Caitlin Van Mol 0:00
Hey everybody!

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Just a little housekeeping up top. First, sorry for my voice. I am still battling a little bit of a cold, so please bear with me during this episode. And secondly, Live to Tell is going on a short hiatus. How short? I don't know, honestly. I'm going to be hard at work finding new stories and building up episodes for you all. So, don't worry, I will be back as soon as I can. Okay, here's the episode.

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I mean, I know from your book. I read your book.

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Thank you for sending. Oh, really? Yeah, they sent me a gap. Like, you really read it? Yeah,

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of course I did. What do you

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mean? No, that means what I mean is that means the world. Why would I interview without reading the book? That would be so inconsiderate.

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Vincent van de Bruk is Belgian, which, if you're wondering, so is my family, the Van Mol's. Except Vincent was born and raised there, and from a young age, Vincent had an entrepreneurial spirit and knew he wanted to be in the service industry. When I was

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working a lot, not not as in like a workaholic kind of thing, but I was building businesses.

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Then I went through a lot of stuff, lost some businesses, got some things went wrong with business partners, got in a lot of debt. Then COVID happened, so a lot of stuff happens, and so yeah, I was working a lot. I made a lot of sacrifice when it came to

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my private time, to family time, to time with friends.

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In October of 2024, Vincent was working insane hours to drag himself out of debt, and things were finally looking up. Two weeks before

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October 11, I sent a text to my accountant telling him, "Hey, did you see the numbers? We just did our best month. Told you because I've and I was telling yeah trust me it's gonna work out it's gonna play out and all that all that all that stuff and I've always had this talent of bringing people with me like people would believe me and then we did our best month in five years something

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five years and a half so Vincent went into work on October 11 2024 motivated to keep this momentum going. So, what do you remember of that that day? I remember I had breakfast with

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with my wife in the morning, with which was also again special because she was a broke many times for work for her own company in the music industry.

Vincent 2:40
I was working a lot, so we didn't spend that much time together. So this was, I think, the second time that we had breakfast in a week. Vincent's company hashtag had a catering event that morning, and afterwards, he hopped on an electric scooter to go get some important paperwork finished,

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but he never made it to his destination.

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This is Live to Tell, the podcast where I talk to some of the bravest people who have been through the most horrifying things and lived to tell the tale.

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I'm Caitlin Van Mol.

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A car going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit hit Vincent on his scooter. So I fell on the front window on the roof. The person that then found me found me 11 meters further than the car.

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I wasn't wearing any helmets, so of course that was already disgusting to see. Skull was already open, blood everywhere. I was already I was suffocating. I was actually dying on the spot. It just so happened that so the person that found me, which was the same account at Texas two weeks before the accident, and when the paramedics left the scene, when he asked them, "Is who gonna survive? They were like, no.

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So the news was already super bad. And then, then of course, I got into coma. Then there's the Glasg. I don't know if you know the Glasgow scale, which is a scale they use for brain traumas. And I was like the

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like in the worst

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situation you could be in the Glasgow Coma Scale measures eye response, motor response, so like if you can move your fingers, and verbal response.

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Vincent getting a low score meant that he was completely unresponsive. That would drain, drill my skull. The skull then got completely taken away because pressure to the brain, which then they put back normally

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after the pressure is gone. But the skull was too damaged. So instead of replacing the chunk of skull they removed to lower the pressure on his brain, they just sewed him up.

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This left an indentation that almost looked like someone had taken a large spoon, or I guess that would be a shovel, and scooped out his head.

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It was skin to. It was literally skin to brain. It's weird to look at and think about. I

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have interviewed another man who had

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a similar skull injury, but it was from a gunshot. This was Christian episode eight. If you want to go back and listen, but they also like replaced part of his skull later.

