Latest / Adventures in Adversity: an inspirational podcast / Ep. 42: From coma to comeback — Nick Prefontaine on overcoming trauma using his S.T.E.P. Method

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Ep. 42: From coma to comeback — Nick Prefontaine on overcoming trauma using his S.T.E.P. Method · Adventures in Adversity: an inspirational podcast

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to episode 42 of Adventures and Adversity.
• 0:09
  I am your host, Bree Wilson. For those of you who don't know
• 0:11
  me, the goal is to just bring to life stories that really inspire
• 0:16
  you to get through whatever obstacle you're going through in
• 0:19
  life. So with that, I'm going to
• 0:22
  welcome my my guests who I'm so grateful to have.
• 0:26
  Nick Prefontaine, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 0:30
  I'm excited to to Bri here. Yeah, I'm excited.
• 0:34
  I'm excited to be here. Bree, not Bree here.
• 0:39
  I don't think anyone's, probably no one's ever said that to you.
• 0:42
  That's amazing. I'm excited to Bree yes and and
• 0:46
  Bree yourself. That's my new one.
• 0:48
  Easy, you can Bree yourself. I'm excited to be here.
• 0:51
  I was as soon as I learned about the just about the show and, and
• 0:56
  like just the title of the show, I was like, I was like, oh, we,
• 1:00
  we have something here. So I'm, I'm excited to be here.
• 1:03
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:04
  I'm glad it resonated with you that that was the goal, you
• 1:07
  know, kind of to tell stories and share stories so we can all
• 1:11
  learn how to turn adversity into an adventure, right?
• 1:15
  That's, that's really what it is.
• 1:17
  So Nick, I, I feel like, so we met today, but I have been sort
• 1:21
  of stalking you in a really good way, learning about you, reading
• 1:27
  about your website, watching videos and wanted to thank you
• 1:31
  for being here. I know you, you are a speaker,
• 1:34
  you are a business owner. You're, you've been through a
• 1:38
  lot in life. And so I just wanted to have you
• 1:42
  kind of introduce yourself a little bit.
• 1:44
  And then I'm going to do what I do best and just kind of like
• 1:48
  talk and try to, to bring your story to life for my listeners.
• 1:52
  So if you don't mind just just introducing yourself.
• 1:55
  Sure I'm I'm happy to Bree and not really.
• 1:58
  My story starts when I was at ski club with my friends in 8th
• 2:04
  grade and I can remember we all, my buddies and I had all brought
• 2:09
  our snowboard gear onto the bus to get ready so we wouldn't miss
• 2:15
  a precious moment once we got to the mountain.
• 2:17
  Whereas we got there and then the rest of the class went
• 2:21
  inside and wasted time in our eyes getting ready.
• 2:24
  But we were all ready to go, so we headed out right for the
• 2:29
  chair lift. And on the ride up we noticed
• 2:34
  that it was very icy because it had been raining earlier in the
• 2:38
  day, so people were wiping out everywhere.
• 2:41
  And where the chairlift went was actually right over the terrain
• 2:45
  park where all the jumps were. And I knew as soon as I saw it
• 2:50
  that I had to go off the biggest jump in the terrain park.
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  I mean, there wasn't even a question in my mind about, oh,
• 2:57
  maybe I shouldn't do it, or maybe, OK, I'm going to it.
• 3:01
  I wasn't. That was definitely what I was
• 3:03
  doing. I was dead set on it.
• 3:05
  So I got to the top, buckled into my snowboard, took a breath
• 3:10
  of that crisp winter air and constantly charged towards that
• 3:14
  jump with all my speed. And going into the jump bike
• 3:17
  caught the edge of my snowboard. And that's the last thing that I
• 3:20
  remember. So I was told that that day I
• 3:27
  was told late I was. I later learned that I not only
• 3:32
  wasn't wearing a helmet, but there was one piece of
• 3:36
  protection that my head had. My head had, I was wearing my
• 3:40
  goggles. They were very thick with a lot
• 3:43
  of padding. And I learned that not only did
• 3:46
  they brace my fall as I continue to roll down the mountain and
• 3:50
  continue to hit my head, but this is from like people who are
• 3:54
  actually there and doctors and everything after the fact that
• 3:57
  my goggles cushion moves to cushion.
• 4:01
  And if those of you who are just listening to this, you can't see
• 4:05
  me. I'm making a motion around my
• 4:08
  head. My goggles cushion the blow with
• 4:11
  each impact. They moved around my head to
• 4:14
  cushion the blow against my head, my head and the ice.
• 4:19
  Something else that I learned was that they wanted, they
• 4:22
  wanted to bring a helicopter great to the mountain to bring
• 4:28
  me to the hospital because of the severity of my injuries.
• 4:31
  However, they couldn't because it was too windy.
• 4:34
  So they had to send in an ambulance.
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  And out of all the paramedics in the area, there was only one who
• 4:41
  could intubate right on the spot.
• 4:44
  And I needed that to be able to breathe.
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  And lucky for me, he was one of the paramedics that showed up,
• 4:52
  sent him out in that day. And there are still several
• 4:56
  things about that. Like there's still several
• 4:59
  things that I can't explain about that day.
• 5:02
  However, now I know in the longer and longer I, I do this
• 5:07
  and the, the more I'm like on people shows and Adam Lance and
• 5:10
  everything I see that it was, it was meant for a reason.
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  So no matter what you're going through and no matter the
• 5:19
  challenge, you always just have to keep going forward.
• 5:24
  And that's the message that I, I'm sharing with people.
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  So there were, there were three things from that day.
• 5:31
  The third being that once I got to the hospital and I was at U
• 5:38
  Mass Med Center in Worcester, Mass.
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  So once I, once I got there, I was, I mean, I was out.
• 5:45
  I was, I was in a coma, unable to communicate with anyone.
• 5:49
  And no fault of the doctors. They were just doing their job
• 5:54
  in their eyes. They were just treating me,
• 5:56
  treating us like a number. I, I guess you could say they
• 6:00
  came into my room where only my parents were allowed.
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  At that point they came in and they started to share the
• 6:08
  information. Anyone, you probably know this
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  or, or if anyone listening knows when you're in an acute, if you
• 6:17
  have an acute injury or a traumatic injury, the doctors
• 6:21
  don't get paid for painting a rosy picture like, Oh no,
• 6:25
  everything's going to be fine. So they started to share that
• 6:28
  right in front of my parents and my mom stopped that and she said
• 6:33
  no, no, not in front of him because they were probably
• 6:36
  thinking, oh, he's in a coma. He doesn't matter what he, what
• 6:39
  he hears, he can't hear us. So they started to share that
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  news, the not so positive, not so positive, not so positive in
• 6:45
  front of me. And my mom stopped them and she
• 6:49
  said no, not in front of him because she understood the power
• 6:54
  of the mind, the power that even though I was in a coma, I was
• 6:59
  still taking in information. So she made the doctor step
• 7:03
  outside my room. And that's where they shared
• 7:06
  that I was in an accident and I was in a coma.
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  And they weren't even sure how long I was going to be in a
• 7:14
  coma. And even if I came out, there
• 7:17
  was a good chance that I probably wouldn't be able to
• 7:20
  walk, talk or eat on my own ever again.
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  And to my parents credit, they, they took the information, thank
• 7:34
  the doctors. And then what this allowed me to
• 7:36
  do is treat it like any other situation.
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  So I didn't know any of this. That was, that was noise.
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  I, I guess you could say I didn't know any of that.
