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A Head On Collision with John Ulsh · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
0:14
Speaker 2: Here we go.
0:15
Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks, welcome
0:19
Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
0:22
Speaker 1: guest today, John Olsh. John, welcome.
0:25
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me, Guy.
0:27
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. So John is an author, speaker, and
0:30
Speaker 1: former health care executive whose work focuses on resilience, grief, purpose,
0:34
Speaker 1: and personal transformation. He's the author of the book, The
0:38
Speaker 1: Upside of Down, A Survivor's Guide to Turning Setbacks into Success.
0:42
Speaker 1: It's part memoir and part resilience guide. In the book,
0:46
Speaker 1: he recounts a catastrophic head-on collision that left him with
0:49
Speaker 1: less than a 3% chance of survival. He spent weeks
0:53
Speaker 1: in a coma, endured more than 45 surgeries, and face
0:56
Speaker 1: years of physical and emotional recovery. Damn, John, welcome to
1:04
Speaker 1: the podcast.
1:06
Speaker 2: Wow, that's, yeah, it's a lot. It's been a heck
1:10
Speaker 2: of a journey for me.
1:12
Speaker 1: Crazy, crazy, but hang on, hang on, hang on. Before
1:14
Speaker 1: we dive in, share with the listeners where you're from
1:17
Speaker 1: originally and where you are currently.
1:20
Speaker 2: I'm originally from central Pennsylvania.
1:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:23
Speaker 2: Born and raised in that Harrisburg area, state capital, more
1:28
Speaker 2: rural than downtown Harrisburg. I grew up in a very
1:31
Speaker 2: rural area and currently still living primarily in that greater PA,
1:36
Speaker 2: Philadelphia area, so Pennsylvania.
1:39
Speaker 1: Awesome. I spent a lot of time in Philly.
1:42
Speaker 2: All right.
1:45
Speaker 1: How the heck does this story start?
1:49
Speaker 2: It started on December 1st of 2007, which was a
1:52
Speaker 2: Saturday morning right after Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving had been real
1:56
Speaker 2: late that year. And my eight-year-old daughter had a swim meet.
2:01
Speaker 2: And swim season in central Pennsylvania in December is indoors.
2:07
Speaker 2: And so we had a swim meet about an hour
2:10
Speaker 2: south of Harrisburg, down closer to the Maryland border. And
2:14
Speaker 2: so we left early that morning. It was a snowy morning.
2:19
Speaker 2: I only know that because I was a marathon runner.
2:21
Speaker 2: I was out that morning for a 10-mile run. There
2:23
Speaker 2: was a light snow on the ground, which, again, in
2:26
Speaker 2: December in Pennsylvania is not necessarily the normal. And so
2:32
Speaker 2: we drove down for the swim meet. We had our
2:35
Speaker 2: four-year-old son with us and basically bribed him that if
2:39
Speaker 2: he could behave himself through the swim meet, we would
2:41
Speaker 2: go get a Christmas tree. So we were there for
2:44
Speaker 2: the swim meet. It was early morning swim meet. It
2:46
Speaker 2: was over by lunch. And when we're pulling out of
2:48
Speaker 2: the high school that where it was, James Buchanan High
2:51
Speaker 2: School was where this meet was, we decided that we
2:55
Speaker 2: would take the scenic route home. And instead of turning
2:57
Speaker 2: left out of the parking lot and going back the
2:59
Speaker 2: exact same direction we came, we turned right. We were
3:03
Speaker 2: on a 55-mile undivided rural road, right? A lot of
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Speaker 2: farms around us. And about 30 minutes after we left
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Speaker 2: the school, a car coming the other direction crossed the
3:16
Speaker 2: center line of an undivided Highway, straightaway. Impact speed was
3:22
Speaker 2: 125 miles an hour. The other car was traveling 70.
3:27
Speaker 2: We were traveling 55. Nobody saw each other. There were
3:32
Speaker 2: no skid marks on the road. So that's how the
3:35
Speaker 2: police report came up to 125, 70 miles and 55
3:39
Speaker 2: traveling in opposite directions. Other driver was by himself, 22-year-old,
3:46
Speaker 2: father of a two-month-old baby, and he died instantly. We
3:51
Speaker 2: know this because he was on a cell phone talking
3:55
Speaker 2: to his fiance. My wife at the time was in
3:59
Speaker 2: the front passenger seat. She was unconscious, broken ribs, broken hand,
4:04
Speaker 2: broken foot, laceration from the seatbelt. My son, the four-year-old,
4:10
Speaker 2: was sitting behind me in a booster seat. Chair came
4:12
Speaker 2: back into him, snapped his fibula, his left leg, lap
4:16
Speaker 2: belt severed his bowel without cutting his skin so he
4:19
Speaker 2: ended up having to have a bowel reduction done he
4:22
Speaker 2: was unconscious and uh our eight-year-old daughter katie was the
4:26
Speaker 2: one in the back passenger seat she was the only
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Speaker 2: one conscious and first responders would find her crying daddy
4:31
Speaker 2: don't die oh god so i took the blunt of
4:35
Speaker 2: it um later magazines would write in articles and call
4:39
Speaker 2: me a modern day humpty dumpty pelvis shattered l1 through
4:44
Speaker 2: l4 the lower vertebrae in my back shattered left foot
4:47
Speaker 2: shattered from the engine block collapsing on it, spleen ruptured,
4:51
Speaker 2: diaphragm ruptured. When my diaphragm ruptured, my left lung completely collapsed,
4:55
Speaker 2: my right lung partially collapsed. And later I would develop
4:59
Speaker 2: actually damage in my heart that was related to it
5:02
Speaker 2: as well. So I was flown and my son and
5:06
Speaker 2: I to Penn State's medical center, which is in Hershey, Pennsylvania,
5:09
Speaker 2: Hershey Chocolate. And I arrived there with less than 3% chance.
