Latest / Authentic Living / Resiliency Expert Trent Theroux Shares Tips to Move from Adversity to Meaning and Purpose When Tragedy Comes Knocking

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Resiliency Expert Trent Theroux Shares Tips to Move from Adversity to Meaning and Purpose When Tragedy Comes Knocking · Authentic Living

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  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we conscious conversations about
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  things that really matter in our lives.
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  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
• 0:36
  Hi, everyone.
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  It's Rob Sander Derhodge.
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  Thanks for tuning in again.
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  Today, I have a colleague that I met earlier this year, at an event, and, Trent is someone
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  that was quite inspiring when I met him based on this the story that I'd heard over, I think,
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  dinner in Florida.
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  So, Trent, thanks so much for taking your time.
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  Oh, very pleasurable.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  So I I'm gonna read a, a bit about, his name is Trent Thoreau and, a bit about his bio.
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  He's an inspirational speaker.
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  He speaks to conferences and companies about leadership's role in the organizational
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  heartbeat or the organization's heartbeat.
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  Tred is also a chief financial officer, a graduate school professor, an author, and an
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  endurance athlete.
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  According to well placed sources, he's a passionate lover.
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  And after an accident, which left him paralyzed, he created a foundation to provide
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  durable medical goods for those with spinal cord injuries.
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  That's me.
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  Yes.
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  That's you.
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  Every part of it.
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  So, Trent, you know, when I remember kind of overhearing things, when we were chatting, all
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  of us in Florida, what what inspired me the most is, you know, in life, a lot of people
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  that get into a tough time.
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  I often say it's like it's kinda like a fork in the road That's the perception that I I kinda
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  see, you know, people going through where they kinda could go down one route Oh, they go down
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  another.
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  And, obviously, your, your accident, which I, you know, I'd love to hear a bit more about
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  what happened and for you to kind of tell tell us what happened that, to you with that accent
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  and what's what you've been doing since.
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  Surely.
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  Surely.
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  Well, we can get we get to the accent in a minute.
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  You were asking the question about what happens before.
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  Right?
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  You know, it's it's funny how these you come to these crossroads in life.
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  And and in many times, there are no street signs to tell you which direction you have to
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  take.
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  Right.
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  It seems like you're in the, you know, somewhere in the the old west, and there's just
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  a a 2 perpendicular streets.
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  And, you're standing there.
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  Not sure which way to go.
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  And, you know, you have you have gut instinct and you have feel you have passion to pulls you
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  one way or the other, but it's not always known.
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  And sometimes when you take one path, you're doing it at the, at the cost of, of another
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  path.
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  And you would hope that you've made the right decision even though you don't always know
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  which way is the right way.
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  So you got to that path.
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  I mean, prior to, you know, your accidents, I'm sure, like, what were you doing before the
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  accident, were you teaching before the accident?
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  Well, before before my accident, I was, I was self absorbed.
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  I was a I had family, wife, 2 children, young, and I was living a a very, very, middle of the
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  road, suburban lifestyle, work, home, children, a little bit of, television at night and go out
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  for dinner once a week.
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  And it's just your typical take the kids to soccer, suburban lifestyle.
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  And it's funny how in many ways we can get, complacent in those lifestyles, and it was
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  great.
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  It was really great because it was very comfortable and humans adapt easily to their
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  environment, and I had adapted very easily this to this suburban environment, but I wasn't
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  doing any good for the community.
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  I was doing good for myself, for my family, solely and this path that changed is, you know,
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  after this accident is what what changes that and and gives me a sense of awareness that I
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  didn't have before gives me a sense of, how much more I can get done in a day than I
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  thought I could in the past.
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  So I was working regularly, and, I had just started teaching as a hobby And truthfully is
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  to say, it gives me 1 night out of the house a week because when you have 2 small kids, you
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  need 1 night out of the house.
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  So you're kind of, you know, and I think so many people can re relate to that.
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  Right?
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  Like, you know, kind of you're working hard, We are in that kinda rote kind of situation day
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  in, day out here with young children.
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  So, obviously, there's certain things that you curb.
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  You may have passions, of course, but maybe they're a little bit kind of, jumbled up with
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  everything else that's going on.
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  Sure.
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  And then I'm sure you're living a pretty good life.
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  Your children are probably having a good, you know, experience with their parents, those
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  types of things.
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  But what kind of accident was it?
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  What what happens?
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  Well, so, obviously, I was working on a Monday evening.
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  It was September 23rd.
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  And I got home about 8:30 that night.
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  It was a long day, and it was a frustrating day.
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  I normally don't get home that late.
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  I didn't have a workout in the morning, and Monday mornings, I normally would have played
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  basketball with, a group of guys at the YMCA.
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  I didn't I came home, and I decided I wanna go for a kayak.
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  The kids were already in that.
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  I wanna go for a kayak ride.
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  I live on a, an inlet outside of Narragansett Bay.
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  And so I walked out the stairs in the back and just in my t shirt and pair of shorts, went out
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  kayaking.
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  And it was a beautiful night.
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  It was, warm.
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  It was a full moon.
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  And the full moon was overhead.
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  So I could see clearly, and there was no wind.
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  So it was nice and calm on the bay.
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  Kinda went out for a ride and on my way out to this point, nay at point, which was about, two
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  miles or so from where I, where I lived.
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  On my way out.
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  And the only boat I saw was the Providence to Newport Ferreo is a high speed ferry that runs
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  almost like a bus, a shuttle.
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  Out in the chat.
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  It was perfectly quiet.
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  In fact, I was so quiet.
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  I had my my radio with me.
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  And I was listening to the Monday night football game as it came on.
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  I get out towards Nate point and I turned around and I'm making my way back.
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  And I hear another boat in the water, and I took a look and somewhere well behind me is
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  just a single boat smaller than the province ferry, and I paid it not a lot of mind.
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  Another minute later, I still hear the boat in its and it's coming near my direction.
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  So I steer the kayak.
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  I start to steer offline just a little bit.
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  And then I hear him getting louder.
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  And I look, and this and this boat is it's it's coming down on me.
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  I mean, it's it's tracking me, and I can't believe I'm thinking it must be somebody who's
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  just, you know, out, you know, Joy riding.
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  Right?
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  They're gonna give me a quick buzz by and and so I take my paddle and I hold it high in the
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  air and I yell behind me.
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  Hey.
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  Hey.
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  And I'm trying to get their attention to to swerve, but they don't.