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  So I ended up being in a coma for three weeks.
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  It was a partially induced coma because they had to wait for the
• 7:54
  swelling to come down in my brain.
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  They were worried if I woke up and panic, the swelling, it
• 8:00
  would have increased and I would have died.
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  So that's why it was partially induced.
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  And so I ended up being in the coma for three weeks.
• 8:10
  I really don't remember a month. And it was after a month, I was
• 8:14
  transported to a rehab Hospital in Boston.
• 8:18
  And that's where I began my journey of having to learn how
• 8:23
  to walk, talk and eat again. And it was right around this
• 8:26
  time, Bree, that I started to unknowingly use a system to not
• 8:33
  only make a full recovery, but run out of the hospital.
• 8:37
  And that's what I teach to this day, both with one-on-one work
• 8:43
  that I do with clients and also in keynote addresses, keynote
• 8:47
  talks that I do. It's a step system.
• 8:50
  So what I can do if it's OK with you is just get just give a
• 8:55
  10,000 foot view of the step system.
• 8:59
  Please. And then then if your listeners
• 9:01
  are interested at the end I can let them know how they can learn
• 9:04
  more and download the whole step system.
• 9:06
  So I. Would love it.
• 9:08
  Awesome. So STEP is an acronym.
• 9:11
  It stands for Support. So support.
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  Make sure that you have the support of your family and
• 9:17
  friends right from the beginning, and this is going to
• 9:21
  have you falling back on relationships that you built
• 9:24
  prior to your set back. T is trust.
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  Trust that once you take your first step, your next step's
• 9:32
  always going to be available to you, And this also starts with
• 9:36
  trusting that voice that you have inside of yourself.
• 9:41
  You have to trust that voice. We all have it.
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  We all have that voice. The majority of us though, they
• 9:49
  kind of push it aside, they downplay it and they think, no,
• 9:53
  that's not, that's not reasonable or that's not
• 9:56
  realistic or how could I ever do that?
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  So a lot of us will push that voice down and just ignore it.
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  So. If I could illustrate this, the
• 10:08
  IT was, it was around that same time.
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  So a month after my accident, after I have been transported to
• 10:14
  the ICU, I mean, the rehab hospital.
• 10:17
  Excuse me. Yeah.
• 10:19
  I I was still in a wheelchair. And at that point, and I could
• 10:24
  overhear my parents talking with my team of doctors and
• 10:30
  therapists, and they were saying, OK, what do we need to
• 10:34
  do to make sure Nick makes a full recovery?
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  I heard in the back of my head, this is even before I could
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  talk. So I wasn't.
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  It was a whisper at best. I was in a wheelchair and my
• 10:47
  voice wasn't was barely a whisper.
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  I heard in the back of my head, you're going to run out.
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  So you're going to run out of the hospital that is so running
• 10:56
  out of the hospital. I was able to communicate that
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  to the rest of our team and running out became our common
• 11:03
  goal. Like every week we were meeting
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  to and that was part of my support to say, all right, what
• 11:09
  what are we doing to to help Nick reach the goal of running
• 11:15
  out of the hospital? So I think this is the perfect
• 11:18
  point for me to take a drink of water.
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  And if you have any questions, I've been talking pretty much.
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  You know what, thank you for setting the scene like that
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  because first of all, you are a warrior for and, and I think
• 11:32
  what you're, what you're doing is trying to teach people how to
• 11:36
  tap into that, that step, which you're going to continue
• 11:39
  explaining this, this way of approaching problems, which
• 11:44
  yours was literally life and death, right?
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  I mean a life and death accident.
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  And I'm just, I think it's so important to, I love how the
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  acronym is so easy to remember. And I love that the first part
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  of it is focused on unique people.
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  You need people like as strong as we think we are, whatever
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  your obstacle is, I think the reason that that is the first
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  one is so important. So tell me a little bit about,
• 12:16
  well, you can continue, but it sounds like first I want to give
• 12:20
  your credit to your mom and your dad, like what a great support
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  system to have. Absolutely.
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  And there was prior to me starting this whole work and my
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  whole, my whole journey with common goal and which I'm going
• 12:35
  to get to in my story, which tell me why I, how I wound up
• 12:40
  where I am today doing what I am today.
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  I wouldn't like in my, in my school years, in my high school
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  years, I would have always, people would always say, oh,
• 12:50
  that's so amazing that, you know, you're in a coma and then
• 12:53
  you ran out of the hospital. I always used to downplay it
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  like, yeah, it was just thank you.
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  But it was just something I, something I did when I was
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  growing up and I, I did it only because of the like the support
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  system that I had. I would always downplay it and,
• 13:14
  and just say that. And then I the more and more I
• 13:18
  started to share this was I would get a lot of feedback to
• 13:22
  say, yeah, OK, you have that, you have the support system, but
• 13:27
  you still have to do the work. So that was where I was like it.
• 13:32
  It started to started to connect I guess if you will.
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  Yeah. So.
• 13:39
  Yeah, if you call out for your mom and your dad for just
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  because, I mean, for them to go, that was their first time going
• 13:46
  through something like that, right?
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  I mean, you mentioned you have a sister.
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  I know you had mentioned when you woke up, you thought you had
• 13:52
  a brother, right? Yeah.
• 13:54
  You were like, what's happening? But it's what a great way to
• 13:58
  start with two people in your corner that are like, let's go,
• 14:02
  let's go, you know? So because they didn't allow
• 14:06
  that that information and come through to me, it, it just
• 14:10
  allowed me to treat it like any of the situation.
• 14:13
  And if you if you move on from trust to energy, there's a
• 14:20
  couple ways. There's a couple ways that
• 14:22
  energy fit into this and how I've evolved, how energy has
• 14:27
  evolved the older I get. And during, during my injury it
• 14:33
  was. And the best way I can
• 14:34
  illustrate this is after I was transported to the rehab
• 14:38
  hospital around the same time, then I'm talking about I was
• 14:42
  still in a wheelchair and I still wasn't cleared to walk and
• 14:45
  I still really didn't have a voice.
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  I would always have either. My grandfather, Bob, who?
• 14:52
  Who? That's what I call him.
• 14:53
  His name is Bob. But I couldn't say that when I
• 14:55
  was younger. So Bob came out.
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  I still call him Bob. Going to dinner with him
• 15:00
  tomorrow night. Just him and I Yum.
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  He was staying with me, and whenever anyone would stay with
• 15:08
  me, they would stay in a cot next to the bed.
• 15:10
  And when I got up, because I wasn't cleared to walk in the
• 15:15
  middle of the night, I had to go to the bathroom.
• 15:16
  I would have to get someone's attention to help me to the
• 15:19
  bathroom so I didn't fall and didn't have a whole issue.
• 15:23
  So I leaned over my bed and because I didn't have a voice,
• 15:28
  Bob couldn't hear me. So I was able to lower my bed
• 15:32
  and get to use use the bathroom and nothing happened.
• 15:35
  And I got back and everything was safe.
• 15:37
  However, the hospital found out the next day and they freaked
• 15:40
  out because they were like, oh, we can't have this and
• 15:43
  liability. We're going to give him this
• 15:46
  many CCS of this medication, that many CCS of this other
• 15:50
  medication and that should calm him down before bed so he's able
• 15:55
  to sleep. And my mom heard this and she's
• 15:58
  like, no, you're not. Just just ask him not to do
• 16:03
  that. So they asked me not to do that
• 16:06
  and nothing ever happened again. That's that's the best way that
• 16:11
  I can illustrate energy because maintaining your, maintaining
• 16:16
  your body's energy allows your body to have that natural
• 16:22
  ability to be able to heal itself.
