When life suddenly changes, it can feel like everything is falling apart. You might wonder, Where do I find the strength to keep going? Resilience is about finding that courage inside yourself to face the hardest moments and keep moving forward no matter what.
In this episode of Actions Antidotes, we are joined by Kijuan Amey, founder of Amey Motivation—a U.S. Air Force veteran, speaker, author, and resilience coach who shares his powerful story of resilience following a life-changing motorcycle accident. Kijuan recounts his background in the Air Force, his transition to civilian life, and the fateful day in May 2017 that altered his life’s trajectory. He discusses the immediate aftermath of his accident, the extensive medical procedures and recovery process, and how he overcame the physical and emotional challenges to regain his sense of self-worth and purpose.
Kijuan’s journey from being in a medically induced coma to becoming a motivational speaker and author of Don’t Focus on Why Me offers valuable lessons on resilience, the importance of a supportive mindset, and finding direction after a dramatic life event. If you’ve ever faced a major setback or want to build your ability to bounce back from life’s ups and downs, this episode is for you.
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Resilience and Triumph: Overcoming Life-Altering Challenges with Kijuan Amey
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, I want to talk to you all about resilience, and resilience can mean a lot of different things, but if you go about your life long enough, eventually, you’ll have some sort of event, some sort of event happen to you, whether it be something like losing a job, losing a key family member, losing a good friend, and, in this particular case, an accident that can happen anytime you’re going about your day to day life that can really change your life’s trajectory. My guest today is Kijuan Amey and he has a story about an accident as well and his resilience around it. He is an Air Force veteran and a motivational speaker.
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Kijuan, welcome to the program.
Thank you so much for having me here, Stephen. I truly appreciate you having me on to speak about my story on your platform.
Well, thank you for your willingness to share your story with my audience. I know we’re all trying to be better people in one way or another or trying to achieve something, and it is a real big deal when something specific happens to you, so tell us a little bit about where your story begins.
This was May 5, 2017. I was, at the time, in the United States Air Force Reserve. I did four years active and I said, “I’m done with this.” I wanted to get away from that lifestyle, shall I say. And I think I made the best choice for me, personally. Other people, they love the active duty world, but I made the best decision for my life, and then not only just to be a reservist but to also go to school full time so I was pursuing my bachelor’s degree because I also wanted to become a pilot ultimately, and the job that I was doing in the Air Force was in-flight refueling and that’s where you refuel planes in midair. Amazing. To me, hands down, I think the best enlisted job I’ve ever heard. I don’t care what anybody says. So just amazing to see another plane fly up to you, right behind you as you’re flying in the air and you can refuel them, and I just call it a flying gas station, basically.
So, quickly, how did that work? Because I’m trying to picture it in my head now, the idea that one plane is flying and another one is kind of coming up. Does someone have to actually jump out of the airplane and connect it the way we fill up our cars at the gas station?
Yeah, no, if we had army guys on the plane, we would make them do that. But, no, we don’t do that.
Okay.
Yeah, no, so we have this thing we call the boom and what you do is you lower it, basically like the nozzle at the gas station, you lower it down and I can control it from the inside of the plane.
Oh, so you’re remotely controlling it.
I’m literally in the KCN-35 that I was flying in, which is a Boeing 707 body type so you can get a picture. That plane, I can walk to the back of the plane, just like you would do on any commercial airliner, but there’s a crawl space that I had to go into so you stepped down two steps and you get in the middle, literally the middle of the airplane, and lay down on your stomach, and what we say is we lay down on our stomach and pass gas. And so I controlled the boom with my right hand, with the ruddervator control stick, and I extended and retracted it with the extension lever –– telescope lever, there you go, that’s the name of that. And so the plane comes up to you and you’re flying that thing around, whether it’s a fighter, another tanker, because some of them can be refueled, they’re also air refuel capable. You can have cargo planes such as a C-5, C-17, or the C-130 come up behind you, or even some reconnaissance planes like the AWACS or you can have a bomber, a B-1, B-2, B-52, because that’s actually what our plan was made for, the B-52, to carry out missions for the Cold War. That’s literally what those plans were made for. They were to be exhausted, glide somewhere, hopefully. That’s literally how those planes were built. They were built to exhaust all gas into this bomber for it to make it over to Russia and then it was going to glide wherever it could.
