My brain injury's a gift & helps me stop people 'kicking rocks'!
I didn't plan on starting my own coaching business in my 20s. But a car accident that left me with a serious brain injury ended up being the wake-up call I needed to stop 'kicking rocks' down the road and finally go after my dream.
In this episode, I'm sharing the story of how:
The concussion I got from the accident turned into post-concussive syndrome, leaving me unable to work for 8 months
The limitations and loneliness of recovering from a traumatic brain injury made me reevaluate what I really wanted out of life
I finally found the courage to sign up for coach training, even though I couldn't really afford it at the time
If you've been putting off starting the business you've always dreamed of, this episode will show you why you can't afford to wait for the 'perfect time'.
You'll learn how to turn your perceived weaknesses into your greatest strengths.
And you'll walk away ready to pick up that rock you've been kicking down the road and finally do something with it.
Timestamped summary:
00:00 Intro - Why a brain injury ended up being a gift
02:41 The car accident that caused my concussion
04:50 Struggling with post-concussive syndrome and having to take months off work
09:50 What helped me get through the loneliness and limitations of recovery
13:46 Finally finding the courage to sign up for coach training
15:23 How a toxic work environment gave me the final push to go all-in on my business
17:30 Why you need to stop waiting for the "perfect time" to go after your dreams
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
In this episode, I'm going to tell you why a car accident and a
Speaker:brain injury was actually the greatest gift the universe ever gave me.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and
Speaker:welcome to the Weeniecast!
Speaker:Starting my business was
Speaker:the best thing that I've ever done for myself. But honestly, I don't know that
Speaker:I would have done it when I did if I hadn't had a really serious
Speaker:accident and had to make some really dramatic changes
Speaker:to my life. And I think a lot of us go through this. You know,
Speaker:we have this dream, and it's like that someday dream of, someday I'm gonna
Speaker:do this, and someday I'm gonna do that. When the stars align, when I feel
Speaker:ready, when I've saved enough money, you know, when this happens, when
Speaker:that happens. And most of the time, unfortunately,
Speaker:those dreams just get kicked down the road like a rock until
Speaker:it's too late to actually do anything with them, or until
Speaker:you get down on yourself enough that you think, oh, well, you know, I haven't
Speaker:done it yet, and I probably will never do it, and then you just give
Speaker:up on it. I was absolutely on that trajectory.
Speaker:I had my very first coach when I was 22 years old, had an
Speaker:incredible experience, really thought, okay, I want to be a coach,
Speaker:quote unquote, when I grow up. And I had this idea in
Speaker:my mind that I had to be, like, a certain
Speaker:age, and I had to have a certain level of experience, and I had to
Speaker:be taken seriously and have a certain level of respect
Speaker:already before I could start a business, before I could go and
Speaker:coach with other people. And so, you know, I was in my twenties, and I
Speaker:was figuring out life, and I was kind of, like, sampling everything. You know, I
Speaker:was in wine, I was a sommelier, and then I acted, and then I nannied,
Speaker:and then I worked in the solar industry and then the cybersecurity industry and
Speaker:the fitness industry, and managed a yarn shop at some point in there and
Speaker:taught knitting. But every single time I got to that point in
Speaker:a job where I wasn't happy, where I was
Speaker:frustrated and just ready to move on to something else, I'd hire a
Speaker:coach, and that coach would help me figure out what I didn't like
Speaker:about that job and what I was kind of looking for in the next job.
