CHAPTER 1
My Reboot

On November 11, 2021, I was diagnosed with COVID-19. At first it was like a mild cold, and then I experienced increasing fatigue until it got hard to will myself to move. By November 15, I knew the virus was attacking my lungs as breathing was getting more difficult. Still, I felt it would work its way through my system and I would be fine. On Sunday, November 21, my wife, Michelle, recognized that things had progressed and not in a good way. (Candidly, she saved my life on that day.)

She took me to a local urgent care facility; I was their first patient, standing by the door when they opened for the morning. They took me to an exam room where a doctor checked the oxygen saturation in my blood and told me I was suffering from acute hypoxic respiratory failure. Basically, my lung function was so low that it was starving my cells, organs, and brain of oxygen; as a result, they were beginning to shut down and die. Without medical intervention, I would have been lucky to survive the day.

Within five minutes they had me in the back of an ambulance and were rushing me to the hospital. Little did I know that I was about to start the most harrowing, overwhelming, and frightening process of my life.

For the next five days, machines helped me to breathe while I laid in a bed attached to electrodes, IV lines, and monitoring equipment. On my third day in the hospital, despite the medical team's best efforts, things had not improved. I was being given the highest level of oxygen they could give short of being on a ventilator and still my lungs refused to accept it. Decisions were being made about moving me into intensive care from the COVID floor I was currently on. It was a dark day.

Then something miraculous happened; it was as though I could feel my family and friends praying for me. I could sense all these people sending positive thoughts and best wishes my way. By midday, my lung function began to improve. The doctors couldn't explain the sudden shift or why my lungs began to allow oxygen in. Two days later I was in a wheelchair being wheeled out to my wife's car to head home.

As I was leaving the hospital, the doctors explained that recovery would be like a rollercoaster ride in the dark. There would be no way of knowing what would come next.

As I write this, I have been out of the hospital for three weeks. I've had good days and tough days, but the ratio is moving more and more in favor of the good days. I can feel the inflammation in my lungs declining and my breathing becoming less labored. With this my energy level is slowly coming back. I am also learning to pace myself better.

It was the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who first said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Right now, I'm weaker, more out of breath, heavily fatigued, and 23 pounds lighter. I'm still holding out hope for the physically stronger part, though.

On the mental side, it has been an entirely different story. A few days after coming home from the hospital, I recognized a dramatic shift in my thought process. With this shift came the most profound positive insights regarding my mindset and psychology I have ever experienced. It was as though my brain rebooted itself. Never would I have thought that possible; then I experienced it, and I couldn't deny it. My broken brain, encumbered by fears, self-doubts, negative thinking, and limiting beliefs, had repaired itself. Suddenly, everything looked different.

My Broken Brain

Prior to being hospitalized with COVID, to the outside world it looked like I had it all together. I was the cofounder of a Top 20 Global Leadership Development company. Over the course of three decades, we had built the company from a small regional startup to an organization that did business in more than 95 countries and counted a large percentage of Fortune 1000 companies as clients.

All of this had afforded my family and me a nice lifestyle. We lived in a big house and were able to escape to our lake house in warm summer months. We took nice trips and were able to see and do cool things. I was able to afford many of the things society tells us we should own if we are successful.

To support all of this, I had built this alter ego, a second version of myself, who stood up in front of thousands of people each year and doled out wisdom and insights on how to become a better version of themselves. I wrote articles and was quoted in top magazines. I cohosted a podcast and interviewed successful people and those who had overcome incredible obstacles. I shot videos and hosted live and virtual conferences attended by people from around the world.

By most outward appearances, I was living the dream. But much was an illusion.

Inside, in the dark recesses of my mind, I was broken. The reality was profoundly different than the illusion.

Growing up, I was physically and emotionally abused. I was terrorized by a person who was themselves broken. I lived in constant fear about what would set them off. Would I be chased as they tried to catch me? Would I be struck by a belt or a hand? Or would I be lucky and just suffer from the emotional abuse of being yelled at and told of my constant failings?

Every day I tried to please, to show that I was good enough, to make them proud. I thought if I could just do this, maybe the anger would subside, and they would love me. As crazy as it sounds, this behavior didn't go away as I grew into adulthood. I still sought external validation, approval, and love from those around me, because I didn't feel good enough on the inside.

My brokenness caused me to retreat into myself at an early age; as a child I became very shy and introverted. The fear that lived within me manifested into a reluctance to try things, a constant questioning and criticizing of myself, and an overriding desire to avoid making a mistake or risk being rejected and made fun of by the "cool" kids. As a defense mechanism, I became close-minded to any opinions other than my own and rebelled against authority.

As a young teenager, I was so overwhelmingly lonely and unhappy that I consciously looked to reinvent myself. I studied the cool and popular kids, making note of how they dressed, acted, and spoke. I tried to model that behavior and work my way into the group of more popular kids. I think this was the birth of my alter ego, my second self.

Even though I was pretending I had it all together my brokenness was still there, just beneath the surface. When I was quiet and still or faced with the prospect of doing something new, it would show up in my never-ending string of negative thoughts and self-doubts. For everything I was doing to show the outside world that I was okay, in control, and put together, the voice in my head kept telling me I was a fraud and was about to be discovered as such.

As I got older, I became better at presenting my alter ego, my pretend self, to the world. I also found ways to temporarily make myself feel better and distract myself from the negativity of my brokenness.

I discovered that drinking too much could help me temporarily forget. Eating too much also made me temporarily feel better. Candy and the accompanying sugar buzz lifted my spirits, so I couldn't walk by a bag of candy without eating at least half of it.

Shopping also became a vice that temporarily allowed me to feel better. I bought a lot of things, big and small, and the Amazon truck delivered to our house every day. This is but a short list of the many vices and coping mechanisms I used to mask my brokenness and attempt to feel better. The ironic thing is, I chased all these vices and sought the short-term comfort and distraction they could bring completely subconsciously. I had no awareness or understanding as to why I was doing what I was doing; I just did it.

Ultimately, though, no vice or coping mechanism could fix me. They were like a sugar high that made me feel better in the moment, but I would always crash, and the negatively of my brokenness would come right back.

Sadly, my brokenness didn't just negatively affect me; it had a destructive impact on all those around me. My broken brain caused me to act and react in ways that undermined the quality of my relationships, pushing the people I love away, and fostering emotional baggage in their minds.

My brokenness radiated out of me and perpetuated brokenness in others. My brokenness multiplied and broke the people I care about. This is the destructive nature of broken brains.

Then It All Changed

When my brain rebooted itself, as it came back online, every negative thought and self-limiting belief and all my brokenness had been erased. My ever-present sense of fear dissolved, and I was able to feel its incredible weight lift off my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I felt whole, complete, and good enough.

I began to see myself, everyone around me, and everything around me from an entirely different perspective. I couldn't explain why, and candidly, I thought I might be dreaming or going crazy. My most joyous realization was that I was fully awake and completely sane.

As I have reflected, the changes didn't all come at once. I think, like a computer coming back online, certain mental programs rebooted faster than others. Here is the sequence of how things rebooted in my brain.

My Brain Reboot Phase 1: Restarting My Perception

A few days after coming home from the hospital, I awoke in the...