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  And they're still coming in, and it's only seconds before they're going to they're going
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  to hit me.
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  And I and I start making decisions in my head, what I have to do.
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  And I know I can't be in the boat because at the boat, if it hits me, the the propellers in
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  the boat are gonna hit me in the head and chest, and and we'll just just kill me
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  instantly.
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  And so I thought the best way to get out would be if I could get out of the kayak and maybe go
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  under the boat, and that way I could the boat could go right over me, So I roll out of the
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  kayak and I try to push my legs, which does really nothing because pushing the kayak is
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  like pushing air, and I go down, and I take one big restroke pole to try to go deeper in the
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  water.
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  And I can appreciate the doppler effect because I can hear the pitch of the engine getting
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  higher as it gets closer to me.
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  Right.
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  And then I get hit by the boat pile.
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  And and getting hit by the boat, fields, like getting tackled in football, big linebacker,
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  tackle you, and it knocks all the wind out of you.
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  And then the propellers company.
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  Sure.
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  The propellers caught me four times from center of my lower part of my rear end right up to the
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  upper part of my back on the left side.
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  And that felt like someone was taking a 2 by 4 and just with 4 hard swings right through the
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  middle of my back.
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  Pain, scary.
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  The force of it threw me deeper into the water into the dark water.
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  And when I'm underwater, I I couldn't see.
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  I've lost a good amount of my breath because whatever I tried to hold, the the boat knocked
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  it out of me, And I try to blow a bubble to figure out which way is up, and I just can't
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  see it.
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  I realize I can't use my left hand, and I realize that I can't feel my legs or I can't
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  move them.
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  I can't try to kick right.
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  I know I can't.
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  And so with my with my right arm, I'm I'm essentially just trying to move water, and it
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  it it moves me towards the top.
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  I get to the top and I'm able to take a breath.
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  From that vantage point, I'm I'm facing north of the bay.
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  I see the boat just driving away from me.
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  No.
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  I don't know what type of damage it was done, but I know it wasn't good.
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  I take my one hand and I and I reach behind me to see, you know, maybe I can feel, and I touch
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  what I think is an exposed rib.
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  I'm scared.
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  I'm absolutely frightened.
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  And I drop under the water because I've got nothing.
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  I pull my tilt back up and support myself.
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  I tried to yell to the boat, but it sent those electric shocks right through me right through
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  my body.
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  The, I started to started to wonder where, how I was going to go from there.
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  I know I couldn't I knew I couldn't use my hand.
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  I know I couldn't use my legs.
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  The scariest part for me that I realized at that moment was that I didn't know how much
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  blood I was losing.
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  It was dark.
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  I couldn't see.
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  Couldn't tell.
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  But I assumed that if you got severed up by the by the propellers that I was bleeding pretty
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  heavily.
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  My looks at the east and I saw an Naya Pointe, beautiful houses over there.
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  Big big 10, 20,000 square foot lots, 30,000 square foot lots, big houses.
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  It was about a few hundred yards away from me, which back when I was in college, when I was a
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  swimmer in college, would have kicked me a couple of minutes.
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  100 yards a minute.
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  So I start to make my way over.
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  And I can still see the the boat going away from me, but then it stops.
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  It it just stops new water and parks.
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  So I stop and park and just watch to see what's going to happen.
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  The boat turns, but it it doesn't turn towards me.
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  It turns the other direction, but coming down the bay, and they're trolling, they're looking
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  for something.
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  I think they're looking for me.
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  They're looking for what they hit.
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  Oh.
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  As they come down, I have a decision to make and probably the maybe the biggest decision
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  I've had to make in my life.
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  Do I swim to the shore?
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  Find help?
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  I can see the houses that can see lights on.
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  I think, though, well, if I get to the shoreline, how do we get to the house?
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  And I get to the house at 9 something at night.
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  What if they don't answer the door?
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  I look at the boat and I say if I go to the boat, or if they don't see me, I'm gonna be
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  deeper in the bay with no way out.
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  So I'm I have this decision.
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  I'm I'm thinking stupidly.
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  It's amazing how which clarity you get in these situations and how how wide your thinking is.
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  I was thinking I've seen these new shows or news, reports where they'll show fishermen lost
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  at sea.
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  And the next thing they show are the pictures of the children crying on the shore.
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  And that's what I'm envisioning in my head that, you know, the the the new local news is
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  going to take pictures of my children crying on the shore.
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  I make the decision to go to the boat.
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  And so I changed direction and go back deeper into the bay to follow them or to get through
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  them.
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  I try yelling again, but it's just the electric going through my back.
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  As they get closer, I can see them.
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  They have a flashlight up.
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  They're looking.
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  And they go right by me.
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  They just go right down the bay by me.
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  They didn't see me.
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  I'm really frightened now Roxanne because I'm afraid they're gonna find the kayak wherever it
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  is.
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  I can't see it, but wherever it is, and they're gonna stop there.
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  And so now I've made my bed.
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  I'm deeper in the bay and I change direction again and go south following them.
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  I just follow them.
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  A couple minutes later, they stop.
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  They they turn around, pick up speed to come back.
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  And it's there that they they see me taking the boat, bringing a rescue.
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  And, bring me to the hospital where the whole new of the Journey smarts
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  Wow.
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  How do like, you had one arm working.
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  One arm.
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  You're barely Now I'm thinking if you can't scream, and that's an electric shock.
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  You've you've severed something significant, I would think, or just a sheer pain of what's
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  what's been kind of cut in your body.
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  Something.
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  Yeah.
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  I didn't I didn't I I they the the blades severed all the major muscles on the left side
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  of my back.
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  And they carved out five pieces of my spine.
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  But My goodness.
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  By by the grace of whoever, It didn't, it didn't it didn't cut the spinal cord.
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  The the shock I was feeling was the pain of the open wounds.
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  That to, that was that was causing the pleas at the time.
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  So what happened when you saw the people on the boat?
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  When they finally saw you, Okay.
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  They they started yelling at me.
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  They were yelling at me.
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  What were they yelling?
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  Well, I grabbed down to the railing.
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  And I I couldn't pull myself up.
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  So they they come pull me up, and they're yelling at me for for ruining their night.
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  Something.
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  They bring me in the boat and they think I could stand, then they let me go and I collapse
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  face forward onto a table.
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  That was in front of me.
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  I'm wearing just my white t shirt, and they can see that it's soaked with blood, and it gets
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  very quiet.
