On September 11, 1995 an ill-advised left turn changed my life forever. At 6:54pm EST, someone cut right in front of me, leaving me with no time to stop. What resulted was a head-on collision.
I was dead at the scene. Paramedics didn't think I was going to pull through.
Obviously, I'm here to tell you about it, so the short story is that I made it.
I share the long story in my book if you're interested in the story and shameless plugs. 🙂
I became almost obsessed with death at that moment. Death was no longer theoretical. I had looked it in the eyes and came back for a second chance. I was scared. It took me a while to bounce back emotionally, and in many ways I still struggle from the accident.
But when my mind came back and my thoughts shifted to moving forward from “what happened” mode, my focus was singular: build wealth at all costs.
I've always been a “family guy.” I've always wanted to be “married with children.” I've always wanted to use television show names to describe myself…. Ok, just the first two are true. The last one is my ADHD coming through, ironically causing me to lose focus on my post about focus…
My dreams of being a husband and father combined with my newfound obsession with death caused me to decide that I needed to build wealth, and build it fast.
I followed the money, rather than my heart.
Success, to me, was having enough money so that my family would not have to worry about putting food on the table or keeping the lights on while I was alive and could survive financially in my absence if I was not.
This was my mindset for a long… long time… because I was afraid that death would take a significant income source from those who loved and depended on me.
After I changed jobs and moved home and set boundaries to prioritize my family while I build my business, my almost obsession with death (that I kept inside for a long time) subsided, but I still worried a bit about the future and what the legacy to my family would be if I died. I wondered that in silence quite a bit, but I could tell my wife sensed something was wrong.
I don't hide that I took a significant pay cut to move back to Massachusetts and find a job where working late or on the weekends is rare, rather than the norm.
In many ways I love that I took such a big pay cut.
For a guy as obsessed with building wealth as I was, accepting that pay cut told me that I'm onto something; it told me that I'm capable of change and that my focus was in the right place.
And I knew that once I focused on building my business in the hours we set for me to work I could make up the difference through my business. We treated last year was a transition year in so many ways, and this year as the year we launch, first with my book release, and then with several really exciting other projects that I've been building.
But my wife sensed that a not-so-small part of me was still focused on death and money.
I'm not entirely sure if she even remembers saying it, but almost in passing she said ten words that echo through me and completely changed how I think about death.
We were talking one day about money and pay and “the move” and work and my businesses and a whole bunch of other stuff.
I was being very literal, very methodical. I was talking about hours, and numbers, and taxes, and benefits, and side businesses, and all the things that you would expect given my history.
She was nodding and listening and reacting in a very supportive manner.
We both talked a lot.
I don't remember much of what was said other than the ten words:
We don't care about the money. We care about you.
I know and I knew that was true.
Those ten words hit me like a ton of bricks – like another Buick making a left turn through my lane.
I knew that a simple life insurance policy could replace my earnings if I died and that we lived a relatively simple lifestyle that didn't require a huge paycheck so we didn't “need” a ton of money while I was here.
My family wants “me.” My presence. They don't care about all the places I want to take my wife or lessons I want to teach my kids before I died.
They just want to be with me.
And right then I realized that life is not about the volume of accomplishments you can check off before you die.
Life is about how well you live with whatever time you have here.
A good life should be judged on qualitative, not quantitative factors.
Each additional day provides an opportunity to “live well,” and not just “do more.”
Viewing death differently since that day has been incredible.
It made me realize that I could accumulate a ton of money and check off a bunch of “things” before death and still have not truly lived.
But I can also live incredibly well without checking off very many “things” at all.
Pretty cool.
In this episode of the Confessions of a Terrible Husband podcast I talk with Dr. Jessica Higgins about why relationships feel so hard sometimes.
This year has been an incredible year for my marriage. And this blog.