The Wilder Zone

How NOT Living in the Moment Could Cost You Your Life: The Dangers of Drowsy Driving

Last August, I wrote a post about my oldest son's motorcycle accident called, "How Living in the Moment Can Save Your Life." This story, unfortunately, is an example of how not living in the moment, not being fully present, could potentially cost you your life.

Several nights ago my oldest son called me:

"Hi, Mom." That's all he had to say for me to know that something was very wrong.

"Are you okay, hon?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay." he replied, but something in the tone of his voice belied the words he spoke.

My heart dropped into my stomach, fear gripped me and my voice rose an octave as I asked, "What's wrong?! What is it?"

"I totaled the car." Oh my God! OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod! was all that ran through my mind as time seemed to stand still for a moment and I tried to catch my breath and my mind scrambled, despite the fear, to process the fact that at least he was okay enough to call. Still...the vision of my son lying in a hospital bed 1200 miles away, flashed through my head.

"Are you all right?! What happened?!"

"I was driving home from work on the freeway and I dozed off." I heard him say as the "OhmyGodohmyGod" chant struck up in my head again. I pulled my attention back to what he was saying as the rest of the story unfolded.

He'd been driving home on the freeway, doing about 65mph, and he'd dozed off for mere seconds. You know how you blink longer and more slowly when you're struggling to stay awake? That's all it took. As his eyes popped open again all his drowsy brain could register was the bumper looming much too close in front of him and the brake lights glaring a warning of imminent danger.

He reacted instinctively, hitting the brakes and swerving into the right lane to avoid hitting the car in front of him. Unfortunately, being less than fully aware and alert, he over-corrected and the car began to spin. It spun several times across two lanes of traffic, coming to a stop when the back bumper slammed into a light pole on the side of the freeway.

The tow truck had to pull the car off the pole. Now, mind you...this is an '87 Toyota Supra hatchback. Back in '87 they were still making steel bumpers. That you can clearly see the imprint of the pole in the crushed steel bumper tells me the car hit with considerable force.

My son's voice shook as he said, "Another quarter turn Mom, another split-second, and it would have been the driver's door that hit the pole and I'd be dead."

He's right...he was very fortunate, all things considered. There was no better place than that steel bumper for his car to have made contact with that pole. And he's very fortunate to have avoided hitting the car in front of him, that no other cars hit him as he spun across two lanes of the freeway at 3pm in the afternoon, and that there was no one else in the car. It could have ended very differently.

Scary Stats

According to DrowsyDriving.org & the National Sleep Foundation's 2005 Sleep in America Poll:

"60% of adult drivers – about 168 million people – say they have driven a vehicle while feeling drowsy in the past year, and more than one-third, (37% or 103 million people), have actually fallen asleep at the wheel! In fact, of those who have nodded off, 13% say they have done so at least once a month. Four percent – approximately eleven million drivers – admit they have had an accident or near accident because they dozed off or were too tired to drive.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. These figures may be the tip of the iceberg, since currently it is difficult to attribute crashes to sleepiness."

Risk Factors

Again, according to DrowsyDriving.org:

Specific At-Risk Groups

• Young people-especially males under age 26
  
• Shift workers and people with long work hours-working the night shift increases your risk by nearly 6 times; rotating-shift workers and people working more than 60 hours a week need to be particularly careful
  
• Commercial drivers-especially long-haul drivers - at least 15% of all heavy truck crashes involve fatigue
  
• People with undiagnosed or untreated disorders-people with untreated obstructive sleep apnea have been shown to have up to a seven times increased risk of falling asleep at the wheel
  
• Business travelers-who spend many hours driving or may be jet lagged

Are You at Risk?

Before you drive, consider whether you are:

• Sleep-deprived or fatigued (6 hours of sleep or less triples your risk)
• Suffering from sleep loss (insomnia), poor quality sleep, or a sleep debt
• Driving long distances without proper rest breaks
• Driving through the night, mid-afternoon or when you would normally be asleep
• Taking sedating medications (antidepressants, cold tablets, antihistamines)
• Working more than 60 hours a week (increases your risk by 40%)
• Working more than one job and your main job involves shift work
• Drinking even small amounts of alcohol
• Driving alone or on a long, rural, dark or boring road

My son is 22 and for the last four years has worked from 5am - 2pm. This means he must get up between 3-3:30am five days a week. Being an active 22 yr. old he rarely goes to bed as early as he'd need to in order to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. He averages only 4-5 hours. As a result he is chronically sleep-deprived.

