Show Transcript

0:00:00 - (Michael O'brien): You. So it's incumbent upon us to continue to show up. Each individual can put a small ripple into the world, a ripple of kindness, a ripple of support, of gratitude. And together, all those small ripples can come into a formation and form a big wave and hopefully overpower the dark ripples that might be out there.

0:00:30 - (Kevin Lowe): What's up, my friend? And welcome to Grit Gracelet Inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery, only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself. And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you. Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

0:01:09 - (Kevin Lowe): What's up, my friend? And welcome back to the podcast. You are here today for what is episode number 237. Have you ever had a desire to leave a ripple in the world? Like when you throw a stone into the pond and it creates a ripple, and that ripple continues to go on and on? Well, sometimes we want to have that same impact on the world. You want to be able to do something that you know is meaningful, that's leaving an impact, that's making a difference.

0:01:43 - (Kevin Lowe): And, friend, I believe that it's possible. I do not think that it's something that's just a dream or that it's something that's just meant for certain people. I believe that you are the person who can leave an impact, who can make a ripple in the world. And I personally believe the best way to do it is by combining your purpose, your passion, with a business. Now, not just a business that makes an income, but a business that gives you fulfillment, that generates an income, while at the same time creating an impact.

0:02:22 - (Kevin Lowe): That's exactly why I've created the unleash your purpose driven business idea. It's a free audio training that I created to help you flush out exactly what your purpose is and what kind of business you can align with that purpose to leave an impact in the world. You can visit gritgraceinspiration.com business. That is gritgraceinspiration.com business to sign up today. That link is also available inside of today's show notes.

0:03:01 - (Kevin Lowe): So today I am in the studio with Michael O'Brien, a guy who is here to give us kind of a new perspective on life, to view the setbacks we have as nothing more than a bump in the road. Michael O'Brien is a man who has learned how to make the most out of life, to turn the tragedies into triumphs. And he's here to share that goodness with you. Now we're going to dive deep into his story and we're going to discover the kind of setbacks he's experienced.

0:03:42 - (Kevin Lowe): And, well, I'll give you a little bit of insider knowledge. It's a tragic cycling accident, something that would totally impact his life from that day forward. But trust me when I tell you that that did not keep him down for long. Because Michael O'Brien is here to teach us all that bad moments do not equal bad days. So many times, you and me, we get totally sucked into this trap that just because something bad happened this morning, that the entire day is ruined, we figure cross this one off the list. Boys and girls, this day sucks.

0:04:23 - (Kevin Lowe): No, bad moments are indeed just bad moments. So we can't let the bad moment impact the rest of the day. We're going to hear all about that and more with today's amazing guest, my friend. My hope is that you come away with something today that will leave an impact in your life and will have you wanting to leave an impact in someone else's. Turn up the volume. Lean a little bit closer. This is episode number 237 of Grit, grace and inspiration.

0:04:59 - (Kevin Lowe): Enjoy my conversation with Michael O'Brien.

0:05:07 - (Michael O'brien): So clearly part of my big journey, like, the big story is the story of my last bad day. That's my near fatal cycling accident, when an SUV going about 40 miles an hour hit me during a bike training ride. So for a lot of people, they're like, oh, that's the moment. That was the moment your body was shattered. The doctors don't know how you survived. They painted this grim picture of what your life was going to be like, yada, yada, yada.

0:05:42 - (Michael O'brien): And I'm not yada, yada, yada. The best parts. So that was a moment of, like, we'll call it breaking apart, but the real moment, that was like, all right, now let's figure out how to come together. I think that moment was in particular the real big moment. And that was the moment when I realized that I had some say over all this, like how I wanted to show up for the rest of my life. So I had this aha. Moment through a good community of people really supporting me during the whole journey I've been on.

0:06:22 - (Michael O'brien): But in particular, a lot of intensity, as you would imagine up front. And I got some good wisdom from someone who said, hey, everything in your life, everything that happens, is neutral until you decide to label it. Sort of almost, in the words of Viktor Frankl, that there's. That he goes, there's a space here. You've been quick to label yourself as a victim. You've been broken apart. No one's going to argue with you. A whole bunch of people are validating this perspective. Like, oh, my God, why did this bad thing happen to a good person?

0:07:00 - (Michael O'brien): All that jazz. But what he offered was, maybe there's a different meaning to all this. Maybe there's a different path or journey. And I think that moment was like, oh, there are perhaps a whole bunch of different ways I can go forward. I don't just have to stay here as a victim. And again, no one would have argued with me that that wasn't a good idea to just say something horrible happened. I'm the victim. Yes, you were right. And I could have lived the rest of my life that way, just struggling.

0:07:37 - (Michael O'brien): But what was shared with me opened up my awareness to say, maybe there's a new possibility. What if you can create in your spaces some neutrality and allow the meaning of it to unfold with grace? And that was key.

0:07:58 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow, that is so powerful. So powerful. Now, I have so many questions, but I want you to take me back because I want to understand this accident more that you speak about. And what exactly happened in the accident? What were the injuries as a result of it?

0:08:18 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah. So I'll give you a good framing from a personal life perspective and professional. I was 33 at the time. We had two daughters. We still have two daughters. They were three and a half years old and seven months old at the time. Been married seven years for a career. I was the marketing director for our company's biggest product. So I had a pretty cool job, pretty high level. So if LinkedIn was a thing back then, it wasn't. It was 2001. So this is before social media as we know it.