Oh, so we can make it all the way across from the US or from like a naval base in Germany.
Yeah, the bombers would make it from what we gave them, because they couldn’t take off with all that gas with the payloads that they were carrying, which means all the bombs that they’re carrying. So we would give them gas in the sky and they would take all of our gas and we would just be like, “Well, guys, it’s been real. Hopefully we make it somewhere.”
And then, yeah, so then you had to like find a place to land, usually.
In regular times, yes. But if the Cold War actually would have happened, like they would have actually turned keys and shot off those missiles, there was nowhere to land.
Oh, I see.
That would have literally been the end of the US.
Wow.
Yeah, no, the fallout was going to be real. That was it. If you’ve ever seen those, I guess depictions of Hiroshima, yeah, it would have been way worse. We also have what we call probe and drogue adapters, which is a hose that connects a basket, or Iron Maiden is what we call it, but it’s a huge basket. That thing’s massive, and it’s for like those Navy guys and the Harrier, which is a Marine plane. But those guys, they use a probe, which is like a –– how can I put it? It’s literally something that kind of wants to poke into something else. You have the basket and then probing that and it seats and cups it and so that’s how they get their fuel is through that versus what our planes do, we just –– we basically poke them.
Oh, yeah.
We poke them instead of having –– the Navy guys try to poke us because they miss. But, anyway…
So, yes, so you have that job, sorry to put everything ––
Yeah, no worries. And my thought process, because we were getting ready to switch planes and get new ones that I didn’t want to be a part of the air refueling boom operator side of it, I didn’t mind flying it with the boom operator side –– they were basically putting computers on the plane.
Oh, yeah, yeah, one of those.
Why would I want to look at a computer screen and I’m on the plane?
Yeah. I mean, they’re putting computers everywhere right now so ––
I’m like this is stupid. What can go wrong with cameras, right? Like, really? But, anyway, they’re still having problems with that plane, to say the least, and it’s been out for a while now.
Yeah. So that’s when you decided you were done with that job and going to the reserves.
I mean, honestly, my ultimate goal is to become a pilot anyway, because they make the real money. And so I wanted to make the six figures. I went to school to get my bachelor’s in computer information systems with a specialization in systems analysis and integration, which is a long way of saying, “Hey, you know how to code and build user interfaces.” That’s really all the same. And so they just know how to make it cute.
Yeah, yeah, it is but all those words.
Yeah, fancy, fancy-schmancy. And then I also had my own business. I was the CEO and founder of Kiwi Enterprise, which was where I did website design and management, which is I learned that in my degree. Social media marketing, I actually learned that online. And photography, I learned that through YouTube University. So I’m very, very self-taught and I also love to learn. I never stop learning, even ’til today, I just do not stop learning because ––
I love that YouTube University ––
–– there’s so much. There’s so much out here to learn.
Yeah, there’s always something to learn.
And I’m not saying I want to learn it all because, good Lord, I think my brain would explode, but what I’m saying is I like to keep my mind busy.
And that that brings me to another side topic. Sorry, we keep going off on tangents ––
Yeah, go ahead.
–– with your story but I read some things about the difference between pursuit of learning and the pursuit of entertainment. And, obviously, there’s a lot of things, and sometimes we just need to be entertained, because sometimes we need to give our brains a break and just watch a funny show or something like that, like there is some sort of correlation with success, with people who at least have some level of drive for learning with their spare time in addition to the standard drive for entertainment.
Absolutely. And entertainment in multiple ways because, as you can see behind me, I entertain myself as well.
I see that. For those listening, there’s a drum set and it looks like a keyboard as well.
