13: Cycling for Gratitude and Community with Michael O'Brien
I’m joined by Michael O’Brian, an executive coach, speaker, author, and the Chief Calm Officer of the Pause Breathe Reflect™ movement. In 2001, Michael was the marketing lead for a $700M brand and, as he describes it, he was checking everything off the list. He had a college degree, successful career, wife, kids, and a house. But on July 11, 2001, an SUV traveling 40 mph hit him head-on when he was out for a morning bike ride. After being discharged from the ICU, his doctors warned him that he would have a lifetime of limitations, walk with difficulty, and probably never cycle again.
Michael’s mental health took a major hit after receiving that news. He eventually connected with a mentor who emphasized that everything in life is neutral until you label it. He challenged Michael to start a mindfulness practice, which eventually turned into his signature Pause Breathe Reflect™ session that he shares with leaders today. He came up with the acronym G.R.A.C.E., which stands for Gratitude, Reframing, Awareness, Community, and Energy, as a way to become more resilient and achieve success starting from the inside out.
As a way to commemorate the 21st anniversary of his accident and Last Bad Day, he’s embarking on a challenge he’s calling the Rise2Ripple. He’ll be cycling The TransAmerica Bicycle Trail, which is a whopping 4,300 miles and covers 43 states. It’s a celebration of life, generosity, mindfulness, and the beauty of the United States. In our conversation, we also highlight the World Bicycle Relief, a non-profit organization that specializes in large-scale, comprehensive bicycle distribution programs to aid poverty relief in developing countries around the world.
Listen to today’s episode to hear Michael’s inspiring story and learn more about the power of mindful, intentional living.
About our guest:
Topics Covered:
Embracing the mindset that things happen for you, not to you
Challenging today’s hustle and grind culture
Michael’s transformative perspective and approach to achievement and external validation
How five mindful minutes using Pause, Breathe, Reflect™ can transform your day
The origin of the word ‘peloton’ and how Michael relied on his community through his recovery
Showing people what's possible when you slow down and live life mindfully
Special Offers:
If there’s a topic or charity you want me to highlight on the podcast, DM it to me on Instagram @getbusylivin_pod
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COMPUTER GENERATED TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Anne O'Neil: Hey, Hey, GBLers! Welcome to get busy living a podcast that brings inspiring people together to discover what ignites them to be bigger than themselves. I'm your host and. I know we've all had a bad day or two, but Michael O'Brien's last bad day was a near fatal bicycling accident today. Michael shares how he transformed his life and stop chasing happiness through an acronym.
He created called grace. Meditation's called pause, breathe, reflect, and getting back on the. In a very big way. On June 14th, Michael is taking on a rise to ripple challenge, a 45 day cross country bicycling trip. Enjoy the inspiring conversation and get ready to join Michael on his journey. It's going to be all about rippling, kindness, gratitude, and belonging out into the world.
Thank you so much for being on. I'm so
[00:01:07] Michael O'Brien: excited to talk with. Yeah, no, me too. Like, um, yeah, love what you're doing. And like following each other, like on Instagram and stuff like that. So I really cool. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:18] Anne O'Neil: Oh my gosh. Okay. You know, I love watching your videos and I wanted to say, gee, a witch and Strava cocoa from Croatia.
Cause I wanted to use some other hello names. I love them. I'll say hi to people in all the different languages.
[00:01:33] Michael O'Brien: That's so cool. That's awesome. I
[00:01:35] Anne O'Neil: know you use a bunch of different ones. You mix them up every day.
[00:01:38] Michael O'Brien: Yeah. Like sometimes, you know, I do my best. Like I have probably some standard ones, but try to diversify, we try where we can write belonging and some welcoming into the world.
I think, Hey, I think we. I'll need it. Right? So it's, it's a great kerfuffle, taught us anything. I think we thirst for belonging and being heard and being seen and appreciated. And I think if we can just start there, we're going to do a lot of good in the world. I think that's, what's hurting us is that we just don't feel like we belong.
No one hears and sees us. So then we tend to lash out. Right? So.
[00:02:21] Anne O'Neil: Yes. And you know, I, that's why I love your energy and your vibe and the positivity you're giving out to the world. And one of the ones that I saw for saying hello, that you're very familiar with is Nama stay that's in India. And it gets so much traction with yoga, but it actually means like, hello, it's like a good, a good energy
[00:02:39] Michael O'Brien: to send that.
Right. Like Aloha can be hello. It could be goodbye. You know, it's like, not mistake could be hello. It could be, uh, you know, a lot of people like use it as a goodbye. Look, now I'm a stay and stay in a conversation. But yeah, it started like, there's like peaceful greeting, like good fortune follow you down your journey.
And yeah, it's a, it's like, it's a good one. So. Yes.
