Triumph Over Turbulence: Uncovering Purpose in Life's Unpredictable Moments

Ever been caught in the whirlwind of travel gone awry? I, Amanda Quick, sure have, and I'm spilling all the details on the wild ride back from a seamless TEDx talk journey that turned into a tumultuous return. Stranded in Toronto amidst a snowstorm with no hotel or rental car, I discovered the power of unexpected connections over an impromptu dinner with a fellow speaker. Our conversation, amid the backdrop of a new city, became a lesson in finding potential where you least expect it.

Turbulence on a plane can rattle even the most seasoned traveler, but have you ever felt like you've stumbled onto the set of a suspense show? That's exactly what it felt like during my 'Manifest'-like flight experience, complete with a bomb cyclone that took a routine trip into the territory of a nerve-wracking novel. The chaos that ensued, both in the sky and on the ground, had me reflecting on the resilience it takes to navigate both work and well-being when life throws you curveballs.

But beyond the travel tales, there's a deeper story about rising from the ashes of personal trauma. My journey through hitting rock bottom and the 'lightning strike' moments that can redefine our existence is one of vulnerability and victory. We'll explore the profound impact our actions can have on others and the strength found in releasing what holds us back. There's a purpose hidden in the struggle, and as I share my story, you might just find the courage to ask yourself, "What if this is actually happening for me?" Join me as we unravel these stories and look ahead to another significant life change, promising to continue this transformational narrative in the next episode.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Amanda Quick Show. I am your host, amanda Quick, today's episode. As promised, I'm going to share with you what happened on my way back from my TEDx talk Last week. I shared my experience in preparing and giving a TEDx talk and I did not expect my trip back to be what it was and I think it's worth talking about, because this was the most crazy travel experience I have ever had and I haven't done lots of world traveling or anything of the sort, but holy man. So let's dive in, because I am very curious what anybody else picks up from all of this as well.

Speaker 1: 1:20

So the trip there was the easiest, perhaps, trip that I ever had. I went through Denver and had one stop and I got off the plane in Denver and the gate to get back on the next plane to Ontario was exactly the same gate I got off at. I had never had that happen before, where we literally take the same plane and so you know tons of time to go get a bite to eat or whatever and get back on the plane. Everything's on time, super smooth, super easy, which was really, you know, I was really grateful for it, especially because you know the mind set of I'm going to go give this big talk is stressful enough, but the way back was basically the opposite. So I left London, ontario, on Saturday morning after the talk. The talks were all on Friday. You know everybody stayed and you know had you know social hour kind of after and took a bunch of photos and all of that and my intention was to leave the next morning. It's a couple of hour drive to Toronto and my flight was scheduled to leave at about four o'clock Eastern time and I would have gotten back home here in Pacific time like nine o'clock at night because you'd gain three hours. Pretty easy day.

Speaker 1: 2:46

I left in the morning and I drove along the. I took a longer drive so that I could go visit the Great Lakes, which I had never actually seen, you know, do a little bit of sightseeing and, you know, dropped off my rental car and got to the airport and as I was pulling into like the Toronto area, I got a notice that my flight was going to be delayed. It's like, okay, it's not too big of a deal, I still have a pretty. I had like a two hour layover or something in Denver again and dropped off the car, went through security. And the moment I make it through security, I get a notice my flight is canceled. There's a snowstorm in Denver, damn it. You know, I've given up my rental car, there's no more flights tonight, there's no more options tonight. It's four o'clock and I need to get all the way to the West Coast. So I'm basically stuck in Toronto an extra day after having given up my rental car, given up my hotel room, all the things.

Speaker 1: 3:42

So, trying not to be too frustrated and trying to go with the flow and not be stressed, you know, I message my husband, let my kids know, and I just go sit in the airport for a minute together because you know, I don't know if you've ever had flight changes on your, on you, last minute. It's really unnerving, especially when you're trying to get home. And so I took some deep breaths, just went to sit down. Okay, I got to figure out I need a place to stay, I got to figure out what I'm going to do next and I sat down in the airport and I just sat there for a minute and I got a message from one of the other speakers at the 10X Talk and he said you know, safe travels, great to meet you all of that. And I said, well, I'm actually in Toronto an extra day and this particular speaker lives in the Toronto area and he's like, well, you want to go to dinner? So, yeah, well, that would be better than sitting in some random hotel restaurant, sure.

