Host Jeffrey Saad sits down with restaurateur and author Vincent Van Den Broeck to explore how mindset resilience can carry you through the darkest moments of life. After surviving a devastating accident that left him with a one percent chance of full recovery, Vincent relied on the mental toughness and discipline he cultivated over years in the restaurant industry. You’ll hear how taking immediate ownership of your life eliminates excuse-making when disaster strikes. Vincent breaks down the daily choices that prepare you for unexpected trials before they happen. Discover why refusing to play the victim is the fastest path back to your purpose. This conversation will challenge you to evaluate your own inner dialogue and step up when life hits hard.
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Horrific Accident. Brilliant Recovery. Vincent Van Den Broeck
How are you doing, man? Nice to meet you.
I’m doing great. Thanks. How are you doing yourself?
Good. I wish my French was better. That would be my ultimate goal is to do this in French one day.
Good luck with that.
Petit à petit. Our biggest challenge on this could be that you and I could probably sit here and talk about restaurants and food all day and never even get to anything else.
We can do part 2, part 3, part 4 even if we have to.
What’s your restaurant scoop these days? What do you have? You still have the waffle place. I saw that. That looks pretty cool.
Yes. By the way, it has been almost seven and a half years right now. In May, I say it’s going to be eight years already. It means we’re doing something good, at least.
That’s good. You have that place, and what else is there? You have more stuff going on with the restaurants?
For now, we only have that. We did a lot of stuff, but we closed everything down. It was 2023. We had a real restaurant, and we made pastries. We did a lot of stuff. One day we decided to close everything to focus on what we have right now.
It’s a hard business. What you went through is hell. It’s probably the only thing just as hard as restaurants. The pain of that.
For real. It’s funny you say that because I’ve been telling people so many times I went to hell and back way more than once before the accident. We went through a lot of s***.
I’ve had dozens of restaurants, and I’ve been partners. I’ve had my own and everything else. I always say it’s the hardest thing that even when you’re failing, you love it because it’s like this hospitality gene just gets in you, and you cannot help yourself. There is no harder way to make money. The family you build or camaraderie is just the best. Were you ever a chef, or were you just a restaurateur? You’re the vision. What was your background with food and with restaurants?
Treat every single day like it's the World Cup final if you want to build something that truly lasts. Share on XIt’s funny you say that because I always saw people to never call me boss, never call me chef. I cooked a lot. I’ve been cooking since a very young age. I cooked a lot in the restaurant too, to this day, by the way. I do not know. I have a toxic relationship with titles and chefs and stuff like “He’s a chef.” I’m just Vincent. This is literally what I tell customers. This is what I tell our employees. I’m just Vincent.
When you were Vincent, were you always a cook, or were you doing something before restaurants? I know you’re a young guy.
No. There was no before. I started working in hospitality when I was twenty. We’re talking about fourteen years ago. I was 19 years old fifteen years ago, and I only did that. I fell in love with it. By the way, this is where it gets interesting. This is, by the way, when I learned that with every setback comes a good that comes with it. I was never allowed to work in hospitality because mama would not have let me, because it was considered negative, and I was considered a smart kid. You know what you’re talking about.
That’s the old school, true. The chef thing helped change that.
For real, I was not allowed. She was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. Eventually, she passed away. I saw that as an opportunity to land my first job in hospitality. In the beginning, I was ashamed to tell people around me that I was working in a hospital. That would be, again, a negative connotation. Like, “You work in a hospital. It’s supposed to be a side job.” Now I was like, “Wait, I love this thing. I love everything about it. I love the adrenaline, I love the rushes, I love taking care of people. I love the whole situation. I love everything about it.” I was like, “I’m going to start telling people.” I literally built my whole life, my whole personality, around that job.
It definitely defines us, man. It’s all-consuming. I’m sorry about the loss of your mom. We should probably get to the fact that Vincent Van Den Broek. Is that properly pronounced? Your book is coming out, Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done, which is a great title. I love that. Everybody needs to be clicking away. I appreciate what it means to get pre-orders. People, anybody tuning in, please click and pre-order it. It’s a beautiful gift to give somebody, if not for yourself.
Building the Foundation Before Tragedy Strikes
People are going to read about the accident in the book, which is just beyond what most people could bear. Most people get an ingrown nail like myself and you’re like, “Help me get this out.” I cannot even imagine what it’s like to be lying on the sidewalk with your head wide open. One of the things you talk about is that the life you build becomes the life that saves you. Let’s talk about the pre-accident. What did you build that saved you?