• 16:24
  And we all have it. I think drugs and medication and
• 16:28
  on that, on that front have the potential to block it.
• 16:35
  So if you don't, I, I was able to get off those.
• 16:39
  My parents wanted me to get off those as soon as possible.
• 16:43
  P is persistence. So once you take your first
• 16:47
  step, keep getting up every day and taking your next step, no
• 16:51
  matter how small. And by continuing to move
• 16:54
  forward every day, you are building an unstoppable
• 16:57
  momentum. So if you Fast forward less than
• 17:00
  60 days later, I realize my goal of running out of the hospital
• 17:06
  and it wasn't like, all right, I'm done and go back to my life.
• 17:11
  I, I still had a long Rd. I, I had to be tutored.
• 17:17
  So I walked a walk. I walked with my 8th grade class
• 17:23
  at graduation, but it wasn't like mine.
• 17:26
  That was one of the first audiences that I spoke in front
• 17:29
  of too, which is, which is interesting in its own right
• 17:34
  and. Foreshadowing of what's to come?
• 17:38
  Yeah, I had to. I had to be.
• 17:42
  Everyone else was like off, all right, great, we can go and have
• 17:45
  a summer. I didn't have a summer that
• 17:47
  year. So 2003, I didn't have a summer.
• 17:50
  I had to be tutored all summer long, five days a week.
• 17:53
  It was like I had class. And then I had to continue with
• 17:58
  outpatient therapy for another six months in order to continue
• 18:04
  on to high school with the rest of my classmates.
• 18:06
  Because I remember when I got my accident, my school was really
• 18:10
  supportive and they said, oh, you know, we understand.
• 18:13
  And Havnik really just do his rehab and he can come back and
• 18:18
  do 8th grade again next year. I was like, oh, I wanted, I
• 18:22
  don't want to do 8th grade again.
• 18:24
  Let's let's just get it done. So that's, that's what I did.
• 18:29
  And then when I was in high school, I really, I grew up in
• 18:35
  a, a family real estate business.
• 18:38
  I'm still involved in real estate.
• 18:41
  And my dad right around that time was playing with the idea
• 18:45
  of having a bird dog, if you will, or, or someone go out 2
• 18:51
  doors of people notice a default.
• 18:55
  So people that have received a notice of default letter from
• 18:58
  the bank, OK and try to set up meanings for one of his
• 19:03
  investors to go and meet with them the following week about
• 19:07
  potentially buying their home. And it was right around the time
• 19:11
  when I was getting my driver's license.
• 19:14
  So I was like, this is perfect. It was, I still point to it just
• 19:21
  because it was the most effective, the best and most
• 19:26
  effective sales training that anyone can ever do is door to
• 19:30
  door sales. Oh, yeah.
• 19:31
  And this is when I was 16. Really.
• 19:35
  It was because I'm sure you listen, I'm sure you can relate
• 19:39
  to this. When you're younger, time is
• 19:41
  compressed. So you know.
• 19:44
  Six months, 12 months, 18 months seems like a lifetime.
• 19:49
  However, it's not that much time.
• 19:51
  It's really not not that much time.
• 19:53
  So it took a mentor pointing it out to me what that helped me
• 20:01
  start common goal in my speaking and everything.
• 20:04
  Just say wait a minute. So 18 months after you finished
• 20:09
  your rehab from being in a coma in a snowboarding accident,
• 20:12
  having to learn how to walk, walk, talk and eat again, you
• 20:14
  were going and knocking on doors in cities and like not so great
• 20:21
  areas of cities and. Knocking on people's doors and
• 20:24
  trying to schedule meetings. I was like, Oh yeah, it is OK, I
• 20:30
  see, I see it now. That's pretty resilient that
• 20:34
  that's that's pretty cool. Yeah.
• 20:37
  That's pretty like noteworthy. Well, I was like, I never
• 20:41
  thought of it that way until that.
• 20:42
  So she so I did that throughout high school.
• 20:46
  What's evidence to me all of that that was successful is we
• 20:50
  owned. So my mom didn't find this out
• 20:53
  until a few years ago. So I would in my mind, no one
• 20:58
  gave me training on how to do this.
• 20:59
  They just said, here's a here's where you go and find these
• 21:03
  these houses. Here's what you say, here's a
• 21:07
  script what you say. And then if no one's home and
• 21:11
  they don't answer the door, here's the leave behind that you
• 21:13
  leave. So no one ever told me like
• 21:17
  beyond that, they didn't really give me any training.
• 21:19
  So I just, I just started and what made sense in my mind was
• 21:26
  go to the areas where they're most concentrated, so where I
• 21:30
  could get the most amount of doors done in a day and have the
• 21:33
  most amount of at bats, if you will.
• 21:37
  And it was some, you know, probably not areas that you want
• 21:43
  to buy a ton of property and like not not so good areas of
• 21:46
  cities. However, it was evidence to me
• 21:50
  that that was successful that we own properties in those cities
• 21:53
  for years after I even got out of school.
• 21:56
  So then I, I found my way. I got my real estate license
• 22:01
  after I I did that throughout high school and then I got my
• 22:04
  real estate license after was helping buyers and sellers just
• 22:09
  sales. And then in 2014 my dad came to
• 22:13
  me and this is after the market change the market crash and
• 22:18
  everything and he had to re engineer his business and buy
• 22:21
  properties differently. He was buying properties non
• 22:26
  conventionally without using signing personally or using big
• 22:32
  investor down payments or any of his own money and he was buying
• 22:37
  these homes. I'll give you like just just to
• 22:39
  keep it simple. I'll give you like 10,000 foot
• 22:41
  view. He was using a lease purchase to
• 22:44
  buy. He was buying homes a lease
• 22:47
  purchase or buying them actually closing on them subject to
• 22:52
  someone's existing financing or if they didn't have any done in
• 22:56
  the property. He could buy the home with owner
• 22:59
  financing and do principal only payments directly to the owner.
• 23:03
  However he was buying them. He always needed to sell them on
• 23:08
  a rent to own agreement. And that's where I kind of came
• 23:12
  in that he was getting all these properties and he needed help
• 23:16
  with putting them on the rent to own market.
• 23:20
  So I finally came around to this idea that I could do this right
• 23:23
  alongside being a realtor. And I started doing it a little
• 23:28
  bit at 1st and then the marketing, doing all the
• 23:32
  marketing turned into, oh shoot, who's going to, I got to hire
• 23:36
  someone that to handle these buyer inquiries that are
• 23:40
  inquiring off the marketing. So then over the, over the
• 23:43
  course of 13 or 14 months, my income shifted where I was
• 23:47
  making the majority as an investor.
• 23:49
  So in January of 2016, I let my real estate license go and
• 23:55
  joined him full time. And Bree, ever since I got out
• 24:01
  of high school, I've always had this voice in the back of my
• 24:05
  head back to that. I've always had this voice in
• 24:07
  the back of my head that's saying, yeah, great, Nick.
• 24:11
  But what you really need to be doing is telling your story from
• 24:14
  stage and helping, like trauma or life challenge victims
• 24:20
  through whatever they're going through so that they're able to
• 24:23
  thrive with the rest of their lives.
• 24:24
  So that voice has always been there.