[00:03:05] Anne O'Neil: Yes, it is. It's like I, yes. I send you along your journey on good vibes and wow. We have, we have such a journey to talk about with you. And so I want to kick it off, you know, do you remember, we actually met about eight years ago. I was originally looking at the old MBA from
I came across your profile and your shift. And I was like, oh my gosh, what an amazing story. And that's how, you know, I originally started following you and getting to know you and everything that you've been through, uh, you know, from your house that day to your journey.
[00:03:39] Michael O'Brien: Yeah. So did you end up taking the all MBA?
I didn't
[00:03:43] Anne O'Neil: take it yet, but I was like, you know, it's spurred me to look at it a little bit further. Cause I love Seth Goden and his quotes and just so many books, you know, he's written for all of our listeners out there. He's one of the best marketers in the world. He's written purple cow linchpin tribes, which was one of my favorite.
Do you have any, you know, things that you've taken away that you still use every day?
[00:04:04] Michael O'Brien: I would say, so I do follow him. I do get his blog. I think they experience from the MBA that I pulled away at, which is his reframe that he constantly repeats is ship your work, go out. And this is what I love about your podcast.
It's like, go out, make it happen. It's not going to be perfect on episode one, but you get it out there. You get past that resistance that Steven Pressfield talks about in the war. And get past that initial, initial surge that holds us back. So ship it like south, will they ship it and ship it and keep on doing it and you make iterations upon iterations.
So I've definitely taken that to heart doll, MBA, forest. And it w in, in Atlanta safety, like, cause none of your projects are going public. So, but you get used to building that muscle about getting things out there. And I think you get stuff out there. Some things hit the mark, those that don't, you learn something which is a victory and then you try to make it a little bit better.
[00:05:07] Anne O'Neil: I love that. And you also mentioned one of my other favorite authors, Steven Crossfield, if you guys haven't heard it heard about that again, it's the war of art. And then also he's got a turning pro, which was one of my favorite books and he talks a lot about that resistance, where you just have to get your rear end in the chair and ship something out.
And that's exactly, you know, why we're sitting here on this podcast is because I wanted to create something and. I'm going to say like many of you out there, I always want it to be perfect and pristine and have all the right, you know, lettering and captioning, but you just gotta go with it, you know? And we're, that's what we're doing here in conversation.
So it's such a good kickoff that we're going to have this
[00:05:46] Michael O'Brien: conversation and yeah, I think it's come full circle. It's so awesome.
[00:05:50] Anne O'Neil: Yeah. Yeah. And you're a great person to have on here to be like life doesn't quite go just as planned. So you kinda, you gotta maneuver your way through the GPS and make the turns with it and still show.
So let's get everyone introduced to you, Michael. And, you know, do you want to take us back to your last bad day just to kind of get things starting?
[00:06:11] Michael O'Brien: Sure. And here's all underscore, like the last bad day is not this toxic positivity stuff that we hear about. Like it's not rainbows and Skittles, so I'll explain why I came up with that label.
So back then I was 33 married. Two girls three and a half years old, seven months old at the time married seven years, I thought I was following the script perfectly. Or you go to college, you work hard, get a gig, you meet someone, you marry someone, you work your way up, the corporate ladder. That's what you do.
They pay you. So it's stressful. So all that. That's what, you know, that's what I thought life was. And I thought, okay, if that's what life is, then I'm doing it fairly well. I had a pretty good gig. I was the marketing director for my company's biggest product. And then I had a meeting out in New Mexico, avid cyclist.
From the very time I came off of training wheels for the very first time, I was like, oh, freedom. I can go places without my parents, even though it was only two blocks away, I thought, okay. I, I am a, I'm a boy now, like, uh, you know, at five years old, right. And so cycling was always this sense of exploration, adventure, fitness competition.
It scratched many itches that I had. I was training for a race. So it was coming back into bike racing again, after our youngest was born and I had this beautiful loop at the hotel, we were at a new resort out the main back up the main drag to my. I thought I would do 10 laps for 20 miles and be the smug one in the office or at the offsite say I went outside and exercise and all you guys did was sleep in and it would be all judgy and perfect and all that jazz.
And then on the fourth lap, I came around to band in a Ford Explorer was right there going 40 miles an hour coming right at me fully in my lane. If folks check out the photos, you can see where the truck stops after it hits me still in my lane. I was right where you're supposed to be as a cyclist. And which is why those random acts that maybe wasn't so random.
I, you know, like things happen for you now to my belief. I remember that morning, the sound of me hitting his front, grill, the windshield, the screech of his brakes. The thought I made when they came to asphalt below that whole impact of course knocked me unconscious. I regained consciousness a few minutes later, surrounded by BMTs.
I asked the EMT is a question that only another cyclist can truly appreciate. I asked the. How's my bike. And he looked at me and they're like, your bike is fine for the record. It wasn't fine. They said, try to breathe. And I knew like this was not part of the script and I kept. Thinking, like, why is this happening?
