Win Today

#184 | Two Life Lessons From Getting Hit By A Car While Running

• Ryan A. Cass • Season 5

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This episode emphasizes the profound impact of stories on our beliefs and emotional well-being. Through personal anecdotes of adversity and resilience, Ryan encourages listeners to let go of unproductive emotions and embrace life's unexpected moments as opportunities for growth. 

• The significance of personal stories behind our beliefs 
• Evaluating the relevance of emotional baggage 
• The transformative power of running as an outlet 
• Lessons learned from a life-changing accident 
• The importance of reconciling fractured family relationships 
• Embracing unexpected chapters in life's narrative 
• The role of discipline in achieving personal goals 
• Nurturing connections and fostering love over conflict 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Win Today podcast, a weekly resource thoughtfully crafted to equip people with tools to build and refine discipline, accomplish your goals, fortify your mindset and be of service to somebody in this world. My name is Ryan Cass and I am your host, and every week, you will learn from either myself or a renowned expert in their field, where we will educate and inspire you and give away pieces of our winning playbooks for you to incorporate into your life. If you love the show, please hit the subscribe button, share with somebody who you believe will benefit from it, and leave a rating and review so we can continue to grow and inspire more people in this world. We believe that everybody in this world is meant to do something great with their lives and we're here to play a role in that. Thank you for tuning in and let's win today.

Speaker 2:

Everybody has a story behind a stance. That is one of the best lessons that I've learned from one of my best friends and brother and inspirational speaker, chris Singleton. Everybody has a story behind a stance, meaning that everybody that speaks a certain thing, preaches a certain thing. You should do this or this is one thing that may change your life has a story behind it. We're not all born to believe that certain people should have certain things, or we may not all be born to believe that everybody should plant trees in their backyard and be conscious of the environment. We're not all born to believe the same things and be conscious of the environment. We're not all born to believe the same things. We come to preach the things that we do because of a story or an influence or somebody or something that took place in your life that's significant enough to have shaped your belief system to have shaped your belief system. I love how Chris brings this up with his story. Chris lost his mother in a racially motivated shooting 10 years ago. A white supremacist entered a church and shot nine people, one of them being his mother, that were in a prayer session because of the color of their skin. So Chris will speak to you about loving your neighbor, and that we should all say I love you to somebody that we don't know that looks different than us, because by spreading love, we may prevent these heinous acts that we see taking place in the world. Everybody has a story behind a stance and why they do what they do. This week is very special to me because of something that took place in my life nearly six years ago to the day. It'll be a couple days from the release of this episode, since this is coming out on January 20th, but January 23rd 2019 was a significant day in my life. That has me preaching to y'all about two important things which we'll get into, one of them being to stop holding on to things and baggage and beef with people that isn't serving us, and the second being that we don't always get to create our stories on our terms, our life stories, our life design. Now I could tell you those two things in principle and in theory, and say don't hold on to things that don't serve you and not everything happens on your terms, and you'd probably agree or think oh, I've heard that before, it's not the first time, I've heard that. It's not rocket science, nothing new, but when there's a story attached to it. That's what gets people to remember things and that's why stories are so important and stories are so powerful.

Speaker 2:

Many of the products that you buy and brands that you love to represent, to wear, to support the most today, it's probably because they have some sort of story that catches you at the heart, or some sort of mission or founder that really resonates with you, and that's why you buy their product. Not that it might be any different than brand Y, so you buy from brand X because you love brand X's story. Brand Y has the same product, maybe even a better one, but X has a better story. So here is my story from January 23rd 2019.

Speaker 2:

Now I'm grateful that a lot of new folks have discovered the podcast, and some of you may have heard this once or twice before, maybe even three times, but for those that don't know, running is a big part of my life. I absolutely love it. It's something that first helped me start to heal and meditate from the things that were going on in my household. Growing up, growing up in a broken household and in a household with a longstanding trend of alcoholism I was very upset at the world and I didn't have the best release mechanisms, meaning that my anger often led to breaking things in the house being closed off, things that were not serving me very well, because I was holding on to this thing that kept happening in the house, versus looking at what is it giving me, versus carrying a bunch of extra weight and therefore I discovered the sport of wrestling, which then introduced me to running and started to really love what it did for me. Every time I would lace up and go out and run, I noticed that I could shut my mind off from everything else that was taking place in my world, everything that was going on at home, the chaotic scenes between my parents. All of that went away, and so running has a very special place in my heart, and now I get to use it, still as an outlet, as a form of meditation, but now also get to use it to inspire people to push their bodies, minds and hearts further than they believed possible, get to use it to positively impact lives of people that are going through really tough things right now. Last few years, we've used running to support families that have a loved one that's currently battling cancer and donate thousands of dollars to multiple families in the Carolinas, and running is also a way for me to compete and prove myself right, which is a concept I've shared before and got that from Nick Baer, founder of Baer Performance Nutrition.

