Business Innovators Radio - Doug Wright: How to Develop Your Never Give Up Attitude

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Doug Wright survived a head-on collision, was trapped for 3 1/2 hours, and was eventually rescued. Ultimately he was forced to have his injured leg amputated. Despite these traumatic experiences, Doug emerged with a passionate for helping people overcome their innermost fears (especially when recovering from trauma). As a coach and motivational speaker, Doug lived to share his story and his motto is “never give up.” He loves what he does because it makes an immediate difference in people’s lives. Learn more at: willnevergiveup.comRebelpreneur Radio with Ralph Brogdenhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/rebelpreneur-radio-with-ralph-brogden/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/doug-wright-how-to-develop-your-never-give-up-attitude

Your To the Station of the planet Resistance is future The Revolution Has begun For listening to Revelepreneur Radio Helping you break the rules

And build the business you need For the life you want And now, broadcasting his pirate signal From somewhere beyond the status glow Here's your host Best Selling Author, Marketing and Media Strategist Ralph Brogden Hello and welcome to Rebelpreneur Radio.

It's the show that helps you build the business you need so you can live the life you want. I'm Ralph Brogden. If anyone tells you that success is easy and that anybody can succeed, then they may be not telling you the entire truth. Yes, anybody can succeed, but not everybody does succeed. And usually it is because of how they respond to life's circumstances, to obstacles, to pitfalls, to problems. If you can navigate those successfully, then yes, you can succeed. But so many people tend to have a very difficult time navigating those challenges, whether it's a personal challenge or a business challenge. And so I like the approach that says you're going to

have these problems and obstacles. The idea is how do you overcome them? Not to eliminate them altogether, because I don't think you'll ever be in a, you'll never live in a world where you have no challenges, no problems, no obstacles. But you can create a new purpose and a new destiny as a result of the things that you go through and by responding to those things. I can talk about it all day long, but the best way to illustrate it is just to bring in my guest, Mr. Doug Wright, he is joining us from Australia. He is a survivor.

And I'm not going to tell you what he survived. I'll let him tell you that. he can tell it better than I can. But he is a survivor who epitomizes what I'm talking about overcoming obstacles, turning your mess into your message. He is passionate about helping people overcome their innermost fears, and especially when recovering from trauma. So Doug lived to tell his story, to share his story in his motto, which is never give up.

He loves what he does because it makes an immediate difference in people's lives. and they see possibility where once there was none. So it is my pleasure to welcome Doug Wright to Rebel Pernuver Radio. Hello, Doug. Good morning, Ralph. How are you? Well, it's afternoon over there. I'm sorry, but, yeah, very early morning here in Australia.

So thanks very much for having me on. My pleasure, yes. I am on the east coast of the United States, so it is afternoon to me. It is just a little after six in the morning. your time. So I really appreciate you taking time out of your morning to share with us and to tell us your story. It's inspirational. It's inspirational. And I think, well, it inspires me. I think it will inspire and motivate all of our listeners. But before we get into your story, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. So I've come from pretty humble beginnings.

actually a diesel mechanic by trade. That's what I did. I worked in the mining industry, and I was setting up workshops for a company called Orica Mining Services. And, yeah, that's what I did. What I do now is I'm in the personal development space, so I help people overcome their fears and find their passion and purpose to achieve whatever they want to become.

Like you said, I have this. motto never give up and we can't give up you know we might have to change our direction but we can never give up so it's just I think it's one of those things and we tend to give up so easily instead of getting through the hard you know it's a bit like the guy looking for for the gold you know he just one more step and he might have been wealthy you know it's that sort of never give up attitude and I think we like I said we give up to really. I think for a lot of people, they hear that, and it almost sounds like a platitude.

