00:00:00 Sayan: There are moments that don't just change your life, but they almost split. Split it into two. You know, before the accident, before the illness, before the collapse. And then after, when you are forced to ask a question, most people avoid. If I survive this, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? And tonight, somewhere down the line, somewhere down the conversation, we are talking about healing that isn't cosmetic, but a healing that rebuilds identity from scratch.

00:00:37 Sayan: Welcome back to another episode of Healing Horizons, the space where we explore what healing really looks like when life has been heavy and hope has felt far away. I'm Ryan, and today I'm joined by Kellan Fluckiger, whose story includes addiction, depression, public collapse, and a near-death experience in the ICU that became a turning point towards purpose. So I invite you to join me in this conversation where we will be exploring what happens after the worst moment and how despair gets healed. So if you've ever been on that path and you have seen how suffering can become a pathway to something real, this conversation would absolutely be for you. So, uh, Kellan, welcome to the show. Uh, it's a pleasure to have you here with me today. I'm actually planning to learn something from your lived experience. And it's, it's a pleasure to have you here because, uh, I mean, that's, that's the kind of lived experience very few people, uh, I mean, you know, would, would have the privilege, uh, to have in their life and to get to talk about it. It's an honor. So before we even talk about the ICU moment, I'm curious as to when you think back to the version of you right before everything broke open, what what were you protecting? What were you trying not to feel?

00:01:52 Kellan Fluckiger: Well, you know, I need a little bit of more backstory because there were two events, one in two thousand and seven and one in twenty eighteen. So in I I'm seventy today. In two thousand and seven, I was fifty two. And. Uh, up to that point, I had lived a very successful life as an executive and making lots of money, etc. but I also had depression, depression, addiction and problems and had attempted suicide a couple of times. So, uh, and in August of two thousand and seven, I had an awakening, a divine intervention, an awakening. But this was not the near-death experience. and that awakening was really powerful. And I won't tell the story now about that one, because we don't have time. But it caused me to walk away from the career. Uh, it it was an out of body. I'll tell a little bit. It was an out of body experience. I went to bed. Um. I left the body. I was in a big theater room, and on the stage before me was all the scenes from my life. Negative things that had happened to me. Childhood abuse, a bunch of stuff. But then also all the suffering that I had inflicted on other people as a bad dad, as an addict, as a liar, as all the things that were part of my life. And, uh, a voice simply said to me, it is enough. And I woke up and realized by looking at the clock that eighteen hours had gone and the intensity of that experience, witnessing all those things is beyond my ability to describe. So that event got me sober. I walked away from my career. I walked away from drugs and everything, and at the same time, a couple of weeks later, by miraculous intervention, the woman that I married to now came into my life in a miraculous way. And that's another story that contains some things that can't happen, but did, like the divine voice that you need to marry this woman. And I didn't know her very well. And a bunch of crazy stuff was kind of funny. So she, she, uh, took the, you know, she felt like it was the right thing to do and she jumped in. And so from two thousand and seven on, I walked away from an entire career of thirty years. I had been in the C-suite executive big shot, you know, all that sort of nonsense, and had ruined mine and several lives. So including three divorces and just a bunch of stuff. So Joy and I started out in a new life, and she took a chance because she felt it was right on somebody that was sober for fifteen minutes. And, you know, we started building from there. And so between two thousand and seven and twenty eighteen, those eleven years I began to write books. I wrote a book about my own journey, tightrope of depression. I did a lot of work internally. I got some counseling. I went to rehab. I did think the things that you would expect a person to do who's trying to fix things and sort of all at once, and it was a lot of work and a lot of struggle, and we were successful. So I wrote some books. I established a coaching practice and was moving along. In building that, and in twenty eighteen, after eleven years of, you know, gradually building a business and a practice, doing something completely different than I'd ever done before, thirty years as an executive and something completely unrelated. No writing, no authorship, no coaching, no, none of that. And so in twenty eighteen, Joy and I went on a cruise, and somewhere in that thing, I'd never been on one before. but we went on a cruise and somewhere in there I got sick and right at the end. And so I went in the hospital and it was terrifying. It was a fatal illness. And the story about how that happened is also terrifying but funny. When I, I, we got home from the cruise on a Tuesday and I was sick, a fever and sick as a dog. And I just thought, well, you know, it'll go away. I have the flu. So I didn't go in the hospital right away. And we waited two or three days and by Friday I was sick. I thought, this is not okay. So I tried to go to one of the walk in clinics that they have here in Canada, and they wouldn't let me in. They took one look at me and said, we can't do anything. Get out of here, go to the emergency, get lost. So we did. And, you know, in the emergency room, in any hospital, depending on how busy it is, you might sit there for an hour or two or three or four or whatever, right. In ten minutes I was in a private room. Like I'd never heard of such a thing. Like right now. They took a look at me and said, you know, okay. So then they admitted me to the hospital and then the doctor. Then they did X-rays and a bunch of tests, and the doctor kept coming back into the room with worse and worse news. So first he came back and said, you have pneumonia in both lungs, but there's something else going on. It's horrifying. He came back a little while later and said, yeah, we're going to move you to the intensive care, the ICU. Uh, okay. And I had sent Joy home by then because I was in the hospital and she was going to come back the next day. We have animals, a couple of dogs and cats, and she was going home, take care of them and do all that stuff. So then he came back and said, um, yeah, we're going to move you to the ICU. Okay. Then he came back. They hadn't moved me yet. They came back and said, yeah, we're going to, um, put you in biological isolation. Now you got to think masks and gowns and double doors, like two doors to get like that. And I'm like, okay. And then he came back one final time and said, do we have permission to intubate you and do anything we need to do to preserve your life? And I said, wow, what? Okay. And then I did, I went into meditation. I've been a long time practitioner of meditation, and five of the books that I've written are on that. So I went into deep meditation and I could feel something in my body that I'd never felt before. I could feel like a zipper. I could feel my body and spirit unzipping. So I knew I was dying. And so I picked up my phone and by then I could barely.