0:08:55 - (Michael O'brien): I had a pretty good life. We had a nice home. It wasn't a huge home. Our kids were healthy. Our marriage was strong. I had a good career, although I was wickedly stressed inside. I was like a stressed puppy inside, but on the outside, I'm all good, right? It was the big lie, but that's what I thought I had to do. We can probably talk more about that.

0:09:19 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:09:20 - (Michael O'brien): So I was an avid cyclist from my early days, and there was a bike race, so I stopped cycling competitively while we were having kids and making this move from Washington, DC to outside of New York City. But with our youngest daughter coming into the world, I was like, okay, maybe I can get back to this passion I have for cycling. And there was a big bike race coming up in a few towns next to ours, the upcoming Sunday.

0:09:50 - (Michael O'brien): And I was out in New Mexico for a company offsite meeting, so I decided to bring my bike out because I have this goal of riding my bike in everyone in the 50 states. So a whole bunch of guys brought their golf clubs. I brought my bike, and I thought, okay, I'm going to get some miles in. There was a half day of leisure. I could get a long ride in. This is going to be great. Breathe in the air balloon air of New Mexico. That's going to be awesome.

0:10:16 - (Michael O'brien): And on the fourth lap of a loop I had created on the hotel property, out the service road, up the main drag, it was a two mile loop. I was going to do ten laps for 20 miles before the meeting began. A Ford Explorer crossed into my lane. We don't know why. And I had nowhere to go. I could not react fast enough. And I remember hitting his grille, the sound it made, and then the sound I made when I came into the windshield. So I broke through the windshield.

0:10:47 - (Michael O'brien): He hit the brakes hard. I remember the screech of his brakes. And then I made a thud when I came to the asphalt below. When he stopped, he was still fully in my lane, and the police estimated that he was going 40 miles an hour. So the injuries, like, I broke both legs. The left femur shattered. And this is what made it a life and death situation. When the left femur shattered, it lacerated the femoral artery of my left leg.

0:11:15 - (Michael O'brien): A big doozy, not one you want to mess with. We didn't know it at the time, but basically, I was losing a whole bunch of blood. I broke my shoulder. I had bruises and lashrations. I had a whole bunch of windshield glass all in my body, on my face. So I was a mess. And I just remember lying there thinking, this is not happening. This is not the script. I was following the script perfectly. Go to college, get a job, marry someone, raise a family. All that jazz.

0:11:52 - (Michael O'brien): And I just remember trying to will myself not to lose consciousness, not to fall asleep. That's what I was saying. Don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep. Stay awake. Don't fall asleep. Because I thought if I fell asleep, I would lose control over the situation. Now, keep in mind, Kevin, I had no control over the situation, but I thought I could manage it because I'm a leader at work. And I tried to cut the tension of the moment with a little humor, because that was my way, still sort of my way.

0:12:26 - (Michael O'brien): So I asked the EMTs, because I was surrounded by EMTs. Police, fire, ambulance, you name it. I was waiting for a medevac helicopter to land to take me to Albuquerque. So I asked them, how's my bike? And they're like, your bike's fine. Just try to breathe. For the record, Kevin and anyone listening, the bike was not fine. The bike was demolished. We still have the bike. We've kept the bike. But it was totaled, and it wasn't even my bike. It was a friend's bike. So I felt badly about that.

0:12:59 - (Michael O'brien): And when they put me on the helicopter to take me to Albuquerque, it was a 19 minutes flight. I remember every one of the 19 minutes. I made a bargain. I was like, whoever's listening, whether that be Mother Earth, the universe God, whoever fills your mug. So I use that. Mother Earth, universe God is who fills up your mug. The grand barista in the sky. I was like, hey, if you save my life, if I live through this, I promise I will live better. I'll stop chasing happiness.

0:13:32 - (Michael O'brien): And that's what I was doing. I thought my happiness was on the other side of some external merit badge, and my thinking isn't abnormal. A whole bunch of people felt that way back then, and a whole bunch of people feel that way now that we're chasing after things. And that's what I thought life was about. That's how I grew up. And they flew me to Albuquerque. I met my trauma team, and they put me under, and I don't remember anything else for the next close to five days.

0:14:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. How life can change in the blink of an eye.

0:14:10 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah, just a millisecond, right?

0:14:12 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:14:13 - (Michael O'brien): And I went through this in my head, like, man, what would have happened if I just slept in for five minutes longer or woke up with my first alarm and didn't hit snooze? So I'd be, like, riding my bike sooner or riding my bike later or maybe how I went through the hotel lobby. Because if any of that changed, I would not have been in that same spot at the time. The SUV was in that same spot. It's almost like a sliding door moment, that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow from years ago.

0:14:50 - (Michael O'brien): But the reality is, it happened. If I wasn't in that spot, I may have been in a different spot, and it could have ended up far greater or far worse. Who knows? But what happened happened. And to your point, yeah, life is precious man. And it can be hopefully very long and beautiful, and it can be so short, we don't know. So how do we want to live? How do we want to treat this gift that we've been given?

0:15:25 - (Michael O'brien): Because it can be so painfully short and things can change in a moment. And here I was, I went off to a business meeting, and I've been off to plenty of business meetings before that meeting. And I always came back home. And a whole bunch of people are traveling right now as we sit down and have coffee, and they're going off to a business meeting, and everyone expects them to come back home. And in this case, eventually I came back home, but we took a detour.