5:15
Speaker 2: I took 38 units of blood in the first 12 hours.
5:18
Speaker 2: And my body holds eight. So that's how many times
5:21
Speaker 2: I'm bleeding out.
5:23
Speaker 1: Pause here for a second. So wife, daughter?
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Speaker 2: All survived. All three of them. My wife and both
5:32
Speaker 2: my children all survived. I spent 18 days in a coma.
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Speaker 2: My son spent the second longest amount. He was in
5:41
Speaker 2: the hospital for 15 days because of his bowel. And
5:44
Speaker 2: so by the time I came out of my coma
5:47
Speaker 2: on day 18, all my family was back home recovering.
5:51
Speaker 2: So as quickly as I could process, I knew that
5:54
Speaker 2: my family was all alive. So I had the benefit
6:00
Speaker 2: of being in a coma while the rest of my family,
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Speaker 2: my parents, my wife at the time, my friends, my brother,
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Speaker 2: all managed the crisis that was a whole entire family
6:12
Speaker 2: being injured in a single car accident.
6:15
Speaker 1: So when you wake up from the coma, what is
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Speaker 1: that like?
6:19
Speaker 2: So part of my time I was in induced coma,
6:21
Speaker 2: so the second part of my coma, because I was
6:23
Speaker 2: on a ventilator, couldn't breathe. So I woke up with
6:28
Speaker 2: all that medication they used to induce the coma going
6:31
Speaker 2: through me. So it was a lot of hallucinations, a
6:33
Speaker 2: lot of struggle to even understand what happened. I think
6:38
Speaker 2: my first question was my family was okay. I think
6:41
Speaker 2: my second question was, was it my fault? By that time,
6:44
Speaker 2: the police report was done. They knew the other driver
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Speaker 2: across the center line. No drugs, no alcohol. Literally just
6:50
Speaker 2: a distraction at the last second that caused him to
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Speaker 2: swerve over. It took me two days out of the
6:57
Speaker 2: coma until I realized I was paralyzed from the waist down.
7:01
Speaker 2: I was hooked up to so much stuff and I
7:02
Speaker 2: was in so much pain. I don't know that I
7:04
Speaker 2: even realized I couldn't move my legs or my feet.
7:09
Speaker 2: And so... It was a lot of process. I didn't spend,
7:12
Speaker 2: so by the time I came out of the coma,
7:14
Speaker 2: I only spent another week in the hospital. And I imagined,
7:19
Speaker 2: knowing what my injuries were, that I was going to
7:22
Speaker 2: go to a rehab and start physical therapy to learn
7:27
Speaker 2: to either function in a wheelchair or walk. What I
7:30
Speaker 2: would learn a few days before was I wasn't going
7:32
Speaker 2: to be non-weight-bearing because of my pelvis and my back
7:34
Speaker 2: being put together with titanium. for another eight weeks. So
7:39
Speaker 2: right before Christmas, I moved into a nursing home where
7:42
Speaker 2: I lived for eight more weeks lying flat on my back.
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Speaker 1: You know, listening to this, there's no way I can
7:59
Speaker 1: comprehend what this is like, what it was like for you.
8:02
Speaker 1: When you wake up and you're conscious to the point
8:08
Speaker 1: where you can have a conversation and understand what happened.
8:13
Speaker 1: How does this hit you? What are you, what's going
8:16
Speaker 1: through your mind? I mean, obviously you were a marathon runner. Yeah.
8:20
Speaker 1: So you were like physical guy, good shape.
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Speaker 2: Actually, because again, I survived for over 45 minutes with
8:29
Speaker 2: half of a lung. my body fat was probably 8%
8:33
Speaker 2: or 9%. So when they had to cut me from
8:35
Speaker 2: sternum to pelvis to stop the internal bleeding, they didn't
8:39
Speaker 2: have all this visceral fat to deal with. So yeah,
8:42
Speaker 2: my physical well-being, the fact that I was an endurance athlete,
8:47
Speaker 2: saved my life. But to answer your question, the first
8:52
Speaker 2: seven days I'm in a hospital, I'm lying flat on
8:56
Speaker 2: my back. I'm just trying to comprehend nurses, doctors, doctors,
9:00
Speaker 2: I have all kinds of specialists because of all my injuries. Um, that,
9:05
Speaker 2: that's all just an overwhelming, like I'm still trying to
9:08
Speaker 2: even find, you know, out what's happening to me. Uh,
9:12
Speaker 2: when I moved to the nursing home right before Christmas
9:15
Speaker 2: and then end up spending, you know, so first of all,
9:18
Speaker 2: I'm moving in like two days before Christmas, which have
9:21
Speaker 2: very little staff, whoever my nurses and nurse aides, and
9:24
Speaker 2: they're the lowest on the totem pole if they're having
9:26
Speaker 2: to work Christmas. Right.
