Meet Jason Dennen

We recently connected with Jason Dennen and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I took up skydiving as a way to challenge myself. On my 327th jump I was coming in for a landing and a huge wind gust hit me from behind and picked me up in my harness and slammed me violently forward through a cattle fence and into the side of an airplane hangar going 30 mph. I hit so hard on my left side that 10 of my 12 ribs broke and impacted my heart so violently that my heart was moved from the left side of my body to the right side. I was airlifted to the nearest level one trauma center via a flight for life helicopter for emergency life saving surgery. The doctors couldn’t believe I lived as they had never performed the surgery they performed on me previously. No previous patient had made it into the hospital alive with the heart injury that I sustained. After they fixed my heart over the next 8 days, they kept me in a coma to protect me from my injuries and performed numerous surgeries to fix the 20 bones that I broke and 4 organs that I injured in the crash. After waking up from the coma I was not allowed to move for 10 weeks. I laid in the bed and assessed my life. I never thought of all the amazing things that happened in my life or the good things that I did but the things that I didn’t do well in life. I vowed to live the rest of my life concentrating on the things in life that were most important and refocus my life. I also started to discover my new purpose in life, which was to help others going through difficult challenges in their lives. I realized I had to go through the toughest challenge in my own life and come back from it before I could help anyone else going through their most difficult time in their lives. With a reinvigorated purpose I realized coming back from this accident wasn’t just for me but for all of the people that could benefit from having an uplifting story and encouraging word from someone who survived an accident that I shouldn’t have survived and came back against all the odds and came back to do something that no one even considered as a possibility. With that new infusion of purpose, I went to work to race in a triathlon again. First, I was told I wouldn’t walk out of the hospital after I told the therapists that was my goal. I was told I would be leaving the hospital in a wheelchair. Five weeks later I walked out of the hospital with the assistance of my crutches. When my doctor told me I would not likely ever run again I signed up for a triathlon to prove his prognosis was incorrect and to show all of the people that helped me in my recovery that miracles do happen and you must have faith and be willing to push yourself beyond what the average person would consider pushing themself if I was going to make the extraordinary comeback I was expecting to make. One day short of the 1-year anniversary of the accident I lined up and raced a triathlon and finished it within the time cutoff with no special exceptions, in a driving rainstorm in the worst conditions I have ever raced in while hearing that doctor’s voice in the back of my head all day saying you will probably never run again. I ran that day for the entire 6.2-mile distance of the running segment of the race after first swimming 1500 meters and biking 30 miles.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am on a mission to inspire people by sharing my story of survival and to empower people to get through life’s most difficult hardships by utilizing the lessons they have already learned throughout their lives and by taking advantage of the strength, they already possess inside themselves.

I have written a book called 8 Days Till Sunrise to help get my message into the hands of people struggling in life who need to be reminded that they are strong enough to endure their hardships. I also share my story with audiences and groups who want to hear my survival story. I am often asked to speak about healing and recovery, my enduring faith, and the power of connection. My accident forced me to ask questions about my life that I avoided or was too scared to contemplate before my accident: What does it mean to live a good life? What is the value of true connection? Which pursuits leave me feeling hollow? And which imbue my life with meaning? I share the answers to those questions with my audience and challenge them to answer them for themselves.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Never accept limits other people try to place on you- After my accident there were medical professionals that all made predictions of what I was going to be capable of in my recovery. Whether it was telling me that I wouldn’t walk out of the hospital on my own, that I probably would never run again, that certain parts of my body would never fully recover and get as strong as they were pre-accident and that I would never be able to squat 250 pounds again. They didn’t bother to predict if racing a triathlon or mountain climbing was possible as they didn’t consider it worth making a prediction as it was out of the question. If I listened to all the predictions made about what was possible and what wasn’t, I would have never made the recovery that I made. The only way you are going to find your limits is if you go out and test them.
2. Everyday find a way to make a small improvement as small improvements every day make for huge improvements over time-I started coming back from my lowest depressed state after the crash when I gave myself permission to make just a small improvement each day because that is what I was capable of at the time and it was manageable and realistic to make a small improvement each day that would build momentum. Those small changes would create big changes if I made enough small increases each day and did that for a long time. The first day I saw a big improvement was when I could open the top of my yogurt at breakfast after the casts on both arms were removed. Then I saw progress when I pushed my wheelchair for the first time and then a little bit further each day and slowly increased the strength in my legs each day for 40 days. Then I got an x-ray that said I was healed enough to try to walk, then walked a few steps, then progressed to walking a little further each day until I could walk a few stairs then little by little I progressed from a walker to crutches, to one crutch, to a cane, to no support to running and then running 6.2 miles and then beyond that distance just by concentrating on getting a little better each day.
3. Fear can either protect you or hold you back from things you are capable of accomplishing-I chose the triathlon as a goal because I had the need to feel normal again to strive to do something I was able to do prior to the accident. Was I sure I could accomplish it? No. Was I going to give it everything I had? Yes. There were no guarantees that I was going to finish the race because of the distance or could I finish before the time cutoff. I couldn’t let the fear of re-injuring myself or not finishing the race stop me from doing the race. The fear of failing at my goal was the fear that could hold me back not the fear that was trying to protect me. So I decided to race because I couldn’t risk not testing myself or not having the courage to fail. Whatever the outcome it was worth breaking through the fear to find out what was possible.