Yeah, yeah. So I’m very much musically inclined. This is not just book learned. I actually self-taught. And I first initially learned to play by ear, and now I’m actually learning the true, I guess you could say music theory of like the piano and different things like that. So it’s amazing. I love the musician tree and all of those things, but I’m also an entertainer at heart. Not just music, I did acting. Like I just mentioned to you before we started recording, I’m going to be doing some standup comedy coming up at an open mic. I’ve been doing this stuff for a while now, and it’s just my life. I love to, I guess, be in front of people. At first, I didn’t, but back to the story of the motorcycle accident, what I was doing with everything and, gosh, May 5th, back to that day, I’m here in North Carolina where I was born and raised, by the way, Durham, North Carolina, but also was stationed here because Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
And that’s in the reserves by that point, right?
Well, both.
Okay.
They had active and reserves there and I did both of my commitments there. So, literally, on active duty, when I got off active duty, I literally just walked down the hall to the reserves. Same building, man. We shared the same building. They knew me and I knew them already, and so now I’m getting to really know them. And, I guess you could say facade, it wasn’t necessarily a façade but they definitely had a game, I guess you could –– a front that they put on. Some of those people, you’d be like, “Man, you don’t wanna mess with him. Oh, you don’t want mess with him,” and then you get over there with him on their actual team and you like, “Man, you are the coolest person over here.” That’s the craziest thing you’d ever think. But, anyway, I digress. So May 5th was Cinco de Mayo. Some might say that, but I say it is my new life’s journey. Because, I mean, everything changed. I was on my motorcycle that day. I went to take some photos for a website that I was managing, which happened to be my church. I was taking photos for them because I needed to update the exterior photos. We had added some things and I wanted to update everything on there to make it look up to date. And so I went and took those shots, but from my apartment to where my church was, about a 10-minute ride and, on a motorcycle, it’s like, that’s nothing, literally nothing. It’s like paper in the wind, it’s just gone. In no time.
And a familiar ride too.
Yes, yeah. And so I was like, I really don’t feel like going to put this bike right back in the garage. I really think I want to ride further. And so that’s what I did. I went to another area here in North Carolina called Jordan Lake. And I used to go to the same spot all the time, and for anybody who sees the cover of my book, you will see where I was. That picture or background is where I used to go sit all the time to just relax, meditate, unwind, whatever, be by myself. But I used to go there all the time. This is not a new ride. This is not I’m trying to find my way and I got lost. No, I know this ride. And so I get there with no problems. Also on my book cover, Don’t Focus on Why Me: From Motorcycle Accident to Miracle, you will see my motorcycle there. That is actually my bike. And both of those pictures, because that is two separate pictures, they were stitched together by the cover designer, I took those.
And those are pictures of the bike you were on when it happened.
The actual bike that I had the accident on. And so I took both of those pictures of that lake area and my bike. But as I got ready to leave the lake, because, again, like I said before, I had to go to work that night, and I’m like, “Oh shoot, I gotta go get my stuff,” do this, do that, and I jump back on the bike and I take off and in this back area, because the area that I went to is kind of like a back road, they call it a highway, Highway 751, but they have definitions.
Well, yeah, and I know there’s like state highways and county highways, interstate highways, those are the ones that you think of.
Exactly. So this is only a two-lane highway. And so the lane I’m in and the lane coming past me. And if you look at the image on the book cover, those tall trees that you see in that book cover, those are the same tall trees you see all along this highway. And so the only time those trees are like really cut back out of the way are at an intersection, a driveway, because people do live off of this road. There was this really sketchy BP gas station back there. It was really sketch. Just stop there as a last resort, okay? Make sure your light is on if you stop there. And then there was a produce farm. Those are the only areas that it was cut out, like the trees were cut back. And I rightfully so, because the speed limit is 55, it’s not like 35 miles an hour. No, this is 55 so some people are going to come flying through there. And there are also passing lanes, like the line it breaks to where you can pass and go around somebody. Yeah, there are those lanes too so there are some people out there speeding.
And that’s when you’re passing into oncoming traffic, right? Because it’s double line in the middle but the designers of highway have these areas where they drew the dashed lines instead of the double yellow, saying it’s safer to pass in these areas but not those.