This can't be happening. I be like, I'm gonna miss the meeting. That was one thought I had in my head. And it was like, I'm gonna miss the meeting. People are going to judge me for missing the meeting. Like, oh my God, where are they going to say? So here I am trying to fight for my life. Worry about the judgingness of other people.
Cause I'm not there. Fast forward a little bit. They put me on the metabolic to take me to Albuquerque, which is the only trauma one center in the state. And I made a commitment that if I survived, I would stop chasing happiness because I was a big chasing happiness kind of guy. What was the Ziglar? I was like, if you do work hard, have your stuff, you can then feel like you're something.
So I thought my happiness was in all my external merit badges, the promo, the car, the house. The title, the money and there was a little happiness and all that. Right. So I caught some of that stuff. As I worked my career, as I was following the scripts that I thought I had to follow, but, you know, they would fly away and I'd go back to chasing.
And I wasn't really, truly happy. And I didn't know, as a guy we're not taught this how to process our stress, you know, how to deal with our emotions. We can deal with them with a temper. And I certainly had a temper. I had a classic Irish temper, but I used to pack my stress in me, like pushing it down. I like to say I put a whole bunch of rocks in my backpack.
So in a lot of ways, the SUV knocked the stuffing out of me and like blew up my backpack and they took me to Albuquerque. First surgery saved my life. Doctors told my wife, we're not sure how your husband survived. Had he been 10 years older? Not in shape. He certainly would've passed away before he got to the hospital because I lost so much blood.
I broke a whole bunch of everything left femur, shattered that lacerated the femoral artery. Four days in the ICU, multiple days in the hospital. When I came out of the ICU, they said, Hey, listen, buddy, uh, based on your injuries, you're going to have a life of dependency limitations. You're probably going to walk with struggle, probably never going to ride again.
And this whole idea of not chasing happiness. Wasn't a problem. Cause I couldn't even spell happiness. Oh my gosh. And I went dark pretty quickly. I was angry. I was still trying to put on a good front, like, okay, this is happy, but deep down inside. And it was like brutal. I was like, I was like, why'd this happen to me?
I was, I was following the script. I was doing everything right. Why, why do bad things happen to good people? And then eventually a mentor shared with me. He said, Hey, listen. Everything your life is neutral until you label it. You get to decide the label right now. You're labeling yourself as a victim. You have every right to something horrific happened to you, but I'm letting you know that you get to choose your label.
This has happening for you, not to you. In essence, he is like, nothing has meaning until you give it meaning. And you right now, you're giving meaning to this. And I just want to help you see that. Maybe there's a different meaning. And then through a little bit about ha I was like, okay, well, I can label that day.
Anyway I want, so I decided to label that day, my last bad day, because part of my recovery was mindfulness. Also part of my recovery was a gratitude practice. And so I knew this, that I was going to have bad moments going forward. We all do. But if I had my wife and my daughters in my life, I couldn't label.
As a bad one. So I'm not going to throw out a whole day and how many people we know take a bad moment and they just add fuel to it and becomes a bad day or even longer. And I made a commitment that I was going to try to live my life, dealing with my bad moments, my challenging moments, my angry moments, but I wasn't going to like, let it ruin a whole day.
Because I still had people who loved me. I still had a foundation to tap into. And so that became my last bad day story. And then from there, it was just a struggle to get out of the hospital back on my feet, eventually back on the bike and trying to live more mindfully.
[00:13:15] Anne O'Neil: Oh my gosh. This whole time, I've just been shaking my head at the depths of your story and your journey and.
The trauma and the tragedy, but also the light that you found within this, you know, to be able to transform that day and that moment into something that's been more positive and full of gratitude for you. I mean, it's just really, really incredible. And as it listeners are listening to the story, you know, how did that work for you?
That someone can take away in their own story, that, to really transform maybe a bad moment or a bad experience into something that is positive. You know, I really loved that thing about, you know, they're not nothing's good or bad unless you label it. So how, how can our listeners kind of take that away and into their own life?
[00:14:01] Michael O'Brien: One of the things that, uh, Did being a corporate world. I love a good acronym. I came up with this acronym called grace. Cause I was trying to like, how can I be, how can I be as graceful as possible through my recovery? Because my recovery was messy, multiple surgeries. It wasn't linear. It was a mess. Most days, a lot of issues, a lot of complications, but I was like, well, how can I be grateful?
And I think right now, given moment, 2022. We could use a little bit more grace, grace to ourselves, grace with each other, find a way through this. So grace for me, stands for gratitude. Reframing the RS, reframe as awareness. The C is community. The E is energy and how, while we're alive. So having gratitude practice was fundamental, helped me see what I still had and could do versus focusing on all the crappy stuff in my life.
The reframing was, is this happening to you or for. Um, how are other people looking at this? How to see things maybe through a beginner's mind, the awareness piece speaks to my mindfulness practice that I developed the sea in community. Like who's in your Peloton, who are you riding with? We need others together.