It almost sounds like a proverb, never give up. And people who are feeling like they ought to give up are saying, well, yeah, that sounds nice, but I don't know how to continue on. You didn't go through the traditional go to school, get my coaching certification, hang out my thing, and say, okay, now I'm a coach. you actually learned it the hard way. So you used to do what you did before. Now you're a motivational speaker, you're a coach, you're a course creator,

you're helping people in that personal development space. What happened from where you were to where you are now that changed your life? So, yeah, I was working in the mining industry in central Queensland. I lived in Brisbane, Queensland, which I lived in. is on the East Coast. It's in the state of Queensland. And I used to fly in and work seven days on and have seven days off. So I'd just taken up a brand new vehicle up to the mining site and I was traveling to another mining site. It was just about 300 kilometres away, so nearly 200 miles. And I was driving early in the morning. I'd left at 5.30 in the morning and about 6 o'clock it was just getting light. It was September the 18th, 2012.

and just out of the corner of my eye I saw the vehicle approaching and it went off over the side of the road and sort of fish tails and we were coming up to a cold and I thought gee we're going to have a bit of a mess here we're going to have to look for this guy he's going to crash over the side

so next thing I know bang he took me head on and we're both doing about 100 kilometres an hour of it which is 60 mile an hour in your lingo. So, yeah, I then went over this Colbert

and just to give you an indication of what the impact was, I had two oxyacetylene bottles on the back of my truck, and they were tethered with four four-inch lashings, and they broke those lashings. They found them 20 metres away, so a bit over 20 yards, which is a fairly long way, and that's how the impact.

sort of how our massive the impact was. So you had this massive head-on collision. What happened? After that, you realized you're stuck. You were pinned for some time, weren't you? Yeah, so I was trapped for three and a half hours in the vehicle. But they'd seen it at a helicopter from a town called McKay, which is 150 kilometres away,

and they flew a doctor out. And, yeah, so I had one of my guys traveling behind me, and he ran down, you know, Ducky, Duggy, Duggy, you're all right, mate. I said, no, I'm not so cool. And I couldn't move. So I thought I'd break my back, and I knew I hadn't, once I felt my left, I could feel my left toes. So, but I couldn't.

move my right, my hip, unbeknown to me, my hip was broken and I smashed up my knee and, you know, broken pelvis and three broken ribs. And so, yeah, I had this massive trauma in my right leg. Because we drive on the left hand side, you know, the impact was all on the right. So, so the dash of the vehicle had pushed back and smashed everything up. And I, so the whole front dash of the truck was pushed against me and I was sort of hanging up the door and, you know, people talk about pain and I'd never, you know, you think you'd been in pain and I had this massive pain that I was going through. So one of the, a paramedic turned up about half an hour into the episode and he gave me this

thing called the Green Whistle and I don't know whether you know what a Green Whistle was, but I think they give it to people when they, you know, especially athletes. I wasn't too complimentary to him because I, you know, I sort of chucked it out the window and it wasn't doing much good. But, so, yes, I was trapped there for, like I said, three and a half hours. And then the fire department came and they couldn't do anything either until the doctors came out. So he came probably within another half an hour. So what are we, you know, two hours into the, into the ordeal. and took them another hour and a half to get me out,

and they used the jaws of light, of course, and every time they cut the door off, there's that sort of jarring. And because I was with one, with the vehicle, I sort of felt every time they cut the piece of steel that went through my body, so there was some more pain there. But then they took me out,

and they took me to a small country hospital and I stayed there for a couple of days. My wife at the time came up and I woke up and they sent me down to a major city hospital. I spent about four months in that hospital

recovering and underwent around about 120 hours of operations. I had three broken ribs. It smashed pelvis so the pelvis was broken in half. a broken hip on the right hand side and my knee was broken, probably had half a dozen, half a dozen, you know, fractures in my right leg, my ankle was broken on the right hand side

and a broken leg on the left and ankle as well. So, sort of that, they did a pretty good job. They did a pretty good job of, well, I did a pretty good job, of breaking just about everything. I was pretty important that the vehicle brand new, so it had an airbag, and I'm pretty sure that that's what saved my life, or the Lord above, I'm not sure. Yeah, probably a little bit of everything.