Speaker 1: 4:40

So I started to feel like, maybe, maybe there's a reason for all of this. Maybe, you know, there's other connections I need to make, other conversations need to be had. Maybe there's something I'm supposed to do here in Toronto. I don't know what it is, but I always personally feel better if I can see that there's potential, that there's a reason. I I I've taken this with me since, since everything that happened to me in my life that if I look at any Challenging situation and I see that there's a reason it's happening for me, there's a reason that I needed to be there, I needed to do this other thing, even if it's not what I asked for, not what I wanted. It really helps me just be okay and kind of come back into my center and remember that I'm guiding me, I've got me, and so, even with this, that little invitation, I Felt better and I was like, okay, I need a place to stay. There's a lot of airport hotels, I'll find one, their shuttles, it's all good. So I book a hotel, I find the shuttles and I go check into the hotel and Decide I'm gonna go for a run, I'm gonna just move this energy and I'm gonna get ready to meet my new speaker friend in the city for dinner.

Speaker 1: 5:55

And I had never been to Toronto, actually never been to Ontario before I, let alone Toronto and I Was find it really fun to see new places in cities, but it's not something I would ever do on my own. I don't know about you guys, but if I'm in a new place I have a really hard time venturing out unless it's really clear where I'm going. I don't, you don't really feel comfortable just exploring a random city by myself, especially at night. So it was, it was a really nice invitation. I, you know, took the train into the city and we went to dinner and walked around, took a bunch of pictures. So all of this hates in Toronto and you know he shared with me his speaker journey and what he's been doing and a lot of connections, the potential to make, and you know I feel like I made a friend, which was fantastic and, honestly, somebody who's in the industry that I want to be in is is amazing, and being able to share and connect and you know here somebody else's challenge in their journey it felt like a really good.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Why it felt really like this is this was worth being stuck, this if, if anything could have happened, this was definitely the place to be stuck in and the connection and experience that I needed to happen. You know, we I didn't get home till pretty late and I had an early flight the next morning and in my mind when I rebooked my flight, denver was closed because of a snowstorm, and so I. The other option for me was to come as a connection through San Francisco and I was like great That'll, we won't have to worry about snow, even if you know the snow is supposed to stop. I won't have to worry about it being cleared or anything else. For any other backlogs, I'll just go through San Francisco. But the flight was like 6 30 in the morning, so I only got a few hours of sleep, but I figured I would rest on the plane. I just had a travel day, not too big of a deal. So after dinner and I got back and I had my sleep, you know, checked out really early, took a early shuttle and I say I was checking in, you know, to double check everything on the shuttle, the way, the airport.

Speaker 1: 7:54

You know when you rebook your flight you don't get as many choices for your seats. You don't get to pick the aisle or the window or whatever you want, you kind of get shoved wherever and Most of the time that's some middle spot that's left. I hate middle seats, especially in like six hour flights. You don't know who you're gonna sit next to. And so I was looking and sure enough, they put me in some middle seat and it's a six and a half hour flight from Toronto to San Francisco and I and so what I did is, if you've never I don't know if you've ever done the like online booking thing, but if first class is available, usually that last moment, just hours before it's going to be, you know the flight's gonna take off, it's the cheapest it'll ever be and in this particular instance, first class was only like $100 or something to upgrade and first class meant, you know, I got to pick a window or an aisle bigger seat for a six and a half hour flight on just a few hours of sleep, and I had this really strong, intuitive nudge, just just book it, just like screw it.

Speaker 1: 9:07

And I said, okay, I'm gonna book first class. I don't usually do stuff like this, but it feels like the thing to do to be the most comfortable, get the best rest that I need. So I booked the upgrade and, you know, it also meant faster through security because all of a sudden I was on first class ticket, which ended up being needed because the Toronto airport you actually go through customs on the Toronto side, not when you land in the US. And so I made it through security fast, but the customs line was massive and I felt like, oh no, I might not even make it, but I successfully made it through just in time. My plane was boarding, boarded the flight. Phew, okay, I'm here, flight's not canceled, everything's on time, all as well. You know, napped on the airplane, got fed breakfast, which was great because I hadn't eaten anything. You know, if you're ever ridden first class, you get all the free drinks you want, all the free snacks, all the food, and most of the time, most of the time, I just napped and it ended up that there was actually a couple of seats empty, and so when I upgraded my flight, I actually got nobody sitting next to me either, so I had the whole first class row to myself, which was fantastic.