We go far, like we need others in our lives. I'm here telling my story. But my story is a collection of so many other people contributing to my story and then energy. Like we're all energy. We all have. When we have alignment, life's easier when we're misaligned, like driving a car, that's misaligned. Life's tougher.
So how do we put all that together and start gracefully move forward. So for me, it's about, yeah, just the elements of grace to help. Shift our perspective, you know, so we can, so we can hold space for the tough stuff. It's not to deny our feelings. So feel what we need to feel. We can hold sorrow or hurt, but at the same time, we can be grateful for what we have.
Like humans can do that. And so I try to create this openness as the spaciousness. That's one of the recommendations I would have for your listeners is try to create more openness and not live. So binary of like good, bad, right wrong that we can hold space for a lot of different things that we're feeling at any given moment.
[00:16:27] Anne O'Neil: I love that without defining things as good or bad right or wrong, you're really crazy. How do I want to look at this and change the optics? And when you said about chasing happiness, I know so many can relate. I can relate to, you know, we go through life and checking the boxes. Like I got that degree, I've got this job so much money, my 401k, you know, how did those optics change?
When again, you, you kind of lost the labels and you were really kind of recreating your entire outlook
[00:16:58] Michael O'Brien: on life. Yeah. It's such a good question. And because. I still was pursuing those things, but from a different place. So in the beginning, before my accident, I pursued those things from a point of view that I was less than that I had to do more, to be more, I wasn't full, I wasn't complete, I was lacking in something there, the voice in our head that we all have, that we don't talk about.
Like I'm too much or too little of something. So I'm still. I'm an athlete. I'm an executive. I wouldn't call myself a type, a personality, but I w I D definitely liked to achieve things like could get after things. It make a difference, whether it's trying to role model for other people. So to see what maybe that's within them or getting to a certain level in the company.
So I could have influence and shape the work experience. So I still pursued those, but it was from. That was completely different than how it was before the accident. It was from a place of like, I'm full I'm, like I'm complete, I'm not done yet, but I, but I, I come from a, uh, a little bit more of a peaceful, grounded, stable position of going after it, which then changes your vibe and changes your energy in that pursuit.
So I didn't need that to define me. I used it to say, I want to reach for these things as a way to accomplish something. Bigger pathway to have hopefully more influence so it can shape how we work together and also shape how we live together. So I, so I still pursued it, but I wasn't like chasing it. I was like, I was letting it unfold, you know, back to grace, allowing it to unfold with grace.
You know, this as an athlete, when we clench onto the outcome we want, we play. Yes. Right. So we want that championship March madness. We want it. And if we grip it so tightly, sometimes we play not with flow. Like every athlete knows this, that when you're performing at a high level, the game just slows down.
Yes. You allow the play to unfold. You allow it to breathe. You don't try to rush it. And what I see today is a lot of people have bought into the hustle and grind culture and grabbing onto their attachment and trying to control it all. And they're playing tents and then they're reacting and they wonder why they keep on well, okay.
Dribbling the ball out of bounds, if you will, to play off the basketball analogy. But when we ease our grip a bit, we can still have a goal, but we ease our grip on the outcome and let the play unfold. We can slow down at the, and when we slow down the game, actually go. More smoothly for us or even faster.
And that was probably one of the big things I've learned coming out of my recovery is that I could slow down as a way to go faster and approach my goals from a much healthier perspective and feeling like I wasn't enough. And that's why I had to get it done so I could be recognized,
[00:20:05] Anne O'Neil: Michael. I was so good.
I again was shaking my head. It was, it was just really profound because. When you said that about, you know, comparing it to athletics and you have that grip on life or that you think you are, it's almost an inauthentic grip because you think you're missing something. When the inner work is really, you have everything you need.
And then that space opens up. It creates a bigger space. And one of the places I'd like to get into is, you know, your meditation, mindfulness work. I found that, you know, speaking of basketball, That when I would go and shoot, my brain would shut off and I was so much more creative and in my body and in the space of just shooting, it was like, I talk about ontology quite a bit because it's the study of being and just who you are at that time.
Like you can't say. You can't really describe lady Gaga, but you can see who she's being at that time, you know, kind of a, another different singing analogy. And since my time playing basketball, I found that through meditation and it, you know, whether it's a walking meditation or a sitting meditation, And the biggest piece of it is the breath work I found because it's disrupting that autonomic nervous system, you know, focusing on your breath and focusing on your heartbeat.
It actually stops all those thoughts. And then again, when you stop that you actually have space to create. And I know for me, that's been a huge practice where I felt more in my body and more aligned, like you mentioned into the work I want to. Just like this podcast. So let's talk about the awesome pause, breathe, reflect.
