I Had No Choice but to Reinvent Myself
What About You?
Dear younger Tom,
Can you remember back to that day?
You step up to the ledge, the wind whistling in your ears, your eyes straining to see what’s below you.
The butterflies in your stomach are doing somersaults and your mouth is dry with anticipation of what’s about to unfold. Your legs are starting to shake and go weak at the knees but you can’t afford to fall, not at this height.
There is no way back to safety, the only way is forward and down. You close your eyes for a brief second and time stands still. Then a sense of peace and calm descends upon you and you feel a sense of freedom that you’ve never experienced before.
It’s going to be okay but you have to raise the courage to do the thing you fear the most right now. You need the courage to jump into the void.
It’s going to be okay, I’m here with you every step of the way.
Then you jump off the cliff into the white blanket of fog below…
It takes a brief second for you to get your bearings and then your legs hit the powder below. Your moving quicker than you anticipated but your muscle memory kicks in and you do a couple of well executed turns in the snow.
By god you love skiing, especially on days like today, not a cloud in sight in the brilliant blue sky with the sun shining down on your escapades. You hear your mates whooping and hollering as they each descend into the bowl.
Happiness fills your soul as adrenalin floods courses through your veins. You are on top of the world.
And then your ski catches and it all goes to shit...
You start to tumble down the slope, rolling over and over, getting severely disorientated in the process. The left ski flies off, whilst the right one is lodged in place, which is not good. At any moment your knee could be yanked out of it’s socket.
You pray that the release system works.
It does.
After what seems like an eternity you stop moving. Dazed and confused, you lie looking up at the sky, barely able to catch your breath. You start to mentally map through your body looking for signs of pain or broken limbs.
There are none.
Perhaps you should try and get up but you can’t.
Your best mate John is sat at the bottom of the hill, nervously watching you jump into the bowl. He takes a sharp intake of breath as your ski catches and begins to groan, knowing what’s coming next. The local ski instructor stood next to him starts to fetch his radio to call ski patrol, muttering that this is going to be a bad one…
John stops him and grins, “Just wait, have faith in the Brit, he’s a natural at wiping out on double diamond black runs…”
He wasn’t wrong.
You can’t move, no matter how hard you try. Panic starts to rise in your throat and your heart is beating uncontrollably.
It all happened so quickly.
You begin to question your actions. Perhaps you should have said no to the final run of the day.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Too late now, what’s done is done and there’s no turning back the clock.
The adrenalin starts to recede and you find yourself thinking logically again. From your wedged in position, you can see people about 40 meters below you trying to walk up the very steep slope.
The people above you can’t move because they risk tumbling on top of you and then there is also the risk of starting a mini-avalanche, so it’s up to the bystanders below, to step up the slope sideways, inch by inch.
You estimate it’ll take them 20 minutes to reach you. So you’ve got lot’s of thinking time ahead.
Have you broken your back in the fall? It doesn’t make sense that you’ve broken your spine because there is no pain but then would you feel it? Plus you can still feel your fingers and wiggle your toes. So that’s a relief.
You decide you haven’t been paralyzed, but why can’t you move?
Then it dawns on you that you’re physically wedged into the slope by your ski poles, which have buried themselves deep into the snow, pinning you in position. Slowly you manage to untangle the rope handle and move your arm, giving you space to move your body.
You get to your feet and hear about thirty people cheering at the bottom of the slope. Somebody manages to get you reunited with your skis and you slide gingerly down to the supporting onlookers. Lots of backslapping ensues and you feel amazing, a few witnesses tell you that your lucky not have been killed.
You’ve never felt so alive or happy.
Unaware, you don’t realize that it will be a long time until you feel emotions this strong and when you do, they won’t be the happy type.
In the years that follow, trauma seems to hang around every corner, tainting your days and darkening the canvas that is your life. The defibrillator that’s fitted into your heart has put an end to adrenalin sports and physical sports like rugby. When your daughter nearly died, you couldn’t cope mentally and you tried to kill yourself rather than live with the anguish of the constant PTSD and chronic depression that kept on showing up.
Being a stubborn son of gun, you threw yourself into various job roles that provided little to no long-term joy or prospects and all they did was contribute to your life endless flow of stress, like a powerful river refusing to stop it’s inevitable journey to the sea.
Life had no hope, no future and no happiness. You’ve never been so afraid to live, scared of the next traumatic incident that’s inevitably going to happen.
You had no choice but to reinvent yourself.
So that’s what you did.
You became a coach to help others and I’m so proud that you had the courage to take the first step of reinventing yourself.
Lots of love
Older Tom X
Want to join me and reinvent your life as well? Since 2022, I have been working as a coach, slowly building up my skills, so that I can help others to reinvent themselves and find the confidence to actively chase their dreams.
It’s not easy to start your own venture. There will be lots of unanswered questions, heaps of self-doubt gnawing at the back of your mind and oftentimes the whispers telling you to quit will be loud and powerful.
Don’t listen to them.
Trust your own abilities but know that you shouldn’t try to do it alone.
Work with a coach - consider reaching out to me via DM here on Substack and we can have a no obligation chat about your future.
A problem shared is a problem halved (and most likely solved!)
I wonder where our journey will take us?
Shall we find out?
This was so beautifully written. the endling made me tear up a bit. Young Tom is a hero and I hope he knows it.
I’m so glad you were ok and that you came through the difficult times (understatement by the sound of it) to create a new life and help others. Wishing you a very happy and healthy new year, Tom ✨💫❄️