Speaker 1: 10:23

And as the flight's coming to an end and we're getting closer to San Francisco, the weather's shifting. We're starting to have some turbulence, nothing crazy. And eventually, you know, we're going to some turbulence and they say, you know, the flight attendant should take their seats, and sometimes that happens in higher turbulent areas, nothing to really stress about. And I'm, you know, looking out the window. I'm in the front of the plane just kind of watching. We're in some pretty heavy weather, some clouds, plane's pretty turbulent. Next thing I know there's a big flash and the plane feels like it was hit, like there's a flash and a bang that hits the plane. And I go, what the heck was that? And I look at the people in the other rows what the fuck just hit us? But we're in really high turbulent. You know situations.

Speaker 1: 11:20

The flight attendants are not moving around, the pilot's not talking to us, we're still in the air, right? Nothing, nothing takes a nosedive, you know, trying to stay calm, having the conversations with myself. Nope, I got too much left to do in the world. We are not going down, we're okay. All of the positive affirmations, all of the visualization work that I can do, staying grounded in myself.

Speaker 1: 11:45

And you can tell when the plane is trying to land. You know, you can feel the descent and you can feel the plane turning. And the plane is trying to land in what appears to be San Francisco area and every time it gets lower it pulls right back up. Let me do this a couple of times. And next thing, you know, the pilot says we're being redirected, the weather's too bad. We're being redirected to Sacramento. Okay, so we get redirected. It's only like a 20 minute flight away. And we get redirected and we successfully land in Sacramento.

Speaker 1: 12:18

And once we land, the pilot tells us we were hit by lightning in the air. That's what the bang and flash was what. We were hit by lightning and in the air, holy crap. And we're grounded in Sacramento. And not only that. Despite the fact that we've cleared customs, they won't let us off the plane because Sacramento is not an international airport and there's no border patrol. And even though, again, it's just supposed to be a domestic flight, because we've all been cleared in a matter, they won't let us off border patrols having a Hissy Fit with United. Nobody's going anywhere.

Speaker 1: 12:56

So we're landed on the tarmac, no idea how long, we have no idea if the plane is okay, we have no idea what is going on and we're all trying to process the fact that the pilot just told us we were in fact hit by lightning in the air. And at this point I'm having a bit of a surreal moment because, you know, I just came from one of the biggest events in my professional career and giving a TEDx talk is a very big accomplishment and I know and I truly believe that this talk is going to have a big impact on the people who need to hear it and then I get hit by lightning, just and truly. I saw the flash and where it felt like it hit was right where I was sitting, like it felt like it was coming at me and you know, I have no idea what where it actually hit on the plane. I don't have any of that information, but that's how it felt, because I saw it right where I was looking out the window and not the whole plane didn't see it. Well, the whole plane felt it, but only the people around me actually saw it, and whether it hit by my side of the plane or not, that's how it felt to me and it felt like this big, almost boom thing and you know, from an energetic standpoint, being hit by lightning literally breaks the you know, the barrier and like fabric of reality in a sense. I mean, a lightning is literally like a tear and a rip in this fabric. That's how it looks and feels and we just were hit and went right through it.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Now I've also watched the full, the full seasons and all through season finale of Manifest and I don't know if you've watched that show, but basically they go through big turbulence and, you know, go through dark lightning, whatever that means, and go back in time. Actually, no, they go forward in time five and a half years in it. To their experience, no time has passed, but to the people back home, five and a half years have passed and so they have this like huge disconnect in five and a half years and eventually through the end of the whole season. I'm not going to do any big spoilers, but they go back through and come out the other end and so it's like like it's still 2024. Nothing has changed, everybody's still in one piece, holy crap. And you know, I'm texting my, my friends, I'm texting my husband, I'm trying to process this. We're okay, they won't let us off the plane.

Speaker 1: 15:35

There is a handful of people on the plane who start having like full blown panic attacks because they won't let them off the plane. You know, sacramento is an hour drive from San Francisco, so that was your final destination. You just want to get off the plane and go home, like you don't. You don't want to stay, and they're saying we're basically going to get back in the air soon. We just need to change out pilots, because pilots are only allowed to operate a plane a certain period of time. That's the federal mandate. They can't, they can't operate the plane more than I don't know whatever eight hours or something. It is, and we were coming up on that max. So the pilots get relieved and new pilots come. We have to wait for that and eventually the people having panic attacks are allowed to be removed from the manifest and allowed to clear customs differently and are allowed to get off the plane. But nobody else is allowed off and they basically say get back in your seat, you're not going anywhere. It's like what You're you're holding a hostage on this airplane that was hit by lightning and I'm sitting there going.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Thank God I upgraded myself to first class because the rest of them don't even get. You know, they don't feed you in airplanes anymore. They might give you some water, but you got to pay for snacks. They might not even have any you might. You're not prepared. There's people with kids, all the things, but in first class they just open up all the snack boxes and give them to us. So we're fed, we're well hydrated, we have plenty of space and room and I just sit there and just kind of soak it in. I just got to soak this in, holy shit, and we ended up spending another six hours on the tarmac in Sacramento, six additional hours after a six and a half hour flight.