9:27
Speaker 1: Right.
9:28
Speaker 2: So, um, The other big reality was when I was
9:32
Speaker 2: in the hospital, they never left me alone. Like I
9:35
Speaker 2: had had all night long nurses checking in, checking vitals,
9:38
Speaker 2: nurse aides coming in, doctors coming in on different shifts.
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Speaker 2: When I moved to the nursing home, I would see
9:45
Speaker 2: my nurse and my nurse aide at 11 o'clock on
9:47
Speaker 2: the third shift at p.m. when they would come in.
9:50
Speaker 2: And then I wouldn't see them again unless I buzzed
9:52
Speaker 2: them until 6 o'clock at night.
9:54
Speaker 1: Wow.
9:54
Speaker 2: So all the processing that was going on was happening
9:58
Speaker 2: when I was just left by myself.
10:01
Speaker 1: Right.
10:02
Speaker 2: At that time, you know.
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Speaker 1: But my question, what was that processing for you? How
10:08
Speaker 1: was it? Were you, are you someone who just, I mean,
10:12
Speaker 1: or did you just have this like, what the fuck
10:15
Speaker 1: is my life is over? Or how am I going
10:17
Speaker 1: to get through? You know, what was it for you?
10:20
Speaker 2: Well, so initially it was a lot of fear. But
10:25
Speaker 2: the fear wasn't at that point that I was going
10:26
Speaker 2: to die. And, you know, the fear wasn't so much
10:30
Speaker 2: that I wasn't going to ever walk again. But, you know,
10:34
Speaker 2: my life was forever changed. And every person from my
10:39
Speaker 2: family to anybody who came to see me treated me
10:42
Speaker 2: completely different. You know, I had this concept I was
10:45
Speaker 2: going to get my old life back. I mean, I'm
10:47
Speaker 2: just driven that way.
10:48
Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 2: My biggest fear is that I wasn't ever going to
10:52
Speaker 2: be myself again or the version of me that, that was,
10:55
Speaker 2: you know, on December 1st at one o'clock in the afternoon,
10:58
Speaker 2: because so much had changed. Everybody treated me differently.
11:03
Speaker 1: In what way?
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Speaker 2: What to say to me, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, Hey,
11:07
Speaker 2: you're lucky to be alive was a lot of medical,
11:10
Speaker 2: but you know, friends and family were like, it's okay
11:13
Speaker 2: if you're gonna be in a wheelchair. I'm like, no,
11:15
Speaker 2: it isn't like a lot of, a lot of, it's
11:18
Speaker 2: the same thing when someone passes away or someone's injured,
11:20
Speaker 2: someone loses a child, you don't know what to say,
11:23
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? And so people were just
11:25
Speaker 2: very concerned about even talking to me, touching me. I
11:30
Speaker 2: was in excruciating pain. There was no question that my
11:33
Speaker 2: journey was going to be very long for whatever recovery
11:37
Speaker 2: was going to be. I mean, just the fact that
11:39
Speaker 2: I was going to spend eight weeks in this nursing
11:41
Speaker 2: home as a 37 year old, just laying on my back,
11:45
Speaker 2: you know, was, was a lot. So, There were times,
11:49
Speaker 2: particularly in nursing, in which I really thought, why the
11:52
Speaker 2: hell did I survive? I wish I didn't survive. I
11:54
Speaker 2: don't want to go through this. I don't want this life.
12:00
Speaker 2: I thought my life was going very, very well. What
12:04
Speaker 2: I would later understand about myself is that I've always
12:09
Speaker 2: been somebody who finds value in being important to other people.
12:13
Speaker 2: It's why I coach or I write a book. It's,
12:16
Speaker 2: you know, it's my life. It's where my value lies
12:19
Speaker 2: in me, good or bad. You know, I'm not great
12:22
Speaker 2: at taking a compliment. I'm definitely not great at having
12:24
Speaker 2: somebody else pick up a check. You know, I like
12:28
Speaker 2: to be valuable to other people. And I was probably
12:32
Speaker 2: the least valuable I could possibly be in my life
12:34
Speaker 2: to anyone. I was paralyzed, naked in a nursing home bed.
12:38
Speaker 2: with caregivers to take care of me. Like I couldn't
12:41
Speaker 2: take care of anything, my kids, my wife, my business, nothing.
12:45
Speaker 2: I was completely, you know, broken down to about, you know,
12:50
Speaker 2: this level of a child or an infant.
12:53
Speaker 1: So let's jump ahead here. How do things unfold or
12:56
Speaker 1: begin to unfold for you?
12:58
Speaker 2: So, you know, I did my time in the nursing home.
13:03
Speaker 2: I entered physical therapy inpatient. with this idea that I
13:08
Speaker 2: was going to be there for probably a month. However,
13:11
Speaker 2: one of the things that I made a decision about
13:14
Speaker 2: early on in the nursing home was I had exercise
13:18
Speaker 2: stretchy bands tied to the frame of my bed. And
13:22
Speaker 2: I would pull those things every hour that I had
13:25
Speaker 2: any energy whatsoever, middle of the night, whenever. I mean,
13:28
Speaker 2: I was 180 pound marathon runner. I was 155 pounds
13:29
Speaker 2: in the nursing home. And I already had low body fat.