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And I asked him, and I feel like I should ask you: Did you try to poke your brain? I touch it all the time. I touch, but the thing is, it's super dangerous. Like I, yeah, because then I okay then I had minor injuries, so the I had a broken wrist, so I wore a cask, had a broken collarbone, and then where I got really lucky though, where the cervicals that got fractured, it could have been a centimeter difference, and I was I would have been paralyzed for the rest of my life, and then with the cask, I was always smashing my head. But the thing is, it's it's like super dangerous. Like you could literally damage your well being

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while tapping your brain. And then there were a lot of complications, so they had to apparently one day the surgeon that had to come into my room, drill literally in the room to get more blood than there was water on the in the brain. Then apparently they had to scrape away a part of the brain that was that got burned because I scraped the the street while yeah I was oh with your brain apparently,

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and then I also caught a 40 degrees fever. That's 104 degrees Fahrenheit. So they put me on

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ice blankets. I was shivering while still in trauma. Then they

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put a tracheole because if you're intubated for too long, it could damage the the vocal cords. So that's why you still have the the scar over here.

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And all this happened while he was in a coma. You have to know, like the narrative when I was still in coma is yeah, your husband, your brother is not gonna make you. He'll probably die. You need to know that the most optimistic news was like, should he ever wake up, he'll probably be a plant for the rest of his life. And his wife Zineb had to sit with that possibility as she waited for him to wake up. When I tell you the best, like she became part of the medical staff, like he became a nurse, he became a therapist. He would because I had my best friends. One of them was living in in your city, New York. Second was living in Spain, and she would breathe them literally with all the news that would come in from the medical. She would, but when I say breathe, like point A,

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point B, point C, and then she would send pictures, he was great. He was the best. While at the same time going to Alba, and then there were texts, of course, where where she would say like, "Yeah, I'm losing hope. Like it's becoming tougher and tougher. And then there was there were days where there was good news, and then there were days where it was bad.

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I always see people like I didn't go through the worst, like I was just I was just sleeping,

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not knowing what was going on. But for her, like, could you imagine? We were 32 back

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then. My husband, you know, stop prepping the funeral. It's not gonna. It's probably not gonna make it.

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After 20 days of hoping and the agony of waiting,

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Vincent opened his eyes.

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I don't have any memories of of seeing the car coming to me, but of course not hitting me. And then the next memory, because it wasn't even after me waking up from the coma, like those first two to three weeks, I was in a bad, bad place. You need to know, like I didn't have any notion of time. I didn't have, I wasn't aware about how bad a situation. Like we were gonna leave the hospital tomorrow. Yeah, on an e-school, by the way. That the things I was telling people was was mad. It was crazy. We were gonna leave. Yeah, but Vincent, you did literally. Yeah, doesn't matter. Yeah, but Vincent, you're really not doing well. It was delusional. And I think, by the way, though, that all that that mindset right made me recover the way I recovered. Like in in a sense that when you're chasing something big in life, when you're chasing starting a business, when you're starting a podcast for the first time, and you always seem delusional to everyone around you until it works, and you know what? One thing that is beautiful is the.

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Past has taught us enough that

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results

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always follow. Hard work

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always space of fact.

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When

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you don't know.

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By the way, and that is also that. That is why I always say that the most important word in the title, everything feels impossible to design is the feeling,

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because

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that is about the end result, which you will never be able to control. What you can control, though,

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is the doing part.

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And Vincent tried to keep up this attitude during his recovery,

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but it wasn't that easy.

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So first of all, yeah, okay, it was me waking up, and then it was me not being able

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to talk, nor walk, nor just even eating. Like they would

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give me just tubes of jellyfish food, which was, by the way, horrible. And then there was

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the not being able to open a bottle, not being able to put on my clothes, and then every like anyone that knows me would tell you like this that I'm the most optimistic, most high energy person. But I was in a in a bad place, like when you're not able to even do the basic stuff, it

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is. I've always been someone that is like super independent, and I do not need help from no one. But I was lucky enough to have people around me that would tell me not what I want to hear, but what I need to hear. They would be like, "Ah, get your wrestled, go walking.

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Yeah, but I'm tired. Doesn't matter.

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That's what it takes. You need people that push you to the limits. We'll be back after this break.

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But if you don't like breaks, you can get ad-free episodes for just $2 a month at Patreon.com/slash Lived to Tell.