Brother, we’ve been talking about it for the past five minutes. I went through so much adversity before the accident that it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. It’s everything. It’s the mindset that you built. It’s the perspective that you built. It’s the support system that you built. It’s the discipline that you built. There were a lot of things. I was ready for this. I could not have been more ready. There’s a saying, “You better be ready when opportunity presents itself.”
It comes from the fact that there aren’t a thousand of them that present themselves in life. Life is life. I was more than ready for this opportunity. Fall into a coma, go through rehab, everything, the recovery, everything that came after. I was more than ready. I would say most definitely the mindset part. I just had a conversation right before this conversation with someone, and I told her, when you do what you love to do, truly love to do, when it’s aligned with who you are.
Again, when there’s a lot of money in the bank account, and everyone is healthy, and you’re healthy, and things are going your way, everyone can do what you did, what you want to do. I told her, have a restaurant and have one table all day. Do that 2 times, 3 times, 5 times. I can tell you that’s a major food. Life hits you in the face. Life tells you, eat on the ground, be humble. Again, when you do what you love to do, it does not matter because you’re so convinced of the delusion. You’re so convinced that it’ll work out, and it will work out. It builds so much strength. Why I told that story is because it literally happened more than once for me. It builds what we’re actually talking about is resilience. It builds resilience.
How much of what you built do you think was intentional versus it just happening to you? If you go back before the accident, what decisions were you making? What happened to you? How did you react, and how did that build who you were that prepared you for this recovery?
For me, I was not conscious of it. It was just the right thing to do. It was the logical thing to do. It was just the next step. After the accident, writing the book and everything that came out, I just became more conscious about, bro, you’ve been doing some cool s***. Before it, it was just the logical next step. When you’re not a victim, at least you do not like playing the victim.
Shifting Focus From Feeling to Execution
That is the most important thing. By the way, the most important word in the title is done. You just do you. There’s one table in the restaurant. You just do mise en place, and you make sure that you just make sure that the closing is clean, and you make sure that when the first table comes in, you’re ready, and you make sure that the books are clean and everything is just, yeah. You just do it because it’s the right thing to do.
Talk about the difference between the logistics, the actual doing, like you’re talking about, versus the mindset that goes along with it, before it and after it. Anybody can technically wipe a table, set a table. As you said, you and I are aligned that way, like everything in life. I would say you never have more than one thing to do. The thing in front of you. You never have more than one person to talk to, Vincent, the guy in front of him. If everything’s one thing, life becomes easy. There’s a difference between how we set the table, guys, and how we take care of the guests. What’s the faith that you put behind those things that make it different from somebody else who’s just taking care of one table? If I talked to your crew before the accident, what would your crew say? “Man, this is Vincent’s message, look out.”
Stop focusing on how hard the goal feels. Focus on getting it done. Share on XTreating Every Day Like the World Cup Final
I cannot make it really easy for you or simple for you. What I always tell the team is, for us, it’s the final of the World Cup every single day. A customer can come in twenty times, be happy as f***, come in the 21st time and not be happy at all, and ask them the question, what will they do? They will all tell you, “They do not come back.” For us, I tell them then, for us, winning the World Cup means every customer that walks out of the restaurant tells him or herself, “What did we just live? What was it?” It’s staying. That was good. It’s not good enough. Only in Brussels, already 5,000 places. Being good is not good enough. For us, winning the World Cup means they walk out, and they’re like, “What just happened?
I love you said that. I used to tell my team, every guest running into the bathroom to look in the mirror to see if they have a crown on their head. Like, “Why am I being treated like royalty? What is going on here? People know something about me that I do not know. If that’s something good for you. That’s the way to be because that changes the game.” That’s what’s so hard about restaurants. As you said, you come in 20 times. If the 21st time is not good, you may lose them.
Other companies, I mean, every company, it’s a challenge, but when you create a product, once the product’s perfect, you just keep selling those products. You and I, like in the restaurant business, start over every day to make the product again. Hopefully, it’s the same and just as good. The guy’s not hungover, and the girl’s not tired. They put out the same product that they put out the first twenty times. It’s crazy. How have your relationships changed with people? Are you married? You have a wife.
Yes.
We start with her? How is that? What’s her name?
For eight years, we’ve been married.
