Preparedness
THE MORE OBSTACLES I OVERCOME THE STRONGER I BECOME
“The more obstacles I overcome, the stronger I become”, Gracie Alvarez David is an award-winning speaker, storyteller and author of the book, “Get Out the Door!” As a spinal injury survivor, David came back from a devastating motorcycle accident in 2004 to running up the Empire State Building, completing two triathlons. He speaks on achievement, resilience, goal-setting, overcoming obstacles and service excellence through his engaging humor and personal storytelling.
“We develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and obstacles”, Stephen Covey
Everybody, welcome. Welcome YOUR BACKUP PLAN TRIBE to today’s wonderful, wonderful show, getting close to Christmas. And this is going to be broadcast on a podcast in January 2022.
Wow, that sounds so weird, doesn’t it? If you are new here, welcome to our show TALKING TABOO WITH TINA, brought to you by YOUR BACKUP PLAN APP. We focus on real raw conversations with real people. Yes, and our listeners about their journey from a life changing event in their life. What is YOUR BACKUP PLAN APP anyways? Well, YOUR BACKUP PLAN APP puts your life all in one place. So in case of any unpredictable circumstance, while taking the painful tragedy, that painful aftermath out of that tragedy, and making your life simpler. One thing we can all count on is that we’re all going to die, get sick, get disabled, get injured, or lose everything in a disaster and a tragedy. And we all know what that looks like specially this year. It’s been an incredible, incredible year around the globe, with floods, with tragic flooding, actually, hurricanes, tornadoes, recently, the condo collapse was fairly recent and Florida. Crazy, crazy things wildfires this year, in both California in the States, as well as in British Columbia, heat temperatures and just crazy climate changes as well as disaster natural disasters.
Putting it all are the natural disaster as well as COVID, COVID hasn’t been any different, especially this year. We’re all going down to another lockdown. And it puts us into retrospect of what happened last year. And we were probably never see the new normal. This is our new normal life now. So be prepared for the unexpected.
Because you know, it won’t happen to me is an illusion. We’re not Superman, even though Superman just came out in a movie. We are not Superman, okay. And we live complicated lives. And we need to be better prepared, because we can’t hope that the city, the province or the state, or the country is going to have our back. Because we need to take charge of what we need to be prepared for. And that’s what we help you do in the app. And just like Mike Tyson’s famous quote, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. Yes, and that’s so true. So what what the app does is help you put together a DIY plan for yourself. And the launching, we’re launching very, very soon.
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Of course, my name is Tina Ginn, I am a best selling author, and emergency preparedness coach, and a financial expert and an APP Developer of YOUR BACKUP PLAN APP and I’m located here in today beautiful Vancouver BC.
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So let’s get this party started everybody. If you found us then you are here for a reason. Please like, share, and subscribe to our channel, to your loved ones as well, that this may help in their journey in their change of life changing event, whatever it might be. We are here to help you. Our special guest today is David Hollingsworth. And he’s from Virginia, United States. And I’d like to welcome him on the show is very, very cool story. The more obstacles I overcome, the stronger I become. And that was well said by Gracie Alvarez.
And I’m just going to bring here let’s bring David on our show. Welcome, David. Welcome.
Thank you very much, Tina. It’s great to be here.
Awesome. I’m so excited to hear your story. I’m going to give a little introduction for our listeners so everybody can better understand who is David. And what what happened to David. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
David is an award winning speaker, storyteller and author of the book get out the door. He speaks on achievement, resilience, goal setting overcoming obstacles, and service excellence through his engaging humor and personal storytelling. He in 2004, David experienced at devastating motorcycle accident that fractured his spine and left him unable to stand or walk. join him on this journey from his wheelchair to successfully running up the Empire State Building, and many, many more triathlons. And he is a dynamic entertaining speaker who speaks to corporate and association audiences, special need communities and trauma accident survivor groups.
Well, that is quite the introduction, David. Welcome. Welcome to our show. You know, David, I kind of wear my Canadian shirt for y’all today so that you can feel the vibes from Canada. I wanted to talk about your journey in 2004. And what the kind of life that you had been living and how that changed so that our listeners get a better understanding.