13:35
Speaker 2: So I was just losing muscle. And so this idea
13:39
Speaker 2: that I was going to at least have my upper
13:41
Speaker 2: body strength to the best of my ability just became
13:44
Speaker 2: this driving factor for me. And so when I got
13:47
Speaker 2: to the rehab, even though I couldn't put any weight
13:50
Speaker 2: at all on my left leg and couldn't use my
13:52
Speaker 2: left leg, my right leg had started to work and
13:57
Speaker 2: I could hold myself between two parallel bars. And so
14:00
Speaker 2: because of that, I could move a little bit. I
14:03
Speaker 2: could use a walker with my right leg in parallel.
14:05
Speaker 2: I had enough upper body strength to hold myself between railing.
14:09
Speaker 2: And that made a huge difference. And I got out
14:12
Speaker 2: of there in a week. But when I was cut open,
14:17
Speaker 2: they couldn't close my abdominal muscles, so I had no core.
14:20
Speaker 2: I had no abdominal muscles whatsoever. They would later have
14:23
Speaker 2: to go put them together, which turned into another 10
14:28
Speaker 2: days in the hospital because my bowel had grown in here.
14:30
Speaker 2: all kinds of complications related to that. And so I
14:34
Speaker 2: would just keep trying to push a little bit and
14:37
Speaker 2: then I would have a huge setback. I mean, I've
14:39
Speaker 2: had 45 surgeries in 19 years. I've never, I've never
14:45
Speaker 2: gone a year until this past year without a major
14:47
Speaker 2: surgery with anesthesia.
14:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:51
Speaker 2: So it's been, you know, it's just this constant rebuild.
14:55
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things that, that ultimately, you know,
15:00
Speaker 2: changed my, my life was this decision to take after
15:03
Speaker 2: two and a half years, my now 10 year old
15:06
Speaker 2: daughter was out juggling soccer ball. And I'm at home
15:08
Speaker 2: working in my home office. I'm going to walk her
15:10
Speaker 2: at this point in my life. And, uh, she come,
15:13
Speaker 2: I look up and she's not in the front yard anymore.
15:15
Speaker 2: And she comes to the front door crying and she
15:17
Speaker 2: walks in my, in my office. And I asked her
15:20
Speaker 2: what's wrong. And she says, I miss my old daddy,
15:22
Speaker 2: the one who would play with me. You know, geez,
15:25
Speaker 2: I was like of everything I had been through that
15:27
Speaker 2: probably hurt the most. And the next day, I actually
15:30
Speaker 2: quit outpatient rehab and just started working out on my own.
15:35
Speaker 2: And I just happened to walk into my local YMCA
15:38
Speaker 2: at 10 a.m. right after I quit my physical therapy.
15:41
Speaker 2: And there was a group of teens with Down syndrome
15:44
Speaker 2: that were working on the special needs program. And I
15:47
Speaker 2: immediately was just absorbed into that and felt, you know,
15:51
Speaker 2: I didn't want to work with my peers. I didn't
15:53
Speaker 2: want people to sit there and In physical therapy, it's, hey, John,
15:57
Speaker 2: you're doing great. Keep pushing. I don't know if you've
16:00
Speaker 2: spent any time with adults or teens with Down syndrome.
16:03
Speaker 2: They're the most positive human beings for no reason other
16:06
Speaker 2: than that's who they are. No bullshit. They just are
16:09
Speaker 2: who they are. And so that became like this life
16:13
Speaker 2: shift moment for me in which this young man named Danny,
16:17
Speaker 2: who was 17, Down syndrome just was just in my face.
16:22
Speaker 2: Tell me, you know, you're going to be fine. You're
16:24
Speaker 2: going to be great. Come on and work out with me.
16:26
Speaker 2: And every day I'd walk in, he'd be like, work
16:28
Speaker 2: out with me. And so that became my life for
16:31
Speaker 2: about 14 months.
16:32
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. As you were going through this process, this journey,
16:40
Speaker 1: was there, what was your attitude towards the accident itself,
16:45
Speaker 1: towards driving or cars or anything like that?
16:50
Speaker 2: So I got in a car when I left in-house rehab, rehabilitation.
16:56
Speaker 2: I'd be transported by wheelchair. So I got in a car.
17:00
Speaker 2: My attitude has always been I have choices, right? I
17:04
Speaker 2: can choose to blame the other driver for my life.