What’s her name?
Zeynep.
How has your relationship with her changed before and after the accident? Anything different or other people in your life?
We’re dope as we were. We’re good. We’re literally even better than we were before the accident. We’re just figuring out our life together. We’re going through the hardships and the good times together. I’m literally the Vincent you’re talking to right now. You’re Vincent from before October 11, 2024. Exactly the same. By the way, I love talking about myself, but I love you more for talking about myself through other people.
I always say, “If I have to believe people, they’re the same. Literally the same. We’re the same.” I’m talking about my friends, my family. We’re all just living life. We’re all just figuring out life. We’re all supporting each other. That is the thing. Also, this kind of energy, where I’ve been awake since 6:00 AM in the morning, was already my workout. It’s 6:00 PM right now over here in Brussels. You cannot have this kind of energy when life is not working, or even if it’s like a workout, it does not happen. I worked all day.
When you say you worked all day, I know you’re doing a lot of stuff with the book now and everything. Are you still in the restaurant all day? Is that a big part of your life?
Six days out of my week.
It’s there. If the accident had never happened, what do you think you might be getting wrong about your life that you now have gotten right?
Setting Non-Negotiable Boundaries for Loved Ones
I’d probably be working as much as I was doing before the accident. I became way more non-aggressive, as in my sister’s daughter’s birthdays, I missed their first four birthdays. I would never do that again. Spending dinner together with my wife every single evening would never have happened before the accident. I’m not doing that shit anymore either. I just became more non-aggressive when it comes to spending time with people that I love. There might be a business problem. If it’s not that urgent, it can be taken care of tomorrow.
When I transitioned from restaurants to real estate, one of the things I loved was my real estate coach, who’s the co-author of my book, The Reduction. One of the things he said when I first got into the business twenty years ago is, “There are no emergencies in real estate. Houses do not bleed.” You can appreciate them for anybody. Unless your head’s open and you’re bleeding, there’s no emergency. Everything can wait, and most things will fix themselves unless you need to put them back together. That is a wake-up call.
It was indeed.
Talk more about the title, Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done. What does that mean to you? If you’re coaching somebody younger than you on that concept, what does that look like? Obviously, sure, when it’s done, it’s not possible anymore. There’s a big gap between it’s impossible and it’s done. How do you bridge that gap if you were trying to coach and inspire somebody? For that matter, it could be somebody who’s 50 or 60 like me, because life, it’s never too late to. There’s no expiration date on your dreams, in my opinion. What does that look like?
That’s the most important word in the title, Done. You just do. The second most important word in the title is Feels. The feeling part is always connected to the result, which you and I will never be able to, nor will anyone in the entire world be able to, control. The result you can never control. Where it gets interesting is that the past has taught us enough, and we’re in 2026 by now, that results always follow hard work and always pay off. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, nor next month, nor next year. They always follow.
If you’re done, do enough. Keep on doing, as you work for a 100% result, you hope for 10%. I think too. Tell me if you resonate with this. I feel like it is impossible to take a thousand steps at once. When you take one step at a time, nothing’s impossible because you’re just doing one little thing towards being done. It’s that simple. There’s always this conversation about it being easier, it being difficult, it’s supposed to be difficult, it is that simple. To overcomplicate things.
The things that are the most difficult, and why? It’s because they’re so worth it.
Thank you. Indeed. It is that.
I want you to go into a little more depth. I love what you said. I probably love it because you and I are aligned with some of these thoughts. You said that impossibility is always tied to a feeling. Talk more about that because I’m so in line with you. It starts with the feeling.
It is because it is literally a feeling. It’s not factual, and it could be whatever. When you go into something difficult, something that feels too big for you, something just in general, big, something that is considered delusional. Of course, it always feels like there’s this inner thing that happens, like, “What if it does?” It’s always tied to this question, but what if it does not work out? What if it’s not going to happen? You never know. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. It is literally a feeling inside your body.
Out-Talking the Negative Dialogue in Your Head
That’s why we’re nervous when we’re public speaking, because it’s always tied to the possibility of there being a negative result. When you switch it up and you all of a sudden become convinced of the outcome, beautiful thing. How do you do that? You wouldn’t want to do that. That’s the goal. Everybody relates to me because I feel like it’s too hard, so I should not even try, etc. How do you get past that? How did you get past that in your life? You just talk louder than the negative voice in your head. I’m not talking about talking out loud in the streets. We all have this negative.