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  Real quick.
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  So they didn't realize you were in the water?
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  They didn't know what they hit.
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  Okay.
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  They they had some time later thought they might have hit a lobster trap pot, which, you
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  know what?
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  That's that's sketchy.
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  I'm looking because that's a very hitting wood and hitting what they hit are 2 different
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  things.
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  Mhmm.
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  But they didn't know.
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  But after they saw me, and they saw the blood on them.
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  They promptly called 911 and made that bokeh right to the marina as quickly as possible.
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  What a story.
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  So so you go from suburbia.
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  Life's kinda steady as you go, not not much ripple, like kind of the, you know, the
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  levelness of life to that.
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  And do you stay conscious on the way to the hospital, or do you pass out?
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  You're surely conscious to the point where I I still I still remember the lights on the
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  houses.
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  And I remember where the streets, the cars were as we passed a couple of them moving up towards
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  the marina.
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  Pure consciousness.
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  I could hit the voices.
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  I could hear the rescue on the radio.
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  I could hear the the captain talking.
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  I could hear the whispering It was everything was so quiet in my mind.
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  I was able to absorb everything.
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  And remember it.
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  And remember it relatedly.
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  Vividly.
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  I've never never experienced that type of consciousness or self awareness and it must be
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  some mechanism inside the human body, and I know I'm not the only person that's having
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  this.
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  So it must be some mechanism that go through when they have something traumatic happen.
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  It's why we remember where we were when this now.
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  I remember when.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So they take, I would assume they take you right in and, Did they perform surgery
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  immediately on you, or what happened next?
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  They they put me into this, it's like a like a steel table.
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  It always says what you would see like you would see them on board.
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  Right?
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  You would see the dead bodies on steel tables.
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  So they put me on the steel table, and they wanted to get me prepared for surgery because
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  they needed to you know, they need to close everything up.
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  I was still bleeding pretty good, but they didn't cut anything They didn't cut any veins
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  or arteries, so I wasn't bleeding out.
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  Wow.
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  Another miracle of sorts.
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  But they said they decided that they could bring me in for surgery that they had the the I
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  had quite a bit of bacteria.
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  The blades being in the water are just are just a harvesting ground for bacteria.
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  And all that bacteria got into my body when the blades went through.
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  Plus being in the water for as long as I was.
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  Right.
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  And they needed to clear all that out.
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  So they told me that they were going to irrigate me.
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  Which I'm gonna tell you, it didn't sound very.
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  An irritate hearing aid that they were gonna take a high pressure hose
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  Oh.
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  And and apply it, to me.
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  And Roxanne, I've never felt a level of pain as when they start applying it.
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  I'm I'm lying.
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  They've cut open my back of my shorts.
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  They pull over my shirt, and I'm lying on this wall.
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  Is hole in the top front of it, and my wife has come in at this point, and they're hosing into
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  the open wounds.
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  And I'm making a sound analyst unnaturally.
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  Mhmm.
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  Just un I never felt anything like it.
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  We went through the clot, cold, I'm wet, and they they had taken up the surgery.
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  The last thing that's been a surgeon.
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  Am I gonna see my am I gonna see my wife and children again?
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  And the surgeon looks at me.
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  He goes, I'll do the best I can.
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  Not the most reassuring answer I was looking.
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  Oh, they have to give you that objective
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  Yeah.
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  I guess you're you're
• 21:28
  you're right.
• 21:29
  Yeah.
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  I agree.
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  But again, if you lied to me, I wouldn't know it, been dead.
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  So fortunately, he was right.
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  I'll I'll hope you anyways, I woke up the next morning in the hospital, but alive, but unable
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  to, unable to feel my anything below my waist.
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  I was able to use my fill my left arm again, but unable to fill anything below my waist.
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  So what did you think?
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  Like, I mean, first of all, I'm gonna say, you're saying, thank you God.
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  I'm alive, first of all, because it technically from all the things that you dodged there, you
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  had everything that potentially meant that you could have died a couple times going backwards,
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  not being able to swim, drowning.
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  Lots of things could have happened, but it didn't happen.
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  And you go into surgery, get up the next morning, and you think, okay, I'm alive, and
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  now you can't move.
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  So then what happens?
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  What what what what what starts to happen for you at that point?
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  Going back to the whole point, I I I'll say this to people.
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  For for as bad as everything went, everything after that went perfect.
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  I I had that horrible accident at one moment but after that, yes, they found me.
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  They called a rescue.
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  They took me to the hospital and good sir.
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  Everything else seemed to fell in a place.
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  I was very fortunate because it could have gone horribly different.
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  That day I'm despondent.
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  I'm I'm facing the the prospects of being paralyzed and being in wheelchair for the rest
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  of my life.
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  Which is daunting because I'm an athletic guy.
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  I played golf.
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  I played basketball, played softball.
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  If it had a ball, I play it.
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  Right?
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  I mean, I'm competitive if I, you know, to a point where if I walk in a men's room and
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  somebody walks in the men's room next to me, it's a race.
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  And It's just where it is.
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  You know, it's competitive.
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  So the, the the prospect of losing my ability to to walk was was very daunting.
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  At night came around the 1st night.
• 23:36
  I have, you get those finally the moment by yourself and then I start to reflect what am I
• 23:44
  going to what am I going to do?
• 23:46
  They came and squeezed me.
• 23:48
  My toe is just the measurement.
• 23:49
  They couldn't, no sensation.
• 23:52
  The next day goes by that night, no cessation.
• 23:57
  It was 8 o'clock at night, and I realized 8 o'clock at night is the time that I used to put
• 24:01
  my son to bed.
• 24:02
  He was three.
• 24:02
  His name's Max.
• 24:03
  I put him in bed.
• 24:05
  He'd get a a horsey ride from me every night, whether it was watching a TV or playing games
• 24:11
  or, reading a story, I get on all fours and go to give him a horsey ride.
• 24:17
  And he had choices.
• 24:18
  He could choose from the, the, the bucking bronco a slow and stupid a slow and stupid
• 24:25
  horse would just stupidly walk into the wrong room and, you know, come back and forget how to
• 24:29
  get to his bedroom.
• 24:30
  But his favorite was the fast and sleepy horse.
• 24:33
  This would be a horse that would take off like a bolt and then suffer sudden bouts of
• 24:38
  narcolepsy.
• 24:39
  I didn't have to shake it at worst C.