Now, some people would say that you must have felt very lucky to be alive or very blessed to be alive. How did you actually feel? Did you feel lucky to be alive, or did you feel some other way? Well, actually thought I was dead. I had this feeling, and I did, you know, when it hit. And I knew, well, I didn't know that I wasn't dead, but I thought, gee, I'm not dead because I'm in so much pain. And I thought, well, if I'm dead, I wouldn't be in this much pain.

So I thought I was dead. And I shouldn't be here. And the reason I am here, I think, is that I can empower others to achieve what they want to achieve. And that was my biggest finding, I think, with what I went through was the fact that I could do things to help other people overcome their adversity as well. So, yeah, I was lying in hospital, probably three, four weeks in, and I got this euphoric feeling. And I don't know whether it was from the drugs or whatever it was. And I thought to myself, you know, some good's got to come out of this. some good, what can I do now to help other people overcome their electricity?

There must be something that I can do to help people. So yeah, that's how I, that was my epiphany, I suppose. That was my belief system then after that. And were you leaning in the direction of, it would be nice to help people someday, but right now I'm doing this other thing for a living. Maybe one day I'll get into coaching or I'll get into motivational speaking. Did you ever have any inkling towards that, or was this accident, the catalyst that sent you in that direction?

Well, I think the accident was certainly the catalyst. I'd done quite a bit of personal development anyway in the early 2000s. Yeah, look, I've been bankrupt in 1995. And that's quite a humbling experience in itself. And I was probably this grumpy guy, had three children. you know, thought I thought my life was pretty reasonable, and then I went bankrupt, and I had to do something about my mindset. So in the early 2000s, I started reading books, and I was working for a firm, and I just thought, why can't I be successful, like, the people that I'm reading about? And the thing was, every time I read a personal development book was that were talking about me.

Every single one of them was talking about me. And I thought, jeepers, you know, so there must have been so many people in the same boat that I was in, that I knew that I must be able to help other people. But it wasn't until I had this crash that had actually made sense to me. It made, you know, it made me think that I can do this. I can get out there and do this. My passion, I think. My passion and my purpose now, my passion to help.

other people and my purpose is that to teach other people what I can do you know what what are the what are the tools that we need to get to overcome our adversity and it's not just adversity from having a trauma or anything like that I think you know some people go through you know they've had two or three children and they have a breakdown and they have there's everybody has issues every single day everybody you know it doesn't matter where the you've got a million dollars in the bank or you've got $20 in the bank. It's all depends where your headspace is. You know, and we have this, you know, I see people in Kenya and these young kids pushing, you know, hoops along this gravel road.

And they've got a big smile on their face and they've got no inhibitions in it. And then you see someone in New York City and he's driving his brand new, whatever it is. And he's not on a good place, you know. So I think we have this paradigm where we, you know, we can change the way we think just by changing the way you think, by changing our attitude. Powerful. And so very true. It's not what happens to you. It's how you choose to respond to it.

I think a lot of people are going to struggle with, well, how do you expect me to respond to this? I'm angry. I'm upset. I'm depressed. I am thinking, why me? So it takes a certain set of tools to be able to turn that thinking around and to leverage what happens to you so that it becomes, it serves that higher purpose. Because your battle was not over, just getting through the wreck, getting rescued after being trapped for three and a half hours. And then in hospital for several weeks. and months in recovery, you actually lost that leg, didn't you?

Yeah, so, I mean, when I say I was in there for four months, all up, I think I've been in hospital for nine months, all up, having, you know, with all the other operations. And they tried to save the leg, and they did a pretty good job. So I had an internal prosthetic, what they call it, hinge knee, so there was titanium right. Instead of the bone being there, they just use a piece of steel. But I had no flexion in my right. knee, so probably about five degrees.