00:08:05 Sayan: How does. How does that feel? Like that.

00:08:09 Sayan: Experience.

00:08:10 Kellan Fluckiger: It feels just like unzipping a jacket. I can't describe it. I could feel the unwinding of the two. You could just feel the disentanglement of the soul from the body. And it felt just like a zipper. A slow, not fast, but. So I was scared and I picked up my phone and by then I was. The illness was so powerful I could barely hold the phone, but I sent a text. To Joy that had three lines and this is like eleven or twelve at night. So she was asleep. That said, uh, I see you. And the second line said isolation slash intubation. And the third line is, I may be dying. She didn't see it because she was asleep. I don't remember anything now. Outside for the next seventeen days. I was in a coma for seventeen days. So somewhere after that, they moved me to the ICU and I flatlined. So I actually died. I was done flatline on the monitors. And about two thirty in the morning she got a call. Joy got a call from the hospital, the one you never want to get. And the nurse said to her, are you coming? And she said, what, because she was going to come back on Saturday morning. You know, thinking that was okay. Then she saw my text and she answered me with a line I'll never forget. I didn't see it for three weeks, but she answered me with not on my watch. Okay. So anyway, um, after I flatlined, this was the experience. So then I woke up. I was horizontal, like I was in the ICU, but I wasn't, I didn't see all the tubes and I was actually strapped to a, strapped to a bed, restrained and full of tubes and stuff. And the only reason I know all that is joy took a picture after she got down there and. I sat up and the room was kind of grey, kind of like photocard grey, just a little foggy. But I looked over my left shoulder and I could see a doorway and I didn't have a door, but it was just a doorway and it was kind of over there. And for some reason, I wanted to be at the doorway. And so without moving, I was standing at the doorway and I was leaning on the door jamb on my right shoulder, and through the doorway, I could see someone else on the other side leaning on that door jamb. So like literally that close. And I noticed that my side of the door was kind of light gray, kind of like this jacket about this color kind of foggy. And the other side of the doorway was white and it wasn't like streaming through or anything. It was white on that side and gray on this side. And the guy that was on that side, leaning on that door jamb, looked at me after a while and said, do you want to come home? And you know, in the way that you know things like, you know them there. I knew who I was talking to. I knew what the doorway was. I knew what the question meant all in a flash. And it was interesting because the energy wasn't. That the decision should be one or the other. You can decide. But you. There was going to be an answer like you knew that you had to answer the question, right? You couldn't not answer the question. That wasn't an option. Nothing was said, but you just sort of knew that. So we talked for a while about what I'd been doing in those eleven years, the books I'd written, the work that I'd done, the work that I was trying to do in the world. And I thought about joy and all the things that had happened to us and that were growth and good and stuff. And finally I shook my head and I said, I'm not, I'm not done. And he said, okay. And I'm quite sure that's when they were able to restart my heart in the ICU. And, you know, all the frantic stuff that happens, people jumping up on the table and doing all the stuff. I didn't wasn't aware of any of that, but that's when they restarted my heart. So the next day and people always ask, how do you know it was the next day? It was the next day. Okay, I don't know how I know that, but the next day I'm back at the door. Physically, I'm in a hospital bed, in a coma with my heart restarted. But the next day I'm back at the door. Same posture, leaning on the door jamb and he's back there. And so he said, okay, you're staying. So now what are you going to do? And so we talked about what I'd been doing and the books that I'd written and what I planned to do and my coaching practice and how I was trying to. The phrase I use is add good to the world, do good stuff that matters, help people, and so forth. Then all of a sudden, uh, the scene changed. I, I went somewhere and I don't know if any of your listeners have ever seen a movie that was made in the nineties. That's thirty years ago. So maybe not, but it was a movie called contact about aliens.

