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I know you're ready to take your time back and write with intention—without sacrificing your job, business, or family. The truth? You don't need more motivation. You need a system that makes writing a natural part of your life. In this episode, I break down the four key shifts that separate thriving authors from those who stay stuck in the cycle of inconsistency.You'll learn:✅ The mindset shift that makes time work for you—so you stop chasing it✅ How decision fatigue is secretly draining your creativity (and how to fix it)✅ Why writing more actually starts with doing LESS (this will change everything)✅ The #1 reason successful authors never stop writing, no matter whatI know you're done waiting. You're serious about your writing career, and you need a system that keeps you writing—even on your busiest days. Let's make that happen.
Internal boundaries are a set of rules or values that you live by, giving you a guide of what it is you are willing to accept and endure especially from other people.These boundaries do change over time as you go through different experiences and embark on your healing journey, what you once accepted will change because you change.Those boundaries are what keep you safe both from others but more specifically from yourself, as a highly sensitive soul you can be very easily led and guilted into doing things that may not be for your highest good.Think about a boundary like a line, in this case it isn't a physical line or boundary but an energetic one. It will protect you both from yourself and from others needs and wants.But first you need to decide what that boundary is for you, what values you want to live by and how it is you want to experience your life and the people that you allow in it.In this episode you will learn:✍️3 Journal prompts to understand your values“what values do I want to live by?” Write out what comes to you, as they are your deep core values.“How do I want to be treated? Write out if life was perfect, how you would like to be treated by others“I want to experience……. in my life” Write out what your life would look like, if you could do or be anything✍️4 Examples of Internal BoundariesI won't worry about the troubles of others, my role is to support them as they need it.I won't forsake my own happiness for the happiness of another personMy needs must come first no matter whatI won't try to fix other people, they are not broken✍️Download the Core Values ListAs I mentioned in this episode, I invite you to listen to another episode on Boundaries. "How to set boundaries in friendships"I trust this episode has served youAngel Blessings,NicoleGet in touch! I would love to hear your feedback__________________________________________________________________________________________________Do you want more time and energy?Sign up to receive 7 Days to Zen | Self-care BibleThe roadmap to feeling light and energised... Self-care strategies that work for you, giving you more time and energySign up here...https://nicoleivens.com/7-days-to-zen/ Connect with NicoleInstagram @nicoleivensholisticcounselling Facebook @nicoleivensholisticcounsellingLearn more about working with Nicolewww.nicoleivens.comContact Nicoleinfo@nicoleivens.com
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Sommeren 2023 la Pål Atle Fagerli ut på langtur i villmarka mellom Store Slavesjø og Store Bjørnesjø i Canada. I løpet av en måned tok han seg frem til fots og i packraft fra Whati nordvest for Yellowknife, til Deline på Great Bear Lake. Underveis fikk han leve ut drømmen om å ferdes i en villmark uten tegn til menneskelig aktivitet. Vi prater om drømmer, planlegging, logistikk, mat, kalasfiske, dyreopplevelser og intense møter med mennesker i den eneste bosetningen ved verdens 8. største innsjø.Bestill episode 200 av Podkasten Uteliv på LP-plateBli med i turlaget på PatreonBesøk min kommersielle samarbeidspartner Barents Outdoor ASLes mer om Camp Villmark Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
TRANSCRIPT: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Regenerative Business Podcast with Sam Garcia, which is who I am. And I have a special guest today. I have been saying this for weeks, but I'm so excited to have Robin Langford here from Wicked Veracity. She is a traditional astrologer. She is a stoic. She is a witchy human.I don't even know if, like, do you identify as a witch? Oh, she's a witch. aNd she's been on for the last few years giving our annual forecasts. For those who are into astrology but don't know traditional astrology, it is far more accurate and impressive when it comes to actual I guess predicting the future.Can we just, yeah, predicting the future. So if you've worked with people who are more modern astrology or, or archetypal astrology or all the other types of astrology, and you've been like, this is bullshit. It's because it wasn't traditional astrology. So strap yourselves inand hi Robin. Hello. Yes. I am a traditional astrologer and it is predictive.I do believe fate's a thing. And. I do think that the other forms of astrology are exceptionally good at personality things and helping people get to know it, know themselves but they don't, they fall apart a little bit when it comes to predictive astrology in my experience. Yeah, so let's just jump in.We were talking a little bit before and I was like, I don't, I don't want to say things. And Sam's like, no, say the thing. So we're just going to start off. I'm going to say this. Go ahead.Oh, I was just gonna say, I'm, I, Robin didn't want to say things, but I was like, no, the people listening to this podcast are like more prepper type, they're, they know that the world is going to shit and they've been sensing it, like, whether you psychically sense it or you're looking around and you're like, crossing your fingers that the American government falls apart, like, this might be our year, you guys.Not this year, but this is the last, what I would say, But it's also a pretty semi stable year for a while. Because 2027 have a variety of things that are going to be happening that are a little unsettling and that indicate a lot of massive change. And one of the examples that I'm going to give, and there's a bunch, but I'm only going to do the one, is that in 2025, it Uranus moves into Gemini and Uranus has been in Gemini in American history three times, and those three times were the American Revolution, the Civil War and World War Two and that sounds scary, which is why I'm like, I'm