And it was sort of, I'd hitched all the time, so I was always having back problems. And so I went up to the surgeon, and he's an American guy, actually, and he lives in Brisbane, and probably in the top 1% of surgeons in the world. And he said, Doug, what we can do is we can see if we can get some flexion out of this knee

or we can take it off. And I said, well, let's try to start off with it, and let's see what happens. And so they made this in, just right down the front of my leg and it was probably about oh gee it would have been 18 inches long this cut and it was going pretty well

and I was on this machine that was helping me move my leg or get the flexion and my knee and then unfortunately two weeks in it I got an infection and the pain came back and I went to one of the local hospitals and I rang him up and I said

KT what are you thinking he said no you've got to come back up to my hospital So I shot up to his hospital and stayed in overnight and they did a test and yes, sure enough, there was an infection. He said to me, Doug, you can be on antibiotics for the rest of your life or we can cut it off. And it took me about two seconds. I said, mate, I'm not going to be on any products for the rest of my life. I think to have a good quality of your life, I think we'll take it off. And with my leg, it's above-me, amputation.

So a little bit different. you use about 80% more energy when you've got an above-mean amputation. So it took me a long time to actually learn how to walk again and to rehab and that sort of thing and overcoming the incision. And I was on antibiotics for, I don't know, let's say three months, I suppose, when I was at home. And they just used to send it down to me by curia and, you know, I'd do everything myself. And that was another issue, you know, with a... these strong antibiotics, what happens is you lose all senses, you know, you lose your sense of

smell and your sense of taste. So that was a pretty unusual feeling as well. But, you know, like we were talking about, you know, it wasn't the end of the world. And I think, I think that's the way I became it. And because I had done personal development and I had a great team behind me, I had a wonderful friend base. And that's what got me through my trauma, for Well, that's certainly having that support and having the mindset to be able to overcome those adversities, critically important. Not something everyone has, definitely not something that people are born with. It's a skill. The good news is, if it's not a gift, it's a skill that can be learned and it can be taught. So tell us with that background now, and now that we've established

your story, your background, your background, your. credentials that you have been through the fire and you know how to navigate this. What is the most common problem you see when you're helping the people that you help with your coaching, with your consulting, with the coursework that you have created for people? What's the biggest challenge you see that holds them back? People not believing in themselves. People are not believing that they can do the extraordinary. Now what we believe we can achieve

And you know That is being around for a long long time and people that don't believe will never achieve So you've got to have the mindset that yes I can not no I can't And and the way that I teach people is That you do need to do the extraordinary It's not just going to happen you have to take massive change So what people don't want to do is they they want to keep on doing the things they have always done expecting a different result.

You know, they're not getting out of their comfort zone. They're still having that negative belief system. And this is from conditioning, though. This is what they're being taught all their lives. And you know, with young children, up until probably the age of six or seven, we tell them that you can go and do anything you like in the world. and then there seems to be the shift when they go to school that, no, you can't Johnny do that. You can't do that.

So we get this conditioning right from a very, very early age that we can't do things, not that we can. So how do we turn that around? When you're working with someone coming to you, and the psychological term is self-ethicacy, basically belief in yourself. And if you don't have belief in yourself, everything else, is just kind of wasted. Every other strength, every other asset, every other advantage. If you don't believe that you can achieve, then you absolutely will not, even with all the advantages and all the help in the world.

So when you're working with someone and you're trying to get them to believe in themselves, what is your process? How do you take someone from no? self-efficacy to very strong self-belief? Well, what I want to do is I want to find out their passion and their purpose for a start. So I want them to find out what they really want to do with their life. So is it going to be this person that is a building contractor and he wants to, you know, or a property developer or is it going to be working with people?

Is it going to be a nurse that wants to spend time with? I don't know. I don't know what your passion and personal. So we've got to write, we've got to do a brainstorm and work out where you are and then where you want to be. So where do you want to be in one year, two years, five years, ten years time. So you need to write down these goals. So if we don't have, we don't write down the goals, all it is is a dream. So then I get people to change, the way I get people to change their mindset is, okay, we need to read books on

how other people have achieved what they've achieved. Because the written word, I mean, we take a lot from the written word. The other thing we can do is, we can do the course. You know, we need to find either a mentor or a coach. If we didn't have coaches, I mean, football teams, all teams sports have coaches. So if they didn't work, we wouldn't need them, you know. So I say to people get a coach. The other thing is manifest and then journal.