17:09
Speaker 2: He died. He paid the ultimate sacrifice. I could choose
17:13
Speaker 2: to just blame the accident as a whole. I could
17:16
Speaker 2: choose to blame God for what happened to me. I
17:20
Speaker 2: had all those choices, but I also had the choice
17:23
Speaker 2: to choose what I would do going forward. There was
17:27
Speaker 2: a point where probably two to three years afterwards where
17:31
Speaker 2: I realized I'm never getting my old life back. But
17:33
Speaker 2: I also had this realization I get to create a
17:37
Speaker 2: life that has value to me based off of what
17:40
Speaker 2: I am capable of doing. And later, as I started
17:46
Speaker 2: to write my book and started realizing there were certain
17:49
Speaker 2: principles that I always kind of relied on, I mean,
17:53
Speaker 2: one of them was this sheer idea that I could
17:58
Speaker 2: show up and commit every day and set a plan,
18:02
Speaker 2: and that may have zero opportunity to ever achieve, and
18:06
Speaker 2: it can't be my fault. I always say I wasn't
18:09
Speaker 2: a first responder. I'm not a military person. I'm not
18:15
Speaker 2: even a, you know, motocross racer. I'm just driving home
18:17
Speaker 2: from a swim meet and my life is turned upside down,
18:19
Speaker 2: completely out of my control, right? What I can control
18:23
Speaker 2: is showing up every single day, going to the gym,
18:28
Speaker 2: starting to actually just love being in the process of
18:31
Speaker 2: it instead of just being this person who had this
18:35
Speaker 2: goal to get their life back or get this goal
18:38
Speaker 2: to get my legs working better or get in better
18:42
Speaker 2: shape or Because what I kept finding is there was
18:46
Speaker 2: all this stuff I couldn't control. I could set this goal,
18:49
Speaker 2: set this timeline, push myself, and then I'd have to
18:52
Speaker 2: have another surgery because I was about to have my
18:55
Speaker 2: left leg amputated. Or all of a sudden, things out
19:00
Speaker 2: of my control were going to just keep pushing back
19:04
Speaker 2: my timeline. And I just quit having this finish line
19:09
Speaker 2: mentality and just said, you know what? I don't want
19:12
Speaker 2: to finish line. I just want to show up. I
19:16
Speaker 2: want to show up in, in, in, in the gym
19:18
Speaker 2: with my recovery. I want to show up with, you know, speak,
19:22
Speaker 2: speaking in large group. Like I just want to show up.
19:24
Speaker 2: I can't put the timeline of how fast things are
19:27
Speaker 2: going to take off, but I can control every single day,
19:31
Speaker 2: whether I commit to doing it. And then I asked myself,
19:33
Speaker 2: did I, did I try today? Sure.
19:35
Speaker 1: Okay.
19:36
Speaker 2: Good enough.
19:38
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with John Olsh. The book is called The
19:40
Speaker 1: Upside of Down, A Survivor's Guide to Turning Setbacks into Success.
19:44
Speaker 1: So talk to us about the book. When did you
19:47
Speaker 1: decide to write it? Why did you want to write it?
19:50
Speaker 2: So the book is two parts. The first part is
19:54
Speaker 2: sort of this journey that I was on through all
19:58
Speaker 2: the surgeries, through me becoming, I became a Spartan racer,
20:02
Speaker 2: obstacle racing. Shut up. Yeah, because I got so strong
20:07
Speaker 2: in the gym. I could never run again. My circulatory problems, everything.
20:11
Speaker 2: But I got strong, like really strong. Still am. And
20:15
Speaker 2: not because I wanted to, but ironically because I could
20:18
Speaker 2: control the pain in the gym that I couldn't control
20:21
Speaker 2: anywhere else. I had all this chronic pain. I was
20:24
Speaker 2: taking 90 milligrams of morphine twice a day when I
20:26
Speaker 2: had to go off of it and through rehab. And
20:30
Speaker 2: what I figured out is if I went to the
20:32
Speaker 2: gym and I pushed myself really hard and I was sore,
20:36
Speaker 2: that was my control. It was progress and I can control.
20:40
Speaker 2: I can't control the chronic pain from my back being
20:42
Speaker 2: shattered or my pelvis shattered. And so that was becoming
20:45
Speaker 2: like sort of a mechanism for me. But because of,
20:49
Speaker 2: you know, that journey being in Men's Fitness Magazine, I mean,
20:54
Speaker 2: being in Good Morning America, demonstrating Spartan races in Times Square.
20:59
Speaker 2: It was just this journey that I was on. I
21:01
Speaker 2: started to not remember stuff from all the narcotics and
21:04
Speaker 2: all the anesthesia. And so people would ask me, like
21:09
Speaker 2: I spoke to a lot of nurse aid programs because
21:12
Speaker 2: it was a very unique situation. I lived in a
21:14
Speaker 2: nursing home and got better. Most people don't move into
21:17
Speaker 2: a nursing home and get better. So I was a
21:19
Speaker 2: great person to bring in. A lot of these nurse
21:20
Speaker 2: aides were going to end up in nursing care and
21:22
Speaker 2: nursing homes. And so I would, and the professors would
21:26
Speaker 2: be like, tell this story and I wouldn't remember it.
21:28
Speaker 2: So I started the book as more of a documentary
21:33
Speaker 2: of what happened to my kids who were eight and
21:35
Speaker 2: four at the time. they didn't understand anything other than
21:38
Speaker 2: their dad wasn't the same person. Yeah. So I started
21:41
Speaker 2: it that way. Um, I had some real big life
21:44
Speaker 2: change things happen. Um, about 12 years ago related to, uh,
21:49
Speaker 2: one of my best friends committed suicide, uh, his children,
21:52
Speaker 2: my God children. And I just felt I was at
21:55
Speaker 2: that point speaking on big stages around the country. And
21:58
Speaker 2: I just said, I have to go be there for
22:01
Speaker 2: them because he was there. My friend was there for
22:03
Speaker 2: me through all of this journey. And, uh, And so
22:07
Speaker 2: I kind of put the book on hold and had
22:10
Speaker 2: this 30,000-page manuscript. And then about two years ago, I
22:14
Speaker 2: started speaking a lot more again because I had time.
