I Got Hit by a Car. That's Not a Metaphor.

Last Thursday, I got hit by a car. That's not a metaphor.

I had the right of way on my electric scooter when a car entered the intersection and drove straight into the left side of my body. I went over the hood and ended up lying in the middle of the street, staring up at a clear blue sky, too stunned to know if I was actually okay.

One of the passersby happened to be a physio and checked me for spinal damage before I'd even processed what had happened. Another called the police and an ambulance. Both of them, strangers, good samaritans, stopped what they were doing for me. I still don't know either of their names, and I think about that a lot.

Then came 7 hours in the hospital, X-rays and CT scans on pretty much every part of my body, the kind of methodical checking that makes clear how seriously everyone around you is taking something you're still trying to downplay in your own head.

No broken bones. No concussion. I walked away with some sprains, some bruises, a few nasty gashes down my left leg, and partial paralysis in my left arm and legs, worse in the arm since I'm left handed. All things considered, I'll take it.

So what do you do, lying in the middle of an intersection, staring up at the sky? Apparently, if you're me, you joke that you've finally found a way to make the BFT 8-week challenge more challenging. The paramedics probably didn't love that one as much as I did.

Underneath the joke was something a lot simpler. I was just thankful to be alive. Nothing recalibrates your priorities like getting hit by a car and living to tell the story.

What this means for the challenge

This isn't a one-week thing. For the rest of the 8 weeks, this challenge looks different for me. I haven't seen an orthopedist yet since I'm currently in Malaysia, so that's next on the list once I'm back. Then physical therapy, and I'll take that programming straight to my coaches at BFT so training lines up with what my body actually needs, not just what the challenge calendar says.

The body fat percentage can wait. For the rest of this challenge, the goal is rehab, done properly, not rushed just to keep pace with a scan.

It's a strange thing to sit with, since the whole premise of this challenge is a number at the end of 8 weeks. But that number doesn't mean much if I can't move properly by the time I get there. Rehab is the actual work now. Everything else is secondary until it's done.

I'll be honest, a week ago I would have told you the biggest threat to finishing this challenge was travel, or a bad week of sleep, or my own motivation running out around week 5. I didn't have "getting hit by a car" anywhere on my list of risks.

It's the same thing I see in business planning all the time. You can build a solid forecast for every risk you can see coming, and it won't save you from the one that was never on the list. A plan that only survives the scenarios you predicted isn't much of a plan. The system has to be able to absorb the one you didn't see coming too.

So tell the people that you care for that you love them. Every day. Better yet, multiple times a day. Better yet, tell them until they're sick of hearing it, because there will come a day when you can't tell them anymore.

You will never regret telling someone you love them too many times. You will only regret not telling them enough. 💚