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Vincent eventually made enough progress to move out of the hospital and into a rehab center, where he met a new friend. Yoris, which we were best friends, and still is until until today. Such a beautiful relationship. How back then, 32

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year olds can become literally best friends with a 60 years

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young person.

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How did you and yours motivate each other? We were just best friends. Like we would just talk about normal stuff, and then we would make what they let us go through. We

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made fun of it, like would let us do exercise, and we would

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then laugh, laugh

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after seven. You would have to go to bed,

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and then we wish like there was a

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curtain between the both of us, and then

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we would then speak to each other just like kids. Literally, when you go to camp, like kids, and he he was then telling me a story about where he had occupational therapy, where they let him make a phone call to know the price about

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things. Calling about the price of an item, an achievable task for a person with normal cognitive function, but a challenge for Gen Z or someone with diminished cognitive function.

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Even though the call served a purpose in his rehab, Yoris still felt silly doing it. He was like, "Well, why?

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If I if I need to know the price, I just go to the store. Why would they let me call? So then he called, and the the person from the store. But they were busy, so he was like, "Yeah. So I was bothering him. He then hung up. I had to call him back,

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and I was then calling my sister at the same time, she just bought a house. She was going through renovation, and then she also knew Yoris super well. So then I put him on, and I was like, "Hey, by the way, if you need a paint, Yoris can have. It was, it was, it was, it was never about motivation. It was just about. It was always about making the best out of his. What was he recovering from?

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That's this another crazy story. Like, so you have

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the southern part of Belgium where there's like a lot of forests. He was on vacation there with his family. I think

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him and his son they were running down a hill. His legs were going faster than his body. Then fell,

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stumbled with his head on a rock. Boom!

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Very drama. What was the milestone

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you had, or like, what did you need to like accomplish to be able to go home? I thought it was the approval.

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From my family, like I felt like a prisoner. Like I wasn't able to leave rehab just like that. The way it happened is like the doctor of each department invites family over. They call it a family conversation, where they would,

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where she would share observations and opinions of the therapies, nurses

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asking questions to the family, and then there's a decision that is taken. Like, is Vincent gonna leave? Is he gonna keep on doing therapy, but from home, and he just comes every day to the rehab center,

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or is he just gonna leave?

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november 20, I walk into Wehai, okay,

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and with the medical facts that I had about my situation and the way that I progressed already in the hospital, I said to everyone out loud. The

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week of my birthday,

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no, not on my birthday, I'm out of this place, which is january 25. The

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completely delusion.

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Rehab was gonna take two years. The people around Vincent were like, "Okay, two years of work in two months is ambitious.

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Maybe create a goal that's a bit more realistic, except for one person, my wife, again,

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who told me it

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might be better to not link it to a specific date, but to things you did before the accident, and then you're gonna need to relearn again, because again, going back to all, I had to relearn everything, not even not just the physical, like the walking part and the talking part, but also like the

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just living a basic life, like doing groceries, cleaning the dishes, basic

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stuff. And then we have two options. We always have two options. One, you let ego do the talking, and you be like, "Huh, but you're supposed to be on my side. What you're not supporting me? It's not you in this situation.

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Or second option, you listen and you act upon. And I've always been for a very long time the second

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option kind of person. So Vincent took this gentle push to not focus on how much time it would take, but to focus on accomplishing the actual tasks, and pushed himself to the absolute max to achieve that. That same evening, I made a list of everything I did before the accident. So I did social media for the business. I have to learn all the applications, traffic cut, instant all the application. I did the books or Excel. I made a whole list,

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and every time

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I I was free, like I didn't have therapy. There were no visitors. I worked on that list. A couple of days later, I post my first video for the business on Instagram. Get a call from my wife. Probably an hour an hour later. What on earth did you just do? Just post a video and you forgot to delete the logo and the video shit and you didn't delete it. Again, you have two options. You go do the talking. You be like, huh?

Unknown Speaker 18:10
Well, it's a good thing. No, I just posted my very first video and it's like you in this situation. I'm just trying my business. Blah blah. You complain. Second option, you listen and you act the pump. A couple of days later, I post my second video, which was probably still shit, but it wasn't

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as shit as the first one. So progress. The week of my birthday, I will call it that. Going back to

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wanting, believing, cool.