The scary part is that he didn't "think" he was tired when he got in the car to drive home that day. Having functioned on so little sleep for so long, being sleep-deprived has become "normal" for him and so his awareness of it is no longer what it should be.

Too High a Price to Pay

My son fractured the L5 vertebrae in his lower back, and he's been in a world of pain. It's not clear yet if there is any other damage to his back. The ER docs discharged him that night, telling him to follow-up with his doctor. His family doc took one look at the x-rays, prescribed a stronger pain med, referred him to an orthopedic specialist and told him to plan on taking six weeks off work. He is, as I type, at his appointment with...I kid you not...Dr. Payne...the orthopedic specialist, and I can only hope for good news when he calls after the appointment.

My son can't afford to take six weeks off work, and sadly, he needs a car to get to and from work and he had only liability insurance on the car and hadn't yet paid off the personal loan he took out to buy it just 8 months ago. He has no idea how he's going to replace the car or how he'll manage if he does indeed have to take six weeks off work.

He'll pay a steep price both physically and financially, for the accident that was, quite literally, a wake-up call. And yet, it could have been so much worse. The price could have been so much higher.

He's thankful, as am I, that he's alive and that, hopefully, the injury to his back will heal without long-term consequences. I will be forever grateful that he was not one of the 1,550 who die each year as a result of driving drowsy.

Raising Awareness

Talk to those you love. Educate yourself and your loved ones about the dangers of driving drowsy and what to do when you find yourself struggling to stay awake while driving. Visit DrowsyDriving.com for more information on the stats, risks, warning signs, countermeasures and prevention, especially if you have teen or young adult drivers.

Spread the word, raise awareness of the dangers, and you just might save a life. Your own, or that of someone you love.

Discover How Your Sex Life Affects the Success of Your Business

Yup, you heard me, your sex life. If you're wondering what on earth that has to do with the success of your biz, then join Marie Forleo and I on March 11th for a free tele-seminar, "The 8 Biggest Mistakes Even Smart Women Make in Business, & How to Avoid Them."

Whether you're a passionate entrepreneurial woman (or man) who has been in biz for awhile and you aren't quite seeing the results you'd like to, or you're just starting out and want to avoid making the same mistakes we did, if you love what you do and want to make a difference in the world while growing your biz, this is a call you won't want to miss.You'll learn just how your sex life affects the success of your biz, and so much more.

Marie and I LOVE the work we do together and we always have so much fun on these calls. We promise...this won't be one of those dry bore-you-to-tears tele-seminars that you sit through in the hopes of gleaning something worthwhile only to discover it's nothing more than hype.

This will be a call packed with valuable info you'll be able to put to use in your biz immediately, delivered in a candid, but irreverent way that will be both fun and inspiring. Join us live if you can, and if you can't make the call live, register anyway and we'll shoot you the recorded mp3 after the call.

Turn Your "Woe-is-Me" Story into Your "Why" Story

If you really want to transform your life and your biz you've got to drop your "woe-is-me" story. You know the one..the one that sounds like the latest episode of some dramatic soap opera. The one in which you cast yourself in the role of victim to all of the terrible injustices that have been heaped upon you over the years. The one you use to explain why your life isn't working and never will. The one you use as an excuse for why you can't do or be more. The one you use as an out so you don't even have to try.

There are as many variations of the "woe-is-me" story as there are people on the planet. Each is unique in the details, but alike in that they hold us back from being and expressing more fully who we really are. Some common themes:

• I'm miserable and unhappy because my parents abused me when I was a child.
• I can't have a healthy, happy relationship because my father abandoned me, my husband cheated on me, my mother was an alcoholic, my parents fought all the time, etc...
• I can't grow my business right now because my children make too many demands on my time.
• I can't be successful because I never had the opportunity to go to college.