22:16
Speaker 2: The kids were all in college and graduating college. And
22:22
Speaker 2: out of that, people said, what about your book? And
22:24
Speaker 2: by that point, I had formed, through my coaching, these
22:27
Speaker 2: eight principles. So the second part of my book, which
22:30
Speaker 2: is about 22,000 words, I wrote that in January of 2025.
22:37
Speaker 2: in about seven days because it was all in me.
22:44
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like the second part of
22:45
Speaker 2: my book is literally a coaching platform on these eight pillars,
22:48
Speaker 2: how to incorporate them into any adversity that you're having,
22:51
Speaker 2: how to, how to use those adversities as a springboard
22:55
Speaker 2: to propel you forward instead of holding you back and
22:58
Speaker 2: just a mind shift change of how you can treat
23:01
Speaker 2: them and look at them. So, so the book itself
23:03
Speaker 2: came out October, of last year. It made USA Today
23:07
Speaker 2: bestseller list. And, but it was a long journey. It
23:12
Speaker 2: was two parts. I mean, I wrote that first part,
23:15
Speaker 2: changed it a bunch because when I wrote it the
23:17
Speaker 2: first time for the kids, I took a lot of
23:19
Speaker 2: the dark parts of my journey out of it for them.
23:22
Speaker 2: And now they're adults. And so I'm like, no, it wasn't,
23:26
Speaker 2: it was too much unicorns and rainbows than it really
23:30
Speaker 2: was for me. And so I was very, cognitive of
23:34
Speaker 2: putting some of the darker stuff back in, because I
23:38
Speaker 2: think people need to know it's not, you know, that
23:41
Speaker 2: it's not a journey in which everything just always, I
23:43
Speaker 2: was always positive because I wasn't always positive.
23:48
Speaker 1: So let's get to these or some of these principles. Yeah.
23:54
Speaker 1: Play it out for us.
23:54
Speaker 2: Okay. So there's, there's two, I often talk about the
23:58
Speaker 2: first one. The first principle is, is commitment. We were
24:01
Speaker 2: talking a little bit about that, about that earlier. My
24:04
Speaker 2: commitment comes from the fact that I'm committed to showing up.
24:09
Speaker 2: I'm committed to understanding that there are things that are
24:11
Speaker 2: out of my control. Number two is a source of
24:17
Speaker 2: your problems. I think a lot of people will tell
24:19
Speaker 2: me I have five or six problems, and I think
24:22
Speaker 2: when we boil them down, we usually get it to one.
24:27
Speaker 2: If it's a CEO or in an executive kind of situation,
24:33
Speaker 2: Sometimes when we start knowing all the problems, problems come
24:35
Speaker 2: down to time blocking management problems. Like I don't create
24:38
Speaker 2: the right time block, right? So everything comes home with me, whatever.
24:43
Speaker 2: The other ones that I really like to focus on
24:46
Speaker 2: is actually number seven. And that's the nirvana of this
24:52
Speaker 2: program is falling in love with the process. When you
24:57
Speaker 2: no longer are there because of the goal, and you're
25:02
Speaker 2: there because you want to be in it, right, that
25:08
Speaker 2: is when you truly have made, you know, the commitment
25:12
Speaker 2: and change that you need. I learned it from Danny.
25:15
Speaker 2: I mean, Danny was the special needs kid who just, again,
25:17
Speaker 2: everybody there from UCP's special needs program were there for,
25:22
Speaker 2: you know, being there, working out. Danny was strong as hell,
25:26
Speaker 2: but it had nothing to do with what his goal was.
25:29
Speaker 2: You know, his goal was never to get strong. His
25:30
Speaker 2: goal was to be there. And when Danny had to leave,
25:32
Speaker 2: he didn't like it. And he couldn't wait to get
25:34
Speaker 2: back to the next day. And, you know, I've been
25:36
Speaker 2: fortunate to talk to a lot of athletes, both professional
25:41
Speaker 2: and collegiate athletes and even high school athletes. And, you know,
25:45
Speaker 2: I will tell you that you never find a top-tier
25:48
Speaker 2: athlete who hates practice. They just don't exist, right?
25:52
Speaker 1: But let me interject for one second. So just to
25:55
Speaker 1: play devil's advocate here and for the benefit of our listeners,
26:03
Speaker 1: Maybe this is too extreme, but what's wrong with the goal?
26:06
Speaker 1: What's wrong with having a goal or focusing on the goal?
26:09
Speaker 1: What shifts when, as you say, you start to love
26:13
Speaker 1: the process?
26:14
Speaker 2: Well, so I wouldn't say that there's nothing wrong with
26:18
Speaker 2: having goals. I love small goals. In fact, one of
26:21
Speaker 2: my key elements of falling in love with the process
26:25
Speaker 2: is taking wins, making small wins and small goals. Because
26:29
Speaker 2: Every time I looked at a big goal, like, oh,
26:31
Speaker 2: I'm going to be able to run again or walk again.
