Tom Shaw - Maintaining a Positive Mindset

[00:00:00] Welcome to Resilience Unravelled. Hi everybody and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast that examines all aspects of personal and organisational resilience. A huge all-encompassing subject that covers the ability to thrive in life by harnessing your cognitive, emotional, physiological and contextual abilities. I share stories from people who have thrived despite remarkable obstacles, as well as highly successful practitioners and experts across a range of topics.

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[00:01:10] Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. And in front of me tonight is my guest Tom Shaw.

[00:01:18] And I'm just sort of complimenting Tom on his brilliant name. I mean, you know, seven letters is that? I mean, that's very obliging.

[00:01:27] It's a strong start, Tom. And I can tell by the accent you're joining us from over the water. So, tell me, where are you from?

[00:01:34] Well, I currently live in the Kansas City area on the Kansas side of state line in Leawood, Kansas. It's a suburb of the Kansas City greater metropolitan area.

[00:01:48] Right. And, you know, it's interesting because my background from my history, I'm British. My grandmother on my dad's side was from Great Britain. So, yeah.

[00:02:06] So, that's a curry favor. You're all British.

[00:02:10] It's a great favor. I love it.

[00:02:15] So, did you, there's so many people at which part of Great Britain did your ancestors come from then?

[00:02:21] Probably from the London area. I'm not 100% sure on that because after when she was a small child, they moved to Australia.

[00:02:32] So, funny story. I always thought my grandma was Australian for years and years. And then later in life, I learned quite differently.

[00:02:41] So, fantastic. Well, it's good to know that we're kindred spirits under the hood. So, that's good.

[00:02:48] There you go. There you go.

[00:02:49] So, tell us a bit about yourself, Tom.

[00:02:52] Well, like you introduced me, I'm Tom Shaw with a simple name. And I am a person with a story to tell about my young life.

[00:03:07] I'm married. I have three grown children. And it's a miracle that I have those three children.

[00:03:15] When I was a kid, 16 years old, had a car accident and I broke my back.

[00:03:23] Oh, right.

[00:03:24] And I became paralyzed from the waist down.

[00:03:28] Wow.

[00:03:28] And so, in that process, I had to learn how to overcome a lot.

[00:03:36] And resilience was kind of the theme of the day in the fact that everything that I was facing from the point after my accident was really met with having to have a lot of resilience

[00:03:54] and being able to overcome this trauma.

[00:03:59] And that whole trauma actually kind of pushed me to become who I am.

[00:04:09] Along with, I had a very strong mother in my life.

[00:04:13] And she was fantastic.

[00:04:15] She was my hero.

[00:04:17] And, you know, she taught me how to be a good young person and how to be a better adult.

[00:04:25] And along the road, let me back up just a second.

[00:04:30] I was an athlete prior to my accident.

[00:04:33] Oh, I see.

[00:04:33] Okay.

[00:04:34] Yeah.

[00:04:35] And so, I was a really good athlete.

[00:04:37] And I had some very good coaches along the road.

[00:04:41] And some of those coaches, this is back in the 1980s, and a lot of those coaches kind of followed that same methodology and idea that my mom and dad used in raising me.

[00:04:56] So, you know, it was a different time back then.

[00:04:58] And if a coach grabbed you by your face mask and pulled you in close so he could get his point across to you, well, that was not viewed as any type of abuse or torture or anything like that.

[00:05:12] It was simply, hey, you got your point across, you know.

[00:05:17] And as the recipient of that, you understood.

[00:05:22] And we didn't whine about it.

[00:05:25] And if you did, my mom said, well, just so you know, I gave your coach permission to straighten you up if you got out of line.

[00:05:35] Yeah.

[00:05:36] You know, so it's looked at in a very different light nowadays.

[00:05:40] So how did you actually break your back then?

[00:05:43] What happened?

[00:05:45] Well, when I was a little kid, my dad was in the Air Force.

[00:05:49] So we lived all over the world.

[00:05:51] And one of the places we lived was in Manchester, England.

[00:05:55] All right.

[00:05:56] That look.

[00:05:57] Yeah.

[00:05:58] And so we lived near the base that I don't even know if the base is still there, but we lived near the base.

