Independent Banker - February 2019 - 56

If one thing is certain,
it's that we will
all face tough times. In our personal and work lives, there
will be days, months and even years when challenges feel
insurmountable. John O'Leary understands this more than
most. Having suffered a tragic accident at an early age
that left him fighting for his life, he knows that adversity is
inevitable. But he has also learned how important it is to
deal with challenges head on.
At the age of 9, O'Leary lit a match that changed the
course of his life. Hiding out in his family's garage in St.
Louis, Mo., in 1987, he was curious to see what would
happen when he set some gasoline on fire. Unintentionally,
his flame ignited an entire can. It exploded, launching
O'Leary 20 feet across the garage and engulfing him in
flames. He suffered burns across every inch of his body,
more than 80 percent of them third-degree. His doctors gave
him less than a 1 percent chance of surviving the first night.
O'Leary spent the next five months in the hospital and
had dozens of surgeries in the years that followed. Doctors
had to amputate his fingers, and in spite of numerous skin
grafts over the years, his body is still extensively scarred.
Today, however, he looks back at this as an " inflection
point " -a moment in time that changed everything that
followed it. In this case, he says the change was for the
better. It may be difficult to grasp at first, but O'Leary
firmly believes that everything good in his life has come
about because of the accident: meeting his wife Beth,
having their four children and finding professional success.
" This fire, " he explains, " it really caused havoc. It
devastated my body, it devastated my family, it destroyed
our house, it changed our lives. All this is bad, yet it
brought us together. It made us recognize what actually
matters. It made us take inventory of who we were and how
we were going to come together and do bigger things going
forward. The best of my life is a result of that explosion. "
O'Leary has made a career out of telling his story and
encouraging others to find inspiration in even the darkest of
times. Visit his website and you'll notice a theme: His name
is in red, a flame in place of the apostrophe; there is a " sizzle
reel " of clips from his talks; and his bestselling book is called
On Fire. He clearly has a sense of humor and admits with a
laugh that, yes, he has made friends with his pain.
Igniting a spark
Asked how he reached this point, O'Leary credits his
mother for not only igniting the spark within him that
allowed him to survive the accident, but getting him on
a determined path. " I remember asking my mother, 'Am
I going to die?' And she asked, 'Do you want to die?' She
responded to my question with a question, which was
really genius in some regards. I said, 'No, Mom, I don't
want to die. I want to live.' And her response was, 'Good,
baby. Take the hand of God, journey with him and fight like
you've never fought before.' So, on that very first morning
in [the] hospital in the emergency room, before I'd even
been brought up to the burn center or down to surgery, the
commitment was made.
" Having family, parents, siblings, relatives supporting
and encouraging and sharing and not judging was
incredibly valuable for me as I began the journey forward, "
he adds. " And then to have community, not just the
people who I already knew walking into the situation, but
those that began to arrive afterwards. Some of them were
neighbors that we barely knew, others were celebrities in
town and beyond. We received letters from the pope, rabbis
in Israel planting trees on our behalf. At one point we were
receiving a couple of boxes a day of letters from all kinds
of cheerleaders all around the world, just saying, 'We are
thinking of you and praying for you and encouraging you.'
For a little guy on a dark day, that made a huge difference. "
The people around O'Leary taught him the importance of
making bold, optimistic decisions and staying committed
to them, whether it was his mother's words or those of
a local broadcaster who sent him a baseball signed by a
" I would encourage bankers to recognize that they
are also in the business of mission. It sets them
apart and it also makes them more profitable. "
56 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q February 2019
Independent Banker - February 2019

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