Speaker 1: Tell me what you LOVET was like before you died.
Speaker 2: I had given a speech that night at a Cutco
sales conference.
Speaker 1: That was my career. I was in Cutco and a
year and a half.
Speaker 2: Cutco makes high quality kitchen knives, so they've been around
for fifty sixty years now, probably I think it was
the fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 1: Was the year that I started. And so I gave
a speech at the.
Speaker 2: Conference, and then I was driving home and my car
was at head on by a drunk driver at seventy
miles an hour, and then I actually the worst, you know,
airbags exploded.
Speaker 1: The worst was actually.
Speaker 2: I spun off the drunk driver and the car behind
me broadsided me. T bone me at seventy miles an
hour in my door and the entire on my door,
and so it crushed the left side of my body
and I broke eleven bones. My leg my femur, the
biggest bone in human body, broken half. My pelvis broke
in three places, it was crossed between the center console.
Speaker 1: My arm broke in half. This one, my humorous bone
broke in two.
Speaker 2: Pieces, shattered, my elbow severed, my radial nerve, shattered, the
three bones in my eye socket. My ear was almost
completely severed. The ceiling buckled and the metal came through
the roof and it sliced a big like a V
in the top of my head. So and I was
immediately I mean, I would imagine I was in a coma.
So when they found me, I was in a coma,
I'd imagine, it's like they exact.
Speaker 1: I've done a little bit of research, like the body
will shut.
Speaker 2: Itself down and put you in a coma if you
can't withstand the amount of pain you know that you're experiencing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank god, thank god. I wasn't awake. I can't
even imagine that. I don't remember.
Speaker 2: So there's two weeks of my life that I don't remember.
I don't remember, Like my last memory is getting on
the freeway that night and the accident happened. I don't
remember the accident, don't remember the headlights coming at me,
none of that. And then my first memory, I was
in a coma for so my heart stopped for six minutes,
so it was clinically dead for six minutes.
Speaker 1: And I didn't die until they pulled me out of
the car.
Speaker 2: Like the car was keeping me alive all the pressure,
but I was losing blood though, you know through all
these I mean just holes in my leg, my arm,
and h and when I when they pulled me out,
it took them an hour to cut the roof off
the car and pull the door back to get me out.
Speaker 1: The jaws of life they had to use.
Speaker 2: And when they finally did, I bled to death and
my heart was They said about six minutes that I
didn't have a heartbeat, and they immediately were pumping blood.
I was put on a helicopter and they are using
the fibrillators and all the things to get me back
to life. And thank god they didn't give up after
five minutes, because six minutes later they got my heart
beating again.
Speaker 1: And I spent six days in a coma.
Speaker 2: I flat lined twice more so I was I was,
you know, nearly died multiple times. And when I came
out of the coma, I faced this unimaginable reality like,
you know, wait, where am I What's going on? And
they're like, how you broke eleven bones, You're probably never
going to walk again, you have permanent brain damage. And
this was this unimaginable reality that nobody thinks, you know,
they're ever going to have to face for me. I
tried to make it applicable for all of us. That's
just how I think at that time. I started thinking,
how does this experience, how is this going to serve me?
And how's it going to serve other people? That was
the question in my mind. And I told my dad,
I said, dad, because he actually the doctor thought I
was in denial. I was so happy and positive, like
I'm in the hospital being told I'm never going to
walk again, and I'm totally happy, totally positive, genuinely and
like and I'm making jokes and making the doctors laugh.
And they called my parents in one day and they said,
we're concerned with your son. We believe Hall is not
facing reality and he's just delusional and in denial, and
we need you to talk to him. And so this
is one week after the crash that that this conversation.
My dad comes in, he goes, hey, I just talked
met with the doctors. They're a little bit concerned with
how you're responding to the accident. And and you know,
they said you should be sad, scared, angry, and depressed,
but you're not showing any of that, and they think
you're in denial. Yeah, and how are you really feeling?
How when the lights go out at night, when there's
no friends visiting and you guys are joking and laughing.
Speaker 1: And he said, are you sad? Scared, angry or depressed?
Speaker 2: And I really, you know, I'm looking at my dad
by the way, and he's like, you know, eyes are read,
he's holding he was probably just crying or he's trying
not to cry. I mean, yeah, And it had been
it had been a week of just right of him,
of them by my bedside, not knowing if I was
going to live or die. Where Oh he's flat he's
flatlining again. Doctors come in, come in, he's flatlining again?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So yeah, my poor parents, Oh my god. And I
was the second child that they would have lost. My
sister died when my mom was when I was eight
years old, my eighteen month old baby sister. On a
Saturday morning, I woke up to my mother's screaming, my baby,
my baby, God, don't take my baby. And it was
just me, my mom and my baby sister at home.
My other sister was gone, my dad was at work,
and I ran across the hall and my mom was
my little eighteen month old baby sister. My mom's pushing
on her chest and breathing into her mouth and performing
mouth to mouth, performing CPR on her, and she died
that morning. And within six months, my mother was leading
a support group for other parents who had lost children.