0:15:58 - (Michael O'brien): And that's the amazing thing about life. It can just change. And now it's a 180, and you got to figure it out, like, what happens when the unexpected happens? That is a moment, really, to slow it down, breathe, as my EMTs told me to do, and be intentional about how you want to live life.

0:16:22 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now, what were the long term, you can correct me if I'm right, did you have any long term effects from this accident? Physically?

0:16:36 - (Michael O'brien): I live with them as we speak. So this accident that took like a second to happen, the actual impact has left me with a chronic health thing, chronic health situation that I'm dealing with all the time now. The doctors painted this picture to me and to my wife, based on my injuries and the intensity and the significance of the injuries. They said, listen, we've seen other people have this type of injury in New Mexico. There's a whole bunch of drunk driving, and so there's a lot of trauma.

0:17:15 - (Michael O'brien): And the University of New Mexico is the only trauma one center in the state. So they've seen a lot of horrific accidents. What they told me was, you're probably going to walk with difficulty, you're probably not going to get back on your bike, and life is going to be challenging, it's going to be painful. And I've gone through all that, but I walk fine. I'm back on my bike. So I've had nerve damage in the left leg, so my left foot doesn't really work as well as it once did.

0:17:47 - (Michael O'brien): I still walk. I can still ride, as I just mentioned, but the sensation in my left foot is different. I just don't pick up on things and like, I have a toe drop. And what can happen is if I have an injury there, just a simple blister or cut, it doesn't heal as quickly. So now I have to worry about basically a skin infection, and then that can spread rapidly. It's called cellulitis, so I've had a couple of bouts of that, so I have to be really diligent and on it when it comes to the care of my skin.

0:18:23 - (Michael O'brien): So it's something that I live with today. And then there's also just the general aches and pains and stiffness and all that jazz. Yeah. So I've also gotten 22 years older, so there's a little bit of that, too. So what can we attribute to the accident, and what can we attribute to just getting older? Who knows? Certainly the accident happened, and I've lived with things up until this time, so it's with me all the time. And I also see all the scars.

0:18:55 - (Michael O'brien): The scars that I have are sort of like my tattoos. They're in the spirit of Kintsugi, art from the Japanese. They're my golden symbols of strength and resilience, but they are symbols of, like. And a reminder of what I've been through. And I used to look at those as signs of weakness, like I was broken. But over time, I saw those as great symbols of strength and resilience.

0:19:22 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now I want to ask you a question. Many people have accidents, car accidents, bicycle accident, you name it, whatever you want to say. And they have injuries, obviously, the wide variety of injuries that we're talking about as far as an impact on somebody's life. But those people, many people, they will have that accident, and it doesn't necessarily change them. They probably won't, in this interview, look back on that as a spark that changed things for them moving forward.

0:20:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Yet for you, this accident, it means more, I'm gathering, than just an accident, than just a toll on your physical health. What was it about this moment that you chose to tell me was the spark that kind of changed everything?

0:20:19 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah. Such a great question, Kevin. I do think anyone that's been involved in anything, any type of accident, it does change. Like, my story is a little bit of, you were broken and you got back up and saw life more beautifully. Like, it's a phoenix rising type of story. But I think a lot of folks could have taken the path I was on where something unfortunate or tragic happens as an accident and they stay in this.

0:20:51 - (Michael O'brien): Maybe it's a victim loop, or maybe it's just more of a really cautious way of living life. So it doesn't have to be binary option of, like, victim or rise above it, be a victor. Right. Because even though in current day we love to only give binary options, it could be somewhere in the middle. But I do think every moment changes us in some form or fashion. For me, it really comes down to the Japanese have a concept called ikigai, which is loosely translated as the reason why you get up in the morning.

0:21:32 - (Michael O'brien): And for me, it was all right. As a provider, I got to rise back up so I can be there for my wife and my girls. But to pull it a little bit further, pull this thread a little bit further. I'm only here because of all the people along the way who have helped me, and in a lot of ways, I show up today as a way to honor the people who showed up the morning of the accident. So when I got hit and they called 911 for the emergency service to come, ambulance, police, fire, you name it, all they knew is that there was a bicycle accident with an SUV.

0:22:16 - (Michael O'brien): They didn't know anything about who I was, like, how wealthy I was, how many followers I have or don't have, who I voted for, who I prayed to, who I love. They knew none of that. And they showed up, and they showed up in such a great way. They were able to save my life. From the first person on the scene to everyone in the trauma center and my whole experience there in New Mexico, in a lot of ways, I try to show up and put a good ripple into the world as a thank you for those people showing up in the way they did.

0:22:55 - (Michael O'brien): And a lot of times with trauma work, a patient comes in, and they really don't know how it ends. Like, trauma patient comes in, hopefully they do their magic, and they save someone's life, and then the person leaves the hospital and goes on to do whatever they happen to do. For me, it's about letting them know that, hey, because you showed up in the way you did, we're putting a better ripple into the world.

0:23:24 - (Michael O'brien): It's a thank you and acknowledgment of the work that they did. So maybe it gives their work a little bit more meaning as well. So, combination of being a provider, one part gratitude back to everyone who helped me on that day and everyone who's helped me since. And the third part is, I really thought long and hard about this when I got that note about everything is neutral until you label it. I was like, okay, this can be a really great moment.

0:23:55 - (Michael O'brien): This could be a moment that not only can fuel me, but can maybe in some ways, role model that we can do hard things when we travel together. And I was hitting on July 11, 2001, then 911 happened only two months later while I was in the hospital. So there's a lot of my thinking around. Okay, we've had some hard things that we've had to do globally here in the US since that date. We, to this day, still have hard things that we need to accomplish.

