Tag: inspire

Inspiring story

Geralt @ Pixabay

Scotty Cranmer

I recently found a YouTuber, Scotty Cranmer, who has been vlogging his life. He is a professional BMX rider that crashed on his bike.  It was a pretty serious accident.   

“He was shooting a film session with his Monster Energy teammates in Las Vegas on the evening of October 12th and caught his front wheel in a hole that catapulted him into a face plant without time to get his hands in front of him, causing him to suffer several facial fractures, cerebral hemorrhage and damage to his C4 and C5 vertebrae “ 

Wikipedia

The accident changed his life forever!   Scotty has been blogging his recovery and documenting his life and the road to recovery. He has not given up on life, which is very inspiring to me and probably many others.  Scotty could have easily just have given up and spent his life in a wheelchair. 

Experience

The last video hit me pretty hard and I could totally relate to some of his experiences.   I wanted to write about why I can relate. 

A little story

On November 28th 1993, I woke up with the flu and my body was hurting and my joints were aching.  The flu got worse and it wasn’t going away, so my mother took me to the doctor on the 29th. The doctor told me I was dehydrated and to get fluids and to come back if the symptoms got worse. Tuesday, November 30th 1993, I was in bad shape. I couldn’t walk and I was a bit incoherent. She rushed me back to the doctor. They called the ambulance and rushed me to the hospital where I was given a spinal tap and they found out that I had Spinal Meningitis. I can’t remember at what point, before or after the spinal tap, but I aspirated, which caused me to stop breathing and life saving techniques were used to bring me back to life.  

My memory is a little foggy of that time, but I wrote a journal about it after and through my recovery.  I have since converted this to electronic format.  It is interesting to read and it was part of my recovery.  The next 5 days, were spent on life support, which included hallucinations and lots of anger.   I was given very little chance to survive my ordeal.  The diagnosis kept changing from never surviving, to being quadriplegic, to being limited use on my left side to a full recovery.  Using a walker, I walked out of the hospital on December 24th, 1993.   Great Christmas gift, right?  The emotions of that day were crazy as I got back to my own bed and my next chapter of life was about to begin.  

Never give up

My drive was similar to Scotty’s, where I didn’t want to give up.   Learning how to walk again and use my body again was rough, but giving up was never an option for me. A visit with the Dr. early in my recovery, I remember asking “You aren’t going to tell me, I can’t be a programmer when I get older, are you?”   The concern of not being able to be a developer was my biggest fear.   This dream was never going to slip through my grasp. 

I could go on for much, much longer, and go into great detail.  My recovery was a very crazy experience. I’m glad I went through it, and it gave me an understanding of some of the struggles he’s going through.   I went through this over 25 years ago, so my story won’t help many. It’s good to see his journey and I hope it inspires many people to keep fighting and know they can do anything they set their minds to. I can’t wait to see the video of Scotty running some day! 

Continue..Inspiration..

Image by Daniel Kirsch from Pixabay

I wanted to continue on with who inspired me. I thought about it this week, and I realize what I like others may hate. It’s like when I want to share my favorite restaurant, Charlie Chows, with my friends and I talk it up and how good it is but when I take them there for the first time they are like “blah, that was OK”. The glory about this place is you have a million ways to make your food and you are in control of how you make it. It’s really hard to get it right the first time. There is nothing worse than that. I feel like I let them down. To each their own, so I won’t take offense if you don’t agree with me here. If you want to try it, let me know, I will go with you 🙂

I always had a dream to play the guitar. I have spent the last 3 years taking lessons, but I kind of stopped earlier this year. I got frustrated with my hearing and ability to play. I don’t know much about music theory, so it is pretty frustrating. I love music and listening to it. I wish I could sing, and I feel like i’m pretty good when I’m in the car singing to myself. I’m sure I’m like all those people on American Idol that get laughed at :). I found this one singer named Mike Posner and he has a cool sound and some accoustic songs I’d like to play. Some of his famous songs and my favorite are “Be As You Are“, “Move On“, and “I took a Pill in Ibiza“. I found out this week that he has a podcast (“What does this all mean?”) and I became obsessed with it this week. I haven’t listened to all of them but what I have heard, they are pretty good. He is a big thinker and into meditation and self improvement. It is pretty interesting.

One of his stories is about his father that passed away from Brain cancer. He has a song called January 11th, 2017 that is about his father. Since he works for himself (he mentioned this in an interview and in the podcast and they talk in the song), he was able to move home 10 months before his father died and spend those 10 months living in his house with his father. It’s an amazing story, he talks about it in his first podcast “Happy Father’s Day”. I encourage you to listen to it.