• 24:41
  E.
• 24:43
  It was 8 o'clock.
• 24:44
  I'm thinking about that night.
• 24:46
  I wanted to do that again.
• 24:48
  That's what I really missed.
• 24:50
  I wanted to do that.
• 24:51
  I grabbed some pen and paper next to me, and I created what I look at as the most important
• 24:59
  document of my life, more important than the Magna Carta, more important than Declaration
• 25:03
  independence, I wrote down number 1 in my life.
• 25:07
  I'm going to walk.
• 25:08
  And then I restarted, well, with number 2.
• 25:11
  I'm going to climb a flight of stairs.
• 25:14
  Number 3, I'm going to lift my children.
• 25:17
  4, I'm going to go to work.
• 25:19
  5, I'm going to make love to my wife.
• 25:21
  6, I'm gonna go watch the Red Sox play.
• 25:25
  As I'm thinking these things through, I go, you know, Trent, if you're gonna make a list about
• 25:29
  things you wanna do at your life, you might as well make it exotic.
• 25:32
  You know, all those things I've done before.
• 25:34
  So number 7, I'm going to run a marathon.
• 25:39
  Number 8, I'm going to climb a skyscraper.
• 25:42
  Number 9, I'm going to do the Ironman.
• 25:45
  And number 10, because I got a little OCD in me.
• 25:48
  I can't leave a list with just 9.
• 25:50
  I I wanted I was a swimmer.
• 25:52
  I said I wanna I wanna do a swim that's never been done.
• 25:54
  I originally thought the English Channel.
• 25:56
  I said, no.
• 25:56
  I wanna do some and I just didn't know yet, but I said I said, you know, I'm gonna do a do a do
• 26:03
  a do an adventurous swim, and I made that list.
• 26:08
  And I've kept that list, and I lived by that list to move my life forward through my
• 26:13
  recovery and ultimately, the journey passes the physical recovery.
• 26:17
  So you lost
• 26:18
  the physical and then it woke up everything else in you that you said kinda lay dormant to
• 26:27
  some degree.
• 26:28
  Like, you know, and all of us can I think anybody listening to this can so relate?
• 26:33
  I can relate to this.
• 26:34
  You know, you kinda do things.
• 26:36
  You, you know, you have the career.
• 26:38
  You work really hard.
• 26:39
  Your kids are young.
• 26:40
  You're tired.
• 26:41
  You're just you like you're saying, you're trying to get a couple minutes, you know, alone
• 26:45
  before you have to do it all over again.
• 26:47
  And after a becomes like the slow spin, right, in the in the dryer.
• 26:51
  And, you know, and then you kind of lose sight of certain things.
• 26:56
  Not that that's not a great place to be, but it sounds like it just woke up something.
• 27:01
  Now, like you said, I I can do these things, but what else can I do?
• 27:05
  Sure.
• 27:06
  Sure.
• 27:07
  It it really did.
• 27:08
  It I never I'd I tried to run a marathon once.
• 27:12
  And I my friend had done it, and we were in our late twenties.
• 27:16
  And I said, well, if my friend, Jake, can do it so can I?
• 27:19
  And I want it for a run.
• 27:20
  I said, I gotta start training today.
• 27:21
  I want it for a run.
• 27:22
  It felt like forever.
• 27:25
  I came back exhausted.
• 27:26
  I said, I'm gonna get my car and I'm going to measure how far I went just to prove.
• 27:30
  Now I'm it was one point two miles.
• 27:35
  This is Orr.
• 27:36
  I just
• 27:36
  have a couple more to go.
• 27:39
  That that was my marathon train even though my wife before before this before this, event
• 27:46
  happened.
• 27:47
  So before I'm interested because this, you know, me me as being a mental health and
• 27:53
  wellness expert.
• 27:53
  Right?
• 27:54
  You're laying on your back.
• 27:55
  I am on my back.
• 27:56
  I am on my back.
• 27:57
  Yeah.
• 27:58
  And you're Now remember, a passionate lover, according
• 28:01
  to Right.
• 28:01
  Well, and Who
• 28:02
  would talk to the hospital?
• 28:04
  Yeah.
• 28:04
  Yeah.
• 28:04
  Like, meaning meaning that you are thinking I'm not even moving now.
• 28:09
  Right?
• 28:11
  You got
• 28:12
  I mean, I'm gonna assume you had a lot of pain.
• 28:14
  And
• 28:15
  No.
• 28:15
  Surprise surprisingly, no.
• 28:17
  I didn't.
• 28:17
  Because lying in the hospital, they give you Plenty of things for the pain.
• 28:23
  Right.
• 28:23
  So you're not really feeling the the the pain as you're recovering.
• 28:26
  Or not.
• 28:27
  Okay.
• 28:27
  Okay.
• 28:28
  While I'm in the hospital or not,
• 28:30
  Okay.
• 28:30
  Pretty well medicated.
• 28:31
  Okay.
• 28:32
  So at some point, how long does it take you before you start to feel anything again?
• 28:39
  It takes, it takes me, about a week.
• 28:43
  About a week.
• 28:43
  What happens is and what happens is that because I my my cord wasn't cut, but the damage
• 28:52
  all around it, including the small column itself was cut, it created, a mechanism that
• 28:59
  it, like, closed itself up.
• 29:01
  The trauma closed everything and to protect the spine.
• 29:04
  And that closing is what stopped the feeling from transmitting down into my lower half.
• 29:13
  So it didn't damage it was it was just more protective.
• 29:17
  The body protecting itself.
• 29:18
  Well, the the body almost baton and down the hatches to take care of you.
• 29:22
  Intuitively, the body knows how to repair self
• 29:25
  could marry to the metaphor.
• 29:27
  Yeah.
• 29:27
  So it's kinda like goodness.
• 29:29
  And then you're thinking at this point, I'm not moving.
• 29:32
  And of course, any of us, any any person listening, I was gonna think, what am I gonna
• 29:37
  do now?
• 29:38
  Right?
• 29:39
  So with that list before you move, did you look at it all the time?
• 29:45
  And did you did you did you envision yourselves moving?
• 29:49
  Did you start to think about, you know, those things that you would be doing with your son,
• 29:53
  what you would do with your wife, getting back on your kayak, what did you do when you weren't
• 29:58
  moving, or were you feeling sorry for yourself?
• 30:01
  Well, well, the answer is yes.
• 30:03
  I was there there was quite a bit of regret.