• 24:27
  And since 2016 when I joined my dad full time, we've been
• 24:32
  holding events once or twice a year where we have associates,
• 24:37
  we call them that we do deals with all the country come in
• 24:42
  where we hold an event. And I've always told my story
• 24:45
  for maybe 10-15 minutes. And I always thought that's, you
• 24:50
  know, that's a big deal. I'm, I'm OK, I'm listening.
• 24:53
  I'm listening to that voice. And it took until doing that
• 25:00
  several times a year. It took until September of 2019.
• 25:06
  And I was at, I was sharing it. And to that point, it was
• 25:11
  probably the longest I've ever spoken before without notes or
• 25:15
  anything. And that was maybe, I don't
• 25:18
  know, 15 or 20 minutes Max. And to me, that was a That's a
• 25:23
  lot. Yeah, like it feels, yeah.
• 25:25
  Yeah, that's a that's a big deal.
• 25:26
  So I got done and I got, I received a lot of compliments.
• 25:32
  One of the woman's who came, one of the woman who came up to me
• 25:35
  after and said I'm not trying to steal you from your dad.
• 25:42
  However, if you're ever looking to fine tune your message and
• 25:46
  bring it to another level so that you're able to have maximum
• 25:49
  impact and help the most amount of people, I can open some doors
• 25:54
  and introduce you to a few people.
• 25:57
  Well, I wasn't ready yet because I was actually going through a
• 26:04
  issue with my voice, a voice issue which I had actually
• 26:08
  developed in 2012. And I kind of my voice is fine
• 26:13
  after my accident. Like that's the one I had to
• 26:15
  talk to him, but then I was going through an issue.
• 26:21
  This is 2012. I was a real, I was a realtor at
• 26:24
  the time and I would, what's the best way to lay this out?
• 26:31
  So I would chant like I learned somewhere that you're supposed
• 26:36
  to in like my trainings that you're supposed to chant your
• 26:40
  scripts before you get on the phone to prospect for new
• 26:44
  business. OK.
• 26:45
  And I interpreted that as, oh, OK, I know what I'm going to do.
• 26:49
  I'm going to scream through my scripts.
• 26:52
  Not only will this get my energy up, but it will really reinforce
• 26:56
  the scripts so I know them in my bones.
• 26:59
  And I was like, all right, great, I have it now I now I
• 27:02
  know this is 2012. So I started doing it and I
• 27:08
  would do it for three times before I got on the phone and
• 27:12
  that was in 2012 and I started doing it in April, May time
• 27:16
  frame. So I did it throughout the,
• 27:18
  throughout the summer and the rest of the year.
• 27:20
  And it, it took until Columbus Day 2012 for me to realize like,
• 27:27
  all right, you're causing damage to your voice.
• 27:30
  So I remember I was working, I was doing calls on a holiday.
• 27:38
  No surprise. I would.
• 27:39
  I would always do that. So.
• 27:42
  I remember where I was working, my desk faced some glass that
• 27:46
  looked out onto the rest of the office.
• 27:49
  And I would screen the script three times before getting on
• 27:52
  the phone. And on this day, this is the
• 27:53
  first time it happened. My voice gave out on the third
• 27:57
  time and I started laughing. I was like, Oh my gosh.
• 28:01
  And I can remember catching my reflection in the glass of that
• 28:06
  office. And I was, I was like, oh,
• 28:08
  that's it. That's why my voice sounds
• 28:10
  different. So I stopped the screaming of my
• 28:15
  scripts, but it was too late. The damage had already been
• 28:19
  done. So Columbus Day was October 8th,
• 28:23
  2012, and by the end of October my voice wasn't coming back.
• 28:28
  So I I visited all these different doctors and no one
• 28:34
  could really figure out what the answer was.
• 28:36
  And I kept being referred to a different doctor.
• 28:38
  And finally, I wound up in a voice specialist office in
• 28:44
  Boston in August of 2013. And this guy, they're only,
• 28:52
  they're only like 30 or 35 of these specialists in the
• 28:55
  country. And this guy walked in the room
• 28:58
  and heard me speak. And right away is like, oh, oh,
• 29:02
  that. Yeah, we deal with it all the
• 29:04
  time. We'll get that fixed in no time.
• 29:06
  So I started receiving Botox injections into my vocal folds
• 29:14
  along with their higher level speech therapist.
• 29:17
  Not just regular speech therapy, but like they're higher, more
• 29:20
  trained speech pathologist. And Bree, I think I'm more, I'm
• 29:27
  more proud. I might have recency bias, but I
• 29:30
  think I'm more proud of that. And obviously talking to you now
• 29:35
  and and doing all the speaking that I do, I don't have an issue
• 29:39
  with my voice anymore. I think I'm more proud of
• 29:41
  overcoming that than I am I accident because I think when I
• 29:46
  when I was growing up, it was just, I was only 14.
• 29:50
  It was yeah, OK, something, something I just had to deal
• 29:53
  with growing up. The voice issue, I developed it
• 29:58
  in 2012. The last, the last Botox
• 30:02
  treatment that I had was February 13th of 2020.
• 30:07
  So I dealt with it for 8 full years.
• 30:13
  And I think I'm more proud of that because I had to, like I
• 30:17
  would get the Botox, then I would lose my voice.
• 30:20
  And when it was coming back, I had to work and do my voice
• 30:23
  exercises and work with the speech therapist and everything
• 30:27
  to kind of retrain my throat muscles back to how they were
• 30:30
  before I developed any issues. So I think I'm more proud of
• 30:34
  that than I am my accent. And then once I was like getting
• 30:39
  to the end of that, probably, probably in 2020, early 2021, I
• 30:47
  was like, I was like, all right, I have some there.
• 30:50
  There's something here like I have something here I need.
• 30:54
  To the voice in the back of your head, too.
• 30:57
  It connected like it all connected.
• 30:59
  I was like, all right, so I get it now I have to, I have to be
• 31:07
  sharing this with the world. I have to be telling more people
• 31:12
  about this to help them through their trauma so that they can
• 31:16
  thrive with the rest of their life.
• 31:17
  So I was, I was like, all right, I, I have something here.
• 31:20
  And then so that came, that woman introduced that woman who
• 31:26
  introduced me, her mentor, Tricia Brooke, who became my
• 31:30
  mentor. So I hung on to her car.
• 31:34
  I wasn't ready to call her because I wanted to make sure
• 31:38
  this voice says she worked its way out of my system still.
• 31:43
  So I finally reached out to her in May of 2021.
• 31:47
  And I shared with her what I was looking to do and my goals and
• 31:51
  everything. And I said, do you think that's
• 31:52
  possible? She said, yes.
• 31:55
  I said, all right, what should I do?
• 31:57
  She said the speaker salon and I said, what's that?
• 32:00
  And she said you commute to New York City for six weeks in a row
• 32:04
  and you get to work on a 10 to 15 minute talk with me and up to
• 32:10
  10 or 15 other speakers on stage and get my live direction and
• 32:15
  feedback. She said that's 25,000.
• 32:19
  I I said yes, because I just again, the the voice, you know
• 32:24
  it, you. Know it.
• 32:25
  Yeah, you, you feel it. So I was like, yeah, I like, I
• 32:28
  have to do this. There's there's.
• 32:30
  No. So I did it.
• 32:32
  I was able to cobble that together between like I'll.
• 32:35
  Figure it out. Yeah.
• 32:37
  And then during that, during the speaker salon, she pitched the
• 32:42
  idea of what it would be like to work with her one-on-one.
