Twenty Years Later: A Purposeful Financial Planning Story

A week ago marked twenty years since I fell asleep at the wheel.

I wish I could say I spent that morning in deep reflection, fully aware of what the day meant. The truth is, I forgot. I only realized it later that day after my wife reminded me.

That may not sound like much, but to me it felt almost impossible. Forgetting the date of my accident feels a little like forgetting my own birthday, because that was not just the day I was injured. In many ways, it was the day the old version of me died and the person I became started to take shape.

I turn 40 this August, which means I have now lived almost exactly half of my life before the accident and half of my life after it. I remember plenty from before. Milestones. Vacations. School experiences. Childhood friendships. Small details most people would probably forget. I have always had a strong memory, nearly photographic in some ways.

But I have a hard time remembering what it felt like to be uninjured.

I do not really remember what it felt like to move through the world without some constant physical reminder of what happened. Sciatica. Numb toes. Aching scar tissue. Muscle cramps. Stiff ligaments. Permanent muscle damage. Back pain. A leg length discrepancy. The strange ways an old injury keeps speaking through the body long after the emergency is over.

Then there is the mental side of trauma.

The uncertainty. The waiting. The repeated disappointment. The fear of getting your hopes up and having them crushed again.

Twenty years ago, I was 19 years old and driving home after meeting my girlfriend’s parents for the first time. That girlfriend, Kandice, would eventually become my wife.

It should have been an ordinary drive home after an important night in my young life.

It was not.

In a split second, everything changed. I drifted across the center line and hit another car head-on.

My left femur completely shattered.

If you saw Lindsey Vonn’s leg injury this past winter, the scans looked remarkably similar to mine. Multiple fractures. No clean break. Mine was just higher up the leg.

Seeing that brought me right back. Not just to the physical pain, but to the mental side of an injury like that. The uncertainty. The loss of independence. The strange feeling of no longer being able to trust your own body to do things you had never thought twice about.

Watching how quickly she has progressed has honestly been incredible and deeply moving for me.

My recovery looked very different.

Over the next three years, I had four surgeries because the bone fragments would not unite. Each time, we hoped this would be the one that finally worked. And each time it did not, the uncertainty got heavier.

At one point, amputation became a very real possibility. I had to step away from college for another major surgery, and for nearly three years, I truly did not know if I would ever walk normally again.

Not “I was worried about it.”

I did not know.

I did not know if I would finish college. I did not know what kind of work I would be able to do. I did not know whether I would spend my life in a wheelchair. I did not know whether constant pain would become the defining fact of my adult life. I did not know if the dreams I had for myself were still realistic, or if I needed to start grieving the life I thought I was going to have.

That kind of uncertainty changes you.

When something as basic as walking is taken away, your world gets small very quickly. Your goals change. Your definition of progress changes. At one point, progress was not about running, hiking, playing sports, or fishing again. It was getting from one room to another without help. It was standing up. It was taking a few steps. It was trying to feel normal again.

When your future feels that unclear, it is easy to let your current circumstances convince you that this is just how life is going to be.

That may have been the hardest part.

The physical pain was real, but the mental battle was something else entirely. I could not clearly see the path to the future I wanted. I could not touch it. I could not prove I would get there. Some days, it felt foolish to even have hope.

All I knew was that I was not yet willing to give up on my dreams.

Strangely enough, my comfort zone became one of the biggest obstacles. My comfort zone was lying motionless in bed with my leg propped up on pillows, taking the maximum amount of pain medication I was allowed to take. Anything outside of that felt nearly unbearable.

But staying there was not going to move my life forward.

Healing required discomfort. Physical therapy hurt. Learning to walk again hurt. Pushing through fear, frustration, and uncertainty hurt. But little by little, progress started to happen. The fourth reconstructive surgery finally showed signs that the bone was reuniting.

At first, the wins were almost invisible. A little more movement. A little less pain. A little more independence.

Then those small wins started to build confidence.

And confidence changes everything.

Once you begin to see progress, even small progress, the future starts to come into focus. Your priorities become clearer. Fear does not disappear, but momentum starts to take its place. Eventually, you stop focusing only on what you lost and start focusing on what is still possible.

You stop building your life around the question, “How do I avoid failing?”

And you start asking a better one:

“What if this actually works out?”

Because if it does, then what?

What would you do differently today if you believed the future you wanted was not just possible, but probable?