So that way, every day, if you're manifesting, it actually changes your mindset. We can rewire our brain. We can rewire our brain to be a positive thinker and to think that we can do things rather than not being able to do things. So when you say manifest, explain it to me like I'm in third grade, when you say manifest every day, that's not something I do. I'm familiar with the term. But what do you mean when you say manifest? What is that? Well, I manifest every day, so I write down my goals.

I write down my goals and I read them out aloud every day. Okay. And that trains my brain to think that I can do it. And thinking of it in the now, thinking that it has already happened. Okay. So that's the... Thinking that the goals has already happened. Okay.

So that's like affirmations. then? Is that is that synonymous with manifesting? Well, well, I believe it is. It may be different for other people, but I do affirmations as well. Okay. Absolutely. So the idea is to take that

and take that statement to manifest it means to make it present as if. And so what you're doing then is you're changing your state and by changing your state, you begin to change your sense of what's possible. Is that correct?

That's exactly right, but we've got to do one more step. We've got to take massive action. So what happens is it's so much just manifest and something and doing these affirmations and thinking that it's going to happen. Right. It will happen if you take massive action. So you've actually got to take the action as well. Right, it's not just going to come and land in your lap.

It's not going to come out of the sky and go, oh, yeah, well, that Doug guy, I think he's all right. We'll just give him some of that. It will happen if Doug takes massive action on what he believes in and has a system in place to get to where he wants to go, right? But the problem that we have is that we just, most people, 95% of people, go out there and do their job and expect it all to happen anyway. It will happen if you do the work, it'll happen. So the mental work, the mindset work, is actually what empowers someone to take the massive action. It's not sufficient by itself, but it's like the key that turns the ignition over and gets the car started,

but you still have to accelerate towards a particular destination. So it's not the only thing, the mindset, but without that, you really don't have the wherewithal to take the massive action and in a sustainable way. So both of those work together. Is that, that sound right? Yeah, well, that analogy that you put in is probably really, really good. What I would say is you've got the car, right? But if you don't put any fuel in the tank, you can't go anywhere. So you can have the car, which is your goal, which is your dream, right? but to get to where you want to go, you've got to put fuel in the tank.

So, you know, putting the fuel in the tank is having that massive action is, but you do have to have a system in place. Like I said, you can't, you can't just go, oh, yeah, well, I'm going to go out and get the car. There's a lot of people got cars,

but they don't go anywhere. There's many erects on the side of the road. Isn't there? You know, they're broken down. So the way I looked at myself was, yes, I was a little broken down. but how do I how do I put that petrol in the tank

what gives me that what gives me that edge and what gave me that edge initially was having a business coach or just a life coach actually that I knew that was very very successful and what he did was he put that firecracker under me and he makes you accountable

or she they make you accountable because they're not going to take the beers because they want to work with people that take massive action Otherwise, they're wasting their time as well. So tell us a little bit about your, you've got a couple of courses and you've got, I mean, it's one on courses to gain focus and gain, get clarity. Tell us a little bit about that in your coaching programs so that people can get an idea

of how they can work with you. So what I've actually partnered with a with a personal development company and and and I also do my own my own speaking as well so and I have got a course so the course is about changing mindset whereas with the personal development that's more about learning about changing your mindset I suppose more around that so but you like I said I've partnered with this personal development company and that's been amazing for me because I'm actually going through that journey as well. I'm still doing those, I'm still doing that personal development with them because I don't think you can partner with someone unless you, you know, the product.

So, so, so yeah, that's basically it in a nutshell, but it's initially the coaching is, or the one-on-one coaching is about, is about, okay, it makes it a little bit more personal, You know, it makes it more, how do I put it? Yeah, Jeff, well, that's it personal. You know, you're not in a group space. You're not, you're not dealing with other people. It's more of a one-on-one thing where, you know, we do, you know, a 12-week course. And most of it's done remotely over teams or Skype or Zoom or, you know, whatever platform you want to do.