Speaker 2:

Running is a lot of things. Running is more than running, simply put, and one thing that pretty much every competitive runner has on their bucket list is to compete and qualify for the Boston Marathon. The Boston Marathon is special because, of all the world major marathons between Boston, london, new York, chicago, berlin, tokyo and, soon to be, sydney Boston is the only one that doesn't have a lottery system, meaning that you must qualify or you can fundraise, but there is no third option, so pretty much it's qualify or you're not going to be competing. So that in itself makes it very special, and it's the oldest marathon. I put this on my goals list in 2017 to qualify for the Boston Marathon, thinking that I was going to be there in 2018 and nothing was going to stop me. Little did I know at the time that running is more than just going out as hard as you can, as fast as you can, every single day. That led to injuries and did not qualify in 2017. Did not qualify in 2018. Got a little bit better at training, but still wasn't very good at it and got injured again and not the year. So 2019 was absolutely going to be the year Was going to be running in the 2020 Boston Marathon, without a shadow of a doubt, training hard.

Speaker 2:

I've gotten a lot smarter and this is it. I've been visualizing this every day for years and on January 23rd I remember coming home, I was talking to my dad on the way back from work. This is I normally would call somebody and let him know I was about to go for a run. It was actually a pretty decent day in Charleston, not too chilly, and I was going to go get a few miles before the sun came down pretty much my everyday six-mile route anywhere from four to eight. I believe I was going for six that day and got off the phone, with him, parked my car, took care of the dog, got dressed and started going. I'm not even 10 minutes into this run.

Speaker 2:

I had just taken a left out of the apartment complex that I was living in at the time and about to cross the same crosswalk that I crossed thousands of times, and little do we know that at that crosswalk I got hit by a car and woke up in the trauma unit at Medical University of South Carolina, musc. So in this intersection I do remember coming to a little bit and a medic telling me that you're going to the hospital. You must go to the hospital. I got hit in the crosswalk, went flying from what I heard from the police officer, went flying about 15, 20 feet, something like that, and was severely concussed, had a gash in my head, at the top of my head, and I was bleeding pretty, pretty profusely out of my left side. I got hit on my right side, landed on my left side, had a massive hematoma, probably almost like a size of a mini basketball you could have. You could have gripped it and and had some fun with it. And, of course, my stubborn self was probably begging and pleading with the EMTs that I could just walk home and I'll be fine. Heck, I might've even told them I could run. I don't know, but I know I didn't want to go and and fast forward. I had called my dad again, not to my memory, but now I'm sharing facts from the witnesses and people that got to experience this. I got into the ambulance and called my dad, who I'd just spoken to not long before, and I told him. I said, dad, I got hit by a car, I'm going to the hospital. Said, dad, I got hit by a car, I'm going to the hospital.

Speaker 2:

Discipline is a key component of this podcast and a key thing that we preach. We view discipline as the fuel to help you create the life that you ultimately desire, and discipline being the fuel that gets your habits and systems in check so that you can actually accomplish your goals. If you're looking to level up in 2025, I am happy to be a part of that and encourage you to join the Unshakable Discipline Mastermind Group. This has been my baby for a couple years and we're finally launching it here in 2025. The group consists of a self-paced course that teaches you how to form core habits and mindset that will allow you to accomplish your goals. A daily accountability channel to keep you on track, motivated and in alignment with our members, and weekly mastermind sessions where you're going to learn from either myself or a suite of renowned guests many who have been on the podcast that are going to share pieces of their winning playbooks directly with you. I've learned that being a part of groups over the years has helped propel me to so many new levels in life.

Speaker 2:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, then go together, and it's my wish that the Unshakable Crew is a choice that makes sense for you in 2025. We are growing up to 100 members this year and have limited time founding member pricing for 12 more folks before we permanently increase pricing to $97 a month. You can get in now for $67 a month, locked in for life, and be a part of the adventure that we're creating with our members. If you're somebody that craves discipline, seeks it or wants it this year, and you're really committed to making lasting changes in your life and being around others that are committed to winning and serving the world and sharing what they learn with others so that we make this world a better place, then join the Unshakeable crew. Go to unshakabledisciplinecom and you can sign up. It is also in the show notes Unshakeable shake as in milkshake unshakabledisciplinecom, and we're excited to have you in 2025. Let's go dot com and we're excited to have you in 2025. Let's go.