• 32:47
  And she said that's 75,000. She said she specializes in
• 32:52
  helping speakers to build out their speaker platform.
• 32:56
  I didn't even know what that was.
• 32:58
  You're like, oh, do I need one of those?
• 33:00
  I didn't even know what I didn't even know what that was and and
• 33:03
  on Now though that are on the other side of it.
• 33:05
  I know exactly what it was because it's what she helped me
• 33:08
  do. So now I'm delivering keynote
• 33:12
  talks to brain injury associations and other
• 33:16
  organizations that support individuals that are going
• 33:19
  through trauma and also being on podcasts like this and sharing
• 33:25
  this message usually. And the keynotes are usually 50
• 33:28
  and 60 minute plus. And if you would have told me
• 33:33
  that prior to her like 2019 or 2018 that I'd be doing that, I
• 33:38
  would have told you that you were you beaten nuts.
• 33:40
  There's no way, right? You just can't.
• 33:42
  You couldn't. You couldn't see that.
• 33:43
  I couldn't conceptualize that, but now I know exactly what it
• 33:47
  is. And by I was just saying this
• 33:51
  another way on a, on a different interview earlier today that
• 33:56
  there's no like there's no if I have to be like, oh, OK, well, I
• 34:03
  got to be, I got to be on to that or oh, OK, well, I got to
• 34:07
  show this side of me, that side of me.
• 34:09
  I'm just, I'm always on. But I'm not saying that in a bad
• 34:12
  way. It's just it's all of me.
• 34:16
  Like I'm always sharing it and I get so much energy from it.
• 34:23
  I love that. I love you're always authentic,
• 34:25
  like it's who it's your story, all your and thank you for
• 34:30
  sharing all that because I think it really takes people as
• 34:33
  they're listening to your story from the beginning, like this
• 34:37
  accident you went through in 8th grade and then now that, you
• 34:41
  know, 20 something years later, right, because it was 2004 you
• 34:44
  said, or 2003 was your accident. Yeah.
• 34:47
  So 22 years later, it it's interesting how you ultimately
• 34:52
  kind of came back to sharing that story.
• 34:56
  But I wonder if, you know, we always talk about kids being so
• 35:00
  resilient, right? I wonder if and tell me if you
• 35:03
  feel about this almost you not know, you, you being a kid, 8th
• 35:07
  grade, you know, teenager, you also your parents not telling
• 35:13
  you all this doom and gloom of what you know, might be.
• 35:16
  It's almost like you were able to tap into that that resilience
• 35:20
  as a kid. But then you said the experience
• 35:23
  with your voice, you get, you're almost more proud of that.
• 35:27
  And I and I, my first thought when you said that is I can see
• 35:31
  that because as an adult, you're just maybe more awake to how
• 35:35
  hard things can be. Maybe like you just know the
• 35:39
  ultimate negative outcome. You know too much as an adult.
• 35:43
  Right. Yeah, I think a few things about
• 35:45
  what you said, Bree. The.
• 35:48
  There was, there's more of the fact that as an adult, like when
• 35:53
  I developed this in 2012, I was the one who was facing the
• 35:59
  doctors saying you might never do this again, you might never
• 36:03
  do this again, that kind of thing.
• 36:04
  And everything I was reading. Because in the beginning,
• 36:08
  whenever anyone has any kind of a, an issue that's like not
• 36:14
  normal in their eyes, they want to go and research it and see
• 36:18
  what's what the heck is going on.
• 36:20
  While in doing that in 2012 and 2013, I find my, I found my way
• 36:27
  to something called spasmodic dysphonia.
• 36:31
  And I thought when I learned about it, I was like, oh, that's
• 36:36
  it. That's I have that.
• 36:38
  So then I started to, so I didn't have that.
• 36:43
  I had a voice issue, but that kind of led me to researching,
• 36:52
  OK, what is this finding like Facebook groups like supporting
• 36:56
  and everything. And it was good at the
• 36:57
  beginning. It's like kind of 'cause I was
• 37:00
  like, 'cause I felt like I was alone, like no one, no one's out
• 37:03
  there. But it was good to a certain
• 37:05
  point. But then I was like, I I'm kind
• 37:08
  of upset with this, like because all they talk about is what's
• 37:12
  wrong and they're never. So the more and more I and I
• 37:16
  started donating to to that foundation and everything, and
• 37:22
  the more and more I learned like there were, there'd be, oh,
• 37:25
  whoa, OK. You know, I've had, I've been
• 37:27
  getting injections for 20 something years and you know, it
• 37:30
  doesn't, doesn't really change. And, and the more and more I
• 37:34
  started learning that I was like, got it.
• 37:39
  Thanks, like thanks to that I'm I know I have my voice after my
• 37:44
  accent. I'm going to keep going on that
• 37:47
  path to get my voice back. Like there's no one there's no
• 37:51
  one outside of me that can that can tell me I'm not going to get
• 37:55
  my voice back. And I think where that came from
• 37:57
  too. So this is this is definitely a
• 38:02
  shout out to my mom, I guess you could say.
• 38:04
  So there was, she went with me on a lot of these trips to
• 38:11
  Boston on getting the Botox injection and driving there for
• 38:15
  speech therapy and back. She would go to a lot of those
• 38:19
  appointments with me to be my support, if you will.
• 38:23
  And I can remember on the way home of one of those
• 38:26
  appointments, she, I was kind of like frustrated because the
• 38:33
  speech therapist there, I was trying to pin her down on, OK,
• 38:40
  I'm going to get my voice. Like you're going tell me I'm
• 38:43
  going to get my voice back just like it was after my accident.
• 38:48
  And she wouldn't do it. She like liability and
• 38:53
  everything. She couldn't do it.
• 38:55
  So I was, I was looking for, I was relying on her for that.
• 38:59
  And I can remember on the way home in the car, I, I was
• 39:03
  frustrated. And one thing my mom said to me
• 39:07
  is that you can't ever rely on someone else to tell you that
• 39:14
  it's going to be that you're going to get to where you, where
• 39:18
  you see in your mind where you have like you see yourself with
• 39:23
  no issue. You can't rely on someone else
• 39:27
  to tell you that like that. No one can tell you that you're
• 39:32
  not going to get to an ideal that you have in your mind.
• 39:34
  Like you just need to stay focused on that.
• 39:36
  No one's going to tell you that you can do it.
• 39:38
  So that kind of gave me the the motivation to keep going and
• 39:46
  keep doing my voice exercises because they gave me voice
• 39:49
  exercises that I was to do every day.
• 39:52
  Like they said to do them twice a day.
• 39:53
  I was doing it four times a day like that kind of thing, but it
• 39:58
  just, it made me continue to keep going, continue do my voice
• 40:03
  exercises, continue to get my treatments, continue to do what
• 40:09
  I could control. And I would get there
• 40:12
  eventually, just no one else. I shouldn't rely on someone else
• 40:17
  telling me that I was going to get there because if if I was
• 40:20
  waiting for that to happen that that would have never came.
• 40:24
  That's the, I'm so glad you said that because it just hits on so
• 40:28
  many things that I've been hearing on the podcast and that
• 40:32
  I think in my own life, it's wanting that external
• 40:36
  validation, right? Like, hey, tell me I'm good
• 40:40
  enough. Tell me I'm going to get through
• 40:41
  this. Tell me that you approve of me
• 40:45
  or that I'm doing the right thing.