And then I set up a schedule for them and then they've got to do the work. So it's not much use doing this unless you're going to do the work. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, you make a really good, a really good case for why it's so important to work, to work with a coach. Because they're able to see things that you can't see. They're outside of you. And they see the negative things and the things that you probably,

can see that the reason people seek coaching is they've got a problem with something. But it's also useful because they can stand outside of you and see things about you that are positive that you can't even see. And there's probably more positive things than problems. But you get into that sense of being over or feeling overwhelmed where all you see when you look at your as problems that need to be solved. A good coach can also look and see the strengths and help you navigate that. Having said that, for people who are listening right now, what can you tell them that would

help them take action right now and see some immediate improvement in their self-efficacy, self-esteem, belief in themselves? Is there something that they can take? action on right now? Well, the action, I would say, is that you can do it. So believe it, because we have this negative attitude, I think, you know, like I said before, when we're young kids, we've got this attitude, oh, little Johnny, you can't be that, you can't do that.

I think what I would be doing initially would be to write down what your focus is, what you want to do. Why am I doing what I'm doing? because I'm not enjoying what I'm doing. And then start, there's so many videos on YouTube that give you an insight into, I'd be doing personal development every day.

I would be doing, I would be going onto YouTube and going manifesting or looking at personal development and things like that. And doing 10 or 15 minutes a day just on working on yourself. That would be my initial, that would be my initial approach

because there's so many tools out there that we're not utilising. And there's so many great people out there that are putting posts up on YouTube especially. And, you know, there'd be podcasts, there'll be something on Spotify and there'll be, and they're so easy to get now, whereas once upon a time we had to read a book. Now we can just sit down and relax and watch it. So, yes, certainly that's what I do.

And get a lot more out of it than just watching funny cat videos and such. So, yeah, that's something anybody can do anywhere, anytime, and begin to feed that part of you that's going to help you to overcome and navigate these obstacles by becoming a better version of who you really are. Doug, what are you working on right now that's got you really excited? Well, I'm working with a team at the moment with my will never give up coach. business and yeah, we're kicking some goals. You know, I'm talking to probably 20 people a day and bringing people on board. So that's basically where I'm at the moment.

And it's, you know, I didn't think it was going to take up as much time as it has and it has. You know, it's pretty full on. But, yeah, I'm really enjoying helping people get out of their comfort zones and looking for a brighter future. Wonderful. Well, the website, if you want to look up, Doug, is will never give up.com. And we'll have that website linked from the Rebelpreneur website as well.

Doug, any final thoughts or words of wisdom? I've enjoyed learning more about you. I felt like I already knew you to a certain extent just by reading your story. But it's nice to put your voice and your spirit together with your story and to hear what makes you tick. So I really appreciate you sharing your time with us today. Any final thoughts as we say goodbye for now? Yeah, well, can I also say that I've got another website called www.

We'll Never Give Up Coach.com as well. If you could put that up, that would be amazing. Oh, okay. And I suppose final thoughts of wisdom is I want people to realize that they can achieve what they want in life. As I said, I was involved in a massive trauma. I could have been that angry guy for the rest of my life. I could have taken the bull by the horns and said, I'm just going to do it.

Follow your dreams. Follow your passion. Not let what has happened in the past, giving away the future. It doesn't mean your past doesn't equal your future. So, yeah, you can achieve what you believe. Just work on yourself. Wonderful.

Inspiring and motivational words from Doug Wright. He is a survivor of a head-on vehicle collision, and as you can tell, he is passionate about helping people overcome their innermost fears, and especially when recovering from trauma. Doug lived to share his story and his motto, which is never give up. He loves what he does because it makes an immediate difference in people's lives, and they see possibility where once there was none. look him up at We'll Never Give Up Coach.com. And Doug, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Wonderful, Ralph. Really appreciate your time. Thanks very much. You've been listening to Rebelpreneur Radio with Ralph Brogden. Download the show notes and much more at Rebelpreneur.com.