Sure, in 2004, I was going through what some would call a midlife crisis, I was decided I wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Oh. Like, the way I pretty much go after everything else. I will research everything on how to do that I read up on what’s the best instruction to take what’s the best motorcycle to get for a beginner, what are the best safety procedures, the best safety equipment, and I could plan to do everything extremely safe. In fact, I have not gone out on any public streets other than just riding around in parking lots in my own little housing subdivision to get used to that feeling. And I had planned to take a the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course, that upcoming weekend. So July 9 2004, which happened to be my mom’s birthday. And my wife at the time was vacationing down with her parents down in North Carolina.
The babysitter was with the kids, and I was going to take just 1520 minutes to ride around the neighborhood and get some practicing before the class the next day. I was practicing in a parking lot doing figure eights and going back and forth starting and stopping. And on my third pass across, I accelerated across the parking lot. And then the plan was to hit the clutch and brake and stop suddenly because you that’s one of the things I teach in the class. Well as I accelerated a hit a patch of sand in the parking lot and the bike started to slip. And if you’re hanging on to something and you start to fall, the tendency is to grab onto whatever you’ve got close to you. And if you’re right handed, you tend to grab harder on the right side of the handlebars, which happened to be the frog. You know, the bike shot forward. And before I had a chance to get on the clutch and brake and stop the bike, I hit a curb, bounced into the air in landed with my spine directly on the corner of the curb. And as soon as I hit the ground, I knew it was bad. I’m, you know, looking at blinking and wiggling my fingers to see okay, does that work in wiggling my left foot and then trying to wiggle my right toes, realizing they didn’t work?
Were you connected to the bike still or I was somewhere else.
I went over the I bounced up in the bike was up on the up on the grass. And I was laying literally across the curb. Somebody saw it happen, and called the paramedics who came to get me and they were holding the stable while they tried to figure out, you know, what was damaged. And when we got to my right leg, my right leg was completely paralyzed. They put me in a neck brace and on a backboard and transported me to the hospital.
And it was paralyzed right away. Like, I could not feel my right leg. Okay.
And so we started the, they got enough out of me to get some phone numbers to contact some people, you know, my wife, my neighbors, somebody to get the kids. And then they had to have stabilized me for about 48 hours before they would attempt surgery. And right before surgery, the doctor, you know, said You know, we’re going to do everything we can. But I can’t guarantee that you’re going to walk again. And put your head was okay. My head was like I was wearing a helmet. I was wearing gloves, a jacket, patted motorcycle pants and boots, I was very well protected on the bike. But when I got thrown off of it, I hit something very hard. Yeah. Which was what fractured my spine. It was a what the ear report said an explosive burst fracture of the LT vertebra compressed on three axes of the spinal cord. So the spinal cord was compressed by about 60%. And that pressure was what was making my right leg not feel anything. And after a seven hour surgery. They brought me out and we went into recovery. And then that was kind of the stage for everything else that happened after that. But yet, before surgery, I was told that I might never walk again. And when I look at the x rays, they were pretty scary.
Oh, that’s terrible. So sorry to hear that. And you wouldn’t think like in just a parking lot practicing that anyone?
You would think you would think that was this literally the safest place I could be. There were no other vehicles. There were no other people. It was just me the bike in an elementary school parking lot. Yeah. And and even the bike wasn’t some big Harley Davidson motorcycle. This is a little Honda Rebel 250. And within rebel would be in quotes. It’s about the smallest street legal bike there is. Oh, Chase, but even that is supposed to be the perfect beginner bike and I think it is. But even that can get away from you. Yeah, I have a client too, was that the light tan they had the same sort of they had just started riding as well. The light turned green, they were at a stoplight and the light turned green. And as soon as they went they flipped over the handy handlebars. And, and yeah, they’re in a wheelchair and we’ll never be the same. And it wasn’t like they were speeding or going fast. I mean, they were at a stoplight.
So and I was literally in an elementary school parking lot. Like if the bike had hit the curb 12 inches to the left or the right. I would have just gone over the handlebars and into the grass. But right where was it was the pavement drop down about four inches. So the bike stopped that I went over and hit the curb? Yeah. So yeah, it was quite the sudden and unexpected event. And I would not I thought it was just gonna be out for 10 minutes. And literally it changed the entire trajectory of what I was doing at the time. Oh and your life. Yeah, absolutely. I was In the hospital for well, actually, let’s even back up after surgery. They had me in recovery for about six or seven days before they transported me to rehab. And before they did, they wanted me to stand because I was literally bolted back together, they glued my L two back together, did a bone graft for my hip and put two titanium rods and four screws to hold everything together. And they wanted to see if I could stand before they transported me to rehab. And with two people on either side of me, they got me standing but I couldn’t stay up by myself. Right. Then they transported me to rehab. And I was you know, vomiting, blood and all sorts of other yucky stuff all the way over to the other hospital. And they had to intubate me at the rehab hospital. And so I couldn’t speak while they’re trying to get all this gunk out of my stomach. And after the what does that cause from David, do you think?
