When Tragedy Strikes ... 

Then, when I was 14 years old, I was riding home on my bicycle when a speeding drunk driver swerved her car, crossing the double yellow line. 

She never saw me. She never slowed down. She plowed her car into me at full speed. 

The car crushed my bicycle under the big metal bumper. I was launched over the hood and bounced off the windshield and launched into the air. 

The police report said that my body flew over 50’ feet before crashing to the ground in a bloody, unrecognizable mess. 

When my parents got to the hospital, the doctor said, “If he survives the night, he will be a vegetable for the rest of his life.” My parents collapsed into each other’s arms and they prayed ... They prayed for a miracle. 

I was in a coma for 4 days. When I woke, my parents were still sitting by my side holding my hands. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. Months in arm and leg bone casts. Physical rehabilitation lasted for a year, building strength and retraining my legs to walk again. I had headaches that would drop me to my knees. And memory challenges that lasted for years. 

In that year of rebuilding my muscles and regaining a normal life, I learned important life lessons. 

• 1 - Be grateful because tomorrow isn't promised.
• 2 - No complaining. Do what you have to do to get the job done.
• 3 - Find the beauty of the everyday moments. 

It’s not always easy. At times it might be brutally hard and even painful. It's not always fair or reasonable. But if you are going to get to the finish line, you have to push yourself through the pain, discomfort, and frustration. When the storms of life pass, you are left with who you became through the process. 

Tough times will break you, or tough times will make you. 

Which one will it be?

... The one that YOU choose.

You must choose to make your hardship a defining moment in your life. 

You must choose to be stronger and better when the storm has passed.  

After the accident, my parents would say to me, “You got a second chance. What will you do with it?”

That would become a guiding philosophy of my life. 

Every day we wake up, we have a second chance. 

A new fresh opportunity. 

The ability to start over. 

Why not today? 

Today you can leave that toxic relationship. 

Today you can quit the job you hate to find a job you love. 

Today you can start to exercise, eat better, and get healthy. 

Today you can start your own business or side hustle. 

Today can be better than yesterday. And today can bring your life in a totally different direction. 

Like my dad and my brothers, I became a carpenter at sixteen years old. But then, in my early 30's, I felt like there was something else for me ... something more. Carpentry was a good career. I was very good at it, I liked it, and I was financially successful, but I was no longer fulfilled. 

Success without fulfillment ... is still failure.

So I started searching for meaning and purpose.

I dove deep into the world of personal growth. It was called self-help back then and often laughed at. Certainly, not widely embraced. I listened to audio programs in the secrecy of my car and Walkman, because friends and family teased me. I discovered that the first step to becoming extraordinary ... is to choose to be extraordinary.

If you want to be great, then you must decide to be great, and you must commit to becoming that person. My life became a test tube for success. And the results I got, well frankly, they have been amazing ... with some occasional epic failures ... that's part of the journey to a life you truly love. 

My life started to change when I asked myself this question ...

"What would I do if ... I knew I would succeed?

If failure was impossible, what would I do?"

I asked myself that question for years until I heard about a guy who ran across America. I thought, "That is the most incredible thing I've ever heard of. I have to do it."

... But I wasn't a runner.

I trained every day for one year to get to the start line of my run across America. I started in San Diego, then I ran a marathon distance each day for 100 consecutive days. By the time I crossed the finish line in New York City, I had run over 2,621 miles. 

RUN ACROSS AMERICA

Each day, I also gave an inspirational keynote speech to audiences in challenge, such as, addiction recovery centers, homeless shelters, the United Way, "Back on my Feet Again," and Hope for the Warriors, just to name a few. 

I was often featured on NBC, ABC, FOX, and CBS, where they called me "The Marathon Man." 

I would become the only person in the world to run 100 marathons plus give 100 keynote speeches in the same 100 consecutive days. It's not an official real world record, but it's an epic run, that made me one of the most elite runners in the world at the age of 40 with only one-year of run training. 

Soon after I completed my run across America, I was looking to accomplish something even bigger. There are not many things bigger or harder than a run across America.

National Geographic calls the "Badwater Race" in Death Valley "The hardest foot race on the planet." It is also the hottest.

I knew I had to do it. With another year of training after run across America, that's what I set out to conquer. But unlike the annual race Badwater race, I was going to do it without the assistance of a support crew.

I would run through Death Valley on a solo unassisted run.

Arguably, making it 10X times harder and more dangerous than with a crew. 

Death Valley is the hottest place on the planet with summer temperatures over a scorching 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius). It's a desert with nothing but rocks, sand, and snakes. In the official annual race, each runner has a support team to carry the food, water and supplies.

But I would cross Death Valley without any assistance of any kind. It's a race against the clock where I push a cart filled with my water, food, and supplies.

My goal ... to beat the world record set 13 years earlier by Marshall Ulrich's record of just over 78 hours.  

On race day, the temperatures ranged from 117 degrees at midday to below freezing temperatures at night as I crossed into the mountains. The elevational climb is 25,000 feet. Or roughly equivalent to 25 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other. All while pushing a cart filled with food and water that weighed 270 pounds. 