26:33
Speaker 2: I looked at where I was and how far away
26:36
Speaker 2: I was from that goal. And it was just overwhelming
26:40
Speaker 2: to me. Like, you can't get there. But I could
26:43
Speaker 2: commit to every day coming and showing up every single day.
26:47
Speaker 2: And if my goal every single day was to get
26:49
Speaker 2: out of my bed, get in my car or have
26:53
Speaker 2: a driver take me to physical therapy or to the gym,
26:56
Speaker 2: and I achieved that goal that day, then I had
26:59
Speaker 2: to win, right? There's so many things out of a
27:03
Speaker 2: big goal that you can't, they're out of your, out
27:05
Speaker 2: of your control. You know, there's, there's a portion of
27:09
Speaker 2: it that's luck, right? There's a portion where you're counting
27:12
Speaker 2: on someone else or other organizations to do certain things
27:16
Speaker 2: for you to achieve your goal. So, I mean, my last,
27:19
Speaker 2: my last pillar, number eight is, is taking wins. I,
27:23
Speaker 2: I love wins. In fact, you know, from a guy
27:25
Speaker 2: who's a, you know, a marathon runner, you know, I,
27:29
Speaker 2: Every person I've met who's run a marathon has their
27:33
Speaker 2: medal somewhere important to them. That medal wasn't because they
27:36
Speaker 2: won the damn marathon. That medal is because they competed
27:39
Speaker 2: and finished something that they set out to do. I
27:44
Speaker 2: love trophies as they represent something. If something's super valuable,
27:49
Speaker 2: if you have a great year in business and you
27:52
Speaker 2: decide between Christmas and New Year's to go buy a
27:55
Speaker 2: gold watch or go buy something expensive, And when you
27:58
Speaker 2: look at that watch, you remember the year that you
28:00
Speaker 2: had and why it was important. It doesn't have to
28:02
Speaker 2: be some ribbon or trophy or medal. It just has
28:06
Speaker 2: to be a symbol. And so like my office is
28:09
Speaker 2: always full of symbols of things that I've been through
28:12
Speaker 2: and they remind me that I can do great things.
28:17
Speaker 2: And so focusing on a goal is important if you
28:24
Speaker 2: break it down. Because, you know, sometimes... you have to
28:28
Speaker 2: yield to setbacks, injuries. The economic market shifts that are
28:37
Speaker 2: out of your control, when those happen, instead of looking
28:42
Speaker 2: at them as, oh, this is just going to beat
28:45
Speaker 2: me back down and going to keep me from getting
28:46
Speaker 2: where I want to be, it's just a mind shift
28:49
Speaker 2: to say, now I focus on just showing up every
28:52
Speaker 2: day and keep moving forward. And my recovery over an
28:56
Speaker 2: 18-year period looks to very much like you started way
28:59
Speaker 2: down here and you went way up here. If you
29:00
Speaker 2: zoom in on any year or any month, there are
29:03
Speaker 2: plenty of years and months in which I went backwards
29:07
Speaker 2: out of my control. And sometimes it's just my decision
29:09
Speaker 2: to give myself enough grace to be like, I can't
29:11
Speaker 2: push myself right now. And so I, I feel like
29:16
Speaker 2: when you kind of want to do something that you
29:20
Speaker 2: absolutely love getting up for and doing, then the outcomes,
29:27
Speaker 2: isn't as rewarding as the opportunity to get to do it.
29:31
Speaker 2: You know, some people will say, well, I have to,
29:36
Speaker 2: you know, go to my job today. And I would say, no,
29:39
Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to get to go to your
29:41
Speaker 2: job today. You don't have to, you know, look, if
29:45
Speaker 2: you say I have to do something, you know, I,
29:49
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted more than anything in the world
29:51
Speaker 2: to go to my job when I was paralyzed on
29:53
Speaker 2: the bed. I wanted more than anything to get out
29:55
Speaker 2: of the bed. Um, But what I woke up to
29:58
Speaker 2: every day was an opportunity to keep pushing myself to
30:02
Speaker 2: get towards the day that I get to get out
30:05
Speaker 2: of a bed or the day I get out of
30:07
Speaker 2: a wheelchair. I just look at it as, you know,
30:12
Speaker 2: I can tell you one thing. I had no control
30:17
Speaker 2: over where I began after the car accident, right? I
30:20
Speaker 2: only had control over where I was going to go.
30:24
Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, John, I don't know.
30:27
Speaker 1: most definitely been asked this question before, but what do
30:32
Speaker 1: you make of the accident? I mean, why did this happen?
30:39
Speaker 2: That's a really good question. I spent a lot of
30:41
Speaker 2: time talking to a lot of therapists, priests, rabbis, pastors,
30:47
Speaker 2: a lot of smart people, and I'd let go of
30:51
Speaker 2: why it happened. There's nothing I could People ask me
30:56
Speaker 2: if you could go back and turn left instead of
30:58
Speaker 2: right out of the parking lot, would you? And I've
31:00
Speaker 2: said absolutely for the sake of my children, I would.