That shift changes how you move. It changes what you prioritize. It changes what you are willing to endure, because now the discomfort has a purpose. You start acting like the future you want is worth building toward.

For a while, it felt like that was happening.

In May of 2009, I walked for the first time without an assistive device in three years. I got married. I was accepted into law school. For the first time in years, it felt like my life was finally breaking free.

Then, about two years later, despite being vigilant with daily exercise, I started declining again for no apparent reason.

Pain that had been a nuisance started interfering with my day. Then it started interfering with my ability to study. Then I started losing muscle mass on my left side. Then I started falling. Then came intense pain. Then debilitating pain. Then temporary paralysis.

All of it was tied to spinal complications from the accident.

And the timing could not have felt worse.

It seemed to climax around the same season I was passing the Bar exam and welcoming the birth of my son. I could not sit down in a chair to interview without wincing in pain. I had enormous student loan obligations coming due, a growing family, no job, and the fear that all of the worst-case scenarios I had worried about in college were now coming true.

It felt like life was ending before it ever really got started.

I was back at point “I don’t know.”

Not Point A to Point B.

Point “I don’t know.”

I did not know where I was going. I did not know what my body would allow. I did not know how I would provide. I did not know what kind of future was still available.

Looking back now, that may be one of the most important lessons of my life.

You do not always get a clear path to Point B. Sometimes you can hardly tell what direction you are going. You only get the next small step. And then another. And then another.

That experience became a major part of who I am and how I operate. It changed how I think about risk, time, comfort, control, money, and planning.

Not just financial planning in the technical sense, although that matters. Investments, retirement projections, tax strategy, estate planning, insurance, business decisions, cash flow, debt, liquidity, and charitable goals all matter. But real planning is not just a spreadsheet exercise.

At its best, financial planning is about helping people direct their time, energy, attention, and money toward the things that actually matter and are within their control.

That sounds simple, but it is not easy.

Life has a way of surrounding us with things we cannot control. Other people’s choices. The economy. Markets. Interest rates. Health issues. Family dynamics. Timing. Bad luck. Past mistakes. Circumstances we would never have chosen.

Some of those things can be painful. Some can be unfair. Some can shape us for years.

But even then, we are rarely without choice.

We may not be able to choose what happened. We may not be able to choose the starting point. We may not be able to choose every circumstance around us. But we can choose where we direct what we have.

Our attention. Our effort. Our resources. Our relationships. Our decisions. Our money. Our next step.

That is not meant to minimize hardship. I would never say that from a distance because I know how empty it can sound. I know what it feels like when life becomes heavy, uncertain, and physically painful. I know what it feels like to look around and wonder whether the future you wanted is still available to you.

But I also know that our lives can become better than our circumstances suggest.

Not all at once. Not through a magic solution. Not because someone hands us the perfect answer. And certainly not because of a product, investment, or secret strategy that suddenly fixes everything.

Most meaningful progress seems to come from something much less glamorous.

It comes from telling the truth about where we are. It comes from becoming clear about what matters. It comes from asking what kind of life we are actually trying to build. It comes from deciding what deserves more of our time, energy, attention, and resources, and what no longer does.

Then it comes from acting.

Imperfectly, but consistently.

With purpose.

With zeal.

That is where my work as a financial advisor often begins.

Most people do not come to a fiduciary advisor because everything feels perfectly clear. They come because something feels uncertain, unresolved, disorganized, or too important to leave to guesswork.

Sometimes they are trying to answer a specific financial question.

Can I retire? Should I sell the business? Am I saving enough? How should I invest this money? Do I have too much risk in one place? What happens to my family if something happens to me? How do I make all of these moving pieces fit together?

Other times, the question underneath the question is much bigger.

What am I actually working toward? What kind of life am I trying to build? What does success even mean to me now? What would feel meaningful, satisfying, and worthwhile? What needs to change if I want the next chapter to look different from the last one?

I see this often with business owners, physicians, dentists, professionals, and families who have worked hard to create success but still feel the weight of complexity. Their financial lives may look strong from the outside, but inside there can be real uncertainty.

Income may be high, but cash flow still feels tight. The business may be growing, but the owner may feel trapped by it. The investment accounts may be substantial, but the plan may feel scattered. There may be insurance, debt, taxes, estate documents, retirement accounts, practice decisions, family needs, charitable intentions, and long-term goals all moving at the same time.

