So take me back to your first accident in Vietnam and how
you, from what I understand,
I mean and from what I can imagine you had a "portal-like"
reality check almost? Yeah.
How did you,
how did you, find it in yourself to continue as opposed to give up?
I don't think anyone would have blamed you if you'd just decided to... I think everyone
expected me to give up.
Like I was able even like to show this video over because
I think like I got hit and I blew up, like and I look
so weird in it.
I had just come out of the accident and I took
my helmet off and I was like, I need to record
what just happened. And like my whole body was inflamed so
I look really weird in it and I don't share it that often
but it's like, a very real moment.
Where, yeah, I was driving,
I thought I would do the northern loop of Vietnam just like
as a practice run. It's called the "Ha Giang Loop" and it's a
very very beautiful extremely dramatic and rugged mountain
pass that takes about three or four days to complete.
I thought "oh, that sounds like a good warm-up" and
I'm so like, so dumb for thinking that would be easy.
And so I bought the motorcycle and I strap in,
then I had everything ready and then you know, I did buy
a proper helmet. And I think it was my second day
riding I got, I was totally hit by a truck. What actually
happened is like, one truck
came at me and blocked my path from another truck and I
slammed into the back of it and spun out and then I got up
and if you've ever been a Vietnam the highways are just the worst.
It's not like the Vietnam downtown. The highways,
they have these extremely dangerous truck drivers who try
to make deadlines.
So they're just always passing each other and always kind
of, just making a pass. So I immediately got up and like
with like the adrenaline rush I grab my motorcycle and
dragged it across because it was all messed up. I dragged it across
the highway to the side of the road
I like immediately kind of got dizzy and kind of just fell
on the side of the road and I was like, "what am I doing here?
I'm so dumb, like this was so dangerous."
And I'm like, I'm definitely messed up like this is just
doesn't feel right and out of nowhere, like all of these
all of these people from like that village.
They were just people who lived on the side of the
highway all just came out and they brought a stool and
they're all started fussing over me and none of them spoke
English and I didn't I only spoke like, I know only how to say like
"hello" and "thank you" in Vietnamese. So like they're all
just like rubbing tiger balm on like the sore parts of my
body, which I think, like, my girlfriend's Chinese, she's
like, of course they were! I mean like that's what every Asian
mom would do! Rub tiger balm all over it the bruised parts
and I was like, yeah, it's right here and they were rubbing
it on and that's when I got the video, I was like, I think I
just broke something. I broke my clavicle or something
here. I can't move my arm, and I don't know what I'm going
to do, I'm hours from anywhere where anyone speaks English
and this was in 2017.
So even that northern loop is very, like, not a lot of people
did, not a lot of foreigners.
So like I knew that I wouldn't see a, like an English-speaking
person for days.
I was like, what am I going to do?
So I mean, I'll cut the story short, but I ended up in like
this like very communist-style hospital in the north. It was
very open concept.
Like they gave me. I found a way to find someone like
he was like the guy who manages the money
of the hospital was how he explained it. So he's kind of like
the accountant. And he actually spoke a couple words of English,
and he's like "where are you from, you're broken.
This is broken.
Okay, I'll take you." And he kind of helped me out in like the moment
of darkness and I actually gave up from being in the hospital
for like 2 hours and no one could help me and there was a
dog in the X-ray room!
Like, a dog wandered into the X-ray room.
Like that was like the conditions
I was working with. It was such an isolated place. So, when you gave up,
had you decided then that you were going to go home? Right.
So I'm broken shouldered. I get the X-ray back.
I'm like, alright, fully broken shoulder and I don't know.
They don't know what to tell me because they can't really translate
it. We didn't have Google translate on any of our phones,
even so it wouldn't explain it. I took that the
guy was like you could, you stay with me, come with me.
And so I stayed at this random guys family's house.
I slept in his bed and his like he wouldn't let me not sleep
in his bed, like him and his wife and his kid
like slept in this pull out thing.
They gave me a beer and they had internet and so I like accessed
it. Sent the photo off to like a couple of my doctor friends.
Doctor friends who could actually tell me like in detail
what is going on with my broken clavicle.
They're like, yeah man, like you're stuck for like 6
weeks. Like you can't move. Don't ride a motorcycle.
Don't go anywhere. Just stay there. And I'm in a place
no one speaks English and except for this one guy. And I'm like, what am I going to do?