Speaker:And more than once, I jumped without having
Speaker:anything lined up on the other side. And the magic of coaching
Speaker:is that I always landed somewhere better. I always landed somewhere where they
Speaker:treated me better where they paid me, better, where I was more interested in the
Speaker:thing that we were doing. And every single time I had this experience,
Speaker:it just reaffirmed, oh, my God, I want to do this for people. I want
Speaker:to do this for other people. This is such an incredible thing to be able
Speaker:to do for others. But there was that voice in my head that's like,
Speaker:well, you're too young. Who's going to listen to you? You've jumped jobs how
Speaker:many times you've worked in how many industries, like, come on,
Speaker:no one's going to take you seriously. And, I mean, the problem was, honestly,
Speaker:that I didn't take me seriously. The problem was that I
Speaker:saw all that as a hindrance rather than a
Speaker:superpower. And fast forward to October
Speaker:22 of 2017. I remember the date. I was
Speaker:driving back from visiting my goddad and his wife in
Speaker:Sacramento, and I went to take a left hand turn because I was
Speaker:lost into a driveway, and the person behind me sped up and
Speaker:tried to pass me on the left. As I was taking the turn, she t
Speaker:boned me and totaling my car completely
Speaker:and giving me a very serious concussion. And honestly, having that
Speaker:concussion was one of the scariest things that ever happened to me in my life,
Speaker:because the concussion actually turned into post concussive
Speaker:syndrome, which is basically where the concussion doesn't go away
Speaker:and it actually gets worse over time. And so. And the
Speaker:concussion was really bad. It was. It was really interesting because a couple days
Speaker:after the accident, I was so sore, and my car was totaled, and
Speaker:I had called out of work, obviously, because I was recovering, and they
Speaker:told me to keep an eye on certain things that could be
Speaker:happening if it was a concussion. I noticed that, like, I was having a hard
Speaker:time reading, people would send me text messages, and if they were short text
Speaker:messages, like, one line, I could read it fine. If it was two lines,
Speaker:it got really blurry, and if it was three lines or more, without
Speaker:any spacing, all the words started floating out of space
Speaker:and out of order. It was really frightening. I also was having a really hard
Speaker:time focusing. One of my roommate's friends came over to check on me at some
Speaker:point when I was home listening. Katie. Katie. And
Speaker:I had the tv on, and she was talking, and I literally just couldn't track
Speaker:what anyone was saying.
Speaker:If you've listened to the podcast, I think you can probably glean that. I'm usually
Speaker:a pretty fast thinker, and I can absorb a lot. You know, like, I have
Speaker:ADHD, I can watch a tv show and have a full conversation and be texting
Speaker:other people and know what's going on with all three of them. So this was
Speaker:really disconcerting for me. And so I went to the emergency
Speaker:room and they diagnosed me with a concussion, and they recommended that
Speaker:I take a couple weeks off of work, which I did. My manager, thank God,
Speaker:was so supportive of me. And after a couple weeks, I went back to
Speaker:work. And of course, like, during that time, I had to go and get my
Speaker:eyes checked. There was nothing wrong with my eyes, they concluded, and I had to
Speaker:get an MRI. And there's, like, nothing visibly wrong with
Speaker:my brain. And the theory was that during the accident, the part of
Speaker:my brain that deciphers what my eyes see just got bumped.
Speaker:Just got bumped and a little bruised. And it really did limit what
Speaker:I could do. And of course, I was working in software sales at the time,
Speaker:so my whole life was on a computer. My whole
Speaker:life was looking at very, very fine print in
Speaker:salesforce, trying to figure out, like, how to reach out
Speaker:to different people to close the sale and having those really
Speaker:complicated conversations because we were in Internet security and it
Speaker:just, like, there was no way, I mean, I couldn't even read, so
Speaker:it was really not possible for me to go back to work. And,
Speaker:like, I even played with, well, what if they just printed out huge list
Speaker:of everyone and I could just call through and have everything in, like, really big
Speaker:block text? Maybe that'll work. I think we even tried that
Speaker:for a day. But what happened is, like, I went back to work
Speaker:and after an hour of trying to look at my computer, I had the worst
Speaker:migraine and I had to go home. And the next day the same thing happened.
Speaker:And the next day the same thing happened. And I went to my doctor and
Speaker:I was beside myself. I was crying hysterically.
Speaker:I was sure that, like, my brain was broken and there
Speaker:was just, there was no fixing it. And she was so
Speaker:kind with me. She listened to everything I had to say
Speaker:and did some tests. And she's like, you know, I think you have post concussive
Speaker:syndrome, which is something that happens. And it's very common with women who get
Speaker:concussions. And it's basically where the concussion just doesn't get better.