During my first attempt, right from the start, I was not feeling good. I only made it 45 miles before I had to quit. My body rebelled against the heat and intensity of the race.

As I was heading back to the air-conditioned hotel room, my videographer, Josh barked at me, "How can you quit? You're the guy who ran across America giving speeches about never giving up on their dream. And now you are quitting. This is worse than failing. It's pathetic." 

I sulked, and soaked in his words. And he was right. I couldn't give up. I have to finish what I trained a whole year to be ready for. So, I rested for three days, restocked my cart and I went back to Death Valley. Not to mile 45 where my body shut down. But back to the starting line ... mile zero. 

At that time, there were only two people who had successfully completed an unassisted run through Death Valley from the lowest point to the highest point in the United States. 13 years after the record was originally set, I became the 3rd person in the world to complete the course.

Does it matter if I broke the world record?
What matters more is that I didn't let a failure, just three days earlier, stop me. I did not quit on my dreams. I went back and completed one of my life's biggest goals and officially entered the record books as the most elite ultra distance runners in the world. 

When I got to the top of Mt. Whitney in California, I took a photo of my watch to document my time. I finished in 72 hours and 55 minutes.

I didn't just beat the record...  

... I crushed the previous world record by almost 5 hours.

My official time and a new world record was 72 hours : 55 minutes. 

And to think, just 2 years earlier I was not a runner, or any kind of athlete. I am not genetically gifted to be an athlete. Especially not for running. Nor do I have a runner's physique. Plus, I was 40 years old at the time. In most sports, this is considered impossible to compete at that age.  

So how did I do it?

If I am gifted at anything, it is the ability to push myself further than seems possible and keep going even harder. When I was a carpenter with my dad and brothers, they taught me that work ethic is everything. What you don't have in talent, you can overcome with enough work and persistence.  

I committed to my dream and took massive action to make it happen. I was willing to work and do whatever it takes to accomplish my dream. 

You can accomplish more than you can imagine if you ...

• COMMIT
• FOCUS 
• PERSEVERE

Do this and you will be amazing at what you accomplish. No running required. ;)

Today, I travel the world as a professional speaker and author on life transformation, and the psychology of success. I've been featured on the prestigious stages of Las Vegas TEDx  and NYC TEDx stage.

As well as presenting to some of the biggest corporate names and some of the most important organizations in the world. 

You can also find my life transformation programs and books by CLICKING HERE

In my self-development journey, I learned that my life could be anything I want it to be. After my run across America and world record in Death Valley, I wanted to follow my purpose and passion. I wanted to travel the world and find more meaning in my life.  

I started to create the lifestyle that I dreamed of living since I was a little boy. I wondered what it would be like to see the world and to live in other countries. I wanted to experience remote hidden cultures. 

I traveled the United States and internationally presenting at speaking events, but it wasn't exactly the experience I was dreaming about, jumping from city to city and living in hotels. There are only so many times you can go to Las Vegas and Orlando before it loses its appeal.  

So I decided on a lifestyle experiment. I put everything I owned in storage and for three months I went on a driving tour of almost every state in America. I stayed with friends and visited many of the places I always wanted to see. 

I absolutely LOVED the experience! This was just an experiment, and I wasn't fully committed to a nomadic life ... not yet. 

My life has been an experiment into the world of human potentiality.

When I was a carpenter, we would work for people who lived in huge mansions and they often drove cars worth more than our home, that were parked in garages bigger than our home. While many saw rich people through the eyes of jealousy and contempt, such as, "Look at that rich bastard." Or "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." I wondered and admired their lifestyle and wealth ...

"Why are they wealthy but we are not?

Why do some people become millionaires while most are perpetually broke?" 

Even as a teenage boy, I could see that our wealthy clients were not the scoundrels that the movies and media made them out to be, or the gossip circles of the poor that I grew up in. The wealthy people I met, were warm, helpful, caring, and generous people.

Others called wealthy people ruthless and snobby. I discovered they were generous people with busy lives that valued their time and rarely wasted it. What was seen as snobby, were people who kept their distance because they valued their privacy and time, from people often looking for a handout. 

I found that many people in my working-class community were trying to game the system to do as little as possible. One of the biggest differences I discovered is that wealthy people were very hard-working and intentional with their time and actions. 

While it seemed like all work and no play, the wealthy families vacationed much more than anyone I knew, and they went to amazing places around the world that we could never afford. I realized that my family was working way harder to have only one budget vacation week a year.

When I was invited over to a wealthy schoolmate's monster-sized home, they lived happy, loving lives, just like us. There was no difference in the type of people they were. They loved, laughed and enjoyed life just like us. They joked and teased each other, and they had healthy relationships. They simply had bigger homes, pools and fancy vacations. 

As a teen, I was already starting to see the lie that the media and movies tell about wealthy people. I was discovering the lies that poor people and working-class people tell themselves to justify where they are, rather than learn how to master money and wealth. 

As a child experiencing the 'just getting by' way of life compared to the wealthy life of clients and classmates, it planted the seeds to understand why some people are perpetually broke while others are incredibly wealthy.

The difference ... ?

Mindset, beliefs, and habits. 

In many ways, these childhood experiences lead me onto a path of discovery of the mind, success and wealth.