So like, at eight years old, that seed was planned that, Oh,
you take your adversity and you use it to help
other people.
Speaker 1: You take your pain and you find purpose.
Speaker 2: So when I came out of the coma, that was
like immediately implanted in me. And when my dad came
in that day and he said, the doctors are concerned.
How I said, Dad, I'm not depressed, I'm not sad.
I'm a little I'm a little scared of that I
don't walk again. But I've already decided, Dad, I've already
literally imagined if I never walk again, I've decided I'll
be the happiest, most grateful person that you've ever seen
in a wheelchair, because that becomes my reality.
Speaker 1: And I will not let my.
Speaker 2: Unchangeable reality determine my mental and emotional well being. Like,
if I can't change it, I'm going to be at
peace with it. I'm going to find the gratitude and
the love and the joy and the experience and my
dad and and the last thing I said, my dad, Dad.
I've ever since I started selling Cutco I've been speaking
at all of these Cutco events. I've had this dream of,
you know, being like a motivational speaker, like a Tony
Robbins or something.
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 2: But I've had a relatively easy lie, like a normal life. Yeah,
I was bullied and you know, but I've never had
anything like remarkable happen that I had to overcome. I'm
actually taking that as that's why I'm going through this.
I'm supposed to get through this accident in the most positive.
Speaker 1: Proactive way.
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to learn and grow from it so I
can go share it with other people and teach other people.
And he went back to the doctors, and I think
they thought I was even more delusional. Well, when he
reported back, like, oh man, your son's really out there,
they said I'd.
Speaker 1: Been there for a year and I'd never walk again.
Speaker 2: I took my first step three weeks after the crash.
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. So one week after
the doctors told me, I called my parents in and said, hey,
we think Hell's delusional. He's all happy and positive and
he needs to face reality. You know, he's probably going
to be a Wills for the rest of his life.
And I told my dad, you know, if that's the case,
I'm at peace. But that's not where my energy's going.
My energy is going into walking with unwavering faith. A
week later, the doctors come in with a clipboard and
they've got They go, we're looking at these routine X
rays that we took this morning. How you're ready to
take your first step? And even for me, I was
thinking that was a year off. Even my optimism and
my unwavering faith was like, the body can heal, you know,
And they stay I'm in the hospital for a year.
By the end of that year, I'm going to be
walking again. And three weeks after I was found dead
at the scene broke eleven bones.
Speaker 1: Two weeks after I came out of the coma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've got, you know, metal rod in my arm,
screws in my elbow, plates in my eye, rod in
my leg.
Speaker 1: I mean it, this is crazy, how fast it happened.
Speaker 2: And they come in and they get in a wheelchair
and my therapist Bob, my physical therapist. We walk into
the the you know, the therapy room, and there's these
parallel bars. Now I couldn't even use my left hand
because I had broken my left hand.
Speaker 1: I had severed the nerve.
Speaker 2: So this was the amount of motion I had for
six months that they never knew if it would come back.
So that's also the thing I'm thinking about that I'm
dealing with, is like I don't even have a left
hand to use. Plus I might never walk, And that
five minute rule was like that powerful to be like, well,
if this is how my hand is the rest of
my life, this is how my hand is. But thank
god my dad took a picture, because we have a
picture I showed when I give speeches, you know, in
my keynote. It's like there's he has a picture of
the car looks like half of a car because that
side impact. And then there's a picture of me with
tubes coming out of everywhere in oxygen and my arm,
you know, with rods in it all that. Then he
has a picture of me taking that first step, you know,
and Bob rolled me up in the wheelchair and I
took my first step, and that was the first step
where I was like, Okay, if I can do this,
I can do anything. And then it just it just
I was out of the hospital four weeks later. Very
soon after I got out of the hospital, I went
to court to they had the hearing for the drunk
driver that hit me head on, and I was asked
in the hospital, like, oh, you must want to kill
that guy.
Speaker 1: I said no, and you know I don't this. It's
got to be a god thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know at twenty where this perspective came from,
but I said, I said no. I said, he's a
thirty one year old guy that drank a few beers
at a bar and then got in a car to
go home. Why would I be angry at him for
any of those things? Raise your hand if you've never
drank alcohol and got in the car to drive. I had,
You know my in high school, I'd go to parties,
have some beers, they go find it.
Speaker 1: You know, I make bad decision.
Speaker 2: But it's like I wasn't an evil person because I
did that. I just was an immature. It's a bad decision.
This guy was thirty one years old, married, he had
a young like a three year old kid, and so
I had zero anger toward him. I had zero anger
toward him. And when I went to the trial. Before
the trial, my parents, because I I had my brain damage,
I was slurring my speech. It was hard for me
to even talk, you know, and formulate thoughts. My my
my memory was bad. And so my parents said, hey,
we'll speak for you. You know, do you want to speak?