And I also loved how he called it a it's PBR time. So for any of you that like beer out there, Michael is extremely funny and he calls a PVRs. So we'll get into that, but really how that has, you know, been part of your daily practice, you're teaching it to a different executives and what, you know, again, the listeners can take away from rough work and meditation.
Cause sometimes it gets lost, like woo. But it actually really kind of centers you quite a bit. So I'd love to hear your take on, on pause, breathe,
[00:22:05] Michael O'Brien: reflect so true. I'm glad you asked this question. So breath work is key. I call it. There's one thing that we all have on our Swiss army knife. I like to talk about Swiss army knife analogies, as opposed to a toolbox carrying a toolbox around is a little heavy, right?
So we all can carry a Swiss army knife with us in our back pocket. And our breath is essential. And so when we think about what we can do to sort of regulate the bias. We know our breath works. How many times have we told other people, like slow down, take a deep breath. I we've told our kids if we have kids, friends, uh, we see it in sports before a big shot or a big routine athletes slowing down and coming back to her breath, his breath.
So the breath is this wonderful tool. I think it really has a bad PR from. Yeah. In some circles that got a little like Misty and woo woo and too spiritual. Certainly meditation comes from Buddhist underpinnings, but it's been brought here to the west and it has so many wonderful health benefits. I am a qualified teacher and mindfulness based stress reduction, which is also a part of brown university's medical center used to be part of UMass.
So you think about like what mindfulness can do in terms of lowering blood pressure, dealing with pain and a whole host of medical conditions that we traditionally treat in the west with surgery or medication. So for me, back in the day, coming through my recovery, I started my mindfulness meditation practice.
When I was in the hospital, I knew enough back then I had an aha and I was like, okay, Michael, you got to heal your mind in order to heal your body. So it was my Joe dispense a moment before we knew Joe Dispenza.
[00:23:58] Anne O'Neil: Did you know him
[00:23:58] Michael O'Brien: way before? I had no idea who he was? And then I found him on my journey. I'm like, oh wow.
His story is sort of similar to my story. He has obviously scientific degrees and access to research that I didn't have, but the whole concept of, I knew I had to heal my mind to heal my body and I had to come back to my breath. So as an athlete, I knew my breath was important. Now I didn't know anything about this whole mindfulness thing.
So. Set the stage it's 2001 there, no Ted talks. There's no LinkedIn. There's no Facebook. There's no tech talk. There's none of this stuff. So how do you know? Which is a really interesting thought? Like how did we learn back then? You know, I guess it was books, but I didn't, I actually thought it was a little like.
Um, like shakras and crystals and stuff. Like I like a nine to that. So I did it very quietly. I just wheeled myself to a quiet place in the hospital, which is tough to find. And I just came to back to my breath. I'd just dropped in and it felt good to help clear my mind in a way to set my intentions for the day.
And then I came back the next day and then the next day. And so it made iterations. So my belief with pause, breathe, reflect is that frequency matters. And so we might set for 20 minutes in the beginning of the day might have a yoga practice, but throughout the day we should take intervals to pause, breathe, reflect.
So that's why I do five minute meditations there because we all know people that sort of live a mindful lifestyle. You know, they got the, they got their Lulu Lemon's rock and they got all that stuff. They got the yoga mat, they got the candles, they practice for 20 minutes in the morning. All heck breaks loose during the course of the day.
So my feeling is like check in with yourself throughout the day and just come back to your breath again, regularly, set your intentions, live a purposeful life. That's gonna allow you when you have a bad moment, not to give it any more fuel than it deserves. So we can prevent those bad moments from turning into a bad day or longer.
[00:26:07] Anne O'Neil: I love that. It's so great. And it's so true because as your day goes along, you know, you start bumping into more of just regular life, like meetings or phone call, or how many likes did I get on that post? And then when you sink back into that breath and just take a couple of moments, It really does get you more conscious of what's really important and how to align, you know, your future self.
And, uh, I don't know if you know this. I have been to a couple of, uh, Dr. Joe Dispenza's workshops, like the advanced week-long. Have you done any of those yet?
[00:26:40] Michael O'Brien: No, I haven't, I've done. Like, I've done a lot of like a silent retreats for meditation. So I followed Joe's work via online, but I've never been to one of his programs.
It's definitely one thing I have on my bucket list. So I'll probably get to that one. Maybe getting into next year after I complete my big. Okay.
[00:26:59] Anne O'Neil: Okay. I can't recommend it highly enough. I, it has transformed my life again because I found something that was similar to what I felt when I would, again, go shoot baskets where I just was in the space of creativity, positivity, you know, just an open.
Creation of what I really want to do for the future and not all these thoughts just bombarding me. And like you mentioned, you heard about the universities. There is research and science backed for taking the time, just to focus on your breath work and, you know, talk a lot about gratitude when you're in those.
