Years before he became a high-performance life coach, Chad Weller hit his absolute rock bottom when he plunged his car deep into a brick wall. 

Despite being a top model for famous designers, traveling around the world and making six- to seven-figure margins from buying and selling businesses, Weller felt absolutely empty and alone.

“I was suffering from depression,” Weller said. “I was living a very lavish lifestyle in Miami Beach, but I was in my own darkness. I was in my own head from my trauma and was so dissociated from who I was.” 

No matter what Weller achieved or earned, he failed to ever reach a point where he could truly feel joyous for what he had accomplished. As a result, Weller’s depression continued to spiral to the point where he turned to drugs and alcohol as a means of escaping his current mental state.

“What I had was never enough,” Weller said. “That just kept growing larger and larger and larger within my gaze and creating more unhappiness. Suffering from depression and anxiety, that is when I developed this insane addictive escapism, which led me to drugs and alcohol addiction, suicide attempts and drug overdoses.” 

 2024 Longevity event

The Longevity Project reporting series will conclude with an event the evening of March 27 at Silverthorne Pavilion. The evening will kick off with a community conversation with local leaders about substance use.

Following the panel discussion, keynote speaker and professional athlete Chad Weller will share his personal story of substance use, suicide attempts and overdoses. His raw and honest story includes a path to recovery, and tips for friends and family members to help support their loved ones.

The evening will end with a screening of “Paradise Paradox,” a documentary about the mental health crisis affecting America’s mountain towns and the solutions being developed in response.

Buy tickets here.

After attempting to take his own life twice and suffering multiple drug overdoses, Weller hit his breaking point when he rammed his car into a 50-foot brick wall while intoxicated behind the wheel. March 13, 2009, was the pivotal day when everything changed.

“This was the 10th time of me almost dying, so this was everything that led me to finding this path of sobriety and living a healthy lifestyle,” Weller said. “That was the breaking point for me of being so scared that I wasn’t going to live.”

Weller ended up having to be cut out of the car by first responders, but once he was treated for his injuries, he began the process of flipping his life around and working toward a life of sobriety.

“After hitting rock bottom over 20 times, this was the bottom of the bottom,” Weller said. “It was me climbing my way out each and every day. I got help, I had an amazing support system with my family and friends, and was in AA for quite a few years.”

While working to become the best version of himself, Weller began running everyday and soon was hooked on the activity. Like many people, Weller loathed anytime he was forced to run, but while on the road to recovery, running provided him a sense of solace that was hard to find elsewhere.

In between smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, Weller began running 1 mile at a time, perfecting his form and technique.

“I fell in love with it,” Weller said. “I remember running my first 25-miler, then 50-miler and then I did a practice run that was 65 miles. Before you know it I was running 222 miles a week, and it was just this build. I was reintroduced to my discipline and how disciplined I am, what I am capable of. It set a bar that I didn’t know existed in me.”

Crediting the day he put on his running shoes as one of the most transformative moments on his path to sobriety, Weller then became a professional ultramarathoner where he competed in races like the Silver Rush 50 in Leadville.

After finding an identity through running, Weller’s life changed again when he hired a life coach for ultramarathon training while living in Boulder. The life coach, who Weller still works with to this day, inspired Weller to help people himself.

“When she spoke to me, I felt seen, heard and understood for the first time,” Weller said of his life coach. “That was just through her showing up and really wanting to help me get to know myself. Once I was able to establish that relationship with her, it helped me establish a deeper relationship with myself, which gave me the confidence that I could help other people connect with themselves.” 

Today, Weller has been sober for 14-plus years and has coached over 10,000 people around the world. Weller’s coaching mainly focuses on mindfulness, wellness and the pillars of high-performance habits in hopes of transforming client’s lives.

“It is really helping people get unstuck — people that have experienced success in their lives and they are really on an empowered path but not really sure where they are going or how they are getting there,” Weller said.

Weller will be the keynote speaker for the Longevity Project event on Wednesday, March 27, where he plans to deliver a talk that will inspire audience members to transform their own lives.

“I get the audience to discover that with a little bit of energy shifts and the changing of choices that your life can change forever — but it takes work.” Weller said.

Hosted by the Summit Daily News, the annual Longevity Project event and its accompanying series seeks to educate readers about what it takes to live a long, fulfilling life in the High Country — with a focus this year on substance abuse.

The event will take place from 6:30-9:45 p.m. at the Silverthorne Pavilion in Silverthorne. More information, including tickets, can be found at SummitDaily.com/longevity/.

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