Speaker:And it's basically the concussion becomes a mild traumatic brain
Speaker:injury. And her prescription
Speaker:was two months off of work.
Speaker:And, like, I was hysterically crying before.
Speaker:I was crying even harder after hearing that. For
Speaker:one, I was scared. I was scared to lose my job. I was scared for,
Speaker:like, my income and would my insurance be taken away and all that stuff. The
Speaker:things that, you know, Americans really have to stress about. But also, I love
Speaker:working. I love working with people. The idea of having to
Speaker:stay home was just excruciating to me.
Speaker:A side note, I was having a hard time reading, so I was also having
Speaker:a hard time, like, texting correct things. One of my coworkers,
Speaker:Forrest, had asked me, like, text me after your doctor's appointment. I want to hear
Speaker:how you're doing. And I texted him, and I thought I texted him,
Speaker:my doctor gave me two months of sick leave. Except
Speaker:when you text, the s and the d are very close to each other. So
Speaker:I accidentally texted him that my doctor prescribed two months of
Speaker:dick leave, which was great anyway,
Speaker:which he thankfully thought was very funny.
Speaker:He didn't get weird, thank God. But anyway, the road to recovery was really
Speaker:hard. I ended up having to take eight months off of work. In that time,
Speaker:I started working with a neuropsychologist to really help me understand my new
Speaker:limitations. You know, when you're. When you have a mild traumatic brain injury, you can't
Speaker:listen to music. You don't realize
Speaker:how much brain power it takes for you to actively
Speaker:listen and decipher music. You don't realize how much
Speaker:brain power it takes to make sense of ambient noises like
Speaker:cars driving by. So when I went walking,
Speaker:because walking was the only exercise I was allowed to do, because they didn't want
Speaker:me upping my heart rate and maybe causing a brain bleed if there's something that
Speaker:they missed. On the MRI, I had to wear earplugs to block out the
Speaker:sound. I couldn't hang out with friends for more than about a half hour. Cause
Speaker:it was just too draining. And, like, the amount of energy I had to
Speaker:do basic things was abysmal.
Speaker:And the reason I'm sharing this a is to, like, explain
Speaker:how I ended up doing my job and to kind of give you some insight
Speaker:as to what it took for me so that hopefully it calls bull on you
Speaker:kicking the stone down the road, right? Because I
Speaker:know you have a dream. I know you have something that you want to do,
Speaker:and I know there's that voice in your head, just like I had, that's telling
Speaker:you, well, not yet. You can't do this yet. You have to
Speaker:wait. And here's all the reasons why you have to wait, and you're not good
Speaker:enough yet. And I don't want you to have to wait until the universe is
Speaker:like, shut the up. Here's a car accident. Now go do it.
Speaker:But also, I wish there had been a resource, something for me to listen
Speaker:to when I was going through this and trying to make
Speaker:sense of what was happening in my own head and trying to,
Speaker:like, not freak out that this is just going to be my life forever.
Speaker:So I invite you, as you're listening to this, if you know anyone who has
Speaker:a concussion, if you know anyone who has had a
Speaker:mild traumatic brain injury and they're recovering from it, send this to them.
Speaker:Send this to them so that they can see that they're not alone and that
Speaker:things do get better. And really, you know, I've
Speaker:talked to several people who've experienced traumatic brain injuries. And what's really
Speaker:interesting is that if they didn't have ADHD like symptoms
Speaker:before, they tend to have them after. And of course,
Speaker:there's a lot of research that talks about, like, the overlap of PTSD
Speaker:and ADHD. But I also think that there's a fundamental way in which
Speaker:the brain changes once you've had a traumatic brain injury. And
Speaker:I can tell you there are things to this day that I still find
Speaker:challenging, not debilitating. It's not limiting, it's
Speaker:not. It's just different. My brain started working in different
Speaker:ways. But if you have had a concussion and you're listening to this, I want
Speaker:you to know that you only have a few spoons per day going grocery
Speaker:shopping, a big spoon. It's going to take a big spoon for you
Speaker:to do. And don't be discouraged if you're
Speaker:exhausted afterwards. Watching a movie
Speaker:is also usually, that's something that's seen as something that's restful. It's
Speaker:not. When you're recovering from a brain injury. Absolutely not. It takes
Speaker:so much for your brain to decipher. Understanding how to ask
Speaker:friends to be there for you is something that I never figured out until
Speaker:afterwards. It was probably one of the most lonely parts of my life because
Speaker:my friends would go out and they'd want to go out to bars and they'd
Speaker:want to go to dinner or brunch or they'd want to go to the park.