• 40:47
  But ultimately we like you said, we all have that voice and then
• 40:52
  we either brush it aside or we're like, let me just get
• 40:55
  someone else. It's more certain if someone
• 40:57
  else does it to me versus that in but that's not the case,
• 41:00
  right that. Internal, you don't need it.
• 41:03
  You don't need that external validation.
• 41:05
  And I had it like I had it in my mind even before that
• 41:10
  confrontation with the, with the voice therapist I had, I was
• 41:15
  like, I always thought even at the beginning that I have my
• 41:19
  voice, perfect speaking voice after my accent, I'm going to
• 41:23
  get it back. There's something I did like a,
• 41:26
  a challenge. I, I stress my voice out and
• 41:28
  everything I, I can get back there.
• 41:31
  So I was looking for someone else to kind of validate that.
• 41:36
  And my mom was like, don't, don't do that.
• 41:41
  Don't. You can't look, you can't look
• 41:44
  outside of yourself to get that validation.
• 41:46
  You, if you know within you that you're going to get back there,
• 41:50
  just focus on that. Keep working doing what you can
• 41:53
  control and focus on that. I love that and I also love what
• 41:57
  I've heard you talk about that in the step, right?
• 42:01
  The the support the set, the T is.
• 42:04
  Is it tenacity? Trust.
• 42:06
  Trust support. We could do a a new version, but
• 42:12
  no, it's trust. Support, trust, energy and
• 42:15
  persistence, right? That's.
• 42:17
  It So what I love you that you said is the next step will
• 42:22
  always reveal itself because sometimes it's like, well, I
• 42:26
  don't know what this journey is going to look like, so I'm not
• 42:28
  going on it or I can't do it because I don't even know what
• 42:31
  the Hell's 10 steps ahead. That doesn't matter.
• 42:34
  You're saying you don't need to know the 15th step, right?
• 42:38
  The next step will reveal itself.
• 42:41
  Yeah. And I can go right back to right
• 42:44
  back to my voice issue. So I would have always, I always
• 42:48
  use the. So I would go for as long as I
• 42:52
  could between the Botox treatments.
• 42:56
  So when I first started getting it was I would need them every
• 42:58
  six weeks. And then I stretched it longer
• 43:01
  and longer and longer and to a point where I was starting to
• 43:06
  celebrate like having to get them again.
• 43:11
  So because I would go longer and longer and longer, but that time
• 43:17
  frame is not that long. It's I mean, it was three months
• 43:22
  and it was four months and it was five months.
• 43:24
  Then I got it to six months where I only need it twice a
• 43:28
  year. And I was locked.
• 43:30
  I was locked into, I need to do it longer and longer and longer
• 43:36
  to the point where to the point where I after all, right, So
• 43:41
  like time frame wise, after that woman heard me speak and she
• 43:47
  gave me her card and everything, that was September of 2019.
• 43:51
  So I ended up getting a Botox treatment like a week or two
• 43:55
  after that event and I went there.
• 44:00
  I was like, huh, all right, I made it another 5 or 6 months.
• 44:03
  Now the next one I'm not going to need for another 5 or 6
• 44:05
  months then at well, I mean I, I have to, I have to throw this in
• 44:11
  there. So then right after getting
• 44:13
  that, I ran in 1/2 marathon, I completed, completed 1/2
• 44:18
  marathon. So I didn't really account for
• 44:21
  in my timing that when you do something like that, when you
• 44:25
  exhaust the body, it uses up the Botox faster.
• 44:28
  So I got to like the end of December and I was like the
• 44:34
  heck, my voice is already getting tighter in early January
• 44:37
  and I was, I was like down about it.
• 44:40
  I was like beating myself up about it.
• 44:43
  Then I scheduled, I called, got in the schedule and the next
• 44:50
  time I could get in was February 13th of 2020.
• 44:54
  I remember being like annoyed that I had to get it so soon.
• 44:58
  However, that was the last treatment that I ever needed.
• 45:03
  So I think I it was a bit of ego that I was holding on to art.
• 45:06
  I do more, I do longer, I do a lot like, but it was the last
• 45:10
  one that I ever needed. So you just kind of it's almost
• 45:15
  like you like you said you were applying, you were approaching
• 45:19
  all these obstacles in the same way.
• 45:22
  Like it was like, OK, it's like mini milestones, like what's the
• 45:25
  next? What's the next?
• 45:26
  OK. And then it like turning it into
• 45:28
  a challenge, right? Like it's, it's incredible to
• 45:33
  see that from that accident. And then again, another big deal
• 45:39
  with with the condition of your voice.
• 45:41
  And it's almost like that for somebody who is trying to be a
• 45:45
  speaker, you could interpret that as like, oh, well, I just
• 45:49
  can't do this then. Like it's just not.
• 45:51
  But you have this knowing and I feel like when people are called
• 45:55
  to do certain things, you just know, right?
• 45:59
  Authentic feeling. So tell me the persistence
• 46:03
  piece. If somebody is listening right
• 46:05
  now, which guarantee they're going through something and are
• 46:12
  there any tips? You have and and then I.
• 46:14
  Want to talk about your framework and how you help
• 46:16
  people? Are there tips you have?
• 46:18
  When you're like, man, it's just like this is taking so long.
• 46:20
  You're in the let's say you're in the grind of working towards
• 46:23
  your goal or working through grief or working through
• 46:26
  whatever. Is there things you can do?
• 46:29
  There's things you can tell yourself to make yourself stay
• 46:33
  persistent. Where is.
• 46:36
  That yeah, there is and. The issue might surprise you, it
• 46:41
  might not, but it's when you're going through it and I.
• 46:44
  Remember. I've had it several times in my
• 46:47
  life like Oh my God, I. I'm not getting anywhere I've
• 46:51
  I've. Like I've been at this like for
• 46:54
  in my case, I was thinking when I was frustrated that I had to
• 46:57
  get on the Botox treatment. I've been at this for seven
• 47:01
  years and this isn't like like I was.
• 47:06
  Annoyed with myself. But then I just kept.
• 47:09
  Getting up and dealing. What was in front of me?
• 47:13
  Just every day deal. What's in front of me?
• 47:15
  So I dealt with OK, I have to schedule another treatment and
• 47:21
  then when my voice coming back, I have to be doing my exercises.
• 47:24
  So I just focused on what was in front of me.
• 47:27
  Because when you focus on what's in front of you, there's no
• 47:32
  another 10 years in the future. It's just right now.
• 47:37
  And when you're dealing with what's right in front of you,
• 47:40
  it's not that bad. It it really.
• 47:44
  Isn't that bad if you can just get through that?
• 47:47
  Then the next step is going to reveal itself.
• 47:49
  So if I can, if I can go back to like my accident, for instance,
• 47:54
  I would just get up. Especially when you have a
• 47:57
  traumatic event or traumatic injury, you, you have no other
• 48:03
  option but to just deal with what's in front of you.
• 48:07
  Just keep getting up every day and just deal with what's in
• 48:10
  front of you. One of the things that I learned
• 48:13
  from in my accent and I've still, I've applied it to what
• 48:18
  I'm doing today and I've done in my whole life, is that
• 48:22
  especially at the beginning of a new venture.
• 48:26
  Like for me in the hospital, it was I'd be going through like
• 48:30
  double sessions of physical, occupational and speech every
• 48:32
  day. Then on the weekends when I was
• 48:35
  supposed to take time off and everything I was doing, I'm not
• 48:38
  telling you I was doing like 5 hours worth of exercises, but I
• 48:42
  would ask my therapist, all right, what's the, you could
• 48:45
  give me like one or two exercises, like the top
• 48:48
  exercises that I could do that's going to continue to help me
• 48:52
  move toward my goal of running out of the hospital.