Sit around here in pain for like 6 weeks and I thought I just
got to keep going.
I just have to grin and bare it and keep riding around this
loop. I came here.
I made this decision.
I've changed my life for this.
I'm going to keep riding.
So the next day, so sore.
I can move my hand a bit like this.
I can go like that.
I just got him to take me back to the motorcycle.
We found it on the side of the road.
I was able to kind of like fix it up at a
shop and off I went.
He was like "don't go!!" like, I was like, I have to go!
I can't explain it to you but I just can't stay here.
This is like something out of a movie! I can't believe you're telling me all of this.
It was crazy.
It was like there was no other choice.
It was so much pain. No matter what. Anyone with a broken clavicle
knows that like just sleeping, anything you do hurts, and I thought
if I'm going to just sit around I might as well be sitting
on a motorcycle.
I just cannot.
Get hit again.
What about the risks that you would get hit again?
How did you get over that?
I know it was a bad.
Any doctors and anyone watching this
are going to be like that was the dumbest thing I've ever heard
in my life. And it was! But it was just a gamble I took
because I thought like, yeah, I wanted it and I was there
and I can wanted this my entire life and I know everyone's
waiting for me to be like, well, I'm just going to sit around
and wait. I was like, no. I can do this.
I'm just need to be really careful.
I need to watch myself.
I need to try it at half the speed and I can make it through
the next 3 or 4 days around this northern mountain pass. Very
bumpy, but you I can make it back to Hanoi.
Where I'll actually rest for a week.
And so I did it. It's almost like when you're in the middle
of something, you've almost hit the endpoint and you just
get hit by like the worst situation, but you like I just
got to finish just let me finish.
So that was the feeling, I did it.
I recovered in Hanoi and then I continued to ride for the
next eight months with like a very sore shoulder.
It's wild. People like to watch it.
They definitely weren't living vicariously that time!
They're definitely like "I'm so glad I didn't do something
like that" Until you just sort of like, from my experience,
I think I remember that crash, but I think I blocked it
out of my head.
I went back to my own life.
And then when I came back back up for air it's like holy
crap. Ben is a big deal.
He's a big deal in this field now and you've
got like an entire portfolio to speak for it.
I wouldn't say that
I'm a big deal.
I think you are, I tried to use your work last year for one of
my clients, remember that?
Thank you.
Anyways. I work really hard and I would say these things.
I would say that I've improved enormously from when I began.
I think because and I think a lot of people can take something
out of this interview is the reason why I improved
so quickly and I actually became kind of a decent photographer
is not because I'm good or anything or I know what I'm doing.
It's because I've just immersed myself completely. And you
know, I saved up enough to take that jump and make that
risk and do it
at the max level on a motorcycle by myself.
I've no other distractions.
It's just me and my motorcycle and my camera taking the most authentic
photos I possibly can find. And so, by the time I was done,
I felt like I could kind of compete with the big photographers
out there and like I can kind of hold a candle to it now,
but I'm still have so much to learn. You're humble, I appreciate that. That's
why we get along, because I'm not. Just kidding.
Would you recommend to anybody watching this who might be
thinking, their
on the verge of taking a leap of faith to completely
surround themselves in like, and set themselves up on a new
path. Would you recommend sort of just jumping right in?
Yes.
Totally.
I think you have this experience as well as that you just
you won't know. There's some people out there and I mean
my sister included and she's very much a planner. My
older of the two younger sisters I have and she spend so
much time.
I've already talked to her earlier in this interview.
Is she spends so much time thinking about things and over
planning it and the truth is I think the more successful
people out
there are the ones who dive in without planning too much.
I mean have some basic rules and basic plan.
I mean I had to plan to a certain extent. I need to have the
right equipment when I left my last life into the new career.
I had to have a decent amount of savings that I saved up.
So I have that cushion.
I'm able to not make money for 6 months.
Like I had to be ready for that. To be completely on a
budget, very tight. And just jump in and it don't think too
much about it.
Because time is ticking time is valuable.
I think any entrepreneur can also attest to that your
time is money.
Like you don't have enough hours in the day to to cover everything
that you want to do.
So that applies to life in general. Every moment that you're
out there building somebody else's dream or doing a job that
you really don't like is another hour loss that you could
be doing something that you truly love.