00:13:13 Sayan: Uh oh, yeah.

00:13:15 Kellan Fluckiger: Have you seen that?

00:13:16 Sayan: You know, I've heard about it. It's a pretty.

00:13:18 Sayan: Pretty good one. I should definitely watch it.

00:13:20 Kellan Fluckiger: The reason, the only reason I refer to that is because the experience that Jodie Foster had going through the universe is the only thing I can say. That even sort of was like, what happened? I was moved through the universe at incredible speed and saw scenes of, uh, just infinite creation and power and stuff that I couldn't comprehend. And I remember feeling at the time, like if I hadn't been in some kind of a protective bubble, I would have literally been obliterated, incinerated by the, by all the inputs, like fire hose, just seeing and witnessing, being witness to all the infinite stuff. And that felt like it went on for a long, long time. And obviously, I don't know how long because time doesn't mean anything there. But so after a time, I'm back at the door feeling completely breathless And I realized as we stood there, I knew four things. Number one, every one of us, you, me, every one of your listeners, we're. You're a divine being, created intentionally from love by the divine. Whatever name you give that divine. You. You are that. The second thing is you have a mission and purpose that you not only agreed to, but you were stoked about. You were excited about before you came here. You have that. Three all the gifts and talents that you need to do that mission and to enjoy it. You have been given and for all the help we need is available from both sides of that door. And I knew those things written in my heart like pillars of fire. So I said, okay, since that's true and I didn't speak the pillars out loud, they were just there. But what I did say is, okay, since that's true, why do we settle for crumbs?

00:15:24 Sayan: Mhm.