Well, from the from the impact, there’s a lot of internal soft tissue damage. And you know, just a lot of blood and stuff that had collected that needed to come out one way or the other. It was causing me to to vomit. stuff. Yeah. So the intubated me to get to vacuum all that out. And I even though technically I could breathe, I didn’t feel like I could, I felt like I was suffocating. And after it had been in there for about 12 or 13 hours, I rang the nurses called buttless, like four in the morning. And I wrote on the pet, take this thing out. And she said, I can’t you know, I don’t know what will happen, you might die if we do it. And I wrote on the pad. I don’t care. I just wanted it out. Now, the good news is, once they took it out, I could breathe normally, they’ve gotten all the stuff out and I slowly stabilized. But at the time, I literally didn’t care if I lived or died at that point. Right? Because I literally felt like I couldn’t breathe.
And what does that cause from? Did they say what that feeling is?
I’m not sure where that feeling comes from. But I wanted to I wanted that pain to be over. And you know, you start to learn where your limits are. And that you’re not invulnerable.
How true is that? Yeah. That’s about you’re not Superman? No, I think before the cold, we’re talking about that. And I said, I’m not a DC superhero. I’m a Marvel superhero, Spider Man and Iron Man. They all have great abilities, but they’re all vulnerable. They all have their frailties, and character defects that make them human. And the other achievements are nothing without that humanity. You know, that’s what makes the real. And I learned, you know where that limit was. And once I got stable from that, then the whole journey for rehab started and I was in the hospital for about two and a half months. Learning to stand and walk again. Did you talk right away? Yeah, once he took that out, I could talk once they pull the tube out. Yeah. And I did swear a lot. Going through rehab, because it was quite painful. I literally lost all the strength in my right leg and had to build that back up from zero.
So it was learning how to build the strength to pull myself up out of a wheelchair to stand at a set of parallel bars to take one tiny step while I’m supporting myself with my arms, and each day was just another challenge. Yeah, it was a new challenge in progress was never in a straight line. You know, there’d be days when I’d really advanced on days when I felt like I was going back three or four steps. But between wanting to be better and being angry about being in the hospital and not being around my kids that sort of pushed me to work harder and harder to get to the point where it was about a week before they discharged me. They’re going to discharge me to a lower level of rehab from home. And my nurse who had been with me from the beginning, she was from the Ivory Coast in Africa hurting was peace. Oh, hey, peace, take a look at this. So she came over and I locked my wheelchair into position. And she had seen me when I came in and got intubated. That night, I locked the wheelchair the position, pushed myself up to stand and then slowly took step by step by step around the nurse’s station, there was really only about 30 feet. And I got back to the wheelchair, and seal kind of fell into it. So what do you think of that she had tears in her eyes, because she saw what I was like when I came in. And that’s one thing that’s interesting is it’s hard to know how far you come in a particular journey, because you have no perspective. Well, you don’t see yourself, you don’t see yourself from the sheet, how far I’ve come. And that helped me realize that yeah, this was a big deal.
That when I came in, I couldn’t walk and now I could walk again. And that’s something that wasn’t a sure thing. When it came, you know, and talking. Yeah, and talking, even going to the bathroom on my own. In the book of right about, you know, at first, you know, I had to have assistance from nurses and orderlies to go to the bathroom. And I had to ring the bell, I’d have to get somebody to kind of rotate me tilt me up, help me into the wheelchair, pushed me in the wheelchair, get to the bathroom, do all the reverse things to get into the bathroom. And one day I noticed I had to go and rang the bell and nothing Oh, nobody coming. I’m like, bringing you a bit more urgently and and hoping that I’m going to make it. And I realized there’s no cavalry coming over the hill. This is this is all me. And it’s either going to be I make it or, you know, Clean up on aisle three. It was you know, I I’m sweating, like pushing myself up, lowering myself into the wheelchair rolling myself over straining to get myself out of the wheelchair and into into position. And then I made it. And I’m literally crying because I’ve made it to the bathroom. And like even those little tiny things become such a big deal.