0:24:32 - (Michael O'brien): And part of my message is, we can do this, we can do hard things, but we have to travel together. And that's a good part of the reason why I keep going and doing this stuff.

0:24:43 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I absolutely love that so much. I love the acknowledgment of the fact that in all of our lives, we're not just traveling alone, that we're doing it with people. And whether it's the people who are in our circle, it's our family, or it's the people who just have an impact on our life on one day. All those people, the rescue workers who were there for you that one day, and yet they all have an all, you know, have an impact on us. And I love that you acknowledge that.

0:25:18 - (Michael O'brien): Oh, thanks, Kevin. Yeah, I think we're impacting each other all the time.

0:25:23 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:25:24 - (Michael O'brien): Of course, my accident is a big moment, but go to the store and someone holds the door open for you, or doesn't hold the door open for you, or if you're in traffic, someone allows you to merge or doesn't allow you to merge. These are all, As I would say, moments in between all the big moments in life, and they impact us. It shapes our view of humanity. Are we kind, are we willing to give it a moment to hold the door open for someone or allow someone in front of us so that shapes us, it shapes our worldview.

0:25:59 - (Michael O'brien): And with that worldview of, like, no, there are kind people doing kind things, I do believe then it influences us in such a way to want to do other kind things to continue the ripple. But if you're walking in a circle where no one does that, and you don't see kindness and you don't see people coming to support other people, and it's a dog eat dog world. If that's the circle, if that's the orbit you're in, then you're going to see the rest of the world that way, and then you're going to show up that way.

0:26:34 - (Michael O'brien): So when we acknowledge kindness when we see it, or compassion or love or gratitude or what have you, I just think it's important to say, hey, yeah, I see that. I appreciate that you are heard as well. And then it gives us maybe more confidence or a frame of mind to carry it forward. And I really think this moment in time needs more of it.

0:27:02 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. There was something that you said earlier when you were talking about the day of your accident, and I wanted to come back to it because you said that the day of your accident was your last bad day. Obviously, we know now that that accident didn't occur yesterday, that there's been many days in between the day of your accident and today. What do you mean by that? To say that that was your last bad day?

0:27:27 - (Michael O'brien): Well, thank you for asking this question, because on the surface, many people react to it like, oh, that doesn't seem to be connected to reality. Like, are we in the land of unicorns and rainbows and toxic positivity or what have you? So there's a parable, I think it's a Buddhist parable, about the first arrow and Second arrow. And the story goes like this. Once upon a time, there was a great warrior, and the great warrior was traveling through this dense forest and was hit by an arrow.

0:28:05 - (Michael O'brien): He or she or they didn't see where the arrow came from. All they know is that they were hit by this arrow. And as you can imagine, the arrow causes them great pain. If you've ever been hit by an arrow, you know, so they're in this great pain. It starts to Cascade throughout their whole body. This is the first arrow, meaning that things happen in life. They can come from external forces, arrows, or bad traffic or losing a job or a health diagnosis that's unpleasant or an accident.

0:28:40 - (Michael O'brien): It's a moment. The story goes on. Now the warrior is thinking, starts to ruminate and spend a lot of time on who shot this arrow at me? Where is this person? Why'd they do this? How can I get back at them? Oh, my God, I'm in so much pain. I'm like, am I going to be able to get out of the forest? What's happening now? This is so unfair. I can't believe this happened to me. I'm a great warrior. Why would anyone do this to far. You know, you can carry this on and on and on.

0:29:09 - (Michael O'brien): This is the second arrow, and we shoot the second arrow at ourselves. So when I look back, when I think about, all right, everything is neutral until you label it. Going back to the Viktor Frankl quote, between stimulus and response, there's a space, and in that space is your freedom and a chance to grow. So when I thought back to my accident, I was like, all right, first arrow, second arrow. My accident was a really bad moment.

0:29:35 - (Michael O'brien): But I didn't have to add to that moment. I didn't have to give that moment more fuel by shooting second arrows at myself. Why did this happen? This is so unfair. The driver had a revoked license. He shouldn't have been driving. This shouldn't have happened. What am I going to do with my life? How am I going to be a provider? How am I going to be a husband? So I decided I was not going to shoot second arrows at my painful first arrow. And I wasn't going to live a life in this binary way of thinking that either the day was good or the day was bad, I thought, and to this day, I still believe this.

0:30:09 - (Michael O'brien): If I can go to bed each night and my head hits the pillow And I have people in my life who I love and love me back, how can I call the whole day a bad day? The day is a collection of so many different moments. Some are going to be bad, some are going to be really irritating and frustrating, and we will feel anger, and some moments will be joyous and happy and worrisome and all the different feels right.

0:30:39 - (Michael O'brien): And so I decided I'm not going to label a full day as a bad day. It's going to be maybe a complex day or a challenging day or, man, I feel tired today, but I'm not going to shoot second arrows to my pain points that came from first arrow moments that I still experience today. I still have moments where I get pissed off and I'm irritated or I'm really sad and I'm grieving. So that's the backstory to the label. My last bad day. Now, one caveat is that when we go through loss, if we lose someone in our lives, I don't take this literally, like, oh, it's a moment, and then we're moving on, right?

