How the heck does this story start?

It started on December 1st of 2007, which was a Saturday morning right after Thanksgiving.

So Thanksgiving had been real late that year.

And my eight-year-old daughter had a swim meet.

And swim season in central Pennsylvania in December is indoors.

And so we had a swim meet about an hour south of Harrisburg, down closer to the Maryland border.

And so we left early that morning.

When did you decide to write it?

And people can, better yet, why don't you tell your story? Start from the accident and we'll go forward.

Okay, so the accident happened almost 20 years ago.

It'll be 20 years this December 1st.

It was December 1st of 2007.

It was the Saturday right after Thanksgiving.

So it was a late Thanksgiving that year.

And so we had hosted Thanksgiving.

This is from a guy that probably should not be alive by all accounts.

Our South, you're touching on my home state.

Yeah.

So I was at Mercersburg at James Buchanan High School.

So Mercersburg Academy is right there.

So this was an early meet.

And so the meet was already over at noon.

And so we kind of bribed our four-year-old son saying, like, if you could behave through your sister's swim meet.

so let's let's move to How did all that launch you into what you do now, like your book, The Upside of Down? And just what did coming back and relaunching into normal life look like? Well, unfortunately, it never relaunched

[laughs]

And so, so he's like, you know, "We'll go get a Christmas tree when we're done if you can, you know, get through the swim meet." So we leave the swim meet and it's about noon, so you know, it's already just lunchtime, and we're pulling out of this high school where the, where the meet was held.

And instead of turning left and going exactly the direction that we came from, we decided to take the more scenic route, turn right out of the school, get up to Interstate 81 from a different exit.

Very rural area of Pennsylvania.

And we're driving on a 55-mile undivided road, and a car coming the other direction at the last second crossed the center line, and we went driver to driver.

No skid marks-

Mm

...

What are they?

The big one is this concept of everybody falls in love with the goal instead of the process.

You know, they focus so much on that end game that they miss all this opportunity for growth, for learning, um, you know, for all the progress that actually happens along the way.

You know, I often say, like, the beauty lies in the process, and if you miss it on your way to your goal, then you're actually never going to achieve it.

Um, I get to speak to college athletes a lot, and, you know, I always say, "Look, you don't get to win a championship overnight." You know, you practice, you win a game, you go back to practice, then you lose a game.

You reevaluate, right? If you're lucky, you make the playoffs.

It's, it's very much a step-by-step process, and once people spend so much energy looking far above the horizon at the climb, you know, that they're headed towards, that that goal feels so far away.

So listen, if someone's listening right now and they're in their own rock bottom moments, what would you say is one action they should take today to start rebuilding their momentum?