So even those couple of minutes that Michael's talking about are so important and you can go to pause, breathe, reflect.com. There's a bunch of different information and awesome, awesome gear. Michael even has one behind him. And I ordered one, uh, earlier
[00:27:47] Michael O'Brien: this week. No, I saw that really cool. I'd love the ripple, kindness, whiteness, and the one thing you'll see this.
And when you get. There's a message inside.
[00:27:57] Anne O'Neil: Oh, wow. I love that. Oh, I love it so much on the inner work. This couldn't have been a better conversation.
[00:28:05] Michael O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah. And then the big message is, and I ship every shirt inside out, so people see the message, but the overall message is what's inside the. Is what matters most.
And so when you wear the shirt, oh my
[00:28:20] Anne O'Neil: God. I'm so I love that. I, that is, that is so cool. Okay. I will be taking pictures so you guys will see it. Everyone will see it. And that is, I mean, this is the kind of person that Michael is. I mean, think of again, that last bad day when you're on the stretcher and have so many broken bones and not a lot of hope and what you can do.
From that. And the impacts you can have. And again, the shirt that I bought is called it has ripple kindness on the front, which is, you know, part of the messaging. It's part of the community. And you just real quick, you went over it and then I'd love to get into the rise to ripple challenge, which that word comes up again.
But briefly share again, what a Peloton is because everyone's familiar with the bike, the Peloton, what I love to learning the definition when I looked it up, but I'd love for the listeners to hear it from you and what it meant to you kind of through your recovery.
[00:29:11] Michael O'Brien: Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. So there, a lot of times people are like, oh, Peloton, I know Peloton.
And it's like the bike. And it's like, well, they, they use the word, but the word, the origin of the word comes from cycling. It's a French word. And it means a group of cyclists in a bike race. So think the tour de France. So they're going through the French countryside and there's sunflowers and. Soft cheese and a burgundy and all that, stuff like that.
And so that group of cyclists it's called the Peloton and here's the really cool thing. It's sort of like this moving squad where they need each other, like they have to communicate with each other. They're all in different teams, but they're working together. That's a really cool thing about it. It's like, They're all on competing teams, but they're pointing out like potholes in the road or road traffic.
They're sharing the load. They're communicating with each other. Some people are up in front blocking the, when other people are drafting where it's easier and then they rotate. So when I was in the hospital, we had one moment where I was really struggling. My physician team were making rounds. So they had all the interns and the fellows, sorry, about 15 people in my hospital bed asking me about two questions, poking at me, pinching me the whole thing.
And when they left my hospital room, I went to my wife. I go, they're like my medical Peloton. They're helping me get down the road as fast as possible. And I was like, oh, that's a good name for a company. And eventually, you know, I started my own business. Peloton, spin bikes, took the word Peloton. Basically mean a virtual group of cyclists riding.
Cause that's what they do. But this whole concept of Peloton. I think a Peloton should be diverse and it should be made up of people who bring out the best in you. Like who are you riding with in life? And I think that's a really important question to ask, like, who do you have around you? Because if you're riding with experienced people who are looking out for your better, good.
It's a really nice bike ride, but if you have some people they're not so good or don't ride so well, it can be a really tense, stressful ride. So this whole concept of like, Hey, you know, it's, it's there in my way of talking about squad or team as like who's in your Peloton. Like who are you riding with in life?
And let's be really smart about that because that's gonna dictate how far you go, how fast you go. And ultimately, where do you go? in life
[00:31:34] Anne O'Neil: What a cool takeaway, even there about Peloton and you know, one of the quotes I always keep very close to me is like, you are the company you keep, which is very similar of those surrounding folks, are the ones kind of helping, taking you on journeys, experiences, and also, you know, opening your eyes to new adventures and new ways to look at things.
So I already consider you a part of my Peloton. So.
[00:31:57] Michael O'Brien: Oh, likewise. And yeah, no. Yeah. We're riding together even though, you know, and that's the really cool thing about it. It's like, yeah, you, you surround yourself with hopefully like hearted people, but often we like, well, it's like minded and I actually want to surround myself with people that may not think the way I think, but are coming from a warm hearted heart minded, kind of.
Position of like putting goodness out into the world, rippling love, rippling kindness, and compassion. So that light heartedness to me is important, but you can still see the world differently. And so, but once we're grounded in. A heart centric way of looking at life. Then we can have different thoughts.
They can challenge our thinking or challenge our beliefs, and we can also challenge them. And hopefully we see the world a little bit more
[00:32:50] Anne O'Neil: open right on. And that's how that's the only way we grow, right, is when we, once you have that connection. And you're both grounded in the rippling, kindness, rippling, gratitude, grace, and growing, you know, those different, uh, ideas and perspectives really.
Everyone grows a community and as a Peloton. So I love that like heartedness, everyone and talking about rippling, let's get into this amazing challenge that everyone can follow you on because I will have the podcast out or episode out, which is why I wanted to make sure we got in the end of may before you start off on this coast to coast challenge.