0:31:23 - (Michael O'brien): Some moments last a long time. And something like grieving, I think it can be fair to say that we never get through the grieving process. We never stop grieving, especially if there's someone really close to us so we can grieve and in the same day or in a secondary moment, feel joy and happiness for something else. So when I talk about a moment, I'm not being too literal with it. And when I talk about a day, some days can be quite long. And that feeling of, say, grieving can last more than one day.

0:32:01 - (Michael O'brien): For me, it's a concept to say, all right, let's practice gratitude. Let's take things in perspective. And, hey, you don't have to shoot that second arrow at yourself.

0:32:11 - (Kevin Lowe): I love that. And what I took away from that was the idea of what we said earlier about how precious life is and how precious every day is. And so when I heard you just talk about that, I thought to myself, you know what? What a really cool way to think about it is. Instead of us categorizing Tuesday at the end of the day as the day was bad, because such and such happened in the morning, instead, why don't we look at it as the fact that, hey, Tuesday, I'm back in bed. Tonight I'm going to sleep.

0:32:47 - (Kevin Lowe): It was a day. And as you said, maybe it was a challenging day, maybe there was one thing that happened, but let's not then categorize the entire day as bad, when it was just one moment, one thing that happened. And so when I was listening to you, I thought, yeah, that's a powerful way to think about it, is to break up the day into moments. And as you said, sometimes those moments can last longer than just a moment.

0:33:15 - (Kevin Lowe): But other times, there's many times that we allow one single moment, one person cutting us off in traffic, one person saying the wrong thing, and we allow it to ruin the entire day. And yet, with this mindset of almost keeping that moment in the moment and not allowing it to infiltrate the rest of the day is kind of how in my head, I'm looking at this and thinking, wow, the power of using it in my everyday life.

0:33:48 - (Michael O'brien): Bingo. So how many times do we hear as we're talking to someone, hey, how's your day going? I'm having such a bad day. They've labeled the whole day. Now it's in a category. This whole day is bad.

0:34:01 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:34:01 - (Michael O'brien): And I think the danger in that is like, well, today was a bad day. I hope tomorrow is better. Another bad day happened, and then it becomes a pattern. So, again, my last bad day mindset is grounded in reality that we're feeling, as the kids would say, feeling all the feels and feeling all the feels. And we don't want to rush any of the feelings, so we give whatever we're feeling the space it needs, the time it needs, but we're mindful not to add to that moment with a lot of rumination.

0:34:36 - (Michael O'brien): This is why I recommend for people to, through my mindfulness practice, is pause and you get hit with a first arrow. Take a breath, and then reflect on where you want to go next. What do you want to do? What do you want to say? And hopefully it's not, I want to shoot a second arrow. And I will also say this, Kevin, I haven't been perfect in the 22 years since my accident. There have been plenty of times where I've had a moment, and I shot A second arrow at it, and I made that moment worse by fussing over it, ruminating over it, having my own little pity party, all natural, right?

0:35:16 - (Michael O'brien): Going after a little Ben and Jerry's, the American philosophers. And then I feel not so great or guilty about doing like I've had that. But when it comes to the end of the day, ain't no way I can call the full day a bad one when I am surrounded by people who have my back and I have theirs.

0:35:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love that so much. Talk to me about mindfulness and meditation, because I know that those two were instrumental in your recovery. Talk to me about that.

0:35:50 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah. So I had a moment in my recovery. I was still in the hospital. I was in a rehab hospital, and I had a moment where I broke down. I was trying to get out of my wheelchair onto my physio mat on the table, and I was really struggling, and it was so hard, and I wanted all of it to be over. I was like, why is this so hard? Something as simple as getting out of a chair onto a mat? And I couldn't do it very well, and I started bawling. I just started crying. My therapist was like, hey, take a moment.

0:36:28 - (Michael O'brien): And so she went over to help another patient, another person in the hospital. And I looked around at everyone in the rehab room, and some people were getting better, and some people were not. Some people were just going through the motions, and the whole thing felt so overwhelming. And I looked at some of the people that were getting better. I was like, okay, what's the common denominator? And a lot of it was tied to mindset. I also tapped back into my early days growing up as an athlete and remembering what coaches would say. If you had a moment when the game felt too fast or you felt overwhelmed or you got hurt, they would always say, take a breath.

0:37:06 - (Michael O'brien): Breathe. Slow it down. And so I was like, okay. I think the universe is trying to tell me to slow it down. So the next morning, I got out of my bed into my wheelchair and wheeled myself to a quiet place in the hospital, and I did my very first breath work pattern. Box breathing pattern. Keep in mind, I didn't know really anything about mindfulness or meditation. It's 2001. There's no Ted talk about this.

0:37:34 - (Michael O'brien): No, there are no podcasts about this. But I knew enough about it where I could judge it easily. I could say, this meditation thing. This is what hippies do, right? People went to Woodstock or whatever. I'm like, no serious executive does this again, I knew enough as an athlete. Like, I got to slow it down, going back to what the EMTs told me. Breathe. So I did this box breathing pattern, and I spent some time stretching my body as best as I could in a wheelchair and just getting my head on straight to approach the day. Like, how did I want to show up for the day?

0:38:13 - (Michael O'brien): I was like, all right, this is pretty good. Okay. Feeling good, feeling energized and hopeful about the day. And the day was okay. I was tested that afternoon, but the next day, I did it again, and I kept on doing it. That was the start. And then eventually, I found mindfulness based stress reductions founder Don Kabbat Zinn through his book Full Catastrophe Living. And I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So this was more of a scientific approach to meditation and mindfulness, still with some Buddhist underpinnings. But the scientific approach really appealed to me.