And of course, the list could go on and on...ad nauseum. No doubt you've perfected the telling of your "woe-is-me" story as if it were a fine art. It's in our nature to be quite gifted at story-telling, and it's easy to continue spinning the same story over and over again, year after year.

The challenge lies not in spinning the "woe-is-me" story, but in letting it go, in refusing to any longer allow it to shape who you are and what you're capable of. While your story (your past) has certainly contributed to who you are, it does not define you, nor does it have to shape your future.

Now we come to the paradox...

The very story that is critical to let go of may hold the essence of the story that will transform your life and your biz. Flip that "woe-is-me" story around to craft a compelling "why" story and you've discovered the key to re-igniting your passion, inspiring others and to attracting those you're meant to serve. For entrepreneurs the telling of your story from a different perspective is the key to inspiring clients to engage your services, buy your products, subscribe to your blogs or ezines, and to inspiring and exciting your team to be and do their best.

Every entrepreneur I've ever worked with has had a personal story about why they do what they do, and how they came to feel such a strong desire to make a difference in the lives of others. Often times, though it's this very story that drives them to go into biz for themselves, they aren't consciously aware of it and they've never thought to attempt to articulate it.

Becoming aware of your reason for doing what you do and taking the time to articulate it to others, is one of the most powerful ways to transform your life and your biz. Not only will it renew your passion for the work that you do but it will inspire others and it will resonate emotionally with those you're meant to serve.

A powerful "why" story will tell those you're meant to serve why you do what you do, that they're in the right place, that they've found the right person to help them, that you've been where they are, that if you can do it, so can they.

So what is the difference between a "woe-is-me" story and a "why" story?

They often have quite a lot in common. The difference lies not so much in the content of the story but in the way you spin it.

The "woe-is-me" story is spun with as much drama as possible, and it's focus is on the past and all of the ways in which your past prevents you from being or doing more with your life. The "why" story, although it has it's foundation in the past, is focused on how that same past has inspired you to be and do more and to make a difference in the lives of others.

A Personal Example

My "woe-is-me" story went something like this:

Poor me. My father abused me as a child and I had a bad marriage. I'll never be good enough. No one will ever really love me. I'll never be happy. I'll never have a good career or be successful because I'm too busy taking care of a husband and two kids. I'll never be happy or successful because of the problems with my health. I can't do this, I can't do that, because, because, because....don't you feel terribly sorry for me?

Ugh! As you can plainly see the only thing your "woe-is-me" story is likely to do is engender pity or sympathy for those unlucky enough to be within earshot of your whining.

Now for my "why" story:

Having been abused as a child and in an emotionally abusive marriage for many years, I put on a facade for so long that I lost sight of who I was, and of what I wanted in my life. I coasted through life on auto-pilot, numb not only to the pain I'd been feeling, but to happiness and joy as well. I was barely surviving, let alone really living.

Then one day I woke up. I began learning to be more present rather than numbing out. To feel whatever I was feeling, rather than trying to avoid emotion, and I began to get re-acquainted with myself, my emotions and my desires. I began living more fully, I let go of my "woe-is-me" story and all of the reasons it prevented me from being and doing more, and my life transformed in ways I'd never known to even dream of...

I am happier, more fulfilled, and more passionate about my life than I ever knew it was possible to be. My life has gone from something I must "deal" with and "get through," to something I cherish every moment of. It's that very transformation in my own life that drives me to want to help others to transform their lives. It's why I do what I do...because I want others to experience the joy of living life fully, of going after their dreams, of being passionate about life and all it has to offer. I want others to experience the magic I have.

I think you'll agree that my "why" story is much more compelling and inspiring than my "woe-is-me" story could ever be. 

Transforming your "woe-is-me" story into your "why" story

Drop the drama of your "woe-is-me" story and look at how you can transform it into an inspiring story of why you do what you do. Ask yourself:

• What about your past experience inspired you to go into business to serve others?
• What past experiences make you uniquely qualified to serve others?
• What difference do you want to make in the world and for others?

Don't censor yourself in an attempt to say what you think others want you to say, or to say what you think you "should" say. Speak boldly and authentically from your heart. It's that genuine expression of who you are and why you do what you do that will speak to, and resonate with, those you're meant to serve, and that has the power to transform your life and your biz.