I said no, I don't. I'm not ready to get
up in front of a bunch of people and talk
right now. And they said, we'll speak for you. What
what do you want? And I guess the attorney had
sat down with him and say hey, like and so,
and there was like a civil and a you know
and so. But so my parents poke, They said, we've
talked to hell and he is asking that the uh
that because they wanted him to spend three years in prison.
And my thought is he's going to be the like
his kids without a dad for three years. That suck,
you know. And again he just made a mistake. He
didn't try to hurt me. So my request. I talked
and parents kind of helped, like what do you think, Hal,
and you know, here's some ideas, And what we requested
is that he gets six months in prison because I
thought he definitely should have that time to ponder, think, reflect, right,
but not three years, like six.
Speaker 1: Months has plenty of time.
Speaker 2: And then I asked that the rest of the sentence
that they the court was proposing three years, that he
had to.
Speaker 1: Spend two and a half years speaking at.
Speaker 2: Schools sharing what happened to him, to try to actually
make a positive impact because he's not making a positive
impact sitting in court in prison. So that's what my
parents requested on my behalf, and the judge just was,
I don't know, lazy, like I'm not going to do
this creative sentence. We don't like three year and he
just gave him the full sentence. But that was my
request was that, you know, and I never followed it
like I had again no ill will, and I never
followed up to I don't know if he served three years.
I don't know if he served I don't know. At
that point, I rest, you know, it's like, hey, I
you know, I'm at peace.
Speaker 1: I forgive.
Speaker 2: There's no hard feelings until I went through cancer and
faced losing my kid or you know, losing my life
and not being around for my kids, and then through
chemo and you know, just sleepless nights and being close
to death again.
Speaker 1: And being awake for all of it.
Speaker 2: And that wasn't until I really went through the dark
night of the soul that was in twenty twenty. For
me started at the end of twenty nineteen. Being in
twenty twenty, it was a six month period of depression
and wanting to die and not sleeping for more than
two to four hours night every single night. So my
one night I woke up struggling to breathe. I went
to the er and they drained almost two liters of
fluid from my lung. No, I mean it was, it
was wild. They stuck a need on the back of
my through my you know, spine, and drunk, I go
home and they said, hey, we think you have a
pneumonia or what.
Speaker 1: I forget what they said. That was.
Speaker 2: They said, if it doesn't get better, you know, come back.
They give me antibiotics, and then like a day and
a half, two days later, I can't breathe again.
Speaker 1: Go in.
Speaker 2: This went on for like, I think it was eleven days,
and they couldn't figure out what was wrong, and they're
sending me to different hospitals and this and that, and
finally they diagnosed me with this rare aggressive form of cancer,
and my wife was terrified and distraught. I remember though,
when I got diagnosed, the doctor was He goes, hell,
I want you to, you know, come in and get
the results. And he goes, well, there's definitely something here.
We're seeing something. And he's like beating around the bush.
He like he can't get himself to tell me, and
I lean over. I lean over, I put my hand.
He was a new doctor. I just moved to Texas
like two months before. I have my hand on his arm.
I go, hey, doc, I get I go like, I
can tell you're wrestling with whatever you're gonna tell me.
I don't know what it is, I said, but I
live by this thing called I'm not kidding the minute rule.
I accept life before it even happens. Whatever you're gonna
tell me, I'm already at peace with it, he goes,
and he kind of braithed this. He goes, okay, he goes,
how it looks like you have cancer and yeah, I go, oh,
I didn't expect you know, Like like I'm like what, no,
because I thought I was healthy and you know, and
so I'm like what and I'm like, okay, dog, what
are we gonna do? I am at peace with it.
So it was instantaneous peace. And there were definitely moments
in prayer like, God, what am I supposed to learn
from this? I thought, I've learned all the lessons from
the car accident.
Speaker 1: What else could I learn?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And it was like a lot. I just kept getting
a lot, like a lot to learn.
Speaker 2: And the biggest thing lesson I learned is that I
thought I valued family first. Because if you would have
said what's most important in your life? I would have
said my wife and kids, no questions asked. And so
that's the shift. And now it's waking my kids up
in the morning with a puppet show. I did that
for so many years until they start that we're done
with the puppet show. Putting him to bed reading stories
like when I went through my cancer journey. I immediately
shifted my behavior taking them to school, picking them up
from school, like to spend time with my family. Give
yourself permission to take a break from all of the painful, detrimental,
difficult emotions that maybe you're experiencing that aren't serving you.
Put them in a book, put them in writing, close
the book and let those emotions.
Speaker 1: Lie there and just be free. You are free. That's
the last thing.
Speaker 2: I would say, is to realize you're free. You're free
to think, feel, and experience whatever you choose to experience.
So accept what you can't change, be at peace with reality.
Journal the things that you are feeling, let them go,
put them in writing, and.
Speaker 1: Then choose freedom.
Speaker 2: Choose to be free to experience love, joy, peace, gratitude, forgiveness,
whatever you need to to heal in this moment, and
you'll eventually keep doing that every day and life will
be different in the future than it is now in
a good way.