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This Story Will Change Your Life _ A Motivational Story · Motivation study

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  Speaker 1: You know, you read three words. You read three words
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  Speaker 1: that you probably don't think that you would ever see,
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  Speaker 1: and it says, crash victim dies. And then it changes.
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  Speaker 1: It's not only about you, not only about your fears
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  Speaker 1: and your wounds. Now you begin to see and to
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  Speaker 1: realize that our choices have this ripple effect that can
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  Speaker 1: affect other people, other families. And so this was the
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  Speaker 1: reality on July 17th, 2009. I think at the core
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  Speaker 1: of us, we long for human connection. There's an ember
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  Speaker 1: in all of us that just want to feel like
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  Speaker 1: we belong, find that place in that space. And so
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  Speaker 1: I was in that pursuit. And so when some of
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  Speaker 1: the friends that I had growing up throughout the younger years,
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  Speaker 1: they weren't the popular kids. but I needed you to
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  Speaker 1: see me a certain way, you know? And so I
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  Speaker 1: walked away from those friends, probably the worst mistake of
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  Speaker 1: my life, and tried to find new friends that would
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  Speaker 1: give me the image. My sophomore year, some new friends
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  Speaker 1: that I developed, they asked me to come over to
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  Speaker 1: a party and pop the pill and take the drink and,
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  Speaker 1: you know, some of the things that are pretty typical
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  Speaker 1: in the high school experience, right, wrong, or different. There's
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  Speaker 1: just these opportunities for you to have a choice to
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  Speaker 1: compromise yourself or not to compromise yourself. So now as
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  Speaker 1: I'm getting involved with drugs and alcohol and just some
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  Speaker 1: sort of destructive things, I went from straight A's to
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  Speaker 1: straight F's. My senior year, I'm a full-blown alcoholic and
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  Speaker 1: an addict and just a lot of destructive mentalities. And
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  Speaker 1: I got expelled my senior year. I You know, in
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  Speaker 1: that moment, you begin to lose hope. You begin to
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  Speaker 1: feel like you're labeled from the community around you, and
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  Speaker 1: you start to have this internal battle. Why should I
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  Speaker 1: even try to change? You know, maybe what it is
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  Speaker 1: is what it was always supposed to be. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I don't have a purpose. This is just kind of
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  Speaker 1: like what life dealt me. It was the deck, and
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  Speaker 1: now I just got to live with it. You know,
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  Speaker 1: so here I am now, really seven years removed from
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  Speaker 1: being a straight-A student as a freshman, It was a
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  Speaker 1: typical Friday night and that new group of friends that
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  Speaker 1: I had developed over the years. There was a party and,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I'm 23. What's the big deal? Let's just
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  Speaker 1: go to the party and have a few drinks. And
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  Speaker 1: I went and when the alcohol ran out, we went
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  Speaker 1: to a bar, had a few more drinks and then
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  Speaker 1: the bar is going to close and we were going
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  Speaker 1: to go to another after party. Actually, we're going to
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  Speaker 1: my friend's house where we were all going to go
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  Speaker 1: to and I knew him really well and they asked
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  Speaker 1: me if I wanted to leave a little bit early.
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  Speaker 1: And so, um, and kind of get the party ready
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  Speaker 1: and I was sure why not, but I was too
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  Speaker 1: drunk and I wasn't going to drive. So I, I
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  Speaker 1: remember I called my friend Priscilla. Um, Priscilla had moved
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  Speaker 1: to Alabama a few months previous to this night. Um,
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  Speaker 1: she has friended a group of us and she wasn't
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  Speaker 1: there that night and I needed her to drive her.
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  Speaker 1: So I called Priscilla and she shows up and, but
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  Speaker 1: somewhere in that process, that's when everything really changed. Somehow
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  Speaker 1: I got the keys. Still today, we don't know how
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  Speaker 1: this moment transpired. She was basically sober and I was
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  Speaker 1: extremely inebriated. But nevertheless, you know, I got the keys.
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  Speaker 1: And next thing I know, I wake up. I wake
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  Speaker 1: up in a hospital bed. I remember leaving the bar
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  Speaker 1: and getting to her car. We were right around the
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  Speaker 1: corner from TJ's house and I can still hear her voice.
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  Speaker 1: She said the word tree. I was in a helicopter
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  Speaker 1: and I woke up in this hospital with police officers
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  Speaker 1: over top of me asking me questions. Who is she?
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  Speaker 1: What's her name? Her name's Priscilla and I'm confused. They
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't really tell me anything because I wasn't family. They
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  Speaker 1: said she's alive but she's struggling. That morning for some
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  Speaker 1: reason they didn't arrest me. They let me leave. And
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  Speaker 1: they just told my mom who had showed up, we'll
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  Speaker 1: be in contact with you guys soon. And on the
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  Speaker 1: ride home, my mom was able to collect some information
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  Speaker 1: of what happened that night because my sister being a nurse,
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  Speaker 1: we didn't know the specifics per se, but we just
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  Speaker 1: knew things were going to change. And there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of trauma to Priscilla. And she didn't put on her
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  Speaker 1: seatbelt that night. When we hit the tree at a
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  Speaker 1: high rate of speed, she flung forward and the case
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  Speaker 1: of beer I put in the back seat, it flung forward.