Right, exactly. As I’m approaching this intersection, now, I’m not paying any mind, just riding my bike, and having an amazing time doing it, because it was a beautiful day that day. A nice day for a bike ride. And so I’m listening to music in my helmet because I had Bluetooth capability and jamming out. I mean, literally, not like to the point where I can’t hear none because that’s not really possible with that bike, but it’s just loud enough to be kind of a mellow playing and comfortable. Because I like to be aware of my surroundings, I’m not that type to try to drown it out. But, anyway ––
If there’s like an ambulance truck or something, yeah.
Yeah. And so, like I said, I’m riding, and then I approached this intersection, and this silver Honda Accord pulls out in front of me, man. And, I mean, I tell people I had three options but, really, did I? So I could have went right, I’m going into some trees in the ditch, okay? At 55 miles an hour, remember this now. I could have went left. I could have went in oncoming traffic. That means I’m going 55 and they’re coming 55, that’s not looking good either. Or do what ended up happening and freeze up and hit him, because that’s what ended up happening. And I took all the motorcycle rider courses and all those cool things that tell you how to dip and dodge and do all these figure eights and cool things and stunts, but let me tell you this. That is at a parking lot speed. I was not doing a parking lot speed.
No.
And so that’s cool until it’s not. It’s like this is now real life. People think those bikes can stop. They don’t. The only way a motorcycle stops on a dime is if you lock that front brake. If you lock that front brake, you’re flipping off. And the other way is how I ended up stopping the bike, hitting something. That’s it. Those are your only two options. Either way, you’re coming off the bike. Especially at a speed that high.
Yeah. So you were going 55 miles an hour, then, all of a sudden, the silver Honda Accord pops in front of you, and you’re in the silver Honda Accord or making contact with it.
You might as well have said that correctly. I was in it. I mean, just be honest, my face was literally crushed in.
Yeah.
I have two metal plates recreating my face right now. They restructured my face. So you might as well say I was inside of it.
Yeah, I mean ––
Maybe the metal I used to put in my head is from the Honda. I don’t know. I don’t know what they used. I don’t know what they used, but what I do know is metal detectors don’t like me, and that I spent two months in a hospital, and I only remember one of them. I spent two months in a hospital but I only remember one of them.
Yeah, yeah. I mean ––
I was in a medically induced coma for a month. So from May 5th to June 6th, I don’t know anything. I lost a complete month of my life.
Yeah, and you were just in the coma the whole time?
Due to all the surgeries and everything else they had to do, because if they did not put me in that coma, my heart rate would keep going up and spiking. So it was kind of a you had to. Otherwise, he’s not going to make it. I know you want to talk to him but he can’t talk right now anyway because he broke his jaw so we have to wire that shut. He really can’t talk because his brain is swollen and we got to cut it open. We got to cut his head open. All of these things that would make you say, “How the freak are you still here?” and, I mean, great question, it really is, but I’m a believer and I know why I’m still here.
Yeah, something you’re meant to do.
Exactly.
I have purpose and then there’s a reason I’m still here. Share on XIf you’re into playing the lottery, May 5th, which is 5, 5, was the accident. June 6th, 6, 6, was when I woke up, and 7, 7, July 7th, was when I was discharged from the hospital. I can’t make these days up. That’s literally how it happened.
Oh my, yeah, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7. When you discharged from the hospital, what happened next? Did you have to be limited capacity for a little while, even when you went home?
I mean, it was physical therapy but it was in home. It was in home. They came to me. You had in-home health therapy as well as the physical therapy, the occupational therapy, they were still continuing that stuff until I didn’t need it anymore, or I went to outpatient because I did do some outpatient physical therapy as well. I mean, when I tell you impressing people left and right, when I went to my outpatient physical therapy, and it was the first time that I ever went to see Steve, his name was Steve as well.
Oh, right, nice.