It’s so shocking, isn’t it when something’s been injured and you can’t use your right hand or you can’t use your legs or going to the washroom is such a such a huge goal for the day.
Oh, I felt like I felt like I climbed Mount Everest. It was Yeah. It was I was elated by the fact that I didn’t have to have help at that point. And, you know, I laugh about it now. But when it was happening, it was like it was pure panic.
So what did your wife and kids do in these two months that you were doing this rehab?
Well, the the hospital was about 45 minutes from the house. So they couldn’t come every day. They came when they could. But it was they were waiting for dad to get better. I would talk on the phone as much as I could. But every time I saw them, they would change a little bit because of the time they were six and nine years old. And so every time you see them, they’ve changed. Yeah. And it took a long time to after I got home for them to feel like Dad’s gonna be okay. Because if I wasn’t home on time, they would worry that something else had happened.
Right. And so when this sort of thing happens, I mean, I’m sure they’re worried about you recovering and getting better and to come home. But in the meantime, your wife has now had to change all of her life changing event for her to because now she has to find someone to help out with the kids or pay the bills or what’s your job to like, where’s the income coming from what bank accounts do i You like your whole life? Yeah.
You know, even though I’m not the best planner in the world, I had put a lot of things in place. Before that, that helped. We had an au pair at the time who helped us with the kids. So that part continued as normal. With my job, I made sure that I had short and long term Disability insurance that took care of, you know, my pay and recovery. That’s good. The family wasn’t inconvenience or harmed by what happened to me. And I didn’t have at the time, I didn’t have any, you know, vision of everything is happening here. Yeah, what I did do that. And it reminds me of a quote that, you know, is attributed to David Eisenhower, Dwight, David Eisenhower, that in in battle plans are useless. But planning is essential that when something happens, you’re going to scramble, it’s not going to come off just as you expected, you’re going to have to make changes and adapt to the situation. But if you’ve got the plans in place, that part of the thinking is already done. You don’t have to worry about that. And you can focus on doing what’s necessary right now.
Well, and I talked about that in our shows about being present. Because when something like that happens, your mind goes, Oh, my god, how am I going to pay the bills? Where’s this? Where’s that? Where, what do I do for this? Who do I call for that? What’s my account number what? You know, your brain just goes cuckoo. Yes, since then, I’ve made it a point to have multiple copies of all my critical insecure areas, you know, that’s not going to be compromised online. But there is a certain number of trusted professionals or, or professional professional or other people that I trust, have access to that information if I can’t get to it. Right. And I’ve made sure since then, that, you know, accident insurance, disability insurance and life insurance is, you know, the right amount for the right things. In fact, I have so much life insurance, I don’t call it insurance anymore. I call it incentive. If something happens to me, I want to make sure that he checked it the least. But I made sure that financial security is one of the things that I focused on, if something does happen to me, that the family and kids are fine.
Yeah. Because you can change the part of you not being there, obviously. Right.
It doesn’t replace me. Know. And it’s it doesn’t it’s not as funny as me, but at least the basics are taken care of.
Right. The assistance that’s needed at the time. It’s like having the there tornado that came through Kentucky this last week. Yeah. People losing everything right down to the ground of their foundation.
Yeah, yeah. When I was four years old, my entire town was wiped out by a series of tornadoes that came through Indiana. And fortunately, our particular house wasn’t hit, but many of our neighbors lost everything.
Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about that to what you would like to keep, and where are you going to store it? So that, you know that type of thing, also. So you ended up getting home about two months later and started your new life at home?
Yeah, it was the I was off of work for a full six months. I had to wear what they call a TLSO. Braces, thoracic lumbar sacral something. I don’t know a pain in the neck brace.
Yeah, a pain in the neck, back spine hips. It was like a plastic clamshell that went from my armpits, all the way down to my hips, like a giant turtle shell. And I had to wear it 24 hours a day at first. And as I got stronger, you know, I had to walk every day away from walking to the mailbox, which is day one. In walking further and further and further to events. I was walking about seven miles a day. And when I went back to work, I had to wear the TLSO breaks during the day. And I got on a plane to things flying to Phoenix, and I had to go through you know, this was post 911. So you had to go through enhanced security. And they said you’ve got to take this brace all the way I don’t know what’s going to happen. Might be like, you know, the Slinky Dog or everything just falls apart. Fortunately, I didn’t fall apart. In by the time February or March rolled around about nine months, I was able to get rid of the brace completely. Oh, nice. And eventually, you know, go back to more normal things. But it was a very slow process to add things back into my life. Like it took a year before I was able to get back on a bicycle again.