[00:06:07] And he worked out there.

[00:06:10] And my mom found out that I was a chronic sleepwalker and I was just a little kid.

[00:06:17] Oh.

[00:06:17] Hmm.

[00:06:19] And, you know, took me to the doctor and such.

[00:06:22] And they said, well, you know, there's nothing that you can really do.

[00:06:25] There's no medications that you can give or anything like that.

[00:06:28] But, you know, kind of put locks on the top of the doors and stuff like that.

[00:06:33] And just, you know, lead him back to his bed.

[00:06:36] He'll go back to sleep.

[00:06:37] Fast forward to when I was 16, I had fallen asleep at my girlfriend's house.

[00:06:43] And I slept walk out of the house and got in my car and drove away.

[00:06:48] So you were driving whilst asleep?

[00:06:50] Yes.

[00:06:51] That's very unusual.

[00:06:52] Yes.

[00:06:54] And I drove probably two miles or so.

[00:06:57] And I jumped a big drainage ditch.

[00:07:00] And once I hit the other side, of course, I woke up.

[00:07:05] But I was instantly paralyzed from the waist down.

[00:07:07] And I sat there in my car honking the horn and holding myself up off of the seat for about an hour and a half until a newspaper delivery truck heard my horn and stopped.

[00:07:22] And, of course, from there, they got the ambulance and the police and everybody involved.

[00:07:27] And away I went to the hospital to have my first of four major surgeries.

[00:07:35] Yeah.

[00:07:36] But in that process and going through the surgeries and then going to rehab after a pretty long stay at a regular hospital, I was met with a lot of challenges.

[00:07:54] And the first challenge I was met with when they dropped me off at the rehab center was when you go to rehab and you're paralyzed from the waist down or the neck down, they start right away.

[00:08:10] The minute you hit the bed, they're saying, get up, get out of bed.

[00:08:16] And there's really no mercy.

[00:08:19] And, you know, at the time I was surprised, shocked, afraid, you know, all those things come into play.

[00:08:30] But I was nervous enough and scared enough.

[00:08:34] I just tried to do what they said because they were these nurses and these people that were going to help me.

[00:08:42] They do that for a living.

[00:08:43] So they knew they know how they have to kind of get people fired up.

[00:08:47] And so from that point on, it was my athletic training, the resilience of having learned how to overcome things on the field and on the court and on the baseball diamond.

[00:09:02] And then taking that information and transposing it into how do I overcome being paralyzed?

[00:09:09] Now, being blessed because I do walk now.

[00:09:15] I got the use about five years later, I got the use of my left leg back.

[00:09:21] Wow.

[00:09:22] 100 percent, but it's close.

[00:09:24] Yeah.

[00:09:24] Then part of my right leg, but I'm still paralyzed from the knee down to my foot.

[00:09:31] And so in that blessing and the reason I initially said I was blessed to have these three grown children because they said, you know what?

[00:09:40] You'll never have kids either.

[00:09:42] Right.

[00:09:43] So I was able to have children.

[00:09:45] And through the process, I started to see what I had learned in my young athletic life.

[00:09:56] The ability to kind of visualize what I wanted and expected to get from myself.

[00:10:03] The ability to stick to something, you know, whether you feel like you lost today or won today.

[00:10:13] You know, because when you're going through a trauma, you've got to look at those small victories and decide, did I win today or lose today?

[00:10:25] And sometimes it's a matter of mindset.

[00:10:30] And where are you thinking and what are you thinking about?

[00:10:34] And is it positive?

[00:10:38] You know what I'm saying?

[00:10:40] Do you have the right mindset?

[00:10:42] Yeah.

[00:10:43] And so in keeping as positive as possible and having the right mindset and trying to use a lot of humor, because sometimes all you can do is laugh about things.

[00:10:55] Yeah.

[00:10:55] It's very useful, isn't it?

[00:10:56] Yes, it is.

[00:10:57] And I don't think personally, I believe that it could be used a lot more in today's world.

[00:11:04] But I overcame that.

[00:11:08] And to this day, I feel like I have to practice this ability to be resilient.

[00:11:15] And my main job is I'm a realtor and I sell homes for a living.

