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While growing up, my father was in the military which meant that my family and I moved around a lot. From the age of eight, I remember living in Hawaii, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia.
I had the opportunity to meet people all over the U.S. who had different life experiences. I believe that being the child of somebody who was in the military was positive for me. I had to be in different environments for short periods of time, which gave me the skills required to form genuine relationships with people very quickly.
Moving around a lot at such a young age allowed me to realize that no matter what we do in life, our success as humans is determined by the quality of our relationships; the most important one being the relationship that we have with ourselves.
Yet my path to self-discovery only truly began after a life-changing event that happened when I was 18 years old.
A near-death experience
It was 1980, and I was a freshman in college in Missouri. At the time, I felt that my life was great. My friends and I had decided to go to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for spring break, but my parents were worried that something bad would happen to me, so they advised me to see my sister instead, who lived in a small college town in Texas.
The second night that I was there, my sister wanted me to meet the guy she was dating. So, my sister's boyfriend Allan, and his best friend John, cooked dinner for us at John's apartment, which we finished by 10:30 p.m. We then decided to attend a party at a lake that was a 30-minute drive from John's apartment, because the night was still young.
John was driving the car, so when I sat in the front seat, I jokingly put on my seatbelt and said to him, "I don't know you. Are you a good driver?"
At the time, it was not a legal necessity to wear a seatbelt in a car; I had only put it on as a joke. While we were all laughing, I tried to unbuckle my seatbelt but it was stuck.
When we pit-stopped at a convenience store, my sister came out of the car and tried, as hard as she could, to unbuckle the seatbelt, but it wouldn't come off. I was laughing the whole time, thinking, "This is absurd." She then said, "When we get to the lake, we'll figure out how to get this seatbelt off."
We were fifteen minutes away from the lake and driving at the speed limit on a two-lane highway when we were hit by another car. The police later confirmed that the woman in the other car was under the influence while driving.
It was a traumatic experience—horrific would be an understatement. I was unconscious in the car and was losing blood quickly. I remember thinking, this must be what it feels like to be dead.
I didn't feel any pain but I heard voices around me. I could then hear my sister screaming, "She's dead, my sister is dead." So I believed that I must have died. I remember my sister, Allan, and John saying, "If you can hear us, move, or touch something," but I couldn't move at all.
After I started to regain consciousness, I remember seeing the faces of the people that I loved flashing before my eyes. Every single face that appeared in my memory had something in common: they were the people that I loved and deeply cared about. I thought: I love all of these people, and I never got to tell them.
At 2:00 a.m., my parents received a phone call saying that I was in a car accident and that I was in critical condition. They rushed to get to a hospital in Texas to be by my side.
I don't remember feeling any pain until I arrived at the hospital. When the doctors saw me, their first priority was to stop me from bleeding because I had lost a lot of blood. I was in the hospital overnight and then following that, I had to have all of my teeth replanted, as I had shattered my top jawbone and almost severed my entire bottom lip.
My physical injuries that were visible primarily affected my face, but the injuries that could not be seen, the mental and emotional injuries, were more devastating. Internally, my confidence was shattered, and I thought that I would never look the same again.
The miracle that kept me alive
A few miracles happened that night, that kept me alive. The fact that my seatbelt got locked was a big one, as I would have been ejected from the car and died. The doctors that I saw told me that me wearing the seatbelt had saved my life. My sister, Allan, and John sustained minor injuries. My sister's wrist was broken and John had a bruise on his head.
For months after the incident, I felt depressed and isolated myself. My confidence was knocked. But one day, I began to shift my perspective from "Why me?" to, "Why not me; why would I wish this on anyone else? Maybe there's something that I can get from this that I can use to help others?"
When I began to shift my perspective, I was able to look at the accident in a different way. I began to believe that my purpose in life was for me to use all of my experiences to change the narrative that grief does not have to be a life sentence because we've experienced a loss.
Starting a new career
After the car crash in early 1980, I got married shortly after, in late 1981. At the time, I was still emotionally struggling and I had low self-confidence. In hindsight, I think I believed that rushing into marriage was the best thing for me, as I believed that nobody wanted to be with me due to the way my face looked after the car crash.
My marriage didn't work out and after five years, I filed for divorce, but I had two children, a 4-month-old, and a 3-year-old, and I was on my own.
During that period of time, my sole focus was surviving and providing for my children.
So, in 1987 I got a job as an accounts payable clerk, however, after approximately two years of being there, I noticed that I hadn't been considered for two promotions.
I spoke to the president of the company and asked him why that was the case. He answered truthfully and said, "I know you can do that job. You can do it better than the person who's doing it right now. But you don't have a college degree."
That set me on a path of discovery. I wanted to support my children, so, I decided to go back to college, and attended the University of Missouri to study business.
Becoming a CEO
I had studied psychology at college when I was 18, but I had dropped out after the car crash. When I went back to college this time around, I studied business while working part-time, and graduated in 1992. Obtaining a college degree increased my confidence substantially because a lot of people had told me that they did not think I could do it.
Shortly after, in 1995, I started working at a consulting firm and I always asked for more things to do because I was trying to learn and improve as much as possible. A year later, I began doing an MBA while working at the same consulting firm.
At work, I was given the opportunity to work with C-suite executives and boards of directors and I learned many leadership skills. In March of 1998, I graduated with an MBA and at the time, one of my previous clients at work hired a recruiter to assist them with their search for a new CEO. Some of the board members and the recruiter encouraged me to apply, and I immediately told them that I had never run a company before, but they still told me that I should apply anyway.
After taking the opportunity, in September 1999, I became a CEO. I was shocked and delighted—never in a million years did I think I would go from being a consultant to being a CEO.
My education prepared me for the role and my natural inquisitiveness gave me additional experience. My willingness to get outside of my comfort zone helped me too. Having a near-death experience caused me to have a sense of urgency to get things done, not knowing if my next minute alive would be my last. It also allowed me to live my life to the fullest, not worrying about other people's opinions or the fear of "failure."
I really believe that my purpose is to expand the narrative when it comes to loss and unwanted change in our day-to-day lives. I want people to know that even though pain and grief are unavoidable, no matter who you are, how much money you make, where you live, your gender, or your race, you can always move forward and be stronger when you learn something from what happened and apply that to your future.
Julia A. Nicholson is a speaker, consultant, author and a former CEO. You can find out more about her here.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
As told to Newsweek associate editor, Carine Harb.
Do you have a unique experience or personal story to share? Email the My Turn team at myturn@newsweek.com