The best advice I can give anyone who is early in their journey is to build a strong foundation. I woke up from my coma and within a few minutes the nurse came into my room and told me I needed to start drinking something since I was dehydrated. I took a sip from the straw and I asked what I was drinking because it was the best thing that I had ever had to drink in my life. The reply from my Dad was that I was drinking water and he chuckled. Instantly I had deja vu. While I was in a situation I had nothing to compare it to and was lying there broken in my ICU bed I felt a calm coming over me. I had never been in this horribly broken position before but something felt familiar to me. I had been in challenging unknown life-threatening situations in the mountains before where survival was not guaranteed. I felt comfortable because I had taken on those unknown challenges before and had survived and made it through so if I could survive through those situations why couldn’t I survive this situation. Months later I realized why drinking that water made me feel deja vu. I had that same feeling when I first started climbing when I moved to Colorado. I went out on my first big winter climb to Longs Peak by myself. I summited the mountain in poor conditions that continued to deteriorate as I descended the mountain. After night fell I continued on exhausted until I couldn’t wade through the thigh deep snow any longer. I hid behind a rock to wait out the storm and wait until sunrise to continue down the mountain. During the 12 hours of darkness and the subzero temperatures that I endured without a sleeping bag or tent I started to wonder if it was possible that I might not make it through the night and freeze to death before morning. I decided to stay awake the entire night as I thought if I stayed awake I could not freeze to death. Every few seconds I would wiggle my toes and fingers otherwise they would go numb and I didn’t want to get frostbite so I kept moving my toes and fingers which helped keep me awake. As the sun finally rose, I stood up again and started walking back to the trailhead through the 3 feet of new snow that had fallen in the storm. After hours of wading through the snow I got back to my car and I was starving so I headed to the first place that I could find food at which was a fast-food restaurant. I proceeded to tear through the wrapper and take a bite of food and that bite of food tasted like the most fantastic food I had ever eaten which couldn’t have been true as that fast food could not have possibly tasted better than other food that I had eaten. That amazing taste of water felt as amazing as that first bite of food after getting off that mountain which I was unsure that I would survive. Going through difficult challenges in life before the accident guided me through the challenges I would face once the accident occurred. I had an understanding and confidence that I could get through difficult circumstances because I had done it before.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

I feel that I need to constantly test myself and not allow myself to become comfortable and complacent. I needed a new challenge something that scared me. In my search for a challenge I remembered my fear of motorcycles. The only time I had ever been on a motorcycle was when I was 12. A friend convinced me that I needed to ride his dirt bike. After 1 minute of instruction, I reluctantly took off and within 5 seconds I crashed when I confused what controls did what and I twisted the throttle as far as it would go. After that day I was terrified on motorcycles and had never even sat on one again until I decided to face my fears and learn to ride one. It was more about overcoming fear than it was about learning to ride.

I signed up for a 2 day training course to learn the basics and completed it without incident. The entire time I feared that I would go too fast and not be able to stop. Riding a motorcycle in a parking lot was not my definition of completing my goal. I had to actually be able to ride a motorcycle on the street competently. A few weeks later I went to test ride motorcycles. I was nervous as I still felt like I didn’t know anything about riding a bike. I climbed on the motorcycle, and it felt so much bigger, heavier and less forgiving than the bike I rode at the training class. On the 1st test ride I was off balance when I stopped and I dropped the bike before I left the parking lot. I was humbled. This is going to be harder than I thought it was going to be. And that is when it became a challenge. I bought the motorcycle and was intimidated by the bike. The bike was delivered to me as I was not confident enough to ride it home because I would be forced to ride it on busy roads and I was not ready for that. I had already demonstrated that I could not handle the bike on my own.

The first time I rode the bike after it was delivered, I ran over a screw within the first 10 minutes riding it. I returned to the garage before the tire went flat and as I was trying to put the bike back into the garage, I dropped the bike again. This time I damaged the shifter. I sent the bike to the shop to be fixed. That was going to take a few weeks. While I was waiting for it to come back, I became more and more anxious about riding the bike. I was intimidated by the bike. I didn’t trust that I could handle it.

Every night I would have a nightmare where I would have a terrible crash. It wouldn’t stop. I was talking to one of my friends and he asked how riding was going, and I told him about the flat tire and dropping the bike. He said maybe this is a sign that I should give up as this wasn’t for me. As soon as he said that I thought that was the wrong mindset to have. The initial failures were just bumps in the road on my journey to learn. If I wasn’t willing to overcome the initial failures, then I wasn’t ready to overcome my fears and learn to ride.

I got the bike back from the shop. And instead of putting the pressure on myself that I needed to know everything all at once I decided to start really slowly. On my first day back my goal was to just not drop the bike. I rode for 30 minutes and never went over 10 mph. I just worked on the drills I learned in the class. Each day I rode the bike I took it out for a little longer and did more and more drills to build up my confidence. Then I took the bike to a closed road so I could mimic riding on the road without traffic. Then eventually I rode the bike on a 1 lane road which had a low-speed limit as going fast made those nightmares flash through my head while I was riding. And then one day after building up the speed little by little over a bunch of weeks it was time to go fast and to let go of the nervous feeling and nightmares that kept limiting me. I pulled out onto a road with a fast speed limit. I had no choice but to go fast. I started shifting through the gears until I could shift no higher. I could feel the wind pushing on my chest and the wind became louder and louder. The nerves dropped away and I felt more and more confident as I twisted the throttle.

I have many more lessons to learn before I consider myself proficient but I have taken the initial steps to overcome fear and not let it hold me back.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://JasonDennen.com
• Instagram: JWDBoulder
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jason.dennen.5/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondennen

Image Credits

none needed