My father passed away when I was 15 years old. It was almost 30 years ago on November 30th, 1989. I was sitting in school about 11:30a waiting to go to lunch. Someone came over the intercom and said “Could you please send …. to the office”. I went. My aunt was there bawling and we went out to her car and she gave us the news and took us to the hospital. It was INSANE! I wasn’t able to say my goodbye’s or spend 10 months knowing. I found that pretty cool that he was able to spend the time he needed. I will have to write about my Father in a future entry. I have a TON of stories that I could tell.

Mike Posner has a pretty interesting story and I just found it pretty interesting. He walked across the united states, which was pretty insane! (see the link ). One last story that he told, was how he felt about seeing a homeless person walking without shoes. I’m going to butcher it, but if he has 10 pairs of shoes at home, why can’t he just give him his own shoes to help? I thought that was pretty profound. I have a ton of extra stuff that sits in my closet unused. Why can’t I give them to those that are in need? Winter is coming on and there are people freezing, and I have a ton of coats I need to donate. 🙂

Lots of rambling here.

Inspire…? Dream…?

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Have you ever watched a video on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever that gave you the warm and fuzzies. One that really motivated you for 2 or more seconds. 🙂 This is my favorite kind of videos to watch. I do like watching the fail videos, but if I cringe or have to feel sick inside after the video, I try and void it. 🙂 There are a few content providers that I watch that have videos that make you feel good and spark deep thought after watching. Here are a few, of the many, I watch regularly…

Prince Ea is one of them that I like to watch. He is pretty good at his video production. I don’t like some of his click bait, and I usually avoid the ones that seem like click bait. For instance, the video title “STOP saying ‘I Love You'”. I have yet to watch this video. I love saying “I love you” to my wife. He usually has that, but he has a reason for his advice, but WHAT? I’m going to have to watch the video after typing this now. For the most part, he has a lot of really good videos. They leave you feeling good and wanting to change the world.

Here are a few (of many) I like:

  • Dear Future Generations: Sorry — I totally feel for the future generation. My son is going to have to deal with a lot of crazy stuff. I’m sure my parents felt the same.
  • What if? — This one is short, but I found it very interesting.
  • Before You Punish A Child, See This — This one makes me want to be a better father/person. Be mindful about what you say. Very powerful.

Dan Mace is another YouTuber that has some videos that inspire me. His videos are put together pretty well and very interesting. In his second season, he started this thing where you can go to his site and ‘plant a seed’. “A seed is a thought you’ve always had and wanted to act on” (www.notnormalshow.com) It is an awesome idea and he explores some random ideas.

  • Breaking the law in international waters (with cop and gang lord) — This one is pretty interesting. Have you ever looked at someone and made a quick judgement and profiled them before you even got to know them? Have you ever been able to get to know someone you’ve done that too? How did it turn out? I think about this all the time with Criminals and Cops. Cops are generally pretty cool people. Some “hoodlums” are pretty cool if you get to know them. You have cops keeping you behind bars, because you broke the law. The criminal hates the cop because he is keeping them in jail. I find it interesting. These two could look past their differences and become pretty good friends. 🙂

Yes Theory is another good channel with awesome content. They have a lot of excellent videos that inspire and leave you feeling good. From their About page it says:

“We believe that life can be as authentic and fulfilling as you wish if you seek discomfort. “

These guys had an Instagram challenge over the summer called “100 Days of Sweat.” I never participated, but I followed the updates from many of the other viewers and it was pretty inspiring. A lot of people made some great changes in their life and looked great! A few of my favorite videos are:

  • 2 Strangers Swap Lives Across the World for 72hrs!! – What a crazy video. They find two strangers that agree to take a flight and swap lives with someone. They find the perfect people to switch and it turned out to be a pretty epic video. It is definitely worth the 23 minute investment 🙂
  • I Took My Pizza Delivery Guy Around the World — This video is just crazy. Kind of cool random event that you could do with a stranger. Would you do it? I would.
  • Overnight on the Most Dangerous Bed in the World!! — I am scared of heights! So I can totally feel the pain the one guy is going through with this challenge! It looks like a beautiful place to visit, but I don’t think I could make it out on their without passing out or dying. Facing my fears is one of the things I do not do well. Aside from heights, I think public speaking is another big fear.

Check these videos out. Feel free to post some videos that inspire you! I’d love to see them.