So let's hear about it.
[00:33:28] Michael O'Brien: Yeah. So I'm calling it the rise to ripple cause rise speaks to resilience so I can get knocked down. Like I've gotten knocked down and you and the listeners have, so you got to rise up there. Two is about a bridge to somewhere. I think we've gone through this whole great kerfuffle as I like to call the pandemic.
I think it's a bridge to hopefully some somewhere better. For all of us. I know it feels a little wonky right now. You know, we have, we might be fearful of Heights as we cross this bridge, but we can cross this bridge. And the ripple really speaks to just energy. Like what do we want to put out there? And when we show up with goodness, we ripple, goodness, we ripple kindness.
If we show up with hatred or divisiveness, we also ripple that. So what do we choose to ripple? And it's a ride across the country using the Transamerica bike trail four to 300 miles 43. These
[00:34:18] Anne O'Neil: days,
[00:34:21] Michael O'Brien: my wife's driving the RV. We'll have our two dogs with us and it is a celebration of life. To be honest, it's the 21st anniversary of my accident, but it's also.
A ride to like ripple gratitude to the people that helped shape me into the person I am today. It's about generosity. We're going to profile a nonprofit charity each day. But it's also about the benefits of mindfulness. I'm going to do it. Plant-based so about, you know, how do we eat maybe a little bit differently.
And I'm also doing a freshly minted, total knee replacement, which I got. Yeah. So we'd have to talk about
[00:34:59] Anne O'Neil: that. You being like rehab while also preparing for this.
[00:35:04] Michael O'Brien: Yeah. So my surgeon, I think my surgeon thinks I'm a little crazy, but he's, I think he's really pumped, but you know, they predicted I was going to need both knees replaced five years after my initial trauma, which would have put it at 2006.
My right. One's doing great. My left one after 20 years was like, ah, we're getting tired. So we got the knee replaced last year, and now I'm going to do this ride on a total knee replacement. And I really hope to show people what's possible when you live life mindfully and with community and having good people in your Peloton, we're doing it aggressively.
It's about a hundred miles a day. We know we're going to be gone for 45 days. So June 14th to July 31st, two rest days averaging a hundred miles a day. Some days are longer. Some days are shorter. But What I hope to do is share the country with people. I think we live in a beautiful country with beautiful geography and beautiful people.
So I didn't want to sit back and just, you know, complain about what was happening. That's not my story, right? That's not how you move from your last bad day into something better. So I was like, okay, we're going to bring the bike and we're going to do this whole country thing and hopefully document what's wonderful.
Albeit perfectly imperfect about our country so we can create a better tomorrow. And that's what the ride's about. It's going to be tough. It's going to be epic and I hope a whole bunch of people,
[00:36:37] Anne O'Neil: everyone. Yeah. So people are going to follow along. I mean, let's, let's chat first right there. Where do you want people to follow YouTube?
Instagram? Where can they follow this amazing journey?
[00:36:49] Michael O'Brien: So the two best places would be clubhouse. Cause I'm going to do like a morning, little meditation, shout out about the charity little dance party, a little commentary. That's an audio only social app. On Instagram, I'm going to finish up the day and go Instagram live on my two channels, which you can put in the show notes, pause, breathe, reflect in Michael O'Brian shift.
Why I'm also doing where this is really cool. I'm also doing a ripple challenge. So I'm calling it. I can do hard things, ripple challenge. So folks can sign up and declare a hard thing that they want to accomplish. While I'm riding. So my heart thing is to ride across the country. For some other people, it might be running a 10 K or maybe giving up alcohol or working on their relationships or getting fit or losing, you know, a few pounds.
So we're going to have this wonderful challenge of basic ripples to do, but declaring like in the next six weeks, I'm going to try to tackle something that's hard and we're going to do it as a whole community. There
[00:37:56] Anne O'Neil: is an energy when you are aligned with those things that you want to be doing, and those people that help support you, it does already create a ripple just by showing up.
And that's something you, you mentioned about the tiny steps that I know for sure in my basketball career and, you know, starting this podcast and, and even in, in life, it's showing up in those small moments. Each day, you know, those five minute increments that we talk about, you know, even the pause, breathe, reflect moments.
It, life happens in little small decisions and small alignments and the closer you can kind of move to that energy, the better off you're going to be, the happier you're going to be. And that vibration will be bigger. So, so let's talk about, uh, what's next. We have the, you know, the part that I really get excited about.
Which has all of this podcast, but we also have the giving back piece, which you said you're going to talk a bunch of different ones while you're on the rise cerebral challenge. But one you mentioned to me was the world bicycle relief. So let's get into that. Cause I, you know, did a little bit of research and wow, this is, this is a tremendous organization.