[00:11:22] Well, you have to be a resilient chameleon because every time you meet new people, they are just a little different.

[00:11:31] They have a little different needs, a little different belief.

[00:11:34] And then in my personal life, I have to be resilient in how I get up and do things and how I motivate.

[00:11:42] Am I going to be able to mow the yard this week?

[00:11:45] Well, maybe not.

[00:11:47] It depends.

[00:11:48] I have a lot of hardware in my back and my lower back is fused solid.

[00:11:54] Right.

[00:11:55] Okay.

[00:11:56] And so in that, I wrote my book and I published it in 2018.

[00:12:05] What's it called, Tom?

[00:12:07] It's called The Ride to Victory, Surviving Trauma and Addiction.

[00:12:15] And the addiction part is when I had my accident in 1985, you know, opioids were the drug of the day back then.

[00:12:29] And I was on opioids for 33 years.

[00:12:33] Right.

[00:12:34] And I detoxed off of those opioids in 2018.

[00:12:38] Good for you.

[00:12:39] Yeah.

[00:12:40] Haven't had any since.

[00:12:42] I've been clean from them.

[00:12:43] But I'm telling you, if anybody's ever out there listening and you've had to go through detox or you're thinking about going through detox, get yourself a physician who can help you first off.

[00:12:56] And don't do it alone because you cannot do it alone.

[00:13:00] You you're so sick.

[00:13:02] And it is such a.

[00:13:05] Again, another trauma to go through.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:09] And it, again, that resilience and that mindset and overcoming something that I didn't know how it was going to kind of go down for me.

[00:13:23] Because fortunately for me, my wife is a part of the medical field.

[00:13:28] And she recognized that I had stopped taking my medications.

[00:13:31] Now, I was being weaned down.

[00:13:33] Yeah.

[00:13:34] But I had gotten down to such a small, tiny dose that I just my ego kind of got in the way of everything.

[00:13:42] And I thought, well, this is a small dose.

[00:13:44] I'll just quit taking it.

[00:13:45] You couldn't even cut them anymore.

[00:13:47] Right.

[00:13:47] Yeah.

[00:13:48] And so I did.

[00:13:49] And about two, three days later, my wife noticed I wasn't sleeping.

[00:13:53] I was fidgety and, you know, all kinds of symptoms.

[00:13:57] And she said, you.

[00:14:01] You quit taking your opioids, didn't you?

[00:14:03] And I said, yeah.

[00:14:05] And she goes, you're dumb.

[00:14:08] What are you doing?

[00:14:09] She was not happy with me, let's just say.

[00:14:11] And so she called the doctor and got me some replacement medication that is non-addictive that helped me get through the rest of the detox.

[00:14:22] A detox lasts about 14 days in tow.

[00:14:26] And but going through that was really eye opening for me because.

[00:14:36] Because.

[00:14:37] My previous life before I was a realtor, I was a mental health counselor and I worked for a company where I was in charge of these male adolescents who were, you know, in treatment for drug abuse and a variety of different different issues.

[00:14:58] And it was really eye opening to kind of put that shoe on my other foot and see what previous clients were going through.

[00:15:09] Yeah.

[00:15:10] People don't all get addicted out of choice, do they?

[00:15:13] That's the trouble.

[00:15:14] Yeah.

[00:15:15] Yeah.

[00:15:15] And it was interesting because I was physiologically addicted.

[00:15:21] I mean, I didn't have to have the addictive behavior because all I had to do was call the doctor's office and say, I need more.

[00:15:29] And they would just give me a script.

[00:15:31] Yeah.

[00:15:32] And that was the crime of it all for me is that it was too easy to stay on them.

[00:15:37] And the amazing, the amazing thing was once I got off of them, I realized that part of my back pain was from the medication, the opioid.

[00:15:49] Yeah.

[00:15:49] And it was a new life.

[00:15:54] It was a new feeling of oxygen, you know?

[00:15:58] Yeah.

[00:15:59] And it was an amazing ride for me.

[00:16:02] And then once I finished and published the book, you know, I really, I wrote it because I wanted to kind of get my own words out there.

[00:16:17] It was almost like I sat down in one year and wrote my entire life diary out.