Yeah, yeah. He was my first outpatient physical therapist. I’m sitting in the lobby waiting on him to come call my name because I checked in and everything and –– tall, really tall, white guy. I think he’s like, 6’3”, 6’4”. Really deep voice. He sings baritone. When he came out of the back and called my name, I said, “Oh, hey, yep, I’m here,” and I stood up, he said, “Oh.” I’m like laughing. He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, come on back,” and then we got into the –– and I looked at the person, and I was like, “Oh, what happened?” she was like, “I don’t know, and we got into the room and he was like, “I didn’t expect you to be walking in here, man.” I was like, “Really? What did you expect?” He’s like, “Honestly, I thought you would be like a vegetable and I’d be working with a patient, it was gonna be a whole lot worse than what I got planned for you, buddy.” Everybody who looks at my charts and everything that happened to me, they all think I should be a vegetable.
Yeah.
Talking to you the way I am, as competent, intelligent, intellectual, articulate, they don’t think it should be that way.
And so it must have been some sort of spinal thing that just pretty much put you incapacitated.
Well, not even that. In my brain. Dude, my brain was –– when I tell you –– so I hit forehead first but, literally, they cut me from ear to ear across the top of my head to relieve swelling. That’s how much swelling I had on my brain. And I can never get rid of that scar. And when I say certain words, as you can see, I have to open my mouth quite a bit in order to speak sometimes, because, if not, I’ll slur or the word won’t come out correctly. So, that comes from my jaw being broken and a lot of the damage that was done, but that came from occupational therapy, them teaching me again how to talk, enunciate. I was using, I can’t remember the name of the mechanism that they had me using but it’s where you put this thing in your mouth and you squeeze the handle and it opens your jaw, it helps your jaw muscles open. My jaw had been wired shut for over a month and those muscles, they shrink when you don’t use them. Man, I could barely open my mouth. It was like, well, just take sips of this juice, because I still remember my mouth used to be like, it’s kind of like talking like this, I really couldn’t move anything with my lips, like that’s kind of how I was talking, because it was still in that part where it wanted to be locked in. I had to keep doing like that just to keep it, especially this right side, to keep it elongating so that it would come out of that fixed position. So, yeah, it was a struggle, man, but, nonetheless, I did get through it, as you can tell.
Yeah, obviously see that. And also, just in case anyone in the audience wants to check out, the title of the book is Don’t Focus on Why Me, that’s correct?
Yes.
Yeah, and so does that title mean anything? Because you’re saying don’t focus on why me. Was there a period after the accident where you slipped into that mentality of focusing on why me or were you able to get into the right mindset and perspective pretty quickly?
That title of the book actually came from when I was in the hospital, and I didn’t start writing that book until October of 2020. This was over three years later. So I had that title come to me in 2017 when I was laying in that hospital bed and all I could think about was why me. That’s where the title comes from. So all I could think about was why me, and like I told you, I’m a faith believer and all I did was question God, why did you do this? Why would you allow this to happen to me? Because I believed that only God can allow bad things to happen to people. And so if He’s the only one who can do that, why did He let this happen to me? He’s the only one I can ask that question to because He’s the only one who knows. And when He said, “Well, why not you?”
Interesting.
And I started to think about that thing. I said, Wow, and I’m pretty sure that’s one of the chapters in the book. Why not me? And I talk about that situation where I’m having that conversation with God, and, man, listen, when I tell you me and God, we have real conversation, we don’t have that cupcake type conversations. I talked to Him like, “Hey, listen, I need you to hear me because, listen, this is not fair. This is not fair. I thought I was doing great in life and then you take everything away.”
You have to focus on a problem solving or a critical thinking type of mentality because, otherwise, you’re just going to be sitting there turning your wheels. There’s no point.
We need to move forward if we want to get better. Share on XThere’s no way I would be here talking to you about stuff like this if I just stayed in that why me mentality. I’d probably still be in a wheelchair. Because, yes, I was in one, and I hated it. I absolutely hated a wheelchair. It hurt, and I had one of those, really –– my cushion was about that thick and it still hurt.
