RICH
Rich was running a very important airborne EMS unit in a large county. He was very experienced and highly knowledgeable. He had made significant contributions to improving the success of department’s effectiveness. And then he learned the unit was being shut down… It was devastating for him.
I met Rich at a dinner party. He did what so many of us do – he introduced himself by telling us what he used to do. Been there – done that!
When we started working together it became clear just how depressed he was. He had a lot of trouble getting up in the morning. When he did he had a hard time doing anything productive before mid-afternoon. He was miserable.
It was very clear that Rich had lost all sense of purpose in his life. Even though he was happily married, he no longer felt like he mattered. One of the most fundamental needs all of us have is to feel like we and our lives matter.
As we worked through the exercises in our proven system, Rich began to focus on his old desire to write. He had started his memoirs years ago but put them aside. Soon he started to realize that his life lessons would not only be interesting to his children and grandchildren but that he had a real story to tell that others would benefit from hearing.
He took a creative writing class at a local college and his old desire started to burn again. He found a short story he had written about his days in Vietnam. It was fictional but based on what he had seen and experienced. The professor teaching the creative writing class thought it had a lot of potential so he polished it up.
Today, thanks to a connection his daughter had that short story is seriously being considered for a Hollywood movie. Rich is working on turning it into a screen play and his is nearly finished with his book. Rich doesn’t have any trouble getting up in the morning and he no longer wonders how he will fill up his day. He is thriving!