• 30:06
  There was a significant amount of regret for being there.
• 30:10
  There was certainly a amount of Why did I do this deserve this?
• 30:14
  I'm a good guy.
• 30:15
  I I didn't deserve this.
• 30:17
  It was quite a bit of self pay.
• 30:20
  Self loathing as well.
• 30:22
  It because when you're in a hospital like that, you're you spend a lot of time alone.
• 30:28
  I mean, the nurses, they come and go.
• 30:30
  But that's it.
• 30:30
  They come and they go.
• 30:32
  Family members can stay for a little bit, but you spend quite a bit of time to have to come
• 30:37
  to some mental, acceptance of what fate may be.
• 30:42
  And the question is, for me, well, which fate was I looking to accept?
• 30:47
  And I and I and I don't mean to express that I have any significant power that that stopped me
• 30:53
  from being paralyzed, not at all.
• 30:57
  It's probably just once again, just my my really good luck in life that I wasn't by
• 31:04
  whatever fractions I wasn't.
• 31:05
  So when I was making this list, I don't want people to to assume that, well, he mentally
• 31:12
  didn't get him keep paralyzed.
• 31:14
  It's not true at all.
• 31:16
  I think we'll talk later maybe lots of my work with with the spinal cord community.
• 31:20
  And I I'm careful with those folks because some of the most of those folks will never walk.
• 31:25
  Of course.
• 31:26
  And I was I was at a function where I was introduced as the man who walked, and I'm
• 31:31
  thinking that is the worst way to think of it.
• 31:34
  My situation was different.
• 31:36
  Mhmm.
• 31:36
  It's different.
• 31:37
  But what is the same, I think, is is how people view what they're going to do afterwards.
• 31:45
  And I the roses smell different.
• 31:49
  The flowers smell different.
• 31:50
  Life's the air was different.
• 31:52
  When I got out of a hospital, I felt born again.
• 31:56
  I felt rejuvenate.
• 31:58
  I felt new.
• 31:58
  I felt different.
• 32:00
  I was able to accept sensory items around me that I just never really would appreciate it.
• 32:08
  The mold that was on the north side of my house bothered you.
• 32:10
  Didn't bother me before.
• 32:11
  I can't, you know, stupid things, but Yeah.
• 32:15
  But I was I had a greater appreciation for life, significant appreciation because of
• 32:20
  because of it almost being taken away.
• 32:24
  Because I think the main thing that I hear you say is that all of us go through things in
• 32:28
  life.
• 32:29
  Right?
• 32:30
  So in your situation, it, it puts you at a critical spot All of us have been through stuff
• 32:37
  where we go through pain.
• 32:38
  Right.
• 32:39
  But it's making that choice to decide am I going to deal with that pain, or am I gonna
• 32:44
  suffer?
• 32:45
  And talking again with that fork in the roads, and sometimes people may go through what you're
• 32:50
  going through or had gone through And then they they create that that victim mentality or that
• 32:56
  poor me mentality instead of kinda, like you said, smelling the roses and recognizing, I can
• 33:02
  actually do the slow and stupid hoe, you know, pony ride or horse ride with my son again, or,
• 33:09
  you know, I can enjoy sitting on that day again and and and and enjoying the sunsets or getting
• 33:14
  back in that kayak.
• 33:16
  To get back in that kayak is symbolic.
• 33:19
  It, I you're you're absolutely right.
• 33:21
  I we went on a camping trip.
• 33:26
  Maybe 4 years later, and I had not been in a boat subsequent.
• 33:32
  In fact, I had such PTSD One time I was driving down the road and I'm behind a boat that was
• 33:37
  being towed and I started shaking and I had to pull off them.
• 33:41
  I suffered quite a bit from PTSD.
• 33:44
  Right.
• 33:45
  I remember the first time I got back into a boat.
• 33:47
  We were on a a a slow river and it was a canoe.
• 33:50
  And my wife was on the front.
• 33:52
  I was back, and it was I was shaking.
• 33:55
  Mhmm.
• 33:56
  And there
• 33:56
  were no boats around You're the lazy.
• 33:59
  I had to do it at some point.
• 34:01
  I had to address that fear, but, yeah, that was that was a tough day.
• 34:05
  I remember having to come back and and face that.
• 34:09
  That was one of the harder ones to do.
• 34:12
  So tell me about, how when you go into organize and I know you speak a lot to organizations.
• 34:19
  I do.
• 34:20
  So I talk about I have a couple of things that I talk about.
• 34:22
  I I use my, financial acronym for 20 years as a finance executive, and I teach business
• 34:29
  strategy at the graduate school level.
• 34:32
  And I study companies.
• 34:34
  So I'm able to use the story, the part of the story that you heard here, where I will talk
• 34:39
  about resilience, but I'm also able to couple that into how I believe organizations operate.
• 34:46
  And I speak, predominantly to frontline managers, people that are have just moved up to
• 34:52
  the ranks, and it might be one of their first management jobs or or, they have been for a
• 34:59
  while, but they're not at a C level.
• 35:01
  When you get to the C level, you've had a lot more training.
• 35:04
  You get business training You get management and interpersonal skill training, but I find
• 35:10
  that many managers, Bob did really well.
• 35:12
  Let's have him run an apartment.
• 35:14
  What makes Bob qualified to run the department?
• 35:16
  And I find that organizations don't do their employees a good service.
• 35:22
  Because they put Bob there and if it fails and it's bond's fault, no, it's the organization's
• 35:27
  fault.
• 35:28
  And so I try to bring the level of education to understand how or how companies organizations
• 35:35
  work, I'd say that there is a heartbeat.
• 35:38
  You know, there is a circulatory system of of a company where information comes in and it has
• 35:44
  to analyze and craft a strategy and execute it out and where these first line people need to
• 35:49
  come to play to that.
• 35:50
  So I've done that now for a couple of years.
• 35:53
  Engine weaving this story has been, has been pivotal to my doing it because it captures the
• 36:02
  audience.
• 36:03
  And I will talk a little bit more about some of the the charity work that I've done because of
• 36:09
  it.
• 36:10
  In light of how 1st line managers can can operate and think.
• 36:14
  So that's what I've been doing now for a little bit of time.
• 36:16
  It's been very rewarding.
• 36:18
  To see your words put into action.
• 36:21
  People come back with your words, boy, Trent, you talked about this, and I was able to do
• 36:25
  that.
• 36:26
  And it's very satisfying.