• 48:54
  What would they be? So I'm not saying that I was
• 48:58
  doing 5 extra hours per day on the weekends, but I was doing
• 49:01
  something every day and then that's something doing something
• 49:07
  every day and I still apply it. I I've done it, I've.
• 49:10
  Used it to launch common goal. As well is do something every
• 49:14
  day, especially at the beginning, because that's going
• 49:17
  to help you develop an unstoppable momentum that's
• 49:20
  going to carry you through the hard times and there will be
• 49:24
  hard times. I think a lot of people are
• 49:26
  kidding themselves that they think that, Oh no, this is going
• 49:29
  to be easy. That'll help you to keep going
• 49:33
  and to keep you going through the tough times.
• 49:37
  I I that that's a. Great perspective from somebody,
• 49:41
  I think who you know, you, you've applied it to physical
• 49:45
  health, traumatic brain injury business in real estate, getting
• 49:51
  out there and like just going for it.
• 49:54
  And I think it's a testament to like you said, you don't have,
• 50:01
  when you don't have any other options.
• 50:04
  And you sort of break it down into like, what can I do in this
• 50:07
  minute then handle the next minute when that comes, right?
• 50:11
  It's amazing how breaking that down and tell me more about
• 50:18
  obviously we've heard your, your trajectory from the accident to
• 50:21
  overcoming the voice condition to kind of willing yourself
• 50:25
  through adversity. Talk to me about what you do now
• 50:31
  every day and how sort of that that voice in the back of your
• 50:34
  head that told you you needed to be speaking to people.
• 50:37
  How is that manifesting now through your everyday work?
• 50:41
  So great. Question I.
• 50:43
  Didn't I? Didn't finish this thought.
• 50:45
  Let me just close here before I do.
• 50:48
  The so that voice. In the back of my head is like,
• 50:51
  I've always had that. And then once I spoke with
• 50:53
  Trisha for the first time, no voice in the back of my head.
• 50:56
  To this day, there's no voice in the back of my head.
• 51:00
  So. What that's evidence to me is
• 51:02
  I'm. Doing.
• 51:03
  Exactly what I was put in this earth to do.
• 51:05
  I'm starting my day. Like daily.
• 51:09
  How I do it now I I, I know we don't have, I told.
• 51:14
  You at the. Beginning, make sure you give me
• 51:15
  guardrails. Whoops.
• 51:16
  Keep going. I keep going.
• 51:18
  I'll, I'll, I'll tell you. So.
• 51:22
  I think a. Lot of this plays into
• 51:25
  meditation. I've been meditating now.
• 51:29
  I've been meditating now and I'm going to refer your listeners
• 51:32
  maybe. It's on my website.
• 51:34
  It's one of the rest of my website.
• 51:35
  You may have seen it. It's my introduction to
• 51:40
  stillness was a coma, saw that. So that really that really
• 51:46
  helped. Has helped.
• 51:48
  Me, I continue to do it to this day, and that's another tip that
• 51:53
  helps you build that reservoir of resilience and energy in
• 51:59
  addition to the momentum. And keep doing something.
• 52:02
  Everyday, that's another thing that can help you build that
• 52:06
  resilience momentum that's going to continue to carry you through
• 52:10
  the hard times. But like, oh, just give me an
• 52:12
  example. Today I got up and I meditated.
• 52:15
  I used to only do this fairly recently.
• 52:19
  Yeah, I used to only do I would either meditate and do Qigong,
• 52:23
  which is a martial, martial art. It's like a yoga similar.
• 52:29
  I would either. Meditate and do Qigong or I
• 52:32
  would. Go for a run recently over.
• 52:36
  The last. Few months I've been I've been
• 52:39
  kind of combining them. So like this morning I meditated
• 52:42
  for I meditated and did she gong for 33 minutes and then I went
• 52:48
  for a walk. So I'm not really running so
• 52:51
  much anymore. I went for a walk.
• 52:54
  I did both like I do a short loop around my house 24 minutes.
• 52:58
  So doing both of those. So I did both of those and then
• 53:03
  I, I had I. Had breakfast, got ready and.
• 53:11
  I've left, I left out something that's I.
• 53:13
  Have a 5 year old Maltese. I had to get out and let her out
• 53:17
  and everything but then after breakfast I read and write in my
• 53:22
  journal and have coffee. Have two cups of coffee, usually
• 53:28
  for about 30 or 45 minutes. I do that pretty much every day
• 53:36
  in order to kind. Of start my day off right.
• 53:39
  And centered so there isn't anything that that gets thrown
• 53:44
  at me that throws me off during the day.
• 53:48
  I think that's crucial. A morning routine is crucial it
• 53:53
  it's. Something I've started in the.
• 53:55
  Last year and I couldn't agree more.
• 53:58
  It's fundamentally sort of changing how I look at life.
• 54:03
  Just that time with yourself and if you connect to a higher
• 54:07
  power, just that time to yeah, like you said, it's almost like
• 54:12
  developing that inner reserve. When you said reservoir, like
• 54:15
  you said, you are going to need something to tap into because
• 54:19
  life will bring challenges like period.
• 54:22
  But and I used to laugh at people to be like a morning
• 54:24
  routine, Ha ha, like, OK, a morning routine.
• 54:26
  And I'm like, damn, this is this is legit changes how you handle
• 54:31
  your day 100% absolutely. So that talk.
• 54:35
  That I told you about kind of gives the IT kind of gives the
• 54:41
  way that I was introduced to meditation and how anyone can
• 54:46
  start meditation kind of is this.
• 54:51
  Loaded. It has so many feelings and
• 54:55
  emotions attached to it, but it's.
• 54:58
  Really simple. And I think if you go and watch.
• 55:02
  That. Talk it's it's on it's on my
• 55:04
  website. This is kind of the perfect
• 55:06
  place to give it, I guess it's on my website,
• 55:10
  nickprefontaine.com and I think it's forward slash and then
• 55:16
  hashtag speaking. It's one of the first talks in
• 55:20
  there. You'll be able to find it in the
• 55:24
  the title is my introduction to stillness was a coma and that I
• 55:29
  just I don't want to ruin it. Go and go and go and check that
• 55:32
  out because that'll that'll kind of help.
• 55:37
  You. Take that take.
• 55:39
  That first step with meditation, if you don't have any meditation
• 55:42
  practice that'll that'll help you get started and then.
• 55:47
  What I what I think we. Went over is just a believe it
• 55:50
  or not, 10,000 foot view of the step system.
• 55:55
  But if anyone's out there, I know you.
• 55:57
  Asked the question. What if people are out there
• 55:59
  that are stuck? If anyone's out there that's
• 56:02
  stuck and. They don't know.
• 56:02
  What to do? They've just been hit with
• 56:04
  something, whether it's a health challenge of a loved one or
• 56:09
  going through something, anything.
• 56:12
  Starting a new business. Then go to
• 56:15
  nickprefontaine.com/step to download the Step system for
• 56:21
  free today. And it's a great first step.
• 56:23
  It's going to teach you all about support, trust, energy and
• 56:27
  persistence. I love that all all.
• 56:31
  These fantastic resources that it will I will also list in the
• 56:35
  show notes as well. And one question that came up
• 56:39
  while you were talking, because I know like people are going to
• 56:43
  go look and learn all about tactically how they can break
• 56:46
  this down, which is fantastic because I think coming from
• 56:50
  someone who has been through, I don't know that.