I went to work out this morning. I can tell you, I’ve been working out seven days a week for the past longer than a year. I can tell you, until this day, I’m hating my life. I’m literally hating my life during the workout. This is not my favorite activity. There’s always this voice, maybe we’re supposed to do 15 reps. At the 10th, maybe 10 reps are good too. You just talk a lot. You do that one time, difficult. You do that two times. It’s difficult. You do that five times. Still difficult. It just becomes wicked. It just becomes 50 times. Five seconds more, you just talk louder.
There’s no quitting. There is no plan B. Going back to the stuff that I love. You build a lot of things. We’re in 2018 now. My very first lesson, and people will ask me, “Vincent, what if it does not work?” “No, it’s going to work.” “What if it does not?” “It’s going to work.” “What is your plan B?” “There is none.” It did not work out because of COVID and a lot of bad decisions, probably, and a lot of things happened.
Until the day it didn’t, everything was able to be controlled. I’m still here talking to you. I lost the rest in 2020. We’re in 2026 right now. I can tell you, I sleep good. I’ll wake up happy. It is what it is. Literally, you just keep on doing it when you’re convinced of something so big and so exciting that nothing else matters.
When the negative voice in your head tells you to quit, you just have to talk louder. Share on XYou hit on it earlier, and it’s something I believed in. I always tell people about my last restaurant in 2014 that failed. I smile from ear to ear when I think about it because I freaking loved the journey. Every day was a pleasure. I always say Surf the rainbow because you do not know if the pot of gold is going to be there or not. If you enjoy the ride, the outcome does not matter. Sure. We’d all like to make millions. To me, the biggest fear is not enjoying the journey and then making millions, because then the millions do not feel good because it wasn’t the right journey. Did you resonate with that? How does that land for you with your restaurants, your challenges, and the things that didn’t work out?
I always love examples that are easier to understand for people tuning in. The most beautiful views in the whole world always come after the toughest climbs. We’re all ready. We’re all down to wake up at 4:00 AM in the morning to climb a mountain in Bali to see the sunset. We’re not down to do the daily challenges. It’s part of life. You just do it because, all of a sudden, the view is more. The view is the same even if the climb was easy. It just feels more satisfying because it was hard.
That’s funny. You just made me. It’s something. I have not been there yet, but my friends have been to Machu Picchu. You have a choice of being shuttled to the top, or you can take the partial climb or you can do the badass full-day or two-day journey. That’s very symbolic of what you’re talking about. Everybody’s going to end up seeing the same thing. I wonder how it resonates if you climbed and sweated and were scared of falling off the edge, versus there you are enjoying it.
Big difference.
Here’s something I’m curious about. Would today’s Vincent have made those restaurants, whatever didn’t work out, whatever failed back in 2020, would they not have failed with today’s Vincent?
A hundred percent.
What would you have done differently? What would have happened differently that would have made them 100% fail? What would have been different?
No, 100%. They would not have failed. Now, I do not know. Today’s Vincent is a boss. He’s relentless. He’s on his numbers. He would make way better decisions. I made a lot of bad decisions. No, they would have been. I’ve been telling people so many times, like, give me all the money I need right now. I make everything a big success. I learned so much from the past eight years, like a lot.
Talk then about how the life you build saves you, but then once you’re saved, it sounds like you can still build more that will make a difference. What’s the difference between what you built to save you, and what you’re building now after having been saved, if you will?
Just fell down a couple of times. They were bad falls, but there are still a lot of goals. I’m only 34. That’s so young. It’s funny because someone told me recently that it’s like you lived 30 lives in the past 15 years. I went through a lot of things, but I still have a lot of goals. I still have a lot of things to do. Everything I’ve built has saved me until now. Again, there’s hopefully still 50, 60, 70 years to go. I hope even more. Everything I’ve learned until now, I’m going to use it, and I’m going to squeeze everything out of it to build even better, building even more.
Good for you, man. That is an incredible thought. You’re 34. You were roughly 32 with the accident, which means you were opening restaurants in your twenties. Ironically, that’s the same thing I did. It’s really interesting. Talking about my whole thing is the circle of control. It’s part of the reduction and everything. You mentioned what you can control earlier. Talk about after the accident, how were you able to manage what you could control versus what you cannot control? What were your darkest moments, and then how did you get out of it?
