Tina Jennen, who was in a car crash earlier this year. Photo/Andrew Warner
Tina Jennen, who was in a car crash earlier this year. Photo/Andrew Warner
Most people wouldn't wake up in a hospital bed with all four limbs broken and count themselves lucky.
But Tauranga businesswoman and mother-of-four Tina Jennen did - feeling lucky she was alive and lucky she didn't have any head or internal injuries.
It is this positive spin that Tina puts on life that saw her leave hospital just four weeks after a horrific car crash that nearly took her life, and delivering a speech in a wheelchair on stage to hundreds of conference-goers only two months after going home.
Tina arrives at her latest speaking engagement, the Wonder Women speaker series hosted by Tauranga law firm Lyon O'Neale Arnold, exuding optimism, her knee resting on a hospital scooter. She has only had the scooter for a day but has already mastered it and is manoeuvring through the crowd with ease.
Wonder Women is a free quarterly speaker series established by lawyer Denise Arnold to get women together to share ideas and form friendships, while listening to inspirational speakers.
Tonight there is a full house. Some people have even turned up on the off-chance there will be some no-shows and they will get a seat.
Everyone is keen to hear about the 'magic' behind Tina's rapid recovery - which she is quick to attribute to her "entrepreneurial spirit".
"Through and through, what I've discovered over the four and a half months since the accident is that it's my entrepreneurial spirit that gets me out of bed in the morning," she says.
On January 10, just days after returning from a relaxed family holiday up north, Tina was driving to a business meeting from Katikati when a car crossed the centreline and crashed into her car head-on. The driver of the other car had fallen asleep at the wheel, and the impact was so severe she had to be cut free from her car.
"I don't remember the accident but remarkably I was still able to say my name and other personal details. Apparently I knew who I was but I didn't have any idea that I had been in an accident," says Tina.
I realised I just needed to have my regular dose of entrepreneurial spirit - it's my favourite elixir - and it's an elixir I naturally create inside myself. It's a mindset. It's an attitude.
Her first memory is waking up after surgery with six broken bones, with her partner and four children at her bedside.
After years of advising entrepreneurs about how to overcome obstacles and manage change, she was suddenly and unexpectedly faced with having to take her own advice.
"I'm actually really, really good at crisis management. I have been doing change work in business for quite a few years, which means I've dealt with receiverships and acquisitions and mergers, all the messy stuff where we don't have the answers and we have to make really hard decisions. So the crisis side felt quite normal," says Tina.
She knew the key to moving forward was harnessing her fear, but putting that into practice took some mental gymnastics.
"I'm looking at my four children who are thinking, 'You nearly died' and they saw this crushed car and there was a lot of stuff in the press and it wasn't something I could reframe very easily," she says.
What helped Tina and her family push through that fear was an unsolicited visit from the driver of the other car.
"He was also in the emergency room that night and when he saw all of the people around me and the children, he said, 'Is she okay? I'm so sorry I fell asleep at the wheel.' He was so hurt by this terrible mistake that he made and it was the beginning of us having the courage as a family to really deal with and focus on the right things.
"Sometimes when bad things happen we focus on the wrong things which actually aren't going to help us get through it," says Tina.
"Facing my fear was really about saying, 'If he can do it, if he could have the courage to face his own fear and to own something that significant then I can face my fear'."
In her astute business mind it was a problem-solving exercise and the next piece of the puzzle was working out how she was going to "propel herself forward".
It was when her son Jason showed her a video clip from when she hurtled down a sand dune on a boogie board during their holiday that things clicked into place.
"All of a sudden, I thought, 'Just because I have broken bones and I'm bedridden doesn't mean that my spirit is gone. I'm still that person, it's still inside me. I just need to leverage it differently. So that's what I did," says Tina.
Tina Jennen was in a car accident near Katikati in Tauranga Hospital. Photo/George Novak
"I realised I just needed to have my regular dose of entrepreneurial spirit - it's my favourite elixir - and it's an elixir I naturally create inside myself. It's a mindset. It's an attitude. It's an approach to thinking that actively seeks out change, rather than waiting and adapting to change."