What about sitting? David? Sitting sitting? Okay, oh, it’s fine. People asked me, Do I have back pain? And no, I don’t have any back pain because I am bolted together. My spine is in great shape these days. And that’s, you know, 17 years post accident. So I’m very happy with how the surgery turned out. And how I how I learned to build things back to normal. But it’s been a constant journey of, you know, learning what I could do after the accident. Yeah, because after I got discharged from normal care, I asked the doctor, you know, Can I Can I drive? Can I do this? I said, you can do anything you want. I said, Can I run? And he said, Yeah, if somebody’s chasing you, oh, if you have to, but so to speak. Yeah. years after the accident I was I kind of stalled out in a lot of areas.
Here personally, I wasn’t in a good place, I gained a lot of weight. And I decided that I wanted to make some changes. And I didn’t know if I could run. So the very first time I went out there, and I jogged, which is the best way I can describe it, about 60 feet. But the next day I did 60 feet again. And each day I would add just a little bit more, I would like you know, walk 60 feet jog 60 feet walks, if you can just add to the distance. In overtime of about six months, I actually went out and ran my first 5k after the accident. So this is like 2012 No 2013 at this point. Wow. And wasn’t fast. You know, you’re back of the pack runner. But I could run. And that really got me excited to see where I could go with that. Mm hmm. So over the next six months, I kept, you know, training longer and further. And I went from in six months, I went from about eight months, I went from running my first 5k to running a half marathon in Indianapolis. And I think you know, if I can do a half? Why can’t it? Why can I do the whole thing? So in December of 2013, right before 2014 It was gonna be the 10th anniversary year of the accident. I put together a bucket list of everything I wanted to do.
And and why do you think that? Why do you think you wanted to do that? A bucket list? Do you think the the whole life changing event made you want to do that?
Yeah, it was. I have a pretty wide stubborn streak. And I don’t like being told no. So part of me just my stubbornness to say, you know, people said I couldn’t do this, I’m going to do this. But it was also to hopefully inspire other people to see what they could do. So in February, I signed up for an event for raising money to run up the Empire State Building. And the I don’t know, which was scary or running at the Empire State Building, you’re having to raise 2500 bucks.
Because I think that $2,500 is the multiple myeloma Research Foundation I raised the funds for they were very helpful in giving ideas on how to raise the funds, but they were clear on look, if you’re committing to this, you’re gonna bring 2500 bucks, whether it’s through donations or your own, so I was it’s like the line that Sean Connery says The Hunt for Red October is when Cortes came to New World, he burned his Butch. This has been we’re highly motivated. I was highly motivated to raise the money I ended up raising twice, twice as good and it was a blast. was a lot of fun to do. And that was in February than in April and May I ran to sprint triathlons. And I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon and started training for that. And, you know, it was hard to come up with a coach and a trainer, and all these other things to get all the planning that had to put in place to make this happen. Right. You know, I wasn’t 22 years old at the time, I was a lot older, and I had to make sure that I didn’t get injured in training. And then I trained enough. And prior about a week before the event, Comcast sports that, you know, came out to interview me for their TV show. And they said, What’s the hardest thing about training for a marathon? And I thought, you know, the hardest thing wasn’t recovering from the accident, the hardest thing wasn’t training for it. And the hardest thing wasn’t running. The actual The hardest thing was getting my butt off the couch and getting out the door every day. Because once I got up and got moving, the rest of it just kind of fell into place. So severe.
Do you think when we have injuries like that, David, that, you know, we, we tend to? Well all wait, you know, and it’s easier just to not do it?
Oh, yeah, in fact, the easiest thing to do is just to kind of keep doing what you’re doing. You know, as I tell people change is traumatic at best, even if it’s positive change, because it’s just different. And it interrupts what you’re doing on a daily basis. But once you make that change, that becomes part of your new normal. And it becomes easier just to keep going than it does to stop. So, stubbornness does have its advantages. That once I started doing that, everyday became easier just to keep training for it. And once I got done, it was like, Wow, this, this was hard. But once I broke it down into small chunks, it was a lot more straightforward than I expected it to be.