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being convinced and act in a pump is a whole different ball game. Yeah, I mean, but it's one thing to set aggressive goals for yourself,

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and it's another thing

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to like. I'm sure you've set aggressive goals that you haven't achieved. How do you

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deal with that? Losing the span of the game. That's it. Losing the spot of the game. You ate your life for a couple of minutes, and again, the law resilience. Because the word we're actually talking about is resilience. It's a muscle that you can train like any other, and the way I see it, how you can train it is whenever you go into something difficult, you decide to face it instead of avoiding it. And the first time is gonna be difficult, and the second is gonna be different, the fifth, and the 10th time is gonna be difficult. But the longer you do

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this, it just becomes like for me. I see the accident as another bumping. It was another bump in the road that I have had to overcome. Which, but and again, I'm not lying to you, Nito. It sucked. I hated my life, but

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where are you gonna spend your energy in hating?

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In your life, the whole day there's 24 hours in it. Okay, let's take away sleep. There's 16 hours in a day. You're gonna complain for 16 hours, or you're just gonna make the best out of it. And you know what? You can have this bad days and this good days. Yeah, but you want to stack as many good as much good days as you can. Even though he reframed his progress around tasks rather than time, Vincent still went home the week of his birthday, just like he promised.

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He continued outpatient physical and occupational therapy and was improving, but he still did have that big old hole in his skull. So for two months and a half, I walked around with like a hole in in my head. Yeah, seeing those photos is crazy. Yeah, like it was skin to it was literally skin to brain. How do they like

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measure? It's a scan on all sides. the The reason it took so long, are so long. It took longer than predicted was just because there was a communication problem, and of course, when just like sending me, you're missing. It's not like okay, let's. It's not like an IKEA furniture. They be like, yeah, kid, it's fine. It still works.

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Knowing you had to go into that surgery, I mean, obviously, the accident and that first surgery-you weren't really aware. Were you nervous to go into a second

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one? Nervous,

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Jacob. I was dying.

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Nervous. That would not even justify how I was feeling. I was scared.

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I was I was not ready. From the moment I knew when I was gonna get surgery, I was afraid. I was asking for success stories to therapists

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who were to therapists doctors who were working when I was in rehab. Like, hey, did you have patients that went through the same thing? Okay, how did it go?

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Which is probably which it is considered standard surgery like this happens all the time.

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It was literally like what I remember still

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is, it was like in the movies. Like I remember going in going to

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the operation room.

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I see the nurses and the doctors, and they were put in the IV, and they didn't find where to put it because I've always have like apparently tests to doing it, and I was like. And then the next thing I remember

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is me going out of the the operation rooms last minute. It's finished.

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The surgery was successful, and Vincent's brain was no longer so vulnerable.

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And if it were up to Vincent, he would be putting in those 1213-hour, days again and going, going, going.

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So his wife Zaneb has to be the one to say, "Hey, take a beat.

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Did you notice a difference in

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maybe like how she treated you a little bit of like let's slow down let's

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not be so like

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balls to the wall opening all these things like let's take a beat or does she are is she still just like yeah let's do whatever

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she has always, but she's Moroccan. So

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from her education, from the culture, she's like a caretaker. He takes care of people, like she's like a mom.

Unknown Speaker 23:35
She's still super careful about the thing because I'm still not 100% I would I would tell anyone, and we had a conversation about it yesterday. I would tell anyone like, yeah, look at me, I'm I'm doing good. I I can do long hours again, which physically I

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can, and so she would be like, today, hey, maybe it's time to take some rest.

Unknown Speaker 23:57
Maybe not do that. Yeah, maybe take a day off.

