March 26, 2021
Adrian Chance Finds His Truth After Almost Dying
On a recent episode of the podcast, TaskHuman Talks, host and TaskHuman Coach Jamie Carroll chatted with fellow Coach Adrian Chance—a health & wellness coach, corrective exercise trainer, and Christian life coach.
Adrian was a faithful Christian his whole life, but the nature of his relationship with God drastically changed after he medically died twice. People who come that close to death often know a lot about living, and Adrian is no different.
For him, living a full life involves one major theme: finding your place in the world–your reason for being.
Here are the highlights of this incredible conversation:
1. He Was Healthy, but He “Died.”
Several years ago, Adrian had what he thought was a normal day. He went to bed feeling no different than he had any night before. But something was different. His wife woke up in the middle of the night sensing something was wrong.
He was dead.
He wasn’t breathing and his skin was turning blue. By the time paramedics arrived, he had already gone 10 minutes without oxygen.
The doctors were able to stabilize his body, but they kept him in a coma to allow his body to preserve his organs while they tried to figure out what happened. They couldn’t find anything.
“Just as suddenly as I went into that, God woke me up,” Adrian says.
He came out of the coma with no help. And when he did, other than extreme fatigue and short-term memory loss, he was fine.
2. Lightning Can Strike Twice.
Two weeks after he had his near-death experience, Adrian got his memory back. He worked with his doctors to try and figure out what, exactly, happened, and why. He was healthy and had been working as a personal trainer for around 15 years, so he understood what it meant to keep his body in good condition.
Eventually, his doctors decided he had an adult seizure and that it was unlikely to happen again.
Until it did.
Three weeks after the first event, Adrian’s wife again woke to find him unresponsive. This time he went 8 minutes without oxygen.
“Once again, God delivered me, raised me up, healed me,” he says.
Again, there was no lasting damage. And this time he didn’t lose his memory. Doctors gave him an internal defibrillator and heart medicine. They were confident he would be fine with them.
But soon after, he started getting shocked by his device. On his 40th birthday, Adrian was shocked 4 times. After more time in the hospital, doctors completely changed his diagnosis to a rare disease, Brugada Syndrome.
He knew he had the correct diagnosis, and he knew God wanted him to be alive.
3. Change Is Hard.
What brought Adrian’s memory back to him after the first incident was a dream he had. In it, God was with him and asked him if Adrian wanted to be one of His Generals. Adrian agreed and began to feel better during the day.
But it wasn’t easy.
Even though he had faith in God, Adrian suffered severe trauma from the recent events in his life. He became afraid to go to sleep because the shocks from the defibrillator were so painful. He began flipping his days to compensate: staying awake all night and sleeping during the day.
His faith saw him through.
Adrian feels his faith “deepened” from his crisis. He knows he is a miracle.
“It’s one thing to read it,” he says. “It’s a different thing to go through it.”
He lost his trust in himself, and he recognized his doctors did not fully understand his condition. The only thing left to do was to trust God.
“It’s a crazy rollercoaster,” Adrian says, “but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Working through the trauma and trusting God through the process showed Adrian what his true path is.
4. Find Your Calling.
Adrian’s experience propelled him into wanting to help people. He’d always had a servant’s heart, but now he knew more exactly how. As a Christian life coach, Adrian focuses on helping others find their reason– their calling.
Christian life coaching puts Christ in the center, not the self. God has a plan for everyone, if they work to find it.
The point is “to go from where they are to where God wants them to be,” Adrian says, “rather than go from where they are to where they want to be.”
For Christians, this can mean moving from their plan toward God’s plan.
Adrian helps his clients find “Exciting Greens.” The “how God created them.”
“Let’s look at your history. Let’s look at your life and see where God has spoken in your life,” he says.
Adrian points out that many of his clients are non-Christian but the work remains similar. He helps clients find their source of energy. To recognize what problems in the world they’re driven to help fix.
Your passion, the idea you can’t avoid, is likely the work you should be doing.
5. Life Is Real.
When Adrian talks, he works to make strong connections with the person he’s with. He wants to see and hear all of them. This “all in” mindset is one he carries throughout all areas of his life.
To make sure he’s rested, he believes in making sure he practices good self-care. Some of his strategies include regular exercise (at least 3 or 4 days each week), quality quiet time to reflect and think, and… bargain shopping.
“I get excited about good deals!” Adrian says.
But as the dad of 3 sons, he also makes sure he “practices what he preaches.” He feels his training as a life coach gives him good tools to use when speaking with his children. He also uses his life coaching tools to help his sons discover their own path.
“It empowers them,” he says. “It helps them discover what the plan is for them.”
Using the tools you acquire in the discovery of your calling will help you in the rest of your life.
6. Don’t Give Chronic Issues Control.
For anyone living with a chronic condition, Adrian cautions them about making their life about the condition. He reminds them that they are more than their condition.
That said, Adrian also offers these three pieces of advice for people who suffer with a chronic condition:
- Live life based on your new normal. It’s too easy to use “before” as the standard. But “before is gone. There is only now and the future. Since you can’t get back to before, keep your eyes forward and do what you can now.”
- Don’t let the disease define you. “You do have it, but it is not you,” Adrian says.
- Don’t allow someone else to hijack your progress. Sometimes people fall into the trap of comparison. You compare yourself to how someone else with the same problem is fairing, and you fall short. Instead, “look at your progress as your progress,” Adrian says. “Go at your own speed.”
As a TaskHuman coach, Adrian is ready to help find your own progress. He also wants to give two powerful tools to everyone: laughter and positive self-talk.
“Find something to laugh at all the time,” he says. And “Make it a habit to have positive self-talk.”
Watch the full podcast here. If you’re ready to connect with Adrian to see how he can help you find your life’s calling, reach out to him and schedule a 1:1 video call with him today!