00:15:25 Kellan Fluckiger: And I don't know if in the economy of heaven, brevity is a virtue, but the answer was four words. And he looked at me and he said, because you don't believe. And I so I felt like, duh, I didn't facepalm. I thought about it. But anyway, I said, okay. Of course I said, what can I do in my work? What can I do about that? And he said, oh, glad you asked. So then what came is another framework built on those four pillars that I wrote in a second. So I wrote a book about this experience called Meeting God at the Door conversations, Choices and Commitments of a Near Death Experience. But the framework that came then was a tool, a process about how to identify and change those beliefs that we have about ourselves, about what's possible, about who we are, about what we're made for, about what we can do, what we can't do, how to identify those and change them. And I wrote that in a companion book called The Book of Context, because the word context is the surrounding energy and thinking that we have about everything, right? Some person goes out on a rainy day and hates it because it ruined their life. Another person goes out on the same day, and it's a beautiful day because they were waiting for rain for the garden. It's context. So that book of context is about that, and it's about the process that came in, that revelation about how to identify and change those beliefs anyway. So that felt like a really, really, really, really, really long conversation. Again, I have no idea how many minutes because again, time means nothing there. So then that was over and then the third day I came back for the third conversation and I came back excited. I was bouncing up and down. I was stoked and repeating all that stuff in my head about everything that we had already talked about. And we stood there again, and the third day was again, just one question. He looked at me and he said, are you sure? And I felt like a balloon with all the air let out of me. I thought, well, what do you mean, am I sure? AM I stupid? AM I biting off more than I can chew? Or did I miss something? Like what am I sure. And so we talked about all those questions from every angle, you know, could I do this? What's possible? You know, all that stuff. And I felt fine. And finally, finally, when we were done talking about that, I said, yeah, I'm sure. And so he said, okay. And that was the end of the conversation. And nothing was said. but it ended with a finality, just the energy that I knew. I knew we were done. So that was the end of the three conversations. And assuming. Assuming that was three days like I described it. Then fourteen days later after that I was awakened or came out of a coma. And with every piece of that as clear as anything. But during that coma, I had lost thirty five pounds. I looked like a concentration camp survivor. Uh, I have a picture of it, and it's horrifying. You know, I can barely stand up. I couldn't walk, I couldn't sit in a chair more than five minutes because everything was so exhausting. And I, um, again, was they had been just filling me with every chemical known to man. Uh, one of them was, uh, something they call the antibiotic of last resort. I didn't know they had such a thing, but I was full of that. So that's that was the seventeen days. And then I was moved. Finally out of five days later, I was moved out of the ICU. So that was like twenty three or four days. And then some more days later, I finally went home from the hospital. So I spent not quite a month in the hospital, most of it unconscious, and had that experience. So that is that is what happened. And you can now ask whatever else you want to about that. So that's what happened to me.

00:19:34 Sayan: Wow, that's a stunning story. And I wouldn't be wrong if I say you almost spent a lifetime in that hospital. Kellan if I'm honest. Right?

00:19:44 Kellan Fluckiger: It felt like it. It felt like it.

00:19:47 Sayan: Yeah. Wow. I mean, there's definitely something about finding purpose, you know, after a tragedy. I mean, if you are lucky enough to survive, uh, one such. Right. And it's kind of amazing to have this conversation, I must say, because I have had very few conversations personally in my life. Uh, I just remember one, I just know someone, uh, she's a friend of our relative. Uh, but yeah, that's, that's the kind of, you know, curiosity that conversations like this usually bring. Uh, the other person in the other person when you know, somebody speaking from their lived experience. So I, I believe, you know, a lot of us struggle to find purpose in life, you know, rather than be with or without tragedy. So for everyone who's listening to this right now, what would you say to them? You know, like you said, you are already sent into this world with with a purpose and the skills that that are within you to, you know, achieve that whatever you want to do with life. But, uh, you know, someone who is not aware of that, uh, but still Harvard wants to know himself or herself better. You know, where's where's that stepping stone for that individual?