Speaker:All things that I love doing, but I couldn't do them because it was too
Speaker:taxing on my brain. And the things that make a concussion
Speaker:worse, that prevent it from getting better, is physical activity and thinking.
Speaker:Literally, your brain thinking and processing stuff makes the
Speaker:concussion harder to recover from. And in hindsight, I
Speaker:wish, because I had a lot of friends I could have asked this of. I
Speaker:wish I had just asked people to just come over and bring a book
Speaker:and just read around me. Just body double. Just be
Speaker:in my space. Just for an afternoon, order
Speaker:food, hang out. Like, just be in my
Speaker:space. And if you're going through this, I want you to have full permission
Speaker:to reach out to some friends and explain what's going on with you
Speaker:and invite them to do something like this, because the loneliness is the hardest
Speaker:part.
Speaker:Something that I didn't realize was happening that got
Speaker:reflected back to me after I got better is that my temperament changed during this
Speaker:time as well. I had one colleague
Speaker:who used to be, we were very, very close before this
Speaker:happened, and apparently
Speaker:I was awful to him. I was really mean. I. Like,
Speaker:I. My temperament, like, my. And he said this, your temperament
Speaker:completely changed. You snapped so many times
Speaker:at us. And of course, like, I don't actually remember it.
Speaker:My brain was working so hard to just make sense of the world around
Speaker:me. And thankfully, afterwards, you know, I was able to apologize. But I don't
Speaker:think that our friendship actually ever fully recovered. So
Speaker:if you're going through this, know that your temperament is going to be different,
Speaker:know that you're going to have a shorter fuse. And part of it is just
Speaker:the frustration that your brain isn't working the way you're used to it
Speaker:working. And prepare the people around you, you know, make
Speaker:sure that they know, like, this is just a symptom of this, and
Speaker:you're preemptively apologetic for anything that you say that's sharp
Speaker:or unkind or for losing your temper in any way.
Speaker:And pay attention to that, because it's usually a sign that you're taxing
Speaker:yourself too much now, because I wasn't allowed to watch
Speaker:tv, I wasn't allowed to be on computers. I wasn't allowed to, like,
Speaker:look at my phone for too long because literally the backlit thing
Speaker:was way too taxing on my brain. A few months into
Speaker:recovering, I was going absolutely insane. And it got
Speaker:to the point where I was like, okay, well, like, what if I can't go
Speaker:back to work? What if I literally cannot go back to a sales role where
Speaker:I have to look at a screen all the time? What do I want to
Speaker:do? And my mind kept going back to, well, you've always wanted to be a
Speaker:coach. You know, that's always been your dream. And I'd been stalking this
Speaker:website for forever. For the coactive training institute, which one of
Speaker:my coaches previously had told me was the one of the best training
Speaker:programs that I could possibly go to. And,
Speaker:you know, having a brain injury and being bad at math at that time,
Speaker:I signed up even though I couldn't technically afford it. And it
Speaker:started me on this path where I was no longer kicking
Speaker:that rock down the road where I'd actually pick the rock up
Speaker:and was doing something with it. I decided, you know,
Speaker:like, I could have died in that car accident. If
Speaker:my car had moved 1ft forward, her
Speaker:bumper probably would have come through my door and caused either
Speaker:incredible injury beyond the brain injury or
Speaker:been fatal to me. And also, I just had a ton of time on my
Speaker:hands. So I went through the training. As I got better, I
Speaker:also went through certification. I went back to work. And going back to
Speaker:work was really painful because, you know, my brain no longer worked the same way.