• 36:27
  He, as you know, as well.
• 36:29
  Of course.
• 36:30
  Of course.
• 36:30
  So you kind of take the the resilience story that fell in your lap.
• 36:35
  Really and to really translate it how it works out organizationally with people.
• 36:39
  Like, I mean, obviously, middle managers sometimes are the most thankless job.
• 36:43
  You can you can get.
• 36:45
  I've been I've been a middle manager multiple times in my career, and it's it's sometimes,
• 36:49
  you know, I says you sometimes you get shoved from the bottom and and shoved from the top.
• 36:53
  Right?
• 36:53
  They get squished in the middle, and they're the ones that really if they if you if an
• 36:58
  organization gets it right with people like that, That that's that's that's your pebble in
• 37:03
  the rough there.
• 37:04
  They you know, you you treat those people well.
• 37:07
  They if they can connect with people at the front line and translate the message down, and
• 37:13
  the frontline person is your, is the person that's kind of seeing, customers day in, day
• 37:17
  out.
• 37:18
  But if the senior executive doesn't appreciate or C suite, like you said, appreciate what the
• 37:22
  middle manager does.
• 37:24
  They might trivialize their their role in the organization and maybe not treat them as well.
• 37:29
  So it's it's really, really important.
• 37:30
  So use your resilience to talk to them about what it's like to be a middle manager and how
• 37:36
  to kind of maneuver through tough times also?
• 37:40
  Well, so my what I'll talk about is I talk about middle managers so that people have to
• 37:46
  figure out how to move Roxanne have to figure how to get the obstacles out of the way so
• 37:50
  they're able to perform better.
• 37:53
  And most male managers don't know that.
• 37:55
  Most middle managers get stuck because they came up to the ranks.
• 37:58
  They understand how this operation works, how their operation works, but they don't have an
• 38:03
  appreciation for how it fits into a bigger Right.
• 38:08
  Where it fits.
• 38:09
  And so I have different, stories that I will use to make a manager or allow a manager to see
• 38:17
  through a very simple story that where they fit in that organization And if this situation
• 38:23
  happens, how you can apply it somewhere else?
• 38:27
  And the stories have silly names.
• 38:31
  Give me an example of a silly name.
• 38:33
  Eat your broccoli.
• 38:34
  Eat your
• 38:36
  broccoli.
• 38:37
  What's a great one?
• 38:39
  Blues clues.
• 38:40
  The moon is never as big as when you first see it.
• 38:43
  Mountains are only majestic from a distance.
• 38:45
  Okay.
• 38:46
  So These are these are stories.
• 38:48
  And what happens is, rather than being technical jargon, if I tell you a story about
• 38:54
  how mountains are only majestic from a distance, the next time you are in a team
• 38:58
  meeting, and this is happening to me where the owners come back, she says, you know, Trent, I
• 39:02
  gotta I've got an email.
• 39:04
  Couple weeks ago.
• 39:04
  You know, we started talking about mountains Trent, and everybody in that room knew what I
• 39:09
  was talking about because a good story resonates with people.
• 39:12
  Technical jargon, kinda lose people sometimes.
• 39:17
  So the the metaphor the metaphor is in the message.
• 39:20
  They do.
• 39:21
  They do.
• 39:22
  Yeah.
• 39:22
  And and what with the resiliency story, I've learned that people don't remember what you say
• 39:28
  to them.
• 39:29
  But they remember how you make them feel.
• 39:31
  And with a good story, they feel that they're in the middle of the situation themselves and
• 39:38
  they have to make those decisions themselves in the story as opposed to being told.
• 39:42
  And so when I talk to organizations and such, this is the the way I try to communicate.
• 39:49
  For sure because if you can get people to buy in to the experience or the story, then they
• 39:55
  see their role.
• 39:56
  Like, you know, you can be the guy in the boat that says you just, you know, using your story
• 40:00
  to say you just wrecked by night or you're the, you know, you're the person you're the one that
• 40:05
  had the long day, and you just needed to get away from, you know, life that day.
• 40:11
  And you thought I'm just gonna go out in this you know, and have some fun and look at what
• 40:16
  happened.
• 40:16
  So there's so many angles that could come from that or just you thinking about the basic
• 40:21
  things like spending time with and people thinking about, you know, do I really really
• 40:27
  get into the moment when I'm with my son or daughter or my wife or my husband?
• 40:32
  You know, so much of a the relatability, I think you're right, you know, because
• 40:36
  oftentimes, unfortunately, in people's lives, it takes something traumatic or, you know, to
• 40:42
  for that change to occur.
• 40:45
  It it does.
• 40:46
  It and it's a shame sometimes that but I guess as humans, we're we always can't be self aware.
• 40:51
  There needs to be an inflection point because and what what are you gonna be at?
• 40:57
  Twenty five years old and and wake up one day ago today, I'm gonna see the world entirely
• 41:01
  different.
• 41:02
  Very hard to do.
• 41:03
  Right.
• 41:04
  We're very hard to do.
• 41:05
  I mean, it takes some some level of epiphany for us to open a door because We like
• 41:13
  repetition.
• 41:14
  We like most most humans like repeating patterns, and it takes something to to knock us
• 41:19
  a skew to accept there's something else.
• 41:22
  I mean, otherwise, I never would have liked punk music.
• 41:25
  I would have been listening to Ellen and John and Billy Joe my whole life, but I painted this
• 41:29
  girl she's like, in a punk music, like, this is horrible.
• 41:32
  And I sat and was like, damn, I like this.
• 41:34
  I listen to punk music more than I stayed with her.
• 41:36
  So it's just a matter.
• 41:39
  So I'm I'm interested in you talk talking about the swim that you did.
• 41:43
  Tell, yeah, I I think I heard a little bit of the story, but that you started you decided to
• 41:49
  do an adventure swim you called that?
• 41:51
  Well, I'd so I've done I've done I've done 3.
• 41:54
  Okay.
• 41:55
  Let me let me tell you about the the first one I did.
• 41:57
  And it's not the one that you and I talked about at at, when we met, if that's okay.
• 42:02
  Yes.
• 42:03
  Sure.
• 42:03
  I finished the first nine items on my list and and I should make sure or tell your audience
• 42:08
  that I walk.
• 42:10
  I've run the marathon.
• 42:11
  I've climbed the skyscraper, and I've done the Ironman.
• 42:13
  So I'm I'm not in a chair.
