The first moment everything changed for me came at nineteen years old. I was in a car accident—one where, by all logic, I shouldn’t have survived. We were going sixty miles an hour when I hit another car, and in those seconds people talk about when they say your life flashes before your eyes, mine actually did. I had three thoughts in that moment: the first was simple—call my family. The second was heavier—would I even meet God, and had I lived well enough to deserve it? And the third changed everything.

I realized I still had a lifetime of dreams untouched and goals I assumed I had time to reach, quietly believing I was special enough to get around to what mattered later. Surviving that moment forced a reckoning that has shaped my life ever since: time is not promised, and potential means nothing without action. That realization is at the heart of everything I do now—whether I’m speaking to students, leaders, or high performers—because no matter your age or stage, waiting for “someday” is the most dangerous assumption we make.