0:38:48 - (Michael O'brien): It was secular, and that also appealed to me at that point in my life. And I started doing this practice as a way to ease some of the stress, also to handle the pain I was in, because I was really worried about being on these heavy load pain meds. So I was doing this practice as a way to find some awareness, tap into myself, build a better connection with myself, ease some stress and pain. And as I left the hospital, I took it into my corporate life.

0:39:23 - (Michael O'brien): But in my corporate life, I would not tell a soul I was doing this because I already sort of saw people looking at me like, how's he doing? Like, he's back, but how's he doing? Because this was a slow journey. The sloth and turtle were my friends, and I didn't want to share this because I didn't want people to Think I had turned soft, that the accident fundamentally changed my drive, because I was the head of sales and marketing, and we got to go, go and get that sale and do all that.

0:39:55 - (Michael O'brien): It really was after I left my corporate job and I became a coach. And then fast forward to the pandemic where I became more open about my practice. So I called my practice pause, breathe, reflect. PBR for short, because I thought it was clever, because a lot of people in the States associate the acronym PBR with a certain Beverage. And I was like, no, it's not that kind. It's pause, breathe, reflect.

0:40:22 - (Michael O'brien): And for me, it was like bite size pieces. So, mindfulness based stress reduction is a 45 minutes per day practice, which I had time to do in the hospital. But going back into the corporate world, I lost some of that time, because you got to get things done. Got to answer all those emails. So pause, breathe, reflect. Fundamentally is based on shorter meditative practices so you can weave them throughout your day. And I wanted to be able to be intentional, be aware of my moments in between all my moments throughout the day.

0:40:57 - (Michael O'brien): So this has fundamentally changed my life. So I credit my practice of mindfulness meditation along with gratitude for making a big difference in my recovery. And I still do it today. Eventually, I became a qualified teacher, and then we developed our app to help people step into mindfulness in a very relatable, approachable way and really speak to people who might be in the middle of the world that may not necessarily know what it is.

0:41:33 - (Michael O'brien): They may have heard about it, much like I did back in 2001, and invite them to slow it down a little bit and breathe. And in that moment of reflection, practice gratitude or be intentional about how they wanted to show up next, I feel, Kevin, if 8 billion of us can spend 1 minute a day pausing, taking a few healthy Inhales and slow releasing exhales and reflect about what is happening in the world for them right now and how they want to show up, we would have a more peaceful world.

0:42:05 - (Michael O'brien): And that's the mission. A month.

0:42:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love that. Now, tell me, your app. What exactly does it entail and where can we find it?

0:42:17 - (Michael O'brien): Well, people can find it wherever they get their apps, Apple Store, Google Play. So it's called pause, breathe, reflect. And we built it. I built this along with my partner as I was riding my bike across the country back in 2022. The whole concept of having a space for, as I would say, like hearted humans, not like minded, like hearted humans, open to different mindedness. To come into a community, in this case, an app, and have a whole bunch of shorter practices.

0:42:54 - (Michael O'brien): 1 minute, two minute, three minute, five minute. And I have longer practices on the app, but we over index on the shorter practices. With this in mind for people who come to me and say, I would love to do this, but I don't have ten minutes in the morning or 20 minutes in the morning. My morning routine is already full enough. I got so much I need to do. And now that we're going back into the office, I have my commute now and I just can't do it. And I want to meet people where they're at. So for that person, if they don't have ten minutes in the morning to practice mindfulness, I share with them. I bet you have ten times throughout the day where you have a minute, or maybe five times where you have two.

0:43:35 - (Michael O'brien): So throughout the day, just take 1 minute breaks, two minute breaks. And so I've designed meditations on really real situations in life where we can just slow it down for a bit, maybe before a meeting or before a podcast, or in line at the grocery store, where we can slow things down and just be more thoughtful so people who get the app will see that. Plus, we do something that I really love doing.

0:44:04 - (Michael O'brien): Monday through Friday, I host a live practice via Zoom, so people all over the world can come and practice in a community. And there's something really cool about doing meditation together. A lot of apps out there will have it be about yourself. But if I'm going to be true to my perspective that we go far together, we don't travel alone, then I wanted to create an app, a community, where people could come together and support each other in the hard things that they're doing.

0:44:38 - (Michael O'brien): And it's wonderful. It's a short practice, it's about five to seven minutes, but we create space for people to share their voice. The whole thing lasts no more than a half an hour, but it's really special. And I love that aspect about what we've built.

0:44:56 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, that is just powerful. Powerful. And again, talk about being that ripple effect, using what you have gained to now be a positive impact on others lives. I love it.

0:45:09 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah, that's the big thing. We talk about the ripple effect a lot in our pause, breathe, reflect community, and being intentional with our ripple. You can see all across the planet that unpleasant ripples can travel very quickly. The divisiveness, the violence, the hatred, like that stuff can travel very quickly. And the news media loves to accelerate that or amplify it. So the notion of rippling kindness or compassion, the news media doesn't grab onto that, or the social media algorithms, they don't grab onto that. They don't amplify that message as strongly as the threatening messages.

0:45:55 - (Michael O'brien): So it's incumbent upon us to continue to show up. Each individual can put a small ripple into the world, a ripple of kindness, a ripple of support, of gratitude. And together, all those small ripples can come into a formation and form a big wave and hopefully overpower the dark ripples that might be out there. And so that's part of the work that we're trying to do. Through mindfulness, we open up. We can see other perspectives.

