{"id":243060,"date":"2026-04-10T04:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/243060\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:05:07","slug":"burn-survivor-john-oleary-brings-message-of-resilience-to-lubbock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/243060\/","title":{"rendered":"Burn survivor John O\u2019Leary brings message of resilience to Lubbock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; About 200 people attended a presentation by John O\u2019Leary at the Overton Conference Center on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">O\u2019Leary is a two-time best-selling author for his books \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/shop\/on-fire-book\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/shop\/on-fire-book\/\">On Fire<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/shop\/in-awe-book\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/shop\/in-awe-book\/\">In Awe<\/a>.\u201d He was burned at 9 years old over 100% of his body and says he should have died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The childhood tragedy was an accidental explosion after playing with fire and gasoline. O\u2019Leary was given a 1% chance of survival. He made a physical recovery, but the scars are there forever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Challenges beyond physical recovery<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe difficulty for burn patients is once they are released, it gets even harder because every time they look down, they\u2019re reminded. Every time they look in the mirror, they\u2019re reminded,\u201d O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The John O\u2019Leary story turned into a movie called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/soulonfire\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/soulonfire\/\">Soul on Fire<\/a>\u201d after O\u2019Leary realized there is beauty in the scars of life; he began sharing that message as a motivational speaker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He was brought to Lubbock by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laurabushinstitute.org\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.laurabushinstitute.org\/\">Laura W. Bush Institute for Women\u2019s Health<\/a>. From the stage to the floor, he made the audience cry and laugh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">John made it clear he has dedicated his life to inspiring others to accept imperfections and celebrate the life they were given.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s amazing what happens when we begin looking beyond ourselves. The more I focus on my weaknesses, my struggles, my strokes, the more they multiply. The more I move through them, embrace them, ask for help in enduring them, the more they begin to fade,\u201d O\u2019Leary said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">John O\u2019Leary is married with four children. If you\u2019d like to see the movie about him, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/soulonfire\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/johnolearyinspires.com\/soulonfire\/\">Soul on Fire<\/a>,&#8221; it is streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; About 200 people attended a presentation by John O\u2019Leary at the Overton Conference Center&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-243060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-lubbock","9":"tag-lubbock-headlines","10":"tag-lubbock-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}