Speaker 2:

And to my discredit now, or misfortune, whatever you may want to describe it as. At first he didn't believe me because I also happen to be the class clown in the family, jokester prankster, and he thought that, all right, this is just Ryan being a jokester, there's no way. And of course I don't remember calling him there. And I began to call him repeatedly and then I FaceTimed him from the ambulance and he sees me in a stretcher with the neck guard and everything and he says, holy shit, like you're not kidding, and he rushes down to charleston, actually got pulled over by the same police officer that responded to to my scene, because he went to my apartment first, I believe, to go grab some things, and then was driving about 100 miles an hour down Highway 17 in Charleston and got pulled over and told the officer why he was going so fast and it was the same one that responded to my scene and she told him to please slow down. But she didn't give him a ticket or anything and mentioned that I was going to be okay.

Speaker 2:

And I woke up I'm not sure how many hours later in the trauma unit and very concussed, but both of my parents were there in the room and at that point to them nothing else mattered but ensuring that I was okay Because, having spoken with the police officer after the fact, they estimated that this SUV that hit me was going about 30 miles an hour. So if you do the math, 30 miles an hour SUV times a 155, maybe 160-ish pound person running, the math doesn't add up that that object hitting the other large object hitting not so large object the not so large object usually diminishes, goes away, isn't supposed to be here. And I made it out of there with no broken bones, a messed up knee, strained like MCL or something like that. Banged up shoulder, some internal kidney bleeding. They were monitoring me. They were getting close to taking me in for surgery to calm that down, emergency surgery, but fortunately none of that. Apparently, that was about to be a reality and again, just very, very bad concussions.

Speaker 2:

Went through multiple CAT scans while I was there, none of which I recall. So the fact that I'm here, I believe, means the big man definitely has some plans, some things that I'm meant to do, some boxes that haven't been checked yet. I'm very grateful, and here's the thing that. Here's one of the things that I gained from that day, but also a lesson. So the first lesson from this, based off this story I just told you, is if you would have put my parents in the same room on that same day without me being in the picture, meaning that I never got hit by a car and that just the two of them entered the same room together. There would have been fireworks like the 4th of July, because at that point in time and this was a few years after their divorce they were not on the best of terms.

Speaker 2:

There were a lot of things that had come back up from the past, a lot of things that were being held onto that were not serving them very well and it was not fun to be around either of them. If they were together, they would find a way to get away from each other. This person's wrong, no, this person's wrong, and here's why, and as the keeper of the peace in the family, it was tough to see that Fast forward. Now, what's in the picture is that their son is in bad condition. I don't want to say critical condition, because it's not like I was about to die or up in the ICU, but definitely, again, very scary moment, but critical, we'll call it not so great condition. Everything that they were holding onto at that point, leading into them being in that room together, didn't matter and it went away. It went away and after that day, I believe, was one of the turning points in their now friendship, and of course, there have been some rocky moments, but we'll call it rocky bumps. Just like any relationship may have, or friendship or whatever the case may be, there's always going to be some bumps, but they became friends again after that and I believe it was both of them that recognized in that moment all this stuff that we brought into this room how they felt about each other was insignificant. So here's the thing Stop carrying things that aren't serving you and evaluate if the beef that you may have with somebody is that really substantial.

Speaker 2:

I was talking to my mom earlier this week about family relationships and how this day is coming up, the 23rd, and here's a question that may be useful for someone If someone that you love or really cares about right now was on their deathbed, is the thing that you're holding on to about them, would it still be relevant? I think about that with my dad and his mom and I love them both to death, dad and his mom, and I love them both to death and I often have conversations with my dad about what he's holding on to with her and ask him would it matter if this was going to be her last day on earth? Or would it matter when you're going to to see her towards the end of life? Or what would really matter, would it be to make the best of the time you have with them, maybe to clear off any of the bad graces that you may have. I'm not suggesting that if you have something going on with someone right now to just erase it, feel your feelings, go through whatever process you need to go to, but also ask is it worth holding on to or is it worth fixing, or does it need to be held on to anymore? Is there a lesson that can be extracted from this? What are you holding onto in life that's not serving you? That's the biggest thing, one of the biggest things that I think about after this. And I think about what if I was my mom or dad in that moment, looking at my son and maybe I didn't, I wasn't a big fan of, I guess what would have been my ex-wife pretending if I'm my dad, maybe I wasn't a big fan of my mom at the time Would that really matter in that moment when our son is facing what he's facing? No, because this is our son, this is our family.