Speaker 1: 17:09

So I'm in this, this plane, for 12 hours and eventually, after six hours go by, this new pilot comes and we get cleared and he says we're going back to San Francisco and we're going back now and we're like what? In the same plane, and he's not giving anybody a choice, there's no options here, there's no. And he's saying you're, you are, we are doing this, this is what's happening, and we're going back through the weather and I and maintenance has cleared the plane, we're good. So we brace ourselves and the flight back to San Francisco is probably one of the most turbulent flights I've ever been on. The flight attendants never leave their seats. They stay in the entire time and when we get to Sacramento we feel the descent and we come back up again and we try second time. We go down, turn around, come back up again and the third time they finally make it. I thought they might even redirect us again, but this time they finally successfully landed. They finally landed in San Francisco.

Speaker 1: 18:11

It is pouring buckets. It is crazy weather, huge winds. We are looking at the news. There's hurricane level winds, crazy amounts of rain Like this weather event was almost unprecedented in San Francisco.

Speaker 1: 18:25

At this moment in time we get off the plane. There's still supposed to be another plane in a, in a I think it was four hours later. That would get me all the way home. So I go get some dinner. I sit down and wait. Pretty shortly after I eat I see that the all of the planes have been canceled because the weather's only supposed to get worse. So now I'm stranded in San Francisco.

Speaker 1: 18:49

Deep breath again, find myself an airport hotel. Find myself the shadows. The shadows are like across the street in the pouring bucket rain. Change my mind go find myself an Uber and get my butt to a hotel. As I get to the hotel, I start reading the news and looking at the weather events, and this weather event is called a bomb cyclone. I'm not joking, I didn't know this was a thing that existed. A bomb cyclone is a is a type of weather event that literally appears out of nowhere. It's like an almost insta-hurricane, essentially, and what the news said that was different and interesting about this is that most of these type of bigger weather events start somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and then make their way to land, but this one, it was different because it was started on land. It was started right on the coast. It was created there Like well in that something, and you know, schools were canceled and that's the next day People died because trees fell in their houses and cars were being blown off the road.

Speaker 1: 19:53

Like this was in insanity happening, and I just talked to myself in the bed and after you know, almost no sleep and 12 plus hours of crazy flights and then another hour of you know, knuckle-biting flight to finally land and get into safety, I just knocked out and did my best to rest, knowing I was going to have to back it again the next morning. That next morning was Monday morning. I was supposed to be at work so I'm moving meetings and just it's bedtime and I just really was sitting with like what on earth is going on? How in the heck is this? Is this my current experience? This is nuts, you know. I thought San Francisco would be the better choice. No, not today. Most of the time. Yeah, we don't have snowstorms in San Francisco, but bomb cyclones.

Speaker 1: 20:46

And so I woke up the next morning you know, I had a I think it was an eight o'clock flight or something that Monday morning, so now as early, had some breakfast and it was clear skies, literally clear blue skies, like nothing had ever happened. Got myself another you know shuttle ride to the airport, got on the plane and made it home by lunchtime and I got off the plane and my husband picks me up and I look like a zombie. Even though I slept, my energy was so shaken and so ungrounded that I didn't even feel like myself. It was like I had just been through this huge experience between the high of the talk being giving this talk of my life, to feeling like everything is happening for me and I'm being introduced to the right people and I'm making these amazing connections to this literal lightning strike in in my plane and a bomb cyclone weather event to finally making it home safe.