And that thick, for people listening, it looks like you’re doing about like, five, six inches ––
It was about three inches thick of and, I mean, like a memory foam type thickness, not just a little play, play, you buy at Walmart. No, no, I mean, like, that legitimate memory foam niceness. And it hurt so bad to sit in that thing for a long time where I had to adjust myself. I couldn’t just get up and walk away from it. I had to sit there because I wasn’t walking yet.
Yeah, you had to figure out a way. How long did it take you to stop focusing on why me? You said you were a little bit in the hospital. Was there a progression? Did it take you a little while to get out of that victimhood focus and get into focusing on the future?
Well, yeah, it took a little while. It was like the pivot. It was one of those things. You had to figure where do I go from here. Once you figure that part out, that’s kind of how you get out of that mentality.
Oh, yeah.
You got to feel, okay, I get it. I’ve had an accident. You could stay on that why me of the why I had the accident, or you could say, “Well, where do I go from here? What’s next?” Figure out some steps, processes, get some resources. That was the next thing I did, I found some resources, like going to the blind rehab center, learning how to become –– or how to be blind and act and move as a blind person would. So just getting out of my own way is what it took and also not allowing others to project their fears on you. That’s a huge one.
Yeah. How does that manifest? What does that look like?
For some, it’s like you guys go to counseling or family therapy, stuff like that. Others, such as myself, I just started saying, “I’m doing what I’m gonna do, y’all can like it or not.” Because it was getting to a point where I felt like I was a child, almost. I was a grown man when this happened. I was 25 years old when this accident happened. Seen and done a lot of things, okay? In the military, seen and done a lot of things.
Yeah, in the military, you have a lot of ––
I’ve been to four different continents, you don’t know half the things I’ve done. And so it was one of those things where I’m just like, “Y’all treat me like instead of being 25 I’m 15 or 5.” No, I just can’t see. Literally. I just can’t see. At the time, I just couldn’t put on clothes. At the time, I just couldn’t bathe myself. These are things that are going to change, though. Don’t treat it like it’s going to last forever. And that was what I was having to deal with.
Then your path went to becoming a motivational speaker. Is that a lot of what you speak on, helping people get to that, as you phrased it, where do I go from here mentality, and also helping people not allow others to project onto them and being able to not let it throw them off track, because I think one of the things that happens to a lot of people is that, well, let’s just say you have an idea and you’re really excited about it and you bring it up to your circle of friends, your family, and they poo-poo on it, they just don’t like it, and, at that point, a lot of people would just get thrown off track by it, just thrown off track by just how people are talking to you, how people are responding to you.
Okay, yeah, that’s kind of like a two-parter. So, first off, I will say I do that for, yes, my keynote speaking. I even do it for the mentoring and the resilience coaching. There’s different ways to present that. And then I do it all. Trust me. I mean, that’s the whole reason I have all these different services offered. And the other thing is, like I said, people projecting their fears on you, but they also doubt you and your ability. Well, what the heck did I go to the school for or the center for if I’m not going to learn what they are teaching? If they’re showing you that I can do these things, let me do it. Let me show you I can do it and that I actually learned something. You used to love to let me show you when I was in grade school, why I can’t do it now? You know what I mean? And, see, I take a different perspective on life. When you get out of grade school, you want to be grown and do all these cool things, but, sometimes, you got to come back to what you first learned. When I wanted to know something in grade school, what did I do? I asked the person who knew, which was probably your teacher. Okay. If I have a situation such as what I have right now, being visually impaired, whatever, why would I go somebody who can see that’s never studied this thing about being visually impaired? They don’t know what I’m dealing with. Now, people who have become those instructors for this job to teach us that can see, I would talk to them, but even more so, I would rather talk to another blind person. Why not talk to somebody who’s going through this thing?
Yeah, someone who’s found some solutions, someone who’s been through, walked that path before you.
I feel like, and, I mean, you correct me if I’m wrong, Stephen, experience is the best teacher.
A lot of us are learning that right now, I think. I think there’s a lot of people learning because we tend to think of learning as instructional. Learning, traditionally, people say it’s like, okay, you have a teacher or a presenter, they’re literally telling you these things to do but, sometimes, you can learn a lot from experience of like, “Okay, I did this, I observed the result, now I’m gonna adjust, try it a little bit differently, see what result happens, adjust again, do it a little bit differently, see those results,” and then just keep doing that until you get the results that you want.