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  Speaker 1: The seatbelt restrained me, but she didn't have on hers.
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  Speaker 1: And upon impact, she was just catapulted forward and the
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  Speaker 1: windshield and her and the case of beers kind of collided.
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  Speaker 1: You know, as my mom's telling me some of the information,
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  Speaker 1: you think this happens to everybody else, not people like me,
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  Speaker 1: not like you. It's the dangers of this thing, right?
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  Speaker 1: You begin to feed a bear cub, the bear cub's
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  Speaker 1: cute and it's cuddly, that addiction. But eventually the bear
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  Speaker 1: cub grows up and it's a full grown grizzly. And
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  Speaker 1: if you don't keep feeding it, it can kill you.
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  Speaker 1: And so you begin feeding it and feeding it. And
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  Speaker 1: next thing you know, you can't break free from it.
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  Speaker 1: That was my addiction. And, uh, Carolyn, um, priscilla's mom
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  Speaker 1: and olivia her sister about three days after the wreck
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  Speaker 1: first off i'm waiting for just the police to show
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  Speaker 1: up probably and arrest me right like the unknown what's
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  Speaker 1: gonna happen what's this even mean they want me to
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  Speaker 1: call them and so i pick up the phone and
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  Speaker 1: i'm weeping and i remember what carolyn said to me
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  Speaker 1: and olivia that that on that call and they're emotional
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  Speaker 1: and they say, Nathan, we're angry, we're sad, we're mad.
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  Speaker 1: We don't know what to feel. But we just don't
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  Speaker 1: think one dumb choice should destroy two families' lives. We
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  Speaker 1: want you to know in this moment we've picked love
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  Speaker 1: over hate and we decide to forgive you. And they
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  Speaker 1: asked me to do two things. Don't let our daughter
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  Speaker 1: Priscilla please pass away for nothing and try to make
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  Speaker 1: the world a better place. And of course you say yes, right?
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  Speaker 1: Like your brain's trying to register because in today's society,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they had every right to hate me and
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  Speaker 1: demand justice and for that to be me and not her.
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  Speaker 1: And to be honest, I think I'm wrestling with that
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  Speaker 1: place in that moment. Like I knew the struggles, my hurts,
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  Speaker 1: the poor decisions, the brokenness. I would have did anything
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  Speaker 1: to reverse those roles. And here's this family finding this
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  Speaker 1: craziest courage I've ever seen in my life. They stepped
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  Speaker 1: into their most difficult time in their life and they
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  Speaker 1: picked love over hate to forgive. And I said, yes,
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  Speaker 1: but just because a family found radical courage to forgive
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  Speaker 1: doesn't mean my choices didn't have consequences. And so At
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  Speaker 1: 23 years old, when I should have been a senior
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  Speaker 1: graduating college, just a few years removed from when things
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  Speaker 1: were better, I got sentenced to 15 years of prison,
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  Speaker 1: sentenced to a crime of reckless homicide, vehicle manslaughter. So
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  Speaker 1: here I am now at 23 with this family forgiving me,
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  Speaker 1: the brokenness of my past, the struggles of the story
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  Speaker 1: of my life. Now, face to face with 15 years
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  Speaker 1: of incarceration, to be honest, it would have been easy
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  Speaker 1: to say I quit. I gave up throwing the towel.
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  Speaker 1: I come from a broken family. I came from the
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  Speaker 1: struggles of wanting to live life and all my mental
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  Speaker 1: health and just the struggles of the anxieties, the depressions,
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  Speaker 1: the eating disorders, the anger, the rage, the drugs now,
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  Speaker 1: the alcohol. Now my choice is affected in another family
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  Speaker 1: that'll never go back to what it was. I had
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  Speaker 1: a come to terms with something, what am I going
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  Speaker 1: to do? You know, I think a lot of times
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  Speaker 1: we want to change. We know we need to change
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  Speaker 1: and we should change, but nothing changes because change is tough.
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  Speaker 1: Change takes vulnerability. You have to confront yourself. And here
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  Speaker 1: I was now at 23 and I had to confront
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  Speaker 1: the thing that I've been most afraid of my entire life. Me.
