Austin Hatch
Austin Hatch is one in a million. Scratch that. One in 3.4 million. Those were odds that an MIT statistician gave of him surviving the plane crash that killed his mom and two siblings. But then, just days after being accepted to play basketball for his dream school, the University of Michigan, Austin was in a second plane crash – this one claiming the lives of his dad Steve and his step-mom Julie. Yet with all this loss, Austin has found a way to keep living by finding ways to honor the family he loved. His gratitude for life and his message of creating your legacy every day has inspired people all over the world to reconcile living while coping with tragedy.
Powered by RedCircle
In this episode:
Legacy is your day to day actions.
The importance of staying busy in the wake of tragedy, loss and trauma.
Honoring the life of someone you lost by contributing to the world.
Living a life that is defined by what is beyond tragedy.
Stay connected to Austin:
Website: www.austin-hatch.com
LinkedIn: Austin Hatch
Twitter: @AustinHatch30
Charity: Erin’s House
Wise Words:
Legacy doesn’t just start when we die. I think you build your legacy by how you live every single day. It’s not like when you’re gone then all of a sudden people are going to start to think very highly of you and start to really respect you and admire you as a family. It’s like the hope would be that people feel that way about you when you’re also here. Then if by chance you tragically go onto a better place, it’s like it’s how you’re remembered, if that makes sense.
It’s very important to have other things to focus on because if the only thing that’s going on in your life is the tragedy or the loss of loved ones or what have you, your mind will naturally just revert back to that because if you don’t have anything else, what else are you going to think about?
Obviously, it’s healthy to grieve, to some degree, but I think only grieving the loss doesn’t really honor them in any way.
You have to keep living and you have to find reasons to add value to the world and contribute to civilization and find ways you can honor those you’ve, unfortunately, lost.
The story alone doesn’t help people, it doesn’t help anybody, but it’s how you respond to your particular story, particular challenges, that’s where you can help people.