0:46:31 - (Michael O'brien): It helps us focus when we need to focus on the things that truly matter. And it can help us meet our moments with the right type of equanimity, the right type of balance or harmony, and put some goodness into the world.

0:46:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. I love it. We are all ready to be surfing some waves created by the ripples. I love it, man. This is amazing. Now I got to go back a little bit to something you said earlier about 2022. You cycled across the country.

0:47:03 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah. We called it the rise to ripple challenge rise, giving a tip of the cap to resilience. Two is a bridge to something. The ripple, of course, we've already talked about. So I was riding my bike, my wife was driving the RV, which was plastered with ripple kindness and pause, breathe, reflect signage and stuff like that. It was a very decorative RV. We had our two dogs with us, and we went from Astoria, Oregon, to Washington, DC, over 41 days of cycling, 45 days in total.

0:47:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. So where did you end up at?

0:47:49 - (Michael O'brien): We ended up at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. And that has significance because we met each other and we started our family in DC. So that was perfect. The crazy thing about is, like, we were originally going to end up in Yorktown, Virginia, so I was going Astoria to Yorktown, Virginia. That's a quintessential TransAmerica bike trail. That's on roads, it's not on a bike trail, but that's the route. And we got to Wyoming, and we met another couple going west.

0:48:19 - (Michael O'brien): And I had heard in my planning that in Kentucky there were a lot of wild know dogs from homeowners, but they weren't leashed up, not like they are here in New Jersey. And I heard reports about these dogs chasing cyclists. So the route that I took is in rural America. We're not going through towns at all. So you're out in the boonies, as they would say. And the whole notion of riding through Kentucky, getting chased by wild dogs. And, of course, the story, Kevin, I had in my head, they were salivating, and they were blood coming from their mouth, and they were just ready to feast on another cyclist's prey. I was like, that was my vision. I was like, oh, God, I don't want to do that.

0:49:06 - (Michael O'brien): It's near the end of all this. I'll probably be a little tired. So then I asked this couple, I'm like, so tell me about Kentucky. And they're like, oh, that's an interesting question. And, you know, you interview a lot of people when someone says that before they answer you, you got to brace yourself for the answer. And what he said is, he got chased all the time. So that afternoon, we went back to our RV camp and rerouted our whole route. So we made a left turn in Kansas to avoid Kentucky.

0:49:38 - (Michael O'brien): And here's the cool thing. There is a message. All this is know, don't necessarily fall in love with your plan and be so rigid to it. So plan tight, hang loose. So that gave us a little slack so we could adjust. And when we made that adjustment, we created a different route. We found a different route that other cyclists have taken, and that was ideal. That was like the perfect route because I was able to go on some iconic rails to trail sections here in the US, the Katie Trail through Missouri, and then there's a bike path, a bike trail, gravel that goes from Pittsburgh to DC.

0:50:22 - (Michael O'brien): So I avoided roads altogether, traffic altogether, and we finished up in DC as opposed to Yorktown, a place where we was. It was the perfect adjustment. So one great lesson from all this is like, hey, plan tight, hang loose. If you need to adjust your plan, you have enough slack in order to do that.

0:50:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. And of course, pause, breathe, reflect.

0:50:49 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah. As you do it. We were, all right, big task. We'll figure it out. Right? We didn't have the best Wi Fi connection or cell connection where we were, but we're like, okay, we can figure this. Like, let's just figure out the first couple spots in Kansas so we can get up into Missouri. But it all worked out. The trip was beautiful. And another cool thing from it was that the route I was taking was very similar to the route my wife was taking, but I was going at my pace and she was driving the RV and at different times. So we saw some similar things, but we also saw completely different things. So, again, going back to this whole notion of perspective, sometimes the pace that you go through life changes your perspective, or the time you enter something changes your perspective. So what was really cool?

0:51:44 - (Michael O'brien): Each night I'd get back to base camp. She was there. I would shower, we'd have some dinner, and then we would share what we saw during the day. It was really cool. What we saw that was similar, and what we saw that was completely different, it was so awesome.

0:52:00 - (Kevin Lowe): That is so powerful. I love that. Now, I want to ask you something that I've had on my mind when you're talking about this trip is what was it like for you the first time you got back on the bike and hit the road?

0:52:13 - (Michael O'brien): Oh, yeah. Great question. So my physical therapist at the time really pressed my buttons. She poked at him. And I think that the lesson here is we need people in our lives that are going to poke on a nerve that will push our buttons to get us outside of our comfort zone. So I loved going to physical therapy. It was like practice. It was like having a personal trainer. And there came a point where she was like, you need to get back on the bike. You need to get outside.

0:52:46 - (Michael O'brien): And I was like, no, I don't. She goes, yeah, you do. And you can't come back to therapy until you do. And I was like, you can't say that. I'm the patient. I can come here. I have health care, the whole thing. This is so unfair. Why are you doing this? She was like, it's your choice. If you want to come back, you have to try to get back on the was Kevin. I was so pissed off. I was like, that's not fair. And I went home to my wife, and I grumbled at her. I'm like, this is so unfair. And then my wife was like, well, when do you think you're going to try to get back on the bike? And I was like, tomorrow.

0:53:24 - (Michael O'brien): And then the next day, it was 13 months after my accident. We went to a place nearby. It's a place, actually, where we had bike races every Thursday night. It was a 1 mile loop. And I got on the bike and I was all wobbly. I still had some biomechanical issues, but it felt so good. But I wasn't riding in traffic. I was just doing a few laps. And then I said to my wife and my daughters, hey, why don't you go get some coffee or what have you.