The achievement over wrote the challenge. Yeah.
And the the challenge was part of the story. Because, you know, it wouldn’t have been as much as interesting, if the challenge wasn’t there. You know, because I see elite athletes and people who are, you know, they all work hard. You know, nobody does that. Just nobody gets off the couch and decides to run a marathon. Everybody who does that works hard at it. But the story was not how fast I did it, or what, you know, what my time was, you know, whatever it was everything to build up to that. And the race itself was almost anti climactic. Because without the other story, it wouldn’t have been as exciting.
Right? So what do you find? Is the challenge now for you? Having done all of those goals?
Well, it’s it’s trying to figure out what is the next thing. You know, as you know, everybody gets older every day. And some some days when I’m working out, it’s really just to maintain what I’m currently doing. But one of the things I also found was rewarding for me, which, which was telling stories. And I had been getting on stage telling stories that the moth and other storytelling shows, and I have a lot of, I get a lot of enjoyment out of doing that. about learning to tell a story that people could put themselves into. And when I work with this first book, the first draft of was was all about me. And my editor handed the book back and he said, David, this is a great story, but nobody’s gonna read it, but you literally all about you.
So is this the get out the door book that you’re talking about?
Yeah. And I had to reframe the story into something that other people could see themselves in because not everybody. I mean, most people, if they’re smart, don’t want to run a marathon. You know, it’s it’s not fun. You know, it is a it is a slog, you know, and you have to do months of training and all these other things to get to that. But everybody has obstacles they want to overcome. Everybody has things that get thrown in their way. Everybody has goals in winning achieve. And that’s where I felt the story was you And once I finished that book, it’s okay. What’s the next book? You know, what’s the next challenge? So I’ve got about three or four books in the pipeline. To to get out there, because I think that the stories themselves are valuable in what other people can see themselves in those stories. I have to get out the door has been out since February. I have a book that just came out about one of I think, 12 authors in the book about a book about humor, about adding humor to your stories. And I have a blog, right, put out stories of different subjects that, you know, I try to get things out every week, but you know, I do the best I can on that. Yeah. Really? What is the next story? What is the next thing that I can do to inspire help other people?
Oh, that’s lovely. And everybody the listeners are all of David’s information is in the description box below, on the podcast, as well as the live stream. So. So David, what do you think you would like other injured people? To know, I mean, listening to you, and with what difficulties I’ve had, personally, I find patients the hardest struggle in your own mind. And that’s because we don’t want to just take that one step and think that’s okay, you know, like, we need the patients to, to appreciate how far we’ve come. And that that part for me, I think, is is hard to deal with that patients
it can be, what I found was that things that you may not think about become very important, have you been able to realize that progress is never a straight line, you may go forward two days may go back next to you may take a detour, your plans may change, things get thrown your way you didn’t expect. So progress is never a straight line.
The other part is that things like anger and stubbornness and character traits that may be seen as negative can actually be pretty positive, if you put them in the right perspective. We’re talking about Superman and other superheroes. You know, one of my favorites is the Incredible Hulk. And in one of the movies, the character who plays the Hulk says, you want to know my secret? I’m always angry. And that I felt was something that if you put it if you point it in the right direction, anger can be very useful. And so I tried, I tried to use it for good of as as a as a negative
into persistence. And yeah, it can turn into positive things if you channel it in the right direction. Mm hmm.
So what do you think was challenging the most challenging part of this journey so far in these 17 years?
I really getting up every day and getting at it is continuing to rinse and repeat as many times as necessary to keep moving in the right direction. And if there’s a detour to recognize that detour early, so you can take action to move things back in the right direction.
And what do you think was the most challenging in the 17 years with your family, you and your family?
Well, it did take it did take a toll on the family. It’s you know, as I mentioned with my kids, they were worried about what’s going to happen to me, you know, am I going to be around and it made me more aware of the things that I needed to put into place. So that if something did happen, that the impact wouldn’t be as severe. Like in 2008 I got hit by a car while I was on my bicycle. I wasn’t seriously hurt. But I could have been I really with other injuries.
