Writing My Way Back

I tend to run on a cycle of getting fed up and burning it all down about every five or so years. This past year has been both a year of triumph and destruction.

It’s the 25th anniversary of my SCI. I started the year with a triumphant return to Big Bear Mountain to slide on snow on the 25th anniversary of my accident. It was my first trip back to the mountain since the day I destroyed my body on its side. (Documentary idea: "Destroyed on Bear Mountain; a composite of interviews with people who sustained SCI at Bear Mountain.")

Up until that day, I’d never celebrated my accident and recovery. I hated the day and actively worked to forget it. But my mom would always call or surprise me on the anniversary. She would ask, “Do you know what today is?” It would dawn on me a split second before she’d shout, “Happy Spinal Cord Injury Day!”

This year, when she called me, I was sitting on the deck looking up at the mountain after a full day of skiing. I was already crying before she called to wish me a happy anniversary. I told her that I’d finally figured it out. It was going to be okay. My accident could have meaning and provide my life with purpose. It could all be worth something bigger than I’d imagined before.

It felt like we were both in a very good place. Her cancer was in remission. I felt like I was on top of the world. I’d discovered my purpose in life. I survived my injury and struggled with the recovery for 25 years. Everything I went through and everything I learned from that journey could be redeemed and taught to other people.

Since 2020, I’d made a mess of my real estate business by trying to build a team with partners who had their own ideas about how the business should run. The housing market was bad and beyond my control. I’d always had a bitter taste for selling houses. To be honest, I hated it, and the partnership made it even worse.

I decided to quit. Quit the partnership, the business, that whole part of my life, and move on to pursue my purpose in life: motivating, encouraging, and teaching people how I used adventures and a specific cognitive-behavioral model to accomplish the things I wanted to do with my life.

Everyone I told said the same thing: “Yes, finally! You’re perfect for that.” Then they’d follow up with the obvious question, “So, how do you do that?” The overwhelmingly positive response made me confident that quitting real estate to become a speaker was the right move. Now I just had to figure out the answer to everyone’s question: How do you launch a motivational speaking career?

The fuse was lit and burning. The real estate business blew up in May after closing one of the biggest deals of my career. It felt like a good way to go out, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then we got bad news about my mom. Her cancer came back, and she’d be starting another round of chemo.

The only thing I had going was the adaptive water sports program I’d helped start in 2019. Each year with AZ Adaptive Water Sports (AAWS), I’d taken on more responsibility by starting different fundraising and marketing campaigns. With no real estate responsibilities, I had a lot more time on my hands. I ended up launching another new fundraiser and devoting the lion’s share of my time to AAWS instead of starting my speaking career.

As the water sports programs wrapped up in October, I began to realize I’d accomplished very little in terms of my business. I had accomplished a great deal for AAWS—we raised a lot of money and changed a lot of lives through our programs. It was an exciting summer, but as the winter begins to settle in, my spirit has taken a hit.

I’m reflecting on the year and feeling like I’ve accomplished very little for myself and my family. I have a tendency to throw myself into projects that benefit other people while neglecting my own needs.

I also think I’m intimidated by the unknowns of becoming a motivational speaker. I’m not exactly sure how to do it. I did know how to do the work for AAWS, so I did a lot more of that.

It’s always easier to do more of the things you’re already doing. It’s harder to get the new balls rolling.

At the beginning of November, we got more bad news about my mom. Despite nearly six months of chemo, her cancer has progressed. She’s now starting on a new type of chemo with the hope that it will begin to shrink her tumors.

Her treatment schedule on this chemo is once every four weeks instead of every other week like before. The first infusion was last Friday, November 22. She’ll get round two on December 20, and then they’ll give her a scan four weeks after that to see if the treatment is working.

I’ve spent the last month going to my parents’ house to spend time with her. I brought over clay and turned their kitchen table into a ceramic studio. I wanted her to have something to work on to take her mind off all the horrible things. It turned into a fun project for all the grandkids.

My Auntie Jen had run fun art workshops with us when we were growing up. I had an example for doing this type of thing. I was posted up in the kitchen for three weeks with clay and tools ready to go. My nephews and I sat around the table, and I basically just gave them permission to play with the clay and offered positive encouragement.

We’re all meeting tomorrow at Burst of Butterflies art studio to glaze our creations.

I hope my mom is feeling up to it. It’ll be nine days out from the last infusion. She was getting around the bend after a week on the last chemo, but she hasn’t had the same rally this time. I’ll have to keep you posted.

Like I said, I’ve spent the last week working on the annual flogging I give myself for all the little things I’ve ever messed up. My brain has been storing up a fail reel for my entire life. I don’t know if your brain does this, but mine loves to remind me of all the times I did something to feel bad about.

It doesn’t get as bad as it used to. Thankfully, I’ve found and adopted a handful of mindfulness habits that help me keep a better perspective. In the past, I might have just spiraled down. Now, I’m able to get enough distance to make it mental joke material.

When my brain starts the fail reel of my life, I wonder: Where’s the highlight reel? Who’s back there cutting this together? I know I must have done something in life to feel good about.

Thankfully, I’ve got an anchor memory of my son saying, “Dad is great.” It’s very easy for me to recall, and I’ll often use it to remind myself of how others see me.

In an effort to jumpstart some positive momentum, I decided to tackle my email inbox. I’ve got decent habits—well, okay habits—for emails. There were fewer than 30 unread messages buried somewhere in the roughly 5,000 unarchived emails in my inbox.

Most of the unread messages were from me to me. Sending myself emails and texts is how I keep track of ideas I’m not ready to work on yet. Buried back in June, I found an idea whose time has come. It was simple: start a blog where you use all the tools you already have to dig your way out of the depths of despair. My email to myself can be overly dramatic, but the idea was solid.

I’ve already gone looking and found all the tools I personally needed to become successful. Over the last few years, I’ve lost touch with many of the habits and practices that were necessary for me to accomplish the things I wanted to do.

I just need to rediscover the things I already know and put them back into action.

One of the quirks of my particular type of brain is the tendency to fail to meet internal expectations while easily meeting the external expectations of others. Gretchen Rubin calls it the Obliger tendency.

Learning this about myself was very helpful. It identified a particular pattern of my behavior that I personally loathed. Having words for it set me free from a terrible feeling I held against myself. The understanding liberated me from all this shame I was dragging around.

Plus, I figured out how to get stuff done. If I shifted internal expectations to external expectations, I was much more likely to follow through. It was one of the most effective mind hacks I’d ever discovered.

This blog is an attempt to move my internal expectations into external expectations. I’m hoping to simultaneously share the things that have helped me while reimplementing them in my own life, with the outcome being our mutual success.

I’m hoping the final project will be a repository of all the tips, tricks, habits, and hacks I’ve found and implemented in my own life to achieve success and a sense of self-security in the past. I’m also hoping to document the journey of my mom’s cancer. I’m praying for remission while preparing to miss her terribly if that does not happen.

These posts will take on better shape as the project gets going. Thanks for reading and expecting more from me.