Speaker:Looking at screens was really hard. It was very emotionally taxing
Speaker:also, and partially because I discovered what my calling
Speaker:was, I had figured out the thing
Speaker:that I wanted to do that I had always been searching
Speaker:for, being able to help people get what they want. And of
Speaker:course, you know, like, I started off with three other niches before I ended up
Speaker:helping people with businesses and really honing into helping people with
Speaker:ADHD. But regardless of the fact that I wasn't in the
Speaker:perfect niche yet, I couldn't do anything else. Like, literally, I couldn't
Speaker:make my nervous system do anything else. And one of the greatest gifts was
Speaker:that going back to work was actually everything had changed. We had a new
Speaker:manager. It was incredibly toxic. And honestly, thankfully, when I went back
Speaker:to work, my manager had changed, the head of our department had changed.
Speaker:Everything had gone from being so supportive and so kind to
Speaker:the most toxic environment you could possibly imagine.
Speaker:And that mixed with me understanding,
Speaker:like, this newfound passion and understanding that, like, I really
Speaker:wanted to do that, as my business was the perfect combination
Speaker:to really, like, push me out of the nest and make me just go for
Speaker:it. I think back, and honestly, if. I think if I
Speaker:had gone back and had the same manager and I had gone back and had,
Speaker:like, the same job with the exact same responsibilities as I had
Speaker:when I left, I don't know that I would have had the guts
Speaker:to actually leave it and go and start something different.
Speaker:Going back and having that, like, the complete structure
Speaker:of my day and my work and the respect that was paid to people in
Speaker:the team changed was probably one of the best things that could have
Speaker:happened to me. If you have a concussion or a mild
Speaker:traumatic brain injury or a very serious brain injury, I want you to
Speaker:know that you're going to heal over time. It takes time, though, and it
Speaker:takes rest, and it takes rest. That you are probably going to be
Speaker:very bad at, because you're ambitious and you're a
Speaker:hard worker, and you're intelligent, and you're going to hold yourself to a higher
Speaker:standard and you're not think, oh, my God. Well, what's wrong with me? Why can't
Speaker:I do this thing? And it's just that you can't do this thing
Speaker:now. It's just that you need your brain
Speaker:to have a break. And there are going to be moments where you're like, oh,
Speaker:my God, this is my new normal. I'm always going to be this messed up,
Speaker:and it's never going to get better. And that's honestly just the nature of
Speaker:being human. We adjust to different circumstances
Speaker:incredibly fast. It's a survival mechanism. It's how we
Speaker:survive really traumatic events. It's how our ancestors
Speaker:got through wars and famines. We just kind of
Speaker:adjusted. This is our reality right now. And then our reality changes, and that's our
Speaker:reality now. So know that that's not always going to
Speaker:be a reality, but for you to move through it faster, you actually
Speaker:have to do a whole lot less than you're trying to do now. And for
Speaker:those of you who have an idea for a business or who
Speaker:want to scale the business you have, and you keep kicking that rock down the
Speaker:road because you're like, oh, I'm not ready yet. Oh, it's not the right time.
Speaker:Oh, I'm not old enough. Oh, I don't have this. Oh, I don't have that.
Speaker:Shut the f up. The thing about the universe is that the universe
Speaker:wants you to win. And the universe doesn't give a damn
Speaker:how it gets you to go there. If you're dilly
Speaker:dallying and you're kicking that rock down the road of all your dreams,
Speaker:everything that you want to have come true, the universe is going to get tired
Speaker:of it at some point, and the universe is going to send something like a
Speaker:car accident, gives you a mild traumatic brain injury to get you off
Speaker:your ass and to go and do the thing. And let me tell
Speaker:you, it's not great. I definitely would have
Speaker:preferred to have just, like, stopped being weenie magically and decided,
Speaker:okay, now's the time I'm gonna do this, and just made it work from
Speaker:there. And I hope after listening to this, this could be that
Speaker:thing that gets you off your butt and gets you going for it.
Speaker:Now kick me.