0:53:53 - (Michael O'brien): I'm just going to take some time here just by myself to do this. I just needed some space. And when they did that, I was like, all right, this is going fairly well. I'm going to try to get back on the road. So I got on this road that I've ridden thousands of times. So I'm riding along. I'm like, okay, all right, no traffic. I'm feeling good. And then all of a sudden, I could feel it coming up behind me. And I looked over my left shoulder, and the universe sent a white Ford Expedition.

0:54:25 - (Michael O'brien): So the original accident was a white Ford Explorer. So they sent a bigger version, the same car, and it was speeding. And I was like, you got to be kidding me. You couldn't give me a Volkswagen bug to pass me as the first car. You had to send this honking big SUV my way. Like, come on. And so I could feel it coming up behind. I was grabbing the handlebars. It was white knuckling it. I was holding my breath.

0:54:58 - (Michael O'brien): I probably closed my eyes. And when it passed, it was like, I could exhale. It's like, okay, I could do this. And then I just began slowly increasing how far I went in the subsequent days after that. But the biggest thing that was the challenge. It wasn't traffic. Traffic was a thing. Don't get me wrong. Going through what I went through, any reasonable person would be nervous about getting back out there in traffic.

0:55:27 - (Michael O'brien): But that wasn't the big thing. The big thing was once I got back on my bike outside, I would be standing with reality on how far I had to go to get back to quote unquote normal. It's sort of like when you're on a diet and you don't want to get on the scale. You think you've lost some weight because the jeans that you're wearing fit better, but they're only fitting better because you haven't washed them in three weeks.

0:55:54 - (Michael O'brien): It's that feeling. You know that feeling?

0:55:56 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:55:57 - (Michael O'brien): You're like, I have so lost weight. Like, look at how these jeans fit so much better. I probably lost, like, ten pounds. And the reality probably is I've lost maybe three pounds, and I didn't want to see that reality. I knew I had made progress since my accident, no doubt about it. But I also knew I had so much further to go, and I really didn't want to see that. But getting back on the bike helped me see that, helped me just sit or stand or ride with reality.

0:56:33 - (Michael O'brien): And that was therapeutic because it was like, okay, I get it now. I still have a long way to go. And I could also appreciate, given my gratitude, practice how far I have come. And we're just going to continue doing this one day at a time. Small steps, small ripples consistently over time, and we're going to get there in that. I had faith, but the biggest resistance was I didn't want to look at the scale. I didn't want to get back out there because I knew I had so much further to go.

0:57:03 - (Michael O'brien): But once I did, once my physical therapist pressed the button in just the right way, got me out there. I'm so grateful that she did because that was a big moment in my recovery.

0:57:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Michael, man, I love hearing your story. I love hearing your mindset, just your insights on life. My last question is for the person who's listening to us today. And maybe they're going through their moment right now, and it's more than a moment, it's lasting way too long. And they feel like they're stuck and they want to crawl out of it, and they can't. And they don't know what to do, and they don't know if life's going to get better. What would you say to them?

0:57:48 - (Michael O'brien): Yeah, the first thing I would say is, like, I feel you. It is hard. And when we're in moments like you're in right now, it's really human to feel all that you're feeling. And then I would invite them with me to take a moment just to connect with the breath, create some space, create some openness. And in that moment of reflection, we can practice a little gratitude of what's one small thing that you're grateful for?

0:58:17 - (Michael O'brien): Or perhaps what's one small step you can take? Or maybe is there one person you can reach out to that can support you and to find a way to take that first step if we're really in it and it's so natural and human to be in it, and that first step we take, and then we try to take a second small step, and we build it over time. So in general, I believe in the practice of mindfulness. I believe in the practice of gratitude and also making sure that you have people in your life who bring out the best in you and you can bring out the best in them. We're all going to have moments. We're all going to have first arrow moments. But when we slow it down, we can practice gratitude and realize that we're in this together, that there are people that we can lean on when we have a first arrow moment, and we're a person that other people can lean on when they have first arrow moments.

0:59:15 - (Michael O'brien): Hopefully we can prevent second arrows from firing and find a way through this and come back together. Pick up the pieces like Kinsugi Art, glue them back together, and then the scars that come from going through something difficult, whether they're emotional or physical, they become our golden symbols of strength. We come back together in a different, beautiful form, and that's pretty wonderful. So I would start there. If I sat with someone who is going through something really difficult.

0:59:49 - (Michael O'brien): And here's the thing. So many people are. We're all going through something, and if we can take a moment to pause, we can see that. We can see each other's humanity and offer some compassion. And I think this moment calls for that.

1:00:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Michael, thank you. Thank you so much for being here today, for sharing all of this with me, with my listener. It has been an absolute pleasure having the opportunity to talk with you.

1:00:24 - (Michael O'brien): Well, it was awesome to be with you, Kevin. I love what you're putting out into the world. The world needs more of it, so keep rippling what you're rippling, and I hope your listeners got a few pearls from our conversation.

1:00:37 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you. For you, my listener. Guys, I hope you took something away from this. I hope that you are totally jazzed up like I am, to be a ripple to get the positivity flowing, because we need some ripples of encouragement. And my hope is that you got something from today that's going to impact your life, to make tomorrow a little bit better than today. My name is Kevin Lowe, your host.

1:01:07 - (Kevin Lowe): Get out there and take on the day with grit, grace, and inspiration.