Support the people around you. Honestly, the darkest moments are, of course, when you’re not able to walk again, when you’re not able to wash yourself, you cannot even eat by yourself, you cannot even talk. Those are pretty dark times, and then you have people around you who hold you accountable. I’ve always been missing this thing right now, as I’ve always been that kind of person. I’m high-energy all the time. I’m super positive. Those first two to three weeks, I was in a bad place. I was complaining all the time. People who are just good friends will tell you not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. They would tell me, my wife would tell me, “Do you want to stop complaining? What’s this all about?”
I love friends.
They would be sarcastic, like, “You do not want to walk again anymore. Get your ass up and go walk.” You have to know that walking five meters felt like a marathon for me back then. Again, I was in a bad place, and you just have people like us all. This thing called life, you cannot do it alone. I was lucky enough that I was 32 already, so I built myself a support system in the years before. I have cool friends. I have amazing friends around me. I have an amazing wife. I have an amazing family. They help me. They hold me accountable every single day.
Stop asking why me when things get tough. Start asking why not me. Share on XWell said, man. We are nothing without people, connection. It’s so cliché because it’s so freaking true. It’s the best medicine in the world. There is nothing more. That’s why guys like you and I love the hospitality business. There’s something in us. Our story makes us want to please people. We want that validation because we love to take care of people and light people up and see them feel better than before we got them. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to do, for sure. Do you remember any epiphany moments like, there’s your wife saying, “I guess you do not want to walk,” or “Stop bitching,” or whatever it was. Do you remember an epiphany you had and something that tipped you into a better place that got you back to, like, the Vincent you knew you were?
It was November 20th. I finally walked into rehab. With all the information I had about my case and the way I progressed, I told people around me, because then it became real. I told people around me, on my birthday, which is January 25th, “I’m out of this place.” You have to know recovery was supposed to take two years, or at least one year. What did everyone do? “Vincent, stop dreaming, be more realistic, feet on the ground,” except for one person. My wife told me, “It might be better not to link it to a specific date, but to things that you did before the accident.” That was November 20th, the epiphany. Things became like this. The war began. This was delivery time. Playing time was over. Now it’s all up to me.
We are so lucky to have good wives. What an amazing woman. That’s a great thing to say. I cannot imagine, dude. They said you had a one percent chance of survival. Is that what I read?
It was a 10% chance of 1 out of 10 survival. Full recovery, like me being able to have this conversation with you right now, was one percent. Full recovery was one percent. The most optimistic news when I was still in a coma was that if he ever wakes up, he’ll probably be a plant for the rest of his life. That was the most optimistic news.
Just incredible. You can tilt your head down. You can see like that it’s just nuts, dude.
It was disgusting.
Did you ever get to meet the person? I saw that one post you did where the person said to the ambulance, like, “Is this guy going to survive?” I felt so connected to your outcome. Did you ever see that person again?
No, and I would love to. I would also love to have a conversation with the driver who hit me. I would love to have a face-to-face conversation with him and film the whole thing. There are still so many things that need to be revealed. The guy got to court. It was June 19th. There are still so many things that are not clear that need to happen, but it’s all going to happen. I’m going to find the paramedics. I’m going to find the guy. We’re going to have those conversations. I’m going to find the police who were on the scene when I need to talk to all of them, not because it was disgusting.
Tell me, what was disgusting?
It was disgusting seeing, like, I was on the street with my skull open, bleeding, suffocating on the spot. It was disgusting to see.
What happened? Not that it matters. I’m just curious. Was it his fault? He ran a red light or something, or what happened?
I know he hit me with a braking speed of 55 kilometers an hour in a 30 zone already, and on top of that, he was probably driving at like 90 or 100. I do not know the details, but I know he hit me at a braking speed to the maximum, 55 kilometers an hour in a 30 zone. Also, when I thought about it many times, it was hard to understand that I would see a car driving towards me and I would not move, meaning it was probably driving at a speed that was way too fast. On top of that, he had already had his driver’s license taken away before the accident. At the moment of the accident, he did not even have his driver’s license.
How have you been able to reconcile that? The default for most people would be resentment, anger, revenge, whatever. Where are you at with all that, and how have you handled it, and how has that weighed on your life, that reconciliation, if you will?
That same November 20th, before going to sleep, I remember thinking, “Why did this happen to me?” I remember that saying, going back to how the life you build becomes a life that saves you. I remember telling myself, “Do not go there. That’s a dark place to go. Focus on yourself.”