Three weeks after the crash, Tina's tenacity saw her hosting an entrepreneurial workshop in the hospital garden. When it started to rain, she took the participants to the fourth floor visitor lounge.
"I was leading a summer student incubator for 10 students that needed to get ready for pitch practice. Pretty soon it was getting too lively because there were so many of us and we were having such a great time," says Tina.
"Entrepreneurship really is the last refuge of the troublemaking individual! I didn't mean to create such a ruckus, I just did. It was one day and I was promptly sent off to rest but it gave me the energy that I needed to keep propelling forward and to not get stuck in my fear. It was about getting to be back to my normal self, whatever that meant."
Sometimes when bad things happen we focus on the wrong things which actually aren't going to help us get through it.
Tina was told she would need to stay in hospital for 12 weeks - she was out in four. "My very first career was in political activism and let's just say that I used my skillset and my experience in governance to get out," she laughs. "I thought, 'If I'm in for 12 weeks, send me down to the psych ward because I'm just not wired that way. I need to move and live and it's too hard for my family as well."
Five weeks after the crash she attended a 7am Export BOP breakfast meeting where her daughter Katherine was speaking and the following week she convinced her partner, who is the chief executive of an innovation company, to go to a trade show in Chicago. "I did that for two reasons - one, I wasn't going to get any more immobile than I was in that moment and, two, I was bored to death and I needed something entrepreneurial to live vicariously through."
While he was away, she decided to stop taking all her pain medication. "I was quickly building capability because I wasn't feeling the whole picture. I was getting on my laptop trying to work way too much and was thinking, 'The only way I'm going to slow myself down is if I can feel everything more'."
Three weeks after the crash,Tina was hosting an entrepreneurial workshop in the hospital garden. Photo/Andrew Warner
When her cast on her right leg was removed at eight weeks and she was given a moonboot, she wore it once and got in a car the next day for Auckland to see motivational speaker Simon Sinek, who is one of her heroes.
"I had no idea how I was going to go down that Katikati highway. I was terrified. But I didn't tell anybody that I was scared they were going to go that way. I just waited and I let it go."
Tina believes the key to harnessing fear is curiosity, and her curiosity is what pushed her out the door that day.
"Curiosity is what grounds us in the present. Curiosity is what keeps us thinking about the now. It keeps us asking questions. It keeps us thinking about what discovery, what possibility, what are those things that I can learn about right here, right now in this moment? Even when I was bedridden."
Tina has started growing and developing new opportunities in the innovation and technology space again at Eurofins where she works, essentially creating a new job for herself.
"I can't drive to Katikati where my office is, so I started having the conversation with the Eurofins' board from my hospital bed in January and it's evolved from there," she says.
"I have been able to partially transition back to work in a role that leverages the best and most exciting part of my skills. It all comes down to entrepreneurial spirit, which is what has allowed me to get where I am in four months."
Her advice to others also encapsulates the core values she learned at Eurofins: "Be yourself, be great and be inspired."
Next week Tina is participating in a restorative justice conference with the driver of the other car to encourage further healing and closure for both parties. "Restorative justice is a really positive way for both parties to heal, forgive and grow as human beings, I can't wait!"
Wonder Women
Denise Arnold, the brainchild of Wonder Women. Photo/Andrew Warner
The brainchild of Tauranga lawyer Denise Arnold, of Lyon O'Neale Arnold, Wonder Women will celebrate its 10th anniversary next year.
Denise started the free quarterly speaker series after repeatedly hearing from Tauranga women about how difficult it was to meet and form friendships with other like-minded women.
"The name 'Wonder Women' has a dual meaning, embracing the superhero in all women and the bringing together of wonderful women. It is much more than a networking group. It is about the sisterhood of women, about supporting each other and forming genuine friendships," says Denise.
"We are very grateful to the inspirational women who give their time to speak at Wonder Women, and Tina is no exception. Tina proves that every cloud does in fact have a silver lining and the messages she has to share are ones that we could all take away and learn from. The motivation behind her recovery is quite remarkable."
Upcoming Wonder Women events: August 22 November 21 To find out more email ww@loalaw.nz
