It was a cold and rainy day, and I was making the drive up to Seattle from Portland for a work event.
The kind of Pacific Northwest weather that makes you grip the steering wheel a little tighter. The kind of day where the windshield wipers can barely keep up with the rain. I had made this drive dozens of times before—routine, mundane, just another obligation for the Fortune 100 job that was slowly draining my soul.
But this drive would be different. This drive would change everything.
The Moment Everything Stopped
I don't remember the exact moment of impact. What I remember is the aftermath—the spinning, the glass, the surreal silence that follows chaos. My company car, the symbol of my "success," was now crumpled metal on the side of I-5.
In those seconds that felt like hours, suspended between what was and what could have been, my entire life flashed before me. Not in the cliché movie sense, but in a brutal, honest accounting of how I had been spending my days.
And the verdict was damning.
The Questions That Haunted Me
As I sat there, waiting for help to arrive, shaking from adrenaline and the cold, questions flooded my mind:
If this had been it, would I have been proud of how I lived?
Would I have left behind anything that mattered?
Did anyone outside of my sales territory even know my name?
The answers terrified me more than the accident itself.
I had been so focused on climbing the corporate ladder that I had forgotten to ask whether it was leaning against the right wall. I had metrics and contracts to show for my years of work, but what did I have to show for my life?
The Gift of a Second Chance
Walking away from that accident with only minor injuries felt like a miracle. But the real miracle was what it did to my mind. Something shifted that day—a fundamental rewiring of my priorities.
I realized that I had been living in fear. Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Fear of deviating from the "safe" path that society had laid out for me. And that fear had kept me trapped in a life that looked good on paper but felt hollow in my chest.
The accident gave me something precious: permission.
Permission to want more. Permission to take risks. Permission to pursue meaning over money, impact over status, purpose over prestige.
Taking Action
In the weeks that followed, I started making changes. Small ones at first—having honest conversations with my wife Olivia about what we really wanted our life to look like. Then bigger ones—exploring entrepreneurship, connecting with mentors, reading voraciously about personal development and business.
I discovered that the Sunday Scaries I had been experiencing weren't a character flaw—they were a compass. They were pointing me toward something better, something more aligned with who I was meant to be.
The Birth of a New Vision
That accident planted the seed for everything that would follow:
Synergy Collaborations was born from the realization that the best things in life come from working together, from combining strengths, from believing that we're better as a team than as individuals.
HOPE.dev emerged from understanding that hope isn't passive—it's active. It's a skill that can be developed, a muscle that can be strengthened.
The Hope To Light Foundation grew from wanting to give others what that accident gave me: a second chance, a new perspective, a reason to believe that change is possible.
The Lesson
I'm not suggesting you need a near-death experience to change your life. In fact, I'm suggesting the opposite.
Don't wait.
Don't wait for the universe to force your hand. Don't wait for a crisis to give you permission to pursue what you really want. Don't wait until you're sitting in a crumpled car on the side of the highway, wondering if you've wasted your one precious life.
Start now. Start small if you have to, but start.
Ask yourself the questions I asked myself that day:
- If today was your last day, would you be proud of how you've been living?
- What would you regret not doing?
- What dreams have you been putting off "until the time is right"?
The time is never perfectly right. But it's always right enough to take the first step.
Moving Forward
That cold, rainy drive to Seattle was supposed to be just another work trip. Instead, it became the beginning of a completely new chapter. The accident didn't just change my circumstances—it changed my identity.
I went from being someone who followed the script to someone who writes his own. From someone who sought approval to someone who seeks impact. From someone who dreaded Mondays to someone who can't wait to get started each day.
The scars from that day have faded, but the lessons remain. And every time I feel fear creeping in, every time I'm tempted to play it safe, I remember that moment on I-5.
I remember that I was given a second chance. And I refuse to waste it.
This is Part 2 of my origin story. In Part 3, I'll share about "The Walk That Changed Everything"—the 8-month adventure that transformed our vision into reality.