Bravo, dude.
Choosing Self-Ownership Over Resentment
Again, that’s not a cliché thing or a pretending thing. That’s literally what I told myself. Focus on yourself. Where are you going to go? Why this? Why me? Why me? It does not matter why you’re in bed. You’re in the hospital. I cannot believe that.
That sentence right there is the whole podcast gold. You’re in the bed. It’s you. That’s what it is.
Listen, Jeffrey, you’re only fooling yourself. You keep on lying to yourself. Keep on pretending. We all know if we do or if we do not. We all know if we’re real or not. Keep on playing that game. Keep on lying. We’ll talk in five years. I can guarantee you right now, you’re going to wake up one day with so much regret. You’re not ready. Do not ever think that you’re the exception on the road because there’s a reason there’s a different word for it. Not the exception.
That’s so wise of you at 34 and yeah, you’ve been through hell, but it’s clear that, like you said, the life you build is a life that saves you because at 34, I do not think you would be in as good a place as you are right now if you didn’t have that mindset before, because that’s a big pivot, man. That is, I do believe that’s a lot of what saved you.
Jeffrey, listen, you cannot do what I did, what was considered impossible, if all that was not there. By the way, it could have turned out way differently. I could tell you right now, step by step, the other outcome if I had been, from day one, the guy who was complaining all the time and everything was too much, who was not pushing himself, who was not nice to people. Even when life was not nice to him, we would not have been talking. It’s that simple.
I agree. For me, that’s the biggest thing I want to help people with is like when people keep digging, and people always, I’m sure there are a million people out there that want to kill me for saying this, but I think therapy, and again, if it works for you, keep doing it. Most of the time, I think therapy is not helping. Going backwards is not where you find the solution. In this moment is where all the solutions lie. What are you doing right now? It’s not the why. It’s the what are we doing today?
You’ve got that down, and that’s where I think most people struggle. The whole focus is on everything but right now, in the moment. You’re never going to go back and find some magic thing. Let’s say you go back and the guy that hits you is so sorry, and he wants to kill himself. Let me say he does not care at all. Let me say it does not matter. It does not change anything. Whatever you discover, right?
I mean, sure, we all want a little bit of closure, maybe, or just connection in that sense, but that’s not what’s making you better. It is what you’re doing. That’s the brilliant path you’ve chosen. I’m going to write a book. I’m going to get this word out. What is in the closing when people buy the book, and they close the cover, and they go, “Whoa,” when they finish reading it? What are the takeaways that you want them to have? What are the things that you’ll be like, “I’m so glad you read it because now I know, or I hope you’re taking away these things”?
Reframing Challenges With a New Perspective
Pretty simple. One question. Why not me instead of why me? We just talked about epiphanies. “Why not me? That’s it. That’s simple.
I love it. My friend, what a pleasure to talk to you. You are quite inspirational at your age and with what you’ve done. I cannot wait to do another podcast in twenty years and see what you’ve conquered and what your life is like. Your book, Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done, I hope it really can make a difference in the world and that you keep thriving, my friend. I’ve been to Brussels once. I’ll get back there, and maybe we can share.
You let me know. We follow each other around in this film. You let me know. We should have a live talk being filmed in the restaurant for real.
Let’s do that. I’ll make a point of coming just for that. It would be an honor, man. I wish you all the best. Keep thriving, man. I’ll keep spreading your word. Let’s do our best to make the world a better place.
Yes, sir. That’s for real.
Thanks for your time.
Important Links
- Vincent Van Den Broeck on LinkedIn
- Vincent Van Den Broeck on Instagram
- Vincent@HashtagBrussels.com
- Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done
About Vincent Van Den Broeck
Vincent Van den Broeck is a Brussels-based entrepreneur, restaurateur, and survivor of a near-fatal car accident that changed his life forever. On October 11th, 2024, he was struck whilst riding a scooter in a collision at 55 km/h in a 30 zone. The impact left him with multiple fractures and major brain trauma. Doctors gave little hope with most injuries of this severity having only a 10% survival rate.
He spent weeks in a coma and three months in intensive rehabilitation, but recovery didn’t stop there — it became a daily mission. Against all odds, he not only regained his strength but came back stronger than before: working out 7 times a week, running a business, and building new creative projects.
Today, Vincent shares his story as living proof that resilience, mindset, and community can make the impossible possible.