• 56:55
  Every person in their. Life will face the kind of
• 56:58
  adversity you face. And I've always talked about
• 57:01
  everyone has different, right? We all have our different
• 57:04
  battles and and some you can see, some you can't, right
• 57:08
  mental health, all of that. So it's just, I think it's thank
• 57:14
  you for like taking the time to reflect on your experience.
• 57:17
  I'm sure some people that go through something like this,
• 57:20
  maybe just it's painful or they to, to make yourself vulnerable
• 57:25
  and to then kind of go back into the fire with water to help
• 57:30
  others come out, right. I love that quote where it's
• 57:32
  like people that come out of the fire then go back in with
• 57:36
  buckets, right? That's like what you're doing.
• 57:39
  And then so every video, every podcast, and I wanted you to
• 57:43
  talk a little bit about your company.
• 57:45
  Common goal, right? Yeah, so the.
• 57:52
  We're doing, I'm doing a. Lot of speaking.
• 57:54
  For brain injury associations, mainly at their annual events
• 58:01
  and the most recent one I did. Was the Minnesota.
• 58:06
  Brain injury. Alliance or the?
• 58:08
  Brain Injury Alliance in Minnesota.
• 58:10
  I spoke with their Lunch and Learn back a couple months ago
• 58:13
  at the beginning of April and I I shared.
• 58:18
  A version of my keynote. To them and then so I'm.
• 58:21
  Doing. I'm doing a lot of speaking for
• 58:23
  like those like those types of groups end of the year last year
• 58:28
  in December, I I shared the same keynote or a actually think it
• 58:34
  may have been a little bit longer.
• 58:35
  Version. Of my keynote for the Brain
• 58:38
  Injury Alliance of Vermont. So that's that's.
• 58:42
  Like the? The type of audiences that I'm
• 58:46
  sharing my message to and then as a result.
• 58:50
  Of. Just being just showing up and
• 58:53
  being fully present and being who I am and just always wanted
• 58:58
  to help people. I meet people in my day-to-day
• 59:01
  life that asked me about like whatever they're going through
• 59:06
  that asked me about the ability about working with them
• 59:09
  one-on-one, which is also something that I just recently
• 59:13
  launched and I started to do as well.
• 59:15
  And and that's that's helping people identify their support,
• 59:20
  trust, energy and persistence, whatever it is it that they're.
• 59:25
  Going through. So you can offer that.
• 59:28
  Guidance of. Of how really to use that
• 59:31
  framework to overcome adversity, achieve your goals in life.
• 59:38
  And it and I remember you just in in other talks as well as
• 59:42
  this talk. So much of it is that mindset
• 59:45
  piece right? And it sounds like step is that
• 59:49
  guide that because sometimes when you're going through trauma
• 59:53
  or maybe someone listening to this right now, they're like, I
• 59:56
  need the extra hand holding. Like some people might be like,
• 1:00:00
  hey, I'm going to download that and I can follow it.
• 1:00:02
  Some people might be like, I really need a guide.
• 1:00:05
  I need that personal, you know, coaching.
• 1:00:08
  So it's really cool that you offer offer that, you know,
• 1:00:11
  because that human connection of someone who has seen dark times.
• 1:00:17
  Oh yeah, thank. You and and I think.
• 1:00:19
  It's there's a lot of people too that.
• 1:00:27
  They. Don't even know if that's.
• 1:00:29
  What they're dealing with, they don't even know that they need
• 1:00:32
  it, if that makes. Sense they're they're.
• 1:00:36
  Just no, no, no, I, I can't, I, I get to focus on this right
• 1:00:40
  now. So there's so much potential for
• 1:00:43
  how many people I can help in the future.
• 1:00:49
  That's why I'm. Doing this, that's.
• 1:00:51
  Why I'm sharing this message? Because it's powerful.
• 1:00:57
  It's powerful to help. People get through their trauma
• 1:00:59
  and whatever they're going through life challenge or and
• 1:01:02
  thrive with the rest of their lives.
• 1:01:04
  Yeah, no, it's fantastic. And I, after watching all of
• 1:01:08
  your talks and looking through your website and now meeting
• 1:01:12
  you, I'm so honored that you took the time to talk to me and
• 1:01:18
  my listeners. And I know that there's somebody
• 1:01:21
  out there, including myself, that, you know, I've been
• 1:01:24
  actually thinking about you this weekend when something would
• 1:01:27
  come up. I'm like, OK, the next the next
• 1:01:29
  step is going to reveal itself. Just don't know what the hell
• 1:01:31
  that is and don't really want this to be happening, but it's
• 1:01:34
  going to reveal itself. And OK, I'm going to talk to
• 1:01:37
  Nick on Monday and I'm going to like, you know, you you run
• 1:01:40
  through people's heads like you hear that something on a podcast
• 1:01:43
  and you're like, so. I'm excited to see.
• 1:01:48
  When I published this, just the reactions and I just got chills
• 1:01:52
  that the the ripple effect of somebody in some city, state or
• 1:01:57
  country, that's like, holy shit. He got through that coma.
• 1:02:01
  He went through the voice issues.
• 1:02:04
  And now, I mean, it's miraculous, but it's also kind
• 1:02:09
  of testifies the strength of like the human spirit, which is
• 1:02:11
  probably why you want to help with that, right?
• 1:02:15
  That's yeah, that's 100% true. Yeah, it's.
• 1:02:18
  I just want to by sharing this message my.
• 1:02:21
  Message. I just want to help more people
• 1:02:24
  to get to where I've I've I've had the privilege to.
• 1:02:31
  Arrive. To which is being able to, like
• 1:02:35
  you said, go. Back in the fire.
• 1:02:36
  With with some buckets of water. I just want to be able to help
• 1:02:41
  people, and you absolutely are. And.
• 1:02:45
  I I think this would probably be a great place to wrap it up
• 1:02:48
  because I think I'm, I'm, I'm going to keep talking.
• 1:02:50
  You're going to keep talking and I'm really excited.
• 1:02:54
  I hope we can reconnect in the future too, maybe have you back
• 1:02:57
  on and talk about specific things, specific dramas like to.
• 1:03:01
  I was actually hesitating. I was.
• 1:03:03
  Hesitating when I started to talk about my voice issue
• 1:03:06
  because there's so much more to that.
• 1:03:10
  Like I only covered a little bit of it, but there's so much more
• 1:03:13
  to that. Yeah.
• 1:03:14
  And I would love to. Unpack.
• 1:03:17
  That maybe we can do like in another six months or or so.
• 1:03:20
  Please. Yeah, please.
• 1:03:22
  Well, hey, you know, like you said, the next.
• 1:03:24
  Step will reveal itself, and the next step is we're going to have
• 1:03:27
  to talk again. And no, I just want to thank you
• 1:03:31
  again. Everybody look in the show
• 1:03:33
  notes. Nick, prefontaine.com, I'm going
• 1:03:36
  to link to a few of your talks where they can connect with you
• 1:03:39
  on LinkedIn for downloading your step framework one-on-one
• 1:03:44
  coaching. And thank you again, Nick, you
• 1:03:47
  are a badass. I just want to tell you that in
• 1:03:49
  case you forget and just an honor to have you on the show.
• 1:03:55
  Well this this has. Been a blast, thank you.
• 1:03:57
  Brad, I can't wait to come back. All right, Well, I'll talk to
• 1:04:01
  you. Soon then.