Speaker 1: 21:43

It took me a full week to fully recover from that experience. It was holy moly, I telling myself here I am wanting to go do more public speaking around the world and that means more complaints. And you know I I'm mostly through it now and I know that those things don't happen very often. In fact, the flight attendants told us they had never, never experienced such things before. It's not that it never happens, it's a very rare occurrence. But the flight attendants even fly for a living, hadn't hadn't experienced that, and so it's unlikely. Right, lightning was struck the same place twice. I don't know if it doesn't strike the same person twice, but I think I read a statistics that men are actually more likely to get hit by lightning than women, and I don't know how true that is either. But I definitely felt like something in me shifted from an energetic standpoint in that moment.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Between the talk and then the travel back. It was like I was jumping timelines. It was like I was stepping into this new version of self, this new version of what was coming in a way that I can't I can't even logically explain. It doesn't really have a logical explanation. And the more I sat with you know this idea that things that we put into the world, the stories we share, the awarenesses, the problems we help solve, the products and services, every problem that we try to help the world with, you know every person you impact can potentially impact other people and that's what they talk about. You know, like this ripple effect, and you help five people, those five people help another 25 people and you know it exponentially ripples out through the collective and you know the one to many conversations and it turns into more of a wave right. And then there's those of us who are here to hit y'all by lightning and it was just this like okay. So perhaps the words that I'm saying are going to hit people kind of like that and that's a really.

Speaker 1: 23:50

It's a really hard thing to wrap my mind around. It's a really hard thing to grasp and yet it feels somewhat true. Biggest traumas that we experience, the biggest things that happen to us, are like big fucking lightning strikes. They break our world. They rip everything we know to be true apart. Every piece of identity we have is in question, every piece of what matters to us is in question and changes, and we have to face all of our fears at the same time. It is a lightning strike, these big, huge experiences that some of us are faced with, and to come out of them, not only do we have that initial hit, but we have to make the choice to burn the rest of it down, to change everything that we are, to look at ourselves in a different way, to take really scary, unknown action and to change our whole lives, to change our entire identities in order to get out of these situations, which is even more like this bomb cyclone where we literally stir it all up and poof.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Life is different and it felt very symbolic of not just the experience I had and what I shared in my talk, but also what I'm here to bring to the world and what I'm here to help other people understand about these experiences and to release the shame and judgment of these horrific things, because it's not anybody's fault what happened to them. You're not init's not your fault that somebody else hurt you. It's not your fault that your childhood was the way it was. It's not your fault that you were a victim of a horrific crime, but you were the only one who can ever get yourself out of that situation, and that is a really, really, really hard place to be. And if we're willing to take a look at those lightning strikes and take them for what they are, and we're willing to stir up the rest of our life and to burn down what's not serving us and to rise above it, we can completely step into a new version of reality. We can completely shift our attire in internal and external reality, we can impact our kids and we can impact the world. And I'm 100% stand by that.

Speaker 1: 26:21

And whether I, you know, caused this, you know whether event is Obviously I'm not God, I'm not all powerful here, but the energy behind that experience and feeling and experiencing it through, as I was going through this big thing felt nothing short of just this miraculous, crazy vessel channel experience that I was living and knowing that, feeling, that honoring it and experiencing it all the same time as I'm stepping myself into this next phase, this next step. You know I, as hard as all of it is, I would not trade anything that I have gone through for anything. At this point, I would not go back and undo any of it, as hard as that is. I have immense gratitude for each and every lesson along the way. I have so much gratitude for having the opportunity to burn my life down. I have so much gratitude for the opportunity to experience what it's like to be at rock bottom and to claw myself out and to burn it down and rise above it, and to share in all of the ways that I have and will do so in the future. It's a huge gift. It's a huge gift for me to look at horrible things and see the positive and see the potential, and I wouldn't be able to do that had I not been through any and all of these crazy experiences.

Speaker 1: 27:57

And so what I want to leave you guys with this week is a question, is a thought whether it's, you know, a weather event outside of your control, a family member in crisis, you yourself in crisis, your children in crisis, some other traumatic thing happening to you to try for a moment to ask yourself what if this is actually happening for me? What if this is showing me something that I don't yet understand about myself, or what it is I'm here to do, or how strong I truly am, or how amazing and capable I am to be able to not only survive an experience like this, but to overcome and thrive after Just what if this horrible thing is for me in the future? It's not an easy place to be, it's not an easy thing to grasp, but I truly believe in the. At the end of the day, we survived and we eventually learn how to thrive and inspire and see possibilities in anything. Any challenge Doesn't feel good in the moment, no, but I always come back to what, if?

Speaker 1: 29:27

What if there's more here and I don't know what it is yet, I don't understand it yet. Just what if this is actually for me and if I can trust that and I can hold it and I can believe it, I can find that, what it is for, and I can find the other end of it eventually and I can see that through all of it, I am better for it today. So that's what I'm leaving you guys with. Today, I have so much more to share and I can't wait for next week's episode, because two weeks later my world turned upside down again. So I leave you with that and lots of love to you. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. Adios.