That’s right.
And then, of course, what you’re saying is that maybe you find someone who’s done that whole process and found out what to do to get the results they wanted and at least use it to guide you in some of the do’s and don’ts in your own journey.
I can study that, for example, when I used to drive, I can study that driver’s handbook all day long but until I actually get out there on the road, it doesn’t mean anything. All that means is I know what y’all are looking at. I don’t know how to use it, though. And that’s all I’m saying. Until you actually get out there and experience it, it’s cool. It’s cool that you you’ve read up on it, you can tell me what sign it is, but until you actually adhere by it and get a ticket from it, because you didn’t truly know what you were doing, “Oh, I didn’t come to a complete stop? I did.” No, no, you did what they call a rolling stop, there’s a difference.
Yeah, there’s a big difference ––
You know what I mean? So, yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
And then is a big part of it also trusting in your own ability to learn? Because, a lot of people are looking to do something and looking to do something amazing in this world, whatever your idea is out there, everyone listening, but part of it is that a lot of really important endeavors don’t have an instruction manual. don’t have a clear answer. It’s not like really studying for the test and making sure you get an A by just knowing you know this, this, and that. It’s about experiencing it, doing and learning, but the key being that you have to trust that you’re going to be able to learn, that as soon as you step out there, put yourself out there in whatever way you need to to become who you want to be, that you’re going to have to learn and you have to trust that you’re going to be able to learn, that you’re going to be able to look at what happens and adjust and be able to get into that better pattern.
Yeah. I mean, we all learn differently. And you know how they say, you got visual learners, you got audible learners, you have people who read to learn. There’s all kind of different ways to learn, but the biggest thing I want to know is can you apply what you learned? That’s all I care about. I don’t care how you learn it, I just want to know can you apply it to your life now? Now that you have the knowledge, can you apply it?
Yeah, it doesn’t mean anything to know something and then just sit on that knowledge.
Exactly. And so that’s how I view it. I mean, again, there’s many ways to cut a cookie. You can have a gingerbread man or a Christmas tree, it’s up to you, but my thought process is cut it your way. Just make sure when you cut it, you do understand what you’re talking about, or you know what you’re doing.
Yeah. Now, what about misapplied knowledge?
You got to be corrected at some point. I’ll say it like this, nobody’s perfect. Nobody is perfect. So if you are misusing or misapplying the knowledge that you have learned, then if somebody who knows you’re misapplying it, because that’s the only way we’re going to figure it out is if somebody knew, if they don’t correct you, we’re all failing each other. We’re starting to fail each other now.
And that’s the thing, like if someone out there is misapplying knowledge and it’s someone you care about, you owe it to them to tell them.
Yeah, absolutely. For somebody who has children, when you raise your children and you tell them to do something and you teach them how to do things, they’re just like, “What?” You tell them, “Oh, yeah, no, it’s coloring time. Go ahead and get out your color time. We’re just gonna do coloring for an hour,” you never mention what you want them to color, none of that, and then you come back in their room and your wall is covered. It’s covered in crayons. Okay? You’re like, “Oh, no.” That’s considered a miss supply knowledge. Oh, they heard what you said. You said color, but they went for the wall.
Yeah, instead of for the canvas or the paper ––
Or the book. But it’s just one of those and I just wanted to use a comical piece because that has happened, of course, we all heard the stories of children coloring on walls, they just get curious. They’re just curious. That’s all it is, they’re curious. Wow, this paper is white and so is the wall. Huh? And that’s it.
Why not color on that? Yeah.
It’s a bigger canvas. I got so much more room. It’s like the movie Step Brothers. “There’s so much room for activities.”
Oh, yeah.
So, yeah, that’s it.
Before those bunk beds fall on top.
Yep. He’s like, “No, it’s so bad. It’s so bad.”
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, I love that movie.
Definitely. And then through your coaching and speaking, what is the primary impact you’re having?