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  Speaker 1: I used to blame everything on the trauma, the external sources,
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  Speaker 1: the wounds, but now I had to come face to
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  Speaker 1: face with me. And I remember it was in that
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  Speaker 1: moment because I really wanted to keep the promise to
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  Speaker 1: the Owens family, to Carolyn and Olivia. My dad, even
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  Speaker 1: though the wounds that happened in my past with him,
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  Speaker 1: he always had this quote, as long as there's breath
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  Speaker 1: in your lungs, Nathan, there's hope in your heart. You're
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  Speaker 1: never a product of your environment. You're a product of
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  Speaker 1: what you find the courage to do. And so it
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  Speaker 1: was then, as a 23-year-old dude, that I looked in
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  Speaker 1: the mirror facing 15 years, and I wrote the words,
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  Speaker 1: change the world, and I slapped them with toothpaste on
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  Speaker 1: the wall of my little prison cell. And I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know what it looked like. I didn't know what it meant.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know how to keep a promise to a
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  Speaker 1: family and what this changed the world even mean. But
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  Speaker 1: I knew what I had been doing up to that
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  Speaker 1: point wasn't working. And so every day I started waking up,
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  Speaker 1: owning my story, confronting me. There's a quote that I
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  Speaker 1: live by now and it's, I would rather confront, fight
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  Speaker 1: and fail than settle for just staying the same. And
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  Speaker 1: it started then. Not when my circumstance would get better,
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  Speaker 1: it was then. And so now I have a choice.
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  Speaker 1: What am I going to do with my day? It
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  Speaker 1: was about me. Can I every day wake up and
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  Speaker 1: realize life is a choice? I can build or I
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  Speaker 1: can destroy. I can feed and it can grow or
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  Speaker 1: I can starve and it can die. Taking ownership that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the journey and the beauty of the symphony
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  Speaker 1: of our lives, that regardless of the chaos, there are
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  Speaker 1: areas that even in my chaos, I can control. The
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  Speaker 1: prison started a program therapeutic program and it was basically
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  Speaker 1: a cognitive program change the way you think it can
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  Speaker 1: change you and I started in that program and my
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  Speaker 1: life was really you know finding a balance and it
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  Speaker 1: was so effective it was lowering the recidivism rate in
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  Speaker 1: the state of Indiana so they they wanted to start
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  Speaker 1: to really promote this program and so when they went
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  Speaker 1: to find an ambassador they got the permission to take
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  Speaker 1: somebody on the inside that was a a prisoner a
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  Speaker 1: convict you know an inmate Um, and let them begin
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  Speaker 1: to try to be a spokesman. I didn't know that
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  Speaker 1: was going to happen. I was every day just doing
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  Speaker 1: the next right thing for me, but it created an opportunity. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you never know who's watching. You never know what's around you.
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  Speaker 1: And so when they went to pick somebody, um, they
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  Speaker 1: selected me. And so here I am now two years
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  Speaker 1: into this 15 year sentence and I'm getting opportunities to
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  Speaker 1: leave the prison and street clothes and to go all
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  Speaker 1: across the state of Indiana and speak at different venues
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  Speaker 1: and different, um, locations about just this program. I spoke
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  Speaker 1: to about five to 7,000 people in this year and
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  Speaker 1: a half period. And the governor's council at the time,
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  Speaker 1: they got wind of about it. And I remember a
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  Speaker 1: letter came in and it basically said that this young
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  Speaker 1: man's is more effective out there than he is in here.
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  Speaker 1: And I walked, I got released 11 and a half
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  Speaker 1: years early. I got released in 2012 and 2013 around
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  Speaker 1: that time. And to be honest, when I put change
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  Speaker 1: the world on the mirror, I didn't know what that meant,
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  Speaker 1: but I was beginning to find my why. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I always tell people, I don't need you to give
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  Speaker 1: me your thesis of exactly what your future's gonna look like.
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  Speaker 1: Some of us know those things. Some of us have
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  Speaker 1: that vision and that's exactly what we're gonna do and
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  Speaker 1: they execute it and it's amazing, but that's not everybody's song.
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  Speaker 1: For me, it's about having a direction. Change the world
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  Speaker 1: to me was just a direction. So every single day,
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  Speaker 1: as I was moving towards that, the details begin to
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  Speaker 1: become more vivid. It's almost like I had a coloring book,
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  Speaker 1: and I had this blank piece of paper that was
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  Speaker 1: a picture of whatever scene that I wanted it to be,
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  Speaker 1: but I didn't know what it was gonna look like.
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  Speaker 1: But over time, I would pick up the purple, and
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  Speaker 1: I'd pick up the green, I'd pick up the blue,
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  Speaker 1: and as I'm just doing the next thing, the picture
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  Speaker 1: got more beautiful, it became more vivid, it came into focus.
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  Speaker 1: don't have to have every detail but start moving towards
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  Speaker 1: it and over time consistently it begins to be more
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  Speaker 1: defined and so for me we're afraid of what will
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  Speaker 1: it look like we're afraid of failing we're afraid of
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  Speaker 1: being vulnerable fear drives us but i've learned the more
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  Speaker 1: i punch fear and that fear is not final and
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  Speaker 1: no feelings final and that we can do hard things
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  Speaker 1: we can make mistakes If you can step into your story,
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  Speaker 1: you have no idea the ripple effect that can happen
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  Speaker 1: around you. We can build or we can tear down.
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  Speaker 1: And now I just live a life where every day,
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  Speaker 1: how can I walk into a room and add value
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  Speaker 1: to people? Thank you.