[00:16:22] But I wrote it in a way that I wrote it, what I learned and what I went through, what I learned from it, and then how somebody else could utilize that.

[00:16:39] And, you know, it's not a big book.

[00:16:41] It's, of course, it means something to me and it may mean something to somebody else.

[00:16:47] But that's one of the reasons why I'm going to start doing public speaking.

[00:16:53] Being a part of Les Brown's mentorship program, his mastermind, he's trying to build a legacy of speakers because he has this fear that there's just not enough hope and gratification.

[00:17:14] And people are really struggling out there.

[00:17:19] I mean, you look at suicide rates and they've gone up, you know, with a handgun that's gone up 55%, basically.

[00:17:29] Something along those lines.

[00:17:30] It's ridiculous numbers.

[00:17:32] But you look at the state of affairs in not just the United States, but all over the world where if it's political or if it's somebody gets upset because their team didn't win, man, they just do crazy stuff nowadays.

[00:17:50] It's a different world.

[00:17:51] Yeah, it is such a different world.

[00:17:53] And so what I want to be able to do is meet people like you and be on podcasts like this and be able to share my story enough that people want to hear me speak.

[00:18:09] And then I can, if I touch and reach two or three people, that's better than zero.

[00:18:16] So how will people be able to get in touch with you?

[00:18:18] Obviously, you can find the book on Amazon because I just found it myself.

[00:18:21] Yeah.

[00:18:22] How will people get hold of you?

[00:18:24] Where can they reach out to get hold of you?

[00:18:26] Well, right now, my website's not up yet.

[00:18:30] So I'm working on that.

[00:18:31] But I do have an email address and it's emergencespeakingatgmail.com.

[00:18:38] And what will your website be when it's up?

[00:18:41] It'll be called Emergence Speaking LLC.

[00:18:46] Okay.

[00:18:47] And it'll have a hummingbird.

[00:18:50] The logo is a hummingbird.

[00:18:52] And that's another interesting story.

[00:18:54] If we got just a second.

[00:18:56] I chose a hummingbird, a green hummingbird for my logo because my mother and I were very close.

[00:19:01] She was my hero in life.

[00:19:03] And she loved hummingbirds.

[00:19:07] And when I got out of the ICU and I was laying in my regular hospital room and they had all the tubes off of me and my mom is sitting there.

[00:19:15] She'd never left my side.

[00:19:18] And I'm kind of getting awake.

[00:19:20] And she says, asked me how I was doing.

[00:19:24] And I said, Mom, why did this happen to me?

[00:19:26] And she said, sweetie, it doesn't matter why it happened to you.

[00:19:30] It just matters that you get better now.

[00:19:32] Yeah.

[00:19:33] I said, yeah, but you know, I had everything.

[00:19:35] I was an athlete.

[00:19:37] I, you know, good at this, good at that.

[00:19:40] And she said, listen, one of these days, you're going to know why this happened to you and you'll know what to do.

[00:19:49] But for now, this too shall pass.

[00:19:52] That's good.

[00:19:53] And do you still sleepwalk?

[00:19:55] Is that interesting?

[00:19:56] I suppose you still have not cared that.

[00:19:59] And my wife, my wife is, you know, she'll move my car keys around and, and we have security system in the house that, you know, speaks out.

[00:20:09] My wife's a light sleeper.

[00:20:10] So that I'm pretty, that's pretty good for her because she, you know, she'll wake up if I get up.

[00:20:18] And, but yeah, I do still sleepwalk on occasion.

[00:20:21] Wow.

[00:20:22] Well, look, it's been a joy to talk to you, Tom.

[00:20:24] Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

[00:20:26] The book's on Amazon, as I said, and Emergence, Emergence Speaking, you said?

[00:20:30] Emergence Speaking, uh-huh.

[00:20:32] LLC.

[00:20:33] And that will be out, the website will be out pretty soon.

[00:20:35] Yes, sir.

[00:20:36] Great.

[00:20:36] Thank you for spending time with us today.

[00:20:37] I really appreciate it.

[00:20:38] Thank you.

[00:20:39] And I appreciate your time too.

[00:20:41] You take care.

[00:20:44] Hi, thanks for listening.

[00:20:45] Hopefully that was a useful and interesting episode.

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