Yeah. And that’s that was one of my worries at the time is that he in? When the guy hit him, he actually he blew right through a stop sign and hit me while I was in the crosswalk. Initially, he claimed that I wrote out in front of him, but fortunately I had enough You know, telemetry had like a GPS and a heart rate monitor and all these other things that showed me stopping at the intersection waiting for the traffic to clear. And then him passing three cars on the right and, and I ended up on his hood. You know, fractured vertebrae but not seriously. So I didn’t have to go through a lot of rehab after that. But I was aware of how vulnerable I was just doing something normal.
And did you think oh, this again, that was my first thought it was, I went up on the hood of the car, in the back down on the pavement, I was still attached the bike because my pedals are still clipped in. And the guy reaches down to help me out. But I like Get your hands off of me. And I was so angry, I was so mad that he hit me. Fortunately, I wasn’t seriously hurt. Insurance took care of the bike took care, my medical bills. So it goes back to making sure that I have those things in place. Because you can’t predict what’s going to happen. No, I am more careful these days. But I’m also aware that something can happen that I don’t expect.
Yeah, it’s just unusual that you’ve had similar instances of the same thing. Yeah.
So it’s, I don’t want to think that I’m a crash magnet. But you know, it has happened at least twice.
Is that what your kids call? You? Know, that’s what the folks that were called me. They they literally called me crash. Because I did have I did have another accident with a car, I was taking a performance driving course at some point raceway. And one of the things that the instructors will tell you there is, is if a meteor falls in the sky and crushes your car, that’s an accident. Everything else is driver error. Well, I had I’m still calling it an accident. One day I was I had an instructor in the car next to me, it on the seat in the car next to me, and we lost the brakes on the car coming down the straightaway. And I glanced over I said we have no brakes. What they tell you to do in driving is to look where you want to go, not what you want to avoid.
So I’m looking where the turn goes over here. But by that time, we’d gone under the grass and the car is not turning. So I’m looking at the trees coming up in front of us. And they say you know, if you’re going to hit something, hit something smaller versus something larger, hit something softer versus something harder. And even go or between something do that. So I saw these two trees and I couldn’t get to either side. Okay, get between the trees. And the car just went through right up to the mirrors. Right between the trees. Oh. I looked at him. He said your case. Yep, he okay. We climbed out of the car. And everybody was okay. But things happen. And I learned that your brakes can feel when you least expected.
And it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. It happened we were in about the safest place we could be.
Wow, that’s scary thought though, when your brakes don’t work?
Yeah, it’s it’s, uh, your mind really races to say, Okay, what do I do now? You know, you’ve got to check for your emergency brake, you got to see if you can pump the brakes. You can see how do you slow down. And you know, it all happens just a few seconds. And it’s kind of like hitting ice. I find Yeah. Once we hit rest the car was just, you know, Isaac Newton was in charge at that point. We were. We’re at the mercy of physics.
Yeah, exactly. Well, that was good thinking on your part for going somewhere safe.
Yeah, if we didn’t have a scratch the car was totaled, but we were fine.
Oh, that’s awesome. So what do you think you would have for your listeners to, to your last final messages from maybe something from your book? Or what were you thinking?
Well, the thing, the thing that I tell people is, you know, as I said before, most people if they’re smart, don’t want to run a marathon. But everybody has goals they want to achieve everybody has obstacles that they want to overcome or things that get thrown in their way. And the hardest thing to do isn’t overcoming the obstacle or going after the goal. The hardest thing to do is just everyday getting out the door. Once you get out the door. The rest is easy. Because you’re in motion. And once you’re in motion, you can go anywhere you want to go.
Whether you want to take that long walk or short walk or whatever. Absolutely. That is,
and that is all up to you, is it? Where do you want to go? If you decide where you want to go, you can get there.
That’s awesome. And so in your book, because we don’t want to forget not talking about that. So why should people purchase your book? Why what? It’s your journey, obviously.
Yeah, I think that if they have things that where they think they’re stuck, they may see some of the things that I talked about, that they’ve run into as well. I talk about the things that were successes, I also talk about some fairly painful personal things that I went through over that journey. And that journey still isn’t complete. And I think that if people want to see what they can do to turn their life in a better direction, the book is about getting started. And that is the launching pad for everything else you want to do. So that’s what I think the benefit of the book is, is that once you get started, you can go anywhere.
And you sure don’t think that though, when you’re like you were lying in that hospital bed with the tube down your throat, no, I was not thinking about, hey, I’m going to go run a marathon that was completely the furthest thing from my mind. That at that point, it was getting the to balance it was learning to stand it was doing going to the bathroom. Yeah, going to the bathroom, which was an achievement in and of itself. But once you get the basics done, it’s like I what I want to do, what do I want to do now. And there’s a whole universe of possibilities out there. And once you get started, the whole world opens up to you.