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Stop stressing. So she, she's still the caretaker. Ashley's always been maybe been more because

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facts are facts. Like the accidents happen, and I am I've become epileptic since the accident, and so

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there are so the brain is still like

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it's you don't see okay yeah of course you see a scar on my on my head but the brain there is still a scar on the brain

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literally which you will

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we will never be able to see but so the brain like I get tired more quicker than I would be 40 isolates, so she would be like,

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"Hey, let's take it. Let's slow down. Yeah, not for us, but just for me. How are you about taking rest

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and recognizing that that's what you need? Because a lot of what I got from your book is like push, push, push.

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Keep going, keep going, but sometimes the keeping going to do that you need the rest. So how are you about taking that necessary rest when before maybe you could just push? I still push. Life is life, and and I'm not gonna lie, their

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life got a bit better

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after the accident, but it was expensive. Yeah, and of course we were lucky, and we still are living in very much a lot of that hate by

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healthcare.

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But the bankruptcy of the business costed us like we. I'm super transparent about it. We're still a lot in private debt. Yeah, yeah. I'll rest when whenever I can. Finances are finances, and and then there's the

Unknown Speaker 25:52
and then there's the book that is coming out right now. So there's a lot going on with that, and I'm and I'm helping my sister in law with the business too. So there's

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the thing is, like I'm not against resting. I love to do nothing. Now you know, I'm not gonna lie,

Unknown Speaker 26:09
doing nothing. I think I I always had ADHD and I I've never got diagnosed for it. But like I literally told my wife yesterday, like if I wake up in the morning and you would ask me, "Hey, still let's go like 10 more minutes. I would stay for like two minutes and be like,

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"Can I do something? I'm

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I'm for real awkward with it, but yeah, of course. You know what? What I do more is I am

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more non-negotiable about

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spending time with people I love,

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like I would literally like have dinner planned with a good friend that I didn't see for a long time next Monday, which I would never never have done before the accident. Yesterday we went away for a day, which we literally never would have done before the accident two weeks ago. Before my sister

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left

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for holidays, we saw her in the kids.

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So she has two girls. I missed birthdays, which I will never do again.

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The driver that hit Vincent was driving after already having lost his license, and he was going 55 kilometers per hour in a 30 zone. What happened to the driver? Was there a court case or anything? Good question. He called a couple of times when I was still in coma, asking how I was doing,

Unknown Speaker 27:39
but no news. He's just living his life. I think I would so love to have a conversation with him, like for real. But

Unknown Speaker 27:47
I, I literally don't know. Like he was a young guy. He's he's still a young guy. He got really lucky. He though got really lucky that I didn't die because you would kill someone when you're 23.

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You need to know that he hit me at a braking speed of 55 kilometers an hour in a 30 zone,

Unknown Speaker 28:08
meaning he probably drove at 90 kilometers an hour, way too fast on a Friday evening, didn't have his driver's license because he got already taken away before that. Yeah, so he should have. Is he facing charges? And it should have been in June. Is that what you were saying? Exactly. Exactly.

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I didn't have to be president. Like he he was already considered.

Unknown Speaker 28:35
He's gonna be prosecuted. Yeah. I hope he had. I truly hope for him that he has a good lawyer because the chart. But again, what does he risk? Yeah, maybe a fine, maybe not driving, not being able to drive for the rest of his life. But hey, didn't stop him. Didn't stop him two years ago. Need it. So

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you live and you learn. I hope. I hope.

Unknown Speaker 29:00
What would you say to him if you did talk to him?

Unknown Speaker 29:03
Oh,

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I thought about it a lot. You know what? Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 29:08
Hey, thank you

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for everything you did to me.

Unknown Speaker 29:12
And I think you know, and I think that in the beginning was an ego thing. Like I just wanted to like he's gonna feel like what? Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 29:22
But literally, because the it was probably the most difficult time of my life, but not the worst. Couldn't even imagine.

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Like when I look back to those six to eight, yeah, six months, I laugh. Like we have so many beautiful men. We we spend a lot of beautiful moments together with my family, with doctors, with

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and look at us now. We would not even be having this conversation, which is again a nice conversation, if that didn't happen. The

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book would not be here if it didn't happen. I will literally just say, "Hey, thank you.

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That easy.

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I hold no grudges. How did you get to that place?

Unknown Speaker 30:04
Because, like, I mean, in the hospital, in the in rehab, like, there must have been times you were like, "This sucks.