My impact is to, like my vision statement, make those who feel less than they once were, make them feel like they can be something again and let them know that they still are somebody regardless of what you were before. For example, myself, I was a football player. I was still playing football at the time of my accident. Not just flag football but I was also still playing contact. I played semi-professional at the time of my accident, and I speak about it in my book, where I actually came back from a two-week long trip to England, flew back on a Saturday in the middle of my football season, landed in enough time to drive from the base to Durham, put my football uniform on and make it to the game by halftime, and I started in the second half. I started at safety in the second half. My coach is like, “What are you doing here?” And I’m like, “What do you mean? Don’t we have a game today?” That’s what I said. I was like, “Don’t we have a game today?” He’s like, “Yeah, but I thought you were in Europe or something.” I was like, “I was, this morning.” I was like, “I was, this morning, but we flew back early, so here I am.” I was like, “Either you want me to play or you don’t.” He’s like, “No, no, no. Are you ready?” I said, “Oh, no, just give me a little bit. It won’t take me long to warm up.” And sure enough, dude, I was starting the second half, and we won that game.
Oh, nice, that’s awesome.
Yes, an awesome time. So what I’m getting at is that I did those things, like playing football, sports, and all that stuff, and running because I had to stay in shape and things like that with the military, to not only doing that before I lost my sight, I do much more now. I do more sports now than I did before. It’s crazy that I do more sports now after all these surgeries than I did before my surgeries. I just enjoy it, man. And so that’s what I do when it comes to the stage and teaching and everything.
Yeah, be someone again, you said.
Let you know you’re still worth it. You are still worth something.
And it’s amazing because it’s something that is easy for someone to lose, and as I alluded to at the beginning of the episode, like your situation was a motorcycle accident but there’s plenty of things that can happen in people’s lives, whether it be a physical injury or some sort of, really, strange emotional injury or someone loses their career or something like that. There’s all sorts of ways that people have things happen to them, and need to have that resilience, need to kind of claw back from so glad that there are tools like this that we can all use, including focusing on what’s next and getting out of that why me mentality and then starting to apply that knowledge, starting to use it. And, Kijuan, I’d like to thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes, telling us your story and telling us how you walked that path yourself of kind of getting to play more sports, getting to form a whole new career, and how you’re bringing that to other people, how you’re guiding other people along the way.
Yeah, no problem, Stephen. Again, I appreciate you having me on your platform to share my story.
Definitely, and then everyone out there listening, once again, the book is Don’t Focus on Why Me if you want to check that out. And also, I’d like to thank everyone out there listening for just tuning in and being curious, being curious about seeing Kijuan’s path as well as anyone else I interview’s path and what we all can learn from it.
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About Kijuan Amey
Kijuan Amey, the visionary behind Amey Motivation, hails from Durham, NC, where his journey of resilience and success began. After graduating from Southern High School, he dedicated a decade of his life to the U.S. Air Force, achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant as an In-flight Refueling Specialist. Following a medical retirement, he transitioned into academia, earned a degree, and founded Amey Motivation LLC.
Kijuan formerly served as Vice President for the Carolina Regional Group of the Blinded Veterans Association and is also a mentor and ambassador for the Air Force Wounded Warriors program.
Beyond his remarkable military career, Kijuan is a man of many talents—boasting over 25 years of drumming experience, on-stage acting, and now, the upcoming release of his book, Don’t Focus on Why Me.
Life took an unexpected turn on May 5, 2017, when a motorcycle accident claimed his eyesight. Yet, as Kijuan powerfully states, “I may have lost my sight, but I did not lose my vision.” Armed with an inspiring story of overcoming adversity, he has become a motivational force, empowering others to reach their highest potential.
Whether addressing a crowd of 1,500 or engaging in one-on-one sessions, Kijuan is well-equipped for any speaking engagement. He’s not just a speaker—he’s a catalyst for transformation, ready to take on the task ahead.
Contact:
📞 (919) 641-8150
📧 kijuan@ameymotivation.com
🌐 AmeyMotivation.com