00:21:06 Kellan Fluckiger: So it's easier than you think. And here's the secret. You're not going to find it on a safari. You're not going to dig it up in the yard. It's not going to come in a package from DHL or Fedex or Amazon on your door. Your purpose doesn't come like that. You choose it. You choose a purpose. All that description, knowing that we have one and that we're divine. And you're a holy being and your infinite worth. And you have a reason to be here. And you have gifts and talents. And you're made out of love and you are loved. That doesn't give you a purpose. A purpose is the manner in which you choose to make those gifts and be of service in the world. So I took all that. I took my history of addiction. I took my, you know, walking away from a thirty year career in the middle of a contract worth millions. Just. I walked away from all of it. And that was the two thousand and seven part. And and this, this dying and and having this conversation with God was a blessing. Yeah, it was hard. And I my body disappeared. And I have spent now seven, eight years trying to get, you know, my lungs back and I'll never have my lung capacity back because they were ruined. They told me it was the worst case of pneumonia they'd ever seen. Okay, fine. And it's not healthy and it's not okay. My lungs, I mean, I don't care. The purpose I've chosen, I have chosen is to share what I know from my history of addiction, of failure, and then of creating success about how you create your life. And that's why I've written twenty three or twenty four books. It's all about that choice, those choices and how to do it. I have a book about forgiveness. And what about walking without Fear? And, you know, all of those kinds of things so that we can choose because you can make out of your life whatever you want to. You don't sit in a chair and say, well, someday I'll flip and find my purpose and then I'll know what to do and be motivated. Nonsense. Look at your life. Your purpose comes from what? Your lived experience. What has happened in your life that matters to you. Every like, one of the things I do is help people write books, write their own stories, and what we do is go through their lives. What has happened to you? What's been a struggle? What has hurt? What have you overcome? Like where have you developed these gifts already? Because you have them, but they come undeveloped. Somebody might be a musical genius, but if they don't ever play the piano or write music or do anything, then so what? Right. And so the gifts that we have are all undeveloped. Their talents, their, their, their nascent. And it's up to us to choose them and tend to go develop them. And what we often want to do is we want to have the end all set out. Okay, if I do these ten things, then I'm going to have all this money and all this influence, and here's what it's going to look like. Nonsense.

00:24:05 Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:24:06 Kellan Fluckiger: One step at a time. Look at your life. Decide you're going to live on purpose. Look at your life, your experiences, and see what calls to you. And it's not going to be some weird thing. It's going to be based on what you've been through.

00:24:22 Sayan: Absolutely. That's. Yeah, I really love the, you know, kind of wisdom and honesty that you're bringing into this conversation because it really reminds me of nothing, you know, comes to you the freeway, right? Nothing in life. You, you have to you have to, you know, seek for for what you want. Like you said, if somebody could, you know, add music, but hasn't have played the piano, then then so what? Right. And I think that that that really hit for me. And I think that's the, perhaps the, I would say the best note to wrap this conversation up on as well. So for all the listeners who are listening to this right now, folks, if there's one thing that I would like you to walk away with this is that purpose isn't what you discover when life is easy or hard. It's what you choose when you stop abandoning yourself. So that's the thought that I would like you to sit with, ponder about for the next few minutes as we wrap up. And, uh, since we're nearing the minute, Mark would quickly love to ask for listeners who want to follow your work, read your books, or I mean, hear more about this fascinating story, where's the best place for them to find you? And you know, what would you like them to? I mean, uh, point towards them.

00:25:32 Kellan Fluckiger: So I'm easy to find because when you have a name like Kellan Fluckiger, you can't hide. Okay, there are two in the world out of eight point two billion people. And the other one is my son. So you can't you can't not find me on Amazon or I have a podcast called your ultimate Life, Your Ultimate Life. And we have nearly eleven hundred episodes and there might be solo ones and there me interviewing people. So follow me on any social. And if you say I can't find you, then you're not looking because. Kellan Fluckiger there's only one of me old and then one that's thirty or thirty years younger. So that's it. And so follow me there. I look on Amazon for my books. My website is my name. There's some free stuff there if you want it. Kellan fluckiger dot com. If you want to have everything all at once, there's a page called Kellan Fluckiger media dot com. And there's pictures of all the books and the podcasts and all that kind of stuff. So I'm not hard to find. And I'd love to if, you know, I have tons of videos, a thousand YouTube videos and a thousand eight, almost eleven hundred podcast episodes. So there's plenty of stuff for you to go find and discover. Does that help?

00:26:54 Sayan: That's wonderful. Yeah. That does that does indeed do more than help, I would say. So I'll give you the details in the show notes for everyone so you can easily find. Kellen and folks with that, uh, this conversation unfortunately comes to an end. However, if this episode did stir something in you, don't rush past it. Uh, maybe take one quiet moment or a minute after this, uh, maybe hand on your chest just to feel that, uh, not just your life, but find yourself in, in those moments, what I call those micro moments, you know, one deep breath and ask yourself, where have I been surviving or when I'm meant to be living? This is healing horizons. And my name is cyan. And if you're still here and still listening, something in you hasn't given up. We'll meet again in the next episode.