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One time, one time that, and that was the first night, because that was also the first night that I slept alone when I was in rehab,

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and

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I, I remember thinking about why did this happen to me, and then I remember telling myself not Allah, but just having conversation with myself, like, don't go there.

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You're going to a dark place with those with those thoughts, don't go there.

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Talking louder to the voice that is negative in your day. We all have that kind of voice that tells you when you're running. Okay, quit running. Stop. Good. Just talk louder. Talk a lot. And

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I had a lot of people counting on me. Like I feel a lot of responsibility to my wife, to my family, to friends. This has never been just about me. Like everything after everything that they went through, the only thing I had to do was just get done. And again, like

Unknown Speaker 31:19
I've always been super grateful about about life, like, and when you're too focused on the ego thing, and it's a bad thing, and why does this happen? Why me? Why me? Why me? You just focus on the negative, like me. Just focus on it. Was it easy enough? Of course, I had a lot of moments while I was thinking, like, okay, why does it? Why does this happen to me in life?

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Did it? Didn't I? go through enough already.

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But again, the world doesn't owe you nothing. It's not because you went to something that all of a sudden you need to be you're gonna be successful. Unfortunately, you know what, boohoo,

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need a fun in it,

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make the best out of it. I do have a question about regret.

Unknown Speaker 32:03
Do you regret not wearing a helmet? No. Do you wear a helmet now? Every day. Great.

Unknown Speaker 32:12
Every day. And you know what? There were moments too past past it that I didn't wear. I literally posted a video today. I think there's a doctor that reacted that I know very well right now. That took me.

Unknown Speaker 32:24
That was there when I was in coma. That reacted. Oh, hey, I see you didn't wear a helmet, but I wear almost every day. No, every day. Wear helmet every day. Yep. You don't want to go through all that again. There will there will be other

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trials and tribulations in your life, that will give you this motivation

Unknown Speaker 32:44
and all this positivity that you're talking about. But you do not need another traumatic brain injury, my friend.

Unknown Speaker 32:52
There will be other things.

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You don't need to do that again.

Unknown Speaker 32:58
Yeah,

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Vincent is the eternal optimist my depressy Jesse little brain wishes it could be?

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I really believe that there is not a whole lot in this life that could happen to him to bring him down. This thing called life,

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I fucking love it with all my heart, with my when my sales everything from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, I love the struggles, I love the challenges, I love the adversity, I love also the beautiful thing. I love the espresso in the morning. I love the jug, even when it doesn't go well. I love everything about it. You cannot do what I do. Having this energy, by the way, I worked already the whole day. I went working out. You cannot do what I do if you do not love what you're doing. Losing

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is part of the game.

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Same, same for for us. Like, and we got just so good, especially in 2026. We got so good at

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losing. Is a bad thing, and stigmatized, and

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failure is bad, and falling down is no. You'll fall. You'll fall more than you'll get up.

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You'll lose more than you'll win, which is okay.

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You know how many times I lost in my life, literally. By the way, losing a money,

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energy, my health, businesses, my mom, friends, family. You know how many things I lost, but it's part of it's part of the game. Yeah, I made it. I made it my framework, and I'm gonna, you know, I just want to encourage you to use it. And to everyone listening, but

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I have this. I started this framework about living a successful life,

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which

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is pretty easy. So at the end of by your day, just started.

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So at the end of today, before you put yourself in front of Netflix, before you go for dinner, just take one minute to ask yourself these three simple questions:

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1am, I truly happy, like truly? Two, did I do everything I wanted and had to do today? And three, was I better today than I was yesterday?

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If you're able to tell yourself yes to those three questions as many days as possible, I can guarantee you that whatever you're chasing in life,

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you'll get

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it. Vincent wrote a book called Everything feels impossible until it's done. How the life you build becomes the life that saves you, and I will have a link to buy his book in the show notes.

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This is Live to Tell.

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I'm Caitlin Van Mol.

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You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Live to Tell podcast.

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If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. It really helps the show.

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I'll see you in two weeks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai