
And I want to commend you for the level of awareness that you have Maverick. And I know we've talked about this in our conversations between sessions of how I really wish that I had had the ability to look at the future me when I had been your age at the level that you do. Like you are so good about taking care of your future self now. And that's something I wasn't even introduced to that concept until I was in my late 40s.

And so for you to be learning that in your late teens and early 20s, like that's one of the things that makes me so excited to watch where you're going to go on this journey is because you're so aware of, I want to be careful with what I'm doing with my body now so that I still want to get out of bed and I'm not creaking and crunching and feeling all the things as I get into my 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s and beyond.

To me, like there can sometimes be a balance. I'm curious what you think about this, where we want to make sure that we're taking care of that future self, but we're also aware that we may not get that future self. Like we don't know how much time we have here. And so what's that balance been for you, Mav?

Maverick Schippmann (17:36.189)
Yeah, thank you for saying that about the awareness. feel like our work has definitely helped lead to that awareness. I was definitely in the state of pushing through and, you know, kind of, I feel like a lot of men too in this, this day and age and this reality that they live in, they feel like they, they neglect themselves to stay in their masculine frame when taking care of yourself is what is truly masculine. And showing up for yourself and doing the work that you need to do even though working with somebody even if it is a therapist or if it is a coach or if it is somebody who's going to offer an extra resource for them a lot of them neglect that when in reality showing up for themselves is what they need and what their family needs them to do as well.

Katie Wrigley (18:22.126)
Thank you for that. I really love that you pointed that out. And I have one last question about our work before we dive into the travels, because that's the really, really cool stuff. Because we'd kind of had a laugh about this, but what had your first impression been when you had heard about me in this crazy ass looking ball that I have that's a part of my work?

Maverick Schippmann (18:42.628)
Of course, it's super important to note because that was my mindset before and I was, I was totally thinking, what's this hippie chick with a ball gonna, it won't get, gonna help me with, you know, and how, how is a little ball with a bunch of colors and a couple of things that I didn't know this. Yeah. I almost, Hey, thank you. Thank you for having me. Cause I almost brought my, and having these, these things on the ball that I didn't even know at the time, what they meant or what they were when these different colors, what is this hippie lady going to help me with?

Katie Wrigley (18:50.67)
Thank

Katie Wrigley (19:01.27)
you

Maverick Schippmann (19:12.208)
and I had no idea and it's absolutely transformed my life so I couldn't be more grateful.

Katie Wrigley (19:17.422)
And then cracks me up because so many people go through that myself included like I remember thinking what is this wacky looking ball gonna do for me But it was so much more appealing than the surgeon's knife. So I gave it a go But yeah that that doubtfulness that skepticism that's that's a pretty real part of of the whole process of getting introduced to cognitive

Maverick Schippmann (19:29.19)
Absolutely.

Maverick Schippmann (19:39.377)
I want to note and encourage anybody who is listening to this that what hurts you or what takes away from you from at least trying? Because that was my mentality is, okay, at least I'll try this. I'm not having a good time and I'm not doing okay. And I remember a conversation that I had with my dad at the time and I just sat him down and it did take courage for me to say it, but it was really hard for me to say it. I just said, I'm not okay. I remember saying, I am not okay, and I wasn't feeling okay and I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but I just remember being not okay and not feeling right. And I just want to encourage anybody, the people who are listening to this, if you're on the fence of starting something like this, at least try because the worst thing that you could experience is that it's not for you, but definitely try it.

Katie Wrigley (20:31.704)
Thank you for that Maverick.