31:04
Speaker 2: But if it were just me, I don't know that
31:06
Speaker 2: I would. I mean, it's shifted me in a lot
31:09
Speaker 2: of positive ways. Do I live with chronic pain? Yeah,
31:13
Speaker 2: but so do a lot of people. A lot of
31:17
Speaker 2: people live with a lot of things, right? It's just
31:19
Speaker 2: a matter of how you do it. So I really
31:23
Speaker 2: think the accident itself was a moment in time that
31:29
Speaker 2: shifted everything immediately upside down. I look at the last
31:33
Speaker 2: 19 years as a journey that was based off of
31:41
Speaker 2: a shift that was out of my control. And the
31:44
Speaker 2: sooner I learned to accept the fact that I was
31:48
Speaker 2: on a new projectory, that my life, whatever it was
31:52
Speaker 2: doing that day, split. And, you know, now I live
31:56
Speaker 2: the life that I was given. I was, you know,
32:01
Speaker 2: I've had a number of miracles that I'm alive. When
32:05
Speaker 2: they found the hole in my heart at the time,
32:06
Speaker 2: I was the only person in the United States alive
32:09
Speaker 2: with a traumatic hole in the heart. Only person. Because
32:14
Speaker 2: I should have died. So, you know, the last 18
32:18
Speaker 2: surgeries I've had have all been because I didn't die.
32:22
Speaker 2: They're all complications related to all that things that happened
32:25
Speaker 2: to me that should have killed me. So I can't
32:27
Speaker 2: even be upset about the fact that I've had 18
32:30
Speaker 2: more surgeries because they've been things like repair the veins
32:33
Speaker 2: in my legs and, you know, repair my heart, repair
32:37
Speaker 2: things that, that have gotten, you know, worse and damaged
32:41
Speaker 2: because of the injuries that I sustained. But they, they,
32:44
Speaker 2: they were, you know, chronic related to, to, to surviving
32:48
Speaker 2: and living.
32:50
Speaker 1: Jesus. I know you don't like compliments. Yeah. But you're inspiring.
32:59
Speaker 1: I mean, beyond inspiring, John, really. I mean, crazy. I mean,
33:09
Speaker 1: from my, come on. Amazing.
33:14
Speaker 2: Thank you.
33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jesus. Yeah.
33:18
Speaker 2: But you know what? Here's what I'll leave you with, guy.
33:20
Speaker 2: People ask me all the time, like, how did you
33:21
Speaker 2: spend all that time laying on your back? How do
33:23
Speaker 2: you keep putting yourself through this? And I would, I
33:26
Speaker 2: would ask, I would ask every mother of, you know,
33:29
Speaker 2: who's got children, how do you keep going back and
33:32
Speaker 2: going through birth? Like, you don't, you don't know what
33:34
Speaker 2: you're physically capable of and mentally capable of until you're
33:38
Speaker 2: actually put in that environment. You know, you can train
33:41
Speaker 2: soldiers over and over again in war games until they're
33:45
Speaker 2: placed in that environment. They don't know who they are.
33:48
Speaker 2: And I would say that's, that's true of all of
33:51
Speaker 2: us in I don't think I was, I knew that
33:53
Speaker 2: I was built to push myself harder because I pushed
33:56
Speaker 2: myself in college as a college athlete. I pushed myself
33:58
Speaker 2: as a marathon runner. I knew what it was like
34:00
Speaker 2: to take things to an edge and then try to
34:02
Speaker 2: push them a little further. But there's lots of those people.
34:05
Speaker 2: There's millions of people running, run a marathon in this world.
34:10
Speaker 2: But I think, you know, I, why would I say
34:13
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it if you asked me before the
34:15
Speaker 2: accident happened? So no way. But we learned. what we're
34:19
Speaker 2: capable of when we're placed in those environments.
34:23
Speaker 1: But it's not just that. It's that, yes, I hear
34:28
Speaker 1: you and I agree with everything you said, but it's
34:31
Speaker 1: what you've done specifically, personally, right? The choices you've made,
34:36
Speaker 1: as you said, how you've responded to the adversity. You
34:40
Speaker 1: walked into that at YMCA. You met Danny. He inspired you.
34:45
Speaker 1: That sets you off. You made specific decisions, which in
34:48
Speaker 1: and of themselves are amazing. They are. They're inspiring for
34:53
Speaker 1: us as listeners and people who watch you and listen
34:56
Speaker 1: to you. And so I want to thank you for
35:00
Speaker 1: being here. Awesome. How do people learn more about you
35:04
Speaker 1: and the book? What's the best way?
35:06
Speaker 2: JohnUlsch.com. Everything's there. Links to my social are there. all
35:11
Speaker 2: of the podcasts that I do not do my own,
35:14
Speaker 2: but I love being a guest. I love these interactions.
35:16
Speaker 2: So there's links to all those. I have a coaching
35:19
Speaker 2: program that we just launched. It's a group coaching program.
35:22
Speaker 2: It's via Zoom. It's every week. And we literally just
35:25
Speaker 2: launched it this week. I've been doing individual executive coaching
35:29
Speaker 2: and I can only handle so much of that in
35:32
Speaker 2: a week. And so we weren't getting to as many people.
35:34
Speaker 2: So that's brand new. That's on my website now. The
35:37
Speaker 2: website is brand new. It just launched again this week.
35:41
Speaker 1: We'll have all those linked up here at the show
35:46
Speaker 1: notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. John, thank you, sir. Great
35:50
Speaker 1: meeting you.
35:51
Speaker 2: Great meeting you, guys. All right.
35:52
Speaker 1: Take care.