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Tragedy Turned into Business
Submitted by: Tom&Kim M.
Holland, MII am a father. I've been married 3 times and divorced twice. I finally found the woman who I am meant to be with forever. I'm also a paraplegic. I was paralyzed in an accident after returning from combat duty in Iraq. I was in the first Gulf War. We found "The Secret" and our lives have changed for the better. Kim has 2 children and this is her third marriage as well.
I was paralyzed in an accident in September of ’96. Before the accident, I was going through a very, VERY rough time. I was going through my first divorce. One of my best friends had just been killed on his Harley. I was getting turned down for loans for a new Harley, which may not seem like much, but for someone who LIVES to ride Harley’s it’s a bad time. I know that sounded like a slogan on a bumper sticker but it’s true. I know I was meant to ride. Before I had heard anything about “The Secret” I had decided that I WOULD ride a Harley again. I got 2 Harley’s and both were total flukes in most peoples’ minds. I now know it was “The Secret” at work…
Now back to the story. I was just having a very rough time. I was drinking A LOT, fighting A LOT, and sleeping with A LOT of women. One night I had gotten very drunk, gotten in 3 fights, got kicked out of 2 bars. One of those bars I got kicked out of twice that night. I left the bar for home, and on the way I lost control doing 130mph. I ran into 3 trees, a telephone pole, and a house. I was thrown out of the car and onto the roof of the house. I rolled off the OTHER side of the house and landed on the porch. I broke many ribs as well as my pelvis. I had “roof rash” all down the left side of my body. I had chunks of flesh torn out of my arm down to the bone. I also had a couple more severe injuries. I ruptured my liver, which was bleeding into my abdomen and filling me up quickly. I wouldn’t allow them to operate until my wife made it to the hospital. We were separated but I didn’t want to die alone. I also broke two vertebras in my spine and was totally and permanently paralyzed.
For quite a few years I used drugs to deal with my reality, and I just wasn’t happy. Everyone who knew me used to say that, “You have handled this so well,” but they didn’t know about the cocaine. I knew that there was something I was “supposed” to be doing. I met my second wife, got married, and divorced quickly. It’s not worth mentioning. Finally I met my current wife in ’02, and I slowly stopped the destructive behavior, and every time I would stop something bad, something good would happen. This is still prior to seeing “The Secret”.
After I did watch “The Secret” I made some changes, and my wife, who was only my fiance at the time, was a complete believer. She encourages me but she watches “The Secret” constantly. I started practicing “The Secret” but I’m still not perfect.
Kim and I were married last July(2007). Remember earlier in this writing I mentioned that I KNEW I was supposed to be doing something. Well, in February of 2007 I thought about making a video to teach people about the consequences of drinking and driving. We found a production company to film the video and there were just WAY TOO MANY “Secret” moments to include them all in here, but I’ll include a few. One was that we were searching video production companies and getting quotes for $13,000 to $35,000 and I didn’t have that much to spend. Finally one company told us $4,000 and the owner of that company had a wife who was having terrible problems with alcohol. When I did my first speech at a victims rehab panel she happened to be in one of the halfway houses that was forced to be there. Her husband Andy(the owner of the video production company that filmed our video), had tried to get her to watch the video but she wouldn’t. Well, in the halfway house she didn’t have a choice. After, she came to me and said that the reason she refused to watch it was because she had felt guilty and didn’t want to be reminded of her issues. She came to me crying and saying that she never realized what she was doing to her family until she watched my video. In the video I do more than talk about drinking and driving. I explain how I got to the point where I was at the time, which was from beginning drinking at age 12 and then drinking and driving regularly at the age of 16 years old. Along with the video I also speak to schools, military instillations, prisons, youth programs, and any organizations who need me. We refer to instances where things happen that we know are “supposed” to happen or “meant” to happen as “Secret” moments.
Since we started practicing “The Secret” we’ve had SO MANY “Secret” moments that we can’t begin to keep track of them all. I will tell you about one though that is just amazing. I’m getting back into hunting, and I won a trip to Georgia on a deer hunting trip. When we were getting ready to go, Kim said, “Maybe we should bring a couple videos. You never know, he could have a daughter who’s a teacher or something.” We got there and began talking to our host and he said something about “not being able to carry his cell phone at work.” Well, we asked what he did for work. He informed us that he was a retired high school principal but that he didn’t like retirement so he began teaching at a youth offender school!!!! Then we told him about the video and that I spoke at schools and other organizations. He then informed us that his daughter was a teacher, his son was a teacher, his son-in-law was a high school principal, his other son was a high school counselor, and he had another son-in-law who is a college football coach. Needless to say we left both the videos with them.
We also got our videos into Drunk Busters catalogs. The funny thing is that we had contacted Drunk Busters when we finished the video in August and he told us that we should have talked to him first so he could have told us how long to make the video and that ours was a little long. He told us to send him one anyway, which we didn’t at first. Then we got a call from him asking if we were going to send him a copy. We had been talking with another man who had made a video and was selling his through Drunk Busters and said ours was the best video he had EVER seen. Being that he’s one of the top speakers in the United States he should know. He was going to speak with the owner of Drunk Busters but before he had a chance to do that, the owner of Drunk Busters had contacted us. He said that he “had run across a note on his desk that he had spoke with us and he wondered if we were going to send him a copy.” Well we did, he LOVED IT, and ordered 100 copies. That first order was almost enough to cover my initial investment. He also wanted to put me on the cover of his new catalog. His catalog consists of 420,000 copies in 42 countries. This has been growing and doing so well, and it’s all because of “The Secret”.
We know that God is “The Secret” and as long as you believe in what you are doing, and the power of “The Secret”, and especially follow the guidelines of “The Secret”, that you can accomplish ANYTHING. My video was only finished in August and here in November I have already been scheduled to speak at 3 high schools, and I’m a featured speaker EVERY month at our counties victims impact panel. My next goal, aside from more high schools, is to get into military instillations to speak to troops coming home from Iraq. I had been given a gift, which was my ability to speak to people and influence people. I also know what people need to hear to get them to do certain things, or in this case NOT do certain things, such as drinking and driving. Like I said, I had always been able to do these things but I never used this gift for anything good. But once I did start using it for good, things just fell into place.
I want to get my face and our cause into the national spotlight somehow and we will. Kim and I know that this is our calling, and we are practicing “The Secret”, so we are confident that our success is inevitable. Thank you for showing us “The Secret” and improving the quality of our lives.