• 42:18
  And I did all those items in the 1st 4 years after my accident, but I didn't do the swim.
• 42:24
  I kind of held on thinking about what I wanna do as the 10 year anniversary is coming around
• 42:31
  as a full year in advance.
• 42:32
  Excuse me.
• 42:34
  I I was so, grateful of all the of all the way my life had turned out after the the accident.
• 42:41
  And I kept in mind, the same guy that injured my back is the same guy that took me out of the
• 42:45
  war.
• 42:46
  Mhmm.
• 42:47
  And I, I wanted to do something for a community of people that couldn't get out of the
• 42:53
  wheelchair.
• 42:55
  And I decided I was gonna do this swim from Point Judith to Block Island.
• 43:00
  These are in Rhode Island.
• 43:01
  So maybe if your viewers care, they can go look this up, but the Point Judith is the
• 43:04
  southernmost point of Rhode Island.
• 43:06
  And Black Island is an is an island, a town that is twelve miles directly into the Atlantic
• 43:12
  Ocean off that point.
• 43:14
  And I said, I'm going to swim from one to the other, and I'm going to do the swim entirely
• 43:20
  backstroke as a sign of solidarity for the spinal cord community.
• 43:25
  I found an organization in in Boston called Rise of Both paralysis.
• 43:31
  It's a peer mentoring organization that anybody in the New England area that has been paralyzed
• 43:36
  goes to this rehabilitation hospital.
• 43:39
  And what happens there is you are paired up with somebody with the exact same injury fee
• 43:46
  for breaker as such.
• 43:48
  And that peer mentor helps you understand the physical, emotional
• 43:54
  Mhmm.
• 43:54
  How to
• 43:54
  get around how to manage work, family, and the like, after 2 years, you're encouraged to come
• 44:02
  back to the hospital and pay it forward to the next generation.
• 44:06
  Nice.
• 44:06
  I heard about this.
• 44:08
  I said, this is amazing.
• 44:09
  I I wanna do something for these people.
• 44:12
  And I created a foundation to raise money for durable medical goods for that group.
• 44:19
  Now it's going to use the swim to fund it.
• 44:23
  I met the executive director's name is David Estrada, who was a police officer with the
• 44:28
  Boston Police Station, who was on his motorcycle, got hit, was paralyzed.
• 44:32
  And I told him.
• 44:32
  I said, I'm going to swim into the ocean, and I'm gonna raise you $50,000.
• 44:40
  And his next words would change the rating of your your podcast.
• 44:47
  So
• 44:47
  we'll leave those out.
• 44:49
  But he was like, your throat says, what can we do to help?
• 44:51
  I said, show up.
• 44:53
  Just show up, and I'm going to run this.
• 44:56
  The next thing I decided to do is I nobody's ever done this swim.
• 44:59
  It was unprecedented.
• 45:01
  I contacted the University of Rhode Island.
• 45:03
  They have an oceanography school.
• 45:04
  I said, there's I'm sure going from up here to down here isn't that simple because the car
• 45:10
  there's currents around, so put me a map together.
• 45:13
  And he did.
• 45:13
  He developed a map And because the way the currents moved east to west, I couldn't quite
• 45:18
  get there directly.
• 45:19
  So I had to kind of swim out All set.
• 45:25
  Now here's what makes the story harder.
• 45:27
  A week before we're gonna do it, and I was planning to do it on the 10 year anniversary of
• 45:31
  my accent.
• 45:33
  A week before in the Southern Atlantic, a hurricane starts to blow hurricane Leslie.
• 45:41
  And it bills.
• 45:43
  On the East and Seaboard, they have these buoys that that monitor water temperature, air
• 45:51
  temperature, wind speed, and waves.
• 45:56
  The waves outside of Block Island are somewhere 1 or 2 feet normally.
• 46:01
  On that Saturday, they get up to 3.
• 46:04
  On Sunday, they're up to 6 on Monday, they're up to 9.
• 46:10
  And Tuesday, they're up to 12 feet, and I'm getting nervous.
• 46:15
  The hurricane is slowed down, but waves come first.
• 46:20
  Before the storms always come, the waves are coming.
• 46:23
  I called the I called the, the gentleman I'm that was helping me train when my coaches and
• 46:28
  sever.
• 46:29
  And sever's a monosyllabics.
• 46:34
  And so I called him, Hey, Sever.
• 46:35
  He's like, yeah.
• 46:38
  I said, Sever.
• 46:39
  Are you watching the news reports?
• 46:41
  Yep.
• 46:42
  This is our conversation.
• 46:44
  Right?
• 46:44
  And I said, I'm scared about these, I'm scared about these waves.
• 46:50
  They're making me wanna reconsider what we wanna do.
• 46:53
  Maybe I should wear a wet suit.
• 46:56
  Maybe I should swim freestyle, or maybe I should postpone it, and he's eloquent.
• 47:03
  Nah.
• 47:04
  What do you mean?
• 47:05
  Nah.
• 47:06
  It's just He goes, what's the worst that's gonna happen Trent?
• 47:09
  You drown?
• 47:10
  I said, yeah.
• 47:11
  I could drown.
• 47:12
  He goes, good.
• 47:13
  We'll serve good scotch of your service.
• 47:16
  And so he says, listen.
• 47:19
  You made a commitment to the spinal cord community.
• 47:22
  They're coming.
• 47:23
  You made a commitment to yourself to swim it.
• 47:26
  There are gonna be hundreds of other people there watching it.
• 47:28
  The news media is focused in on it, and most importantly, Trent, you made a commitment to
• 47:33
  you're getting on that water and you're gonna swim this.
• 47:36
  But here's right.
• 47:38
  So I was going to go swim it.
• 47:40
  That was on Wednesday morning.
• 47:42
  We've found out that the storm is going to arrive on Sunday.
• 47:45
  Our storm is set for Saturday.
• 47:48
  And so Thursday night, I get an email from the oceanographer, and he writes, I effed up And
• 47:58
  I'm thinking, oh, this can't be good.
• 48:01
  And he writes that he made a mistake in the calculation by 6 hours.
• 48:07
  He said Trent.
• 48:08
  If you swim the way you're going now, you're not gonna make Block Island.
• 48:10
  You're gonna make a long island of York.
• 48:13
  That's so my gosh.
• 48:15
  What are we gonna do?
• 48:16
  She's, well, I don't have time to run the models, but you gotta swim the other direction,
• 48:19
  essentially.
• 48:21
  Oh my goodness.
• 48:23
  So the day came.
• 48:26
  And I'm going there, and I'm scared about what I'm gonna face.
• 48:29
  I look at the water, and the waves are now at 6 to 8 feet.
• 48:33
  And they're crashing hard.
• 48:35
  And I see all these people, about a hundred people to start.
• 48:37
  We're starting at 6620, which is Sunrise.
• 48:40
  That was the goal.
• 48:42
  And so I got there about half an hour before that, and we had a hundred people to start at
• 48:46
  before 6 o'clock in a in a desolate area.
• 48:48
  So I was I was thinking these people are coming to watch a death.
• 48:53
  They're coming to watch somebody drown.
• 48:55
  These morbid folks.
• 48:58
  And then I saw my friend, David Strata, in his wheelchair, and it filled me with a, a sense of
• 49:05
  strength that made me forget about what type of that are serving my memorial service and just
• 49:11
  to get into the water and and go do it.
• 49:15
  And we made it.
• 49:16
  And we raised $50,000.
• 49:19
  Wow.
• 49:19
  And when we when we got into the old parble, I touched them on North Shore.
• 49:24
  We made the the currents were pulling us out and made the noise shore by a 150 yards before
• 49:29
  it pulled the outfalls went on.
• 49:31
  Got back in the boat in Oklahoma, into the old harbor.
• 49:35
  And there's a 270 degree panorama of people.
• 49:39
  The island had come out to watch this.
• 49:41
  All the residents come home, but a lot of lessons.
• 49:44
  As we moded in, you could hear applause from around it, and I knew I knew I'd done something
• 49:50
  good.
• 49:52
  My state representative is a quadriplegic, and he was down at the beach level.
• 49:59
  David Strata was down there.
• 50:00
  A couple other people in their wheelchairs.
• 50:02
  They they took the boat in the eight foot surf to come to this finish, to watch, but, we did
• 50:09
  something really good together.
• 50:11
  And subsequent to that, I've done 2 more charity swims to keep funding this foundation.
• 50:18
  So that, that accident really woke up a deep part of you that probably was already there.
• 50:25
  I'm gonna assume, but it helped you, like you said, you when you were being driven, that
• 50:32
  heightened sense of awareness, whatever we're gonna call it, something woke up in you that
• 50:37
  made you realize that you could do more.
• 50:40
  And that's probably, you know, being not putting enough words into it, but something got
• 50:47
  triggered in you that said I have to make more of my life.
• 50:51
  It it really did.
• 50:52
  And I and I can't I can't describe it adequately other than.
• 50:57
  I have a passion to help other people now.
• 51:00
  I was born.
• 51:01
  I'm I'm an only child, so it means I'm naturally selfish.
• 51:06
  Mhmm.
• 51:06
  And I've had to fight that all through those years.
• 51:11
  After the accident, I don't have to fight it so much anymore.
• 51:14
  I find in me the the desire to give my give my money, give my time, give my efforts to people
• 51:21
  that need something big or small.
• 51:25
  And it's the company rewarding to do.
• 51:27
  Wow.
• 51:28
  You know, I I spent the time with you, but, obviously, we hadn't talked as in-depth.
• 51:32
  And I'm inspired by what you've shared and, you know, oftentimes people that go through pain,
• 51:39
  you know, it's hard for them to see past the pain, right, because it becomes so all
• 51:44
  consuming.
• 51:44
  And, yeah, I think having the pity party, we all would do that as human beings, but then
• 51:49
  ready to kind of look at the gift out of adversity, which is oftentimes what I talk
• 51:54
  about which is definitely what you experienced, and then you made a difference, which is which
• 51:59
  is such an admirable thing to have done.
• 52:02
  So trend, if people are I mean, I know people are gonna wanna talk to you.
• 52:07
  They're gonna want to, you know, have you potentially speak, you know, about, resilience,
• 52:16
  where, where would people get a hold of you if they wanted to have a chat with you about, the
• 52:20
  speaking that you do either for management or resilience?
• 52:24
  I I have my website at www.trendtheory.com, and I'm sure on your, show notes, you'll put that
• 52:31
  address, and it has my email, and it has my personal cell phone number, which people are
• 52:36
  well, I I put it there for a reason.
• 52:38
  Call me, and it can be just to talk.
• 52:40
  It doesn't have to be about business.
• 52:42
  I'm happy just to talk to them because everybody needs somebody to listen sometimes.
• 52:47
  And, You know, I've just found as part of my new calling.
• 52:50
  I do that as well.
• 52:51
  But Awesome.
• 52:52
  Yeah.
• 52:52
  I am.
• 52:53
  I certainly appreciate you taking the time to, to talk me today.
• 52:57
  You're right.
• 52:57
  We didn't get that.
• 52:58
  And and you know what?
• 52:58
  Truthfully, I didn't I didn't get to hear much enough about your stories.
• 53:01
  I know your listeners tune in to you so they can so they could be favored with your, stories
• 53:06
  and insights.
• 53:07
  Well, maybe I'll come and visit you on your podcast and we can chat a little bit more about
• 53:11
  that.
• 53:13
  So everyone listening, resilience is something that's, it's tough, right?
• 53:19
  I think we all get we all go through pain to have lived.
• 53:22
  I often say to have lived means that you've had pain, but it doesn't mean to have mean to it
• 53:27
  does need not be suffering.
• 53:29
  And you know, if you're listening to Trent Story and I talk a little bit about my story,
• 53:33
  which you know that, how many changes that I had made in a short period of time, with kind
• 53:39
  of adversity in my own life.
• 53:41
  And it's it's tough, but when you really kind of stop and slow and really connect, through
• 53:48
  it, then it really connects you with the things that are valuable.
• 53:50
  Like Trent talked about his family and, and, myself, I was doing certain for certain reasons
• 53:56
  to recognize that, you know, life will serve us things that, you know, we don't expect, but we
• 54:01
  can make the most out of it.
• 54:03
  So for anyone wanting more information on me, you can go to roxanderhodge.com.
• 54:09
  I'm a mental health and wellness expert.
• 54:11
  I do, speeches and I also do training.
• 54:14
  So take care, and we'll chat with you soon.
• 54:18
  Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
• 54:23
  healthy change.
• 54:25
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
• 54:31
  roxannedurhaj.com/blueprint.
• 54:35
  We'll see you next time.
• 54:37
  On authentic living with Roxanne.