Just to give you a brief backing the world, bicycle relief, empowers people and community. Through life-changing bicycles, they are committed to helping people conquer the challenge of distance and achieve independence and thrive. And just so you know, a lot of these really well-built bikes, uh, you know, work in Africa, Indonesia throughout south America, and really helping people, you know, overcome economic situations, gender inequality, and even some healthcare situation.
So that's the world bicycle. How did you hear about this through all of your years as a cyclist and kind of become affiliated with
[00:39:37] Michael O'Brien: that? Yeah. So world bicycle relief, I think does amazing work, right? So as you mentioned in that description and they really help conquer the challenge of distance, something we take for granted here in the states, like we could just get in our car and go right in countries, in Africa and other places around the world, you know, sometimes it's like a 10 kilometer hike.
You know, through jungle water, right? Like. Yeah, just to get water, to go to school, like, and legit jungle. It's not like the city jungle, like they're not walking past the seven 11, they're walking past lions and tigers and bears. Right? So it's such an awesome organization. I found out about them years ago, a like a sponsored ride from a bike manufacturer.
They brought WBR in to talk about their mission. I was like, wow, this is really cool. To them. The bicycle goes people freedom, and they mainly cater to women and girls. And so for me, as I mentioned earlier, the bike to me, when I came off of training wheels was a sense of freedom, a place where I could go anywhere.
Like the challenge. It just since where I needed my mom to drive me everywhere with somewhat minimum. And he would take it for granted. We take our mobility for granted here in the states. I know I did before my accident, and then you lose your mobility and then you would trade almost anything to get it back.
So what they do is they go into rural villages and they give women and girls mobility. To stay in school longer when they stay in school longer, they marry later, they have smaller families, but they have more independence. Uh, they use the bike to help mobilize people so you can get to health care. Right.
So, which is something we all need. Um, it also helps people get to the market. So this wonderful bicycle that they call a Buffalo bike helps bring it well. It helps bring us all together, right. Congress, a challenge that just sends. Enhances mobility and makes the world better through just a simple bicycle.
And. All the proceeds of my memoir go to them. They're the first charity I'm going to talk up on day one of the ride, as you mentioned, I'm going to talk about forty-five different charities one each day, but we're going to lead with WBR because their mission around mobility and freedom. Just speaks to my journey with the bicycle and I want to share it with whoever happens to be listed.
[00:42:11] Anne O'Neil: Oh, wow. I absolutely, I love that with the, and he mentioned the Buffalo bike and it's, it can go across a rugged terrain. So not just, you know, a regular street bike here. This is really heavy duty. Even one of the pictures on the website had a mom with three kids being able to be on the back end, be able to ride and they're, they have programs for $25 per month that you can sponsor.
And. This entire bike is actually only $165. And again, I'm talking really heavy duty to be able to help people cover distance for healthcare. If you can imagine for people who don't have transportation, what that actually looks like to be able to move from place to place and also have that amazing freedom that the bicycle provides.
So again, that's world bicycle relief.
[00:42:57] Michael O'Brien: Yeah, awesome. Abby, I really appreciate, like, I love the format of your show and just that aspect of generosity and how your profile like a nonprofit, like it's so cool. The folks that work at nonprofits and do charitable work are making the world a better place and we can, again, it doesn't have to be money.
It could just be. Rolling up our sleeves and volunteering our time can just be sharing things on social, anything to make the ripple go a little bit further, a little bit farther, I think is a good thing to do.
[00:43:28] Anne O'Neil: You just made such a great point that it doesn't even have to be the money piece to it, but sharing the, your awareness about the work that people are doing is so big.
And that's why, you know, I did create this podcast. I love talking to people and hearing their stories. But there is a shift in people when they show up and they are able to talk about something that's bigger than themselves. Like bringing on a charity community events or nonprofit, there is a light that lights up because it is bigger than them.
And that's exactly why I wanted to have you on Michael, because everything that you're about is about rippling, bigger, creating positivity community and gratitude out there. And I just want to say thank you so much. I know this will be a trauma. Impactful episode and people hearing your story and being able to follow the rise cerebral child.
[00:44:16] Michael O'Brien: Well, thanks for having me on and, uh, thanks. Shove listeners. I hope you got a pearler too out of it and yeah, please follow along. I hope to inspire you to do your, you know, one big, hard thing this summer, and hopefully together, we can put out a good ripple out into the world and create something a little bit better than what we have today.
So again, thank you so much. This was awesome. I'm so psyched to be on and thanks again for sharing. We'll finish
[00:44:42] Anne O'Neil: how we started. I will say Nama say thank you so much and peace on your journey, especially this amazing journey that you're going to be going on this summer.
[00:44:52] Michael O'Brien: That mistake.
[00:44:59] Anne O'Neil: Well, thank you so much for listening to our conversation. If you have a GBL story. Share it with me on Instagram at get busy living underscore pod. I might just share your story on a future episode. Thank you for sharing in the good vibes and giving back. And with us.