And I think, you know, from our other shows of life changing events, support is so needed.
Yes, surrounding yourself with good people, finding out what resources you need to use. You’re not the first person to try to do almost anything. Somebody else has been through what you’ve been through. And but
you you must have had good support. Good family, too.
Yeah, I did have a good support team around me. And it was important to recognize that I had to lean on them at times, you can’t do everything yourself.
Even though you think you can. Oh, and me especially Yeah. I’ve had to learn that lesson time and time again.
Yeah, it’s true. Did you have any other messages you’d like to give the listeners?
No, I think that, especially as we’re coming down to the end of the year and started a new year, a lot of people make New Year’s resolutions and a lot of people abandon them. After three weeks or so. Get started. You know, once you get started, you can get started again, it’s the same exercise and knowing that progress is not on a straight line. All progress is progress, even if it’s just deciding to move forward. So don’t think of it as a New Year’s resolution. Think of it as Okay, what do I do now? And once you decide that you can go anywhere you want to go.
Right, no matter what obstacles are ahead of you.
Yeah, obstacles or, you know, obstacles are just part of the journey. You know, they make the story interesting. That’s the truth. That’s true. Absolutely.
I feel like Bugs Bunny or something. And that’s the truth.
Absolutely. I think was the one she had the the character that would say that’s the truth and make a funny noise.
Yeah, I think I just couldn’t remember who who that was. It was almost like the laugh in show or something. Oh, yeah, wasn’t it Colonel blank or something?
Yeah, rd Johnson was the guy little German German helmet. Yeah. Lily Tomlin played the character Edith Ian, who would sit in the chair say that’s the truth.
Yeah. And she’d say that yeah, that’s right. That’s the truth. I knew I couldn’t I knew I had heard it from something when you soon as you said it. So there you go. Well, thank you, David. That was a wonderful story actually. Have your resilience and your courage and your anger that comes in handy. Your persistence You know, showing people that even something as simple as a motorcycle in a parking lot, how tragic of an injury you can get into as well as overcome. Yeah. You know, it’s, my client was, like I said, was just sitting at the light and he flew right over the handlebars, yeah, it’s things can happen that you don’t expect.
And he has a brain injury for the rest of his life. So, you know, everybody over Christmas and the holidays, and once we’re into January and February, please stay safe. You know, anything, like David said, can happen. Ice is a terrible thing to because you never know when you’re going to hit black ice. And that can spin you around a few times. Which I’ve done, and wonder where you’re going to end up after you’re spinning. So I want to thank you for coming on our show. David, I appreciate all of your knowledge and your humor and your, your excitement for people to get a goal and have a step forward.
Well, thank you very much. I enjoyed coming on the show. And we look forward to hearing from your audience.
Awesome. And all of David’s information is down below. So please take a moment and as we said, subscribe to the show because you want to click on that bell rang my bell, ring my bell down below, right down there somewhere. I’m not sure where it is on here. But subscribe and ring the bell so that you get notified of our next shows. Just like Stay tuned for our podcasts and live streams. I have great conversations with some of the most interesting and accomplished people in the world today. I think you will all be entertained, informed, and I hope that we’ve inspired and motivated you to start thinking about your unique plan.
No one is Superman, no in a spider man. So expect the unexpected. I want to if you are thinking of someone right now during the show someone special in your mind. Please reach out to them today because you don’t know what tomorrow may bring. And we all have phones text, Skype, Facebook, Zoom like you can do it you can reach out to that person that you’re thinking about today because you don’t know what tomorrow may bring. We were all on all podcast platforms Youtube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tik Tok and Facebook as well as a Facebook community group which you can find on our channel.
Thank you for taking the time and sharing it with us I love each and every one of you and I always end our show David with Carol Burnett I know you know who Carol Burnett is I’m so glad we had this time together just to have a laugh or sing a song seems we just get started and before you know it comes to time we have to say so long
talk you’re here Yeah.
So everybody stay safe. Expect the unexpected. Be kind until the next time nice to see everybody thanks you stay there David.
DAVID HOLLINGSWORTH
www.holliworks.com
FB: holliworks Twitter: @holliworks IG: holliworks
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