On paper, it can look like a math problem.

In real life, it rarely feels that simple.

It feels personal. It feels like responsibility. It feels like wanting to make the right decision when there may not be a perfect answer.

That is one of the reasons I built True Financial around purposeful financial planning as a fee-only fiduciary advisory firm. I wanted my work to be centered on advice, not product sales. I wanted planning to be personal, thoughtful, and grounded in the client’s actual life.

Because when someone is sitting across from me trying to make a major decision, I know there is often more happening beneath the surface than the numbers alone can show.

There may be fear. There may be pressure. There may be grief over a path that did not work out. There may be guilt over wanting something different. There may be a desire to use money in a way that feels more meaningful. There may be the quiet realization that staying in the current comfort zone is starting to cost too much.

I understand that feeling.

I have lived my own version of not knowing whether the future I wanted was still available to me. And that experience gave me a deep respect for the courage it takes to move forward before everything is clear.

Because clarity rarely shows up first.

Most people want to see the full path before they take the first step. In my experience, clarity is often earned through movement. You take a step. Then another. You learn. You adjust. You get stronger. Your priorities sharpen. The future that once felt blurry starts to become more real.

Sometimes the step is simple. Build the cash reserve. Pay off the thing that has been weighing on you. Get organized enough to see where your money is actually going. Review the insurance policy you have been avoiding. Create a real investment plan instead of letting years of scattered decisions sit untouched.

Other times, the step is much harder. Leave the safe job. Start the business. Sell the practice. Hire help. Have the difficult conversation. Simplify the financial life you have outgrown. Give money away in a way that reflects your values. Make the decision that looks a little crazy from the outside but feels necessary because staying where you are no longer lines up with who you are becoming.

None of that is easy.

But neither is staying stuck.

Comfort can feel safe, but it is not always harmless. Sometimes the familiar thing is slowly taking more from us than the difficult thing we are afraid to do.

I learned that in a hospital bed. I relearned it in physical therapy. I relearned it again when my body started failing me just as life was supposed to be opening up. And I have learned it again and again in business, in relationships, in faith, in fatherhood, and in the work I do with clients.

We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we do have some control over where we direct our time, energy, attention, and resources.

We can choose what deserves more of us. We can choose what needs to change. We can choose what needs to be examined. We can choose what needs to be let go. We can choose what kind of future is worth building toward.

That is not blind optimism.

It is deliberate hope.

It is the decision to act as though the future you want is probable, then begin doing the things that future would require of you.

That does not happen once. It is ongoing. It requires self-examination. Reflection. Adjustment. Tinkering. Honesty. Sometimes humility. Sometimes courage. Sometimes a willingness to admit that what worked in one season of life may not be what is needed for the next one.

There is no magic bullet. No perfect investment. No secret strategy that replaces the work of becoming clear on what matters and then aligning your life around it.

Money is a powerful tool. It can create options, stability, protection, generosity, freedom, and impact. However, it only becomes meaningful when it is connected to something deeper than accumulation for its own sake.

Purpose. Self-worth. Fulfillment. Family. Faith. Freedom. Satisfaction.

Twenty years later, I would not choose to go through the experiences of my accident again, but I am grateful for the perspective it gave me. The fact that I forgot the date this year may be its own kind of healing.

Not because the accident stopped mattering. It will always matter. My body reminds me of it every day, but it no longer defines the boundary of what my life can become.

There was a time when I could not see past the injury. I could not see past the pain. I could not see past the next surgery, the next setback, the next frightening unknown.

Yet, somehow, small deliberate steps compounded.

That is not meant as a victory lap.

It is a reminder.

There were many years when I could not see where I was going. I could not have drawn a straight line from where I was to where I am now. There was no clear Point B. There was only point “I don’t know.”

When you keep taking small, intentional steps toward what matters, and when you keep focusing your limited time, energy, attention, and money on what is within your control, those steps can compound in ways you cannot yet imagine.

That is true in recovery. It is true in business. It is true in money. It is true in life.

I do not believe purposeful financial planning is about pretending we can control the future. We cannot. Life has a way of reminding us of that.

I believe planning is about becoming honest about where we are, clear about what matters, and deliberate about what we do next.

Sometimes those steps carry us toward the life we were hoping to build. Other times, by grace, effort, patience, and persistence, they carry us toward the life we were meant to live all along.

That is the kind of planning I believe in.