Speaker 2:

I often have conversations with people, especially people that are in the mastermind group, and often dig into again their belief systems. What are the stories behind the stances? Are they serving you well? And find that a lot of people can't get to where they want to go in life or where they envision where they dream of being in life, because they're weighed down by all the things that aren't serving them. Imagine if you were carrying a 100-pound rucksack every day, everywhere you went, every interaction you had, every gathering, you went to everything. You might be able to get through some things, but eventually that rucksack of all the things that aren't serving you, it's going to freaking, weigh you down. You're not going to show up like you want to, you're not going to serve people like you wish to, and you're going to wonder what is it? What is it that's stopping me? Sometimes people don't even realize what they're holding on to and how much it's weighing them down, even realize what they're holding on to and how much it's weighing them down.

Speaker 2:

So I wish that this serves as an action for you to evaluate what's being held on to that might not be serving you and really think about it. Can it be fixed? Does it really matter if it came down to this person being at the end of their life, would I feel the same way and again feel your feelings? Feel your feelings, validate them, but really think through that, the second thing that this gave me. And second lesson, second thing to share with y'all with this story, not everything happens on your terms. So the first lesson was stop carrying things that don't serve you and evaluate if what is serving you is really if, or evaluate if the beef you have with someone is really substantial or if it can be solved. Second one is not everything happens on your terms. So I mentioned that I figured qualifying for Boston no doubt was going to take a year. Little did I know that I would be on that journey for six years. Six years beautiful journey, by the way, because there's some more fun stuff that happened along the way A few more hospital visits, but not as substantial as getting hit by a car. Not everything happens on your terms, and one mental reframe that I have now is there will be bonus chapters. There will be bonus chapters in life.

Speaker 2:

So we are the authors of, and directors of, our book. We're the authors of our book or we're the director of our movie, however you may look at life, whether it's you're writing a book or you're directing a movie. And, of course, if we got to write every single chapter or if we got to direct every single scene, it would be the greatest movie and the greatest book of all time. It would be amazing. There would be no divorces, no people cheating on each other, no people murdering people, no sudden losses, nothing. But not everything happens on our terms and every time something doesn't go our way you get a bonus chapter in the book.

Speaker 2:

For those that are old enough to remember when we actually listened to CDs and DVDs, how exciting it was when there was the bonus scenes or the bonus songs on the album, or there was that second CD or the second DVD. That here's all the behind-the-scenes takes and here's all the behind the scenes takes and here's all the extra songs With movies. Sometimes those behind the scenes takes are the bloopers. The director didn't write the bloopers, think about it. The director didn't write the bloopers.

Speaker 2:

And now they turned it into this bonus chapter, this bonus scenes, based off of all the things that didn't go well during the recording of the movie, and we sit there and absolutely embrace it and love it and appreciate it. But we don't always do that with our own life, as if everything's always going to go our way. So I like to think about it as hey, bonus chapters, just like you would with the CDs, the albums, the movies, bonus scenes, awesome. So this was a bonus chapter that got written because that halted all of the 2019 qualifying process. That completely halted it. We got back on the horse later on, eventually started running again in 2019 after healing up and went back out there, wasn't afraid, Eventually qualified in 2022.

Speaker 2:

So quite a few bonus chapters written, but recognize that when the things don't go your way, folks, not everything's going to happen on your terms. Now you get to have some bonus chapters and think about how sweet those can be and all of the lessons that it can give you. I'm so grateful to still be here to get to share the story year in and year out. This is one of the ones that I bring up often in my keynote speeches and share the same lessons that stop carrying things that aren't serving you well. I couldn't imagine that. Let's just say, january 23rd 2019 was my last day. I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine it ending, knowing that at the time, I still had some, some extra baggage I was holding onto myself, things that prevented me from entering relationships and getting close to people. You know all of that has been dropped now and thankfully this was a result of that.

Speaker 2:

And recognize that, as much as we always want things to be on our plan, and even if we have the best written plan, most methodical plan in the entire world, it still might not go our way and that is to be embraced.

Speaker 2:

So, my friends, think about the lessons here. Think about the stories that influence your stances on things. How can you share that with somebody today or this week to positively impact them? Everybody's got a reason behind why they do what they do. Everybody's got a reason behind why they say what they say. I'm telling you, I'm wishing that you are mindful of what you're holding on to and recognize and appreciate that not everything's going to happen on your terms, because of an event that took place in my life that showed me those two things and that helped reunite my parents in a tough time and embrace our bonus chapters and embrace our bonus chapters. I'm wishing that this serves you well. Be of encouragement, be of service to somebody today, this week, this month, this year, and go out, do amazing things. Drop the baggage, appreciate the bonus chapters and win today. Thanks so much.

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Ryan Cass

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