not really ready to have a conversation about it, but the thing to remember is, whether you like the American government or not, all three of those movements moved social justice and liberation forward unequivocally and in massive ways and while they were war is horrible, et cetera, et cetera.People dying sucks, right? It's generally necessary in the course of human events to have a war if you want things to change. So, none of those were objectively bad for everybody, period. Right? Like, there were a lot of people who made a lot of money. There were a lot of people who got more freedom. I would argue that's pretty fantastic.Yeah. And so a lot of good things come out of war, whether people want to admit it or not, and I'm not saying that this will be a war because each thing has looked different slightly. Right. But it's like, there could be some. A greater degree of instability, not this year as much. But coming up, and so the way that I'm looking at this year is like a very.almost preppery kind of year, which is what we were talking about. And a lot of my magical creatures, which is what I identify. I mean, I, my clientele tend to be entrepreneurs that are either neurodivergent or magical and sometimes both. And a lot of my magical creatures have already kind of been like, I want to solidify this.I want. I want more security here. I want less reliance there. And I think that's a lot of what you tapped into with your book. Is that feeling that the magical creatures have been, it's been building. And the reason it's been building is because the astrology is moving in that direction. Right. And.Yeah.The other thing we wanted to preface was if you hear things about this year or future years, it doesn't necessarily mean that that is going to be your personal life experience, because our, this is the astrology of the collective, not necessarily the astrology that you personally will be experiencing.If you want to know how exact things hit your chart, your personal chart, work with an astrologer because they will be able to tell you,oh,oh, oh, maybe not work with an astrologer. Work with a traditional astrologer, not just any astrologer. It doesn't have to be me, but like, you want to make sure that they're a Hellenistic astrologer or they say they're a traditional astrologer because.You just do. And if you want to work with me, that's great. But if you don't, like, that's who I would go to. And youcan't hire Robin for individual readings. She's fantastic. And I've only heard insanely positive things about having a reading with her. So her or another traditional astrologer would definitely serve you.For like a once a year check in withhow this year will look like for you. Absolutely. Cause there's so many different things that impact whether or not a transit, which is like what the planets are doing at any given moment are going to have an impact on you. And just some of them is like, where are the eclipses in your chart?Is your chart specifically being triggered by any of the events? What is your annual perfection? There are so many things. And if it's none of those are being affected in your chart, you might not even notice it. You might be like, I don't know. I was on a cruise. It was fine. You know, it could be nothing for you.All right. So those are all my caveats, right? That's all of them. We can yeah. So I'm going to say that January is a really big new beginning in a way that most calendar year, new years are not. And that's because Mercury station direct on new year's day, Jupiter station direct a couple of days before there's only one planet in the sky that is retrograde right now, and that is Uranus.And he's like. He's fine that he's retrograde, right? This January, February, specifically January though, is when, if you were gonna hustle, that's, that's when I'd be hustling and I'd be planting all your seeds and kind of getting a really good idea of what would serve you well, and what your ideal is, and working towards that as hard as you can, so that even if there's a storm later on, that you have, you know, you have your, you have your hurricane supplies, you have your You know what I'm saying?Like you have the foundation set as an entrepreneur for what you want. You're not, this isn't maybe the best year to do wild and I don't know. Is there ever a good year to do wild and crazy things? I mean, you're going to do what you're going to do, right. But it's a great year to really figure out like what would serve me fantastically.And to be putting that into place and trying to get the habit down. And that's pretty much from January 1st to March 15th. I don't really have a lot of bad things to say about that period. It's pretty functional. I am going to just, if you're not on my, if you're not on my email list, you should absolutely be on my email list because I break it down every week.Right. And there's some pretty significant things that are happening in January. I'm going to go over them very briefly here, January 20th, we have the last. Pluto conjunction with a planet that's in Capricorn and it happens at 59 minutes 50 or like 29 degrees 59 minutes was like as far as the very last inch of Capricorn and Pluto has been in Capricorn transforming that area of life for everybody since 2008.And that was like a lot of the banking crisis stuff that we had and the housing bubbles and like all of that the Bitcoin the new way that we worked with money like that kind of thing was pluto and in capricorn what it looks like pluto and aquarius is going to be which he we had a little preview from like March to June of last year it looks like it's going to have a lot to do with AI and, and how AI is probably going to explode over the next 19 years.That's the best guess that we have right now. And just typically like if I look at the 200 year rotations, which I've done there's a lot of tech advancements for whatever that meant in whatever period going all tech and cultural advancements going all the way back to like 50. So I can go, that.That seems to be true. And so. That's not a bad thing. It's not a scary thing. And if, and if March to June of last year, doesn't ring any bells. It's possible Aquarius isn't super active in your chart. But if March not, not March 8th, April March to June. But if you're like, what is Pluto in Aquarius? What transformation is that going to be for me?These are the dates I want you to remember. February 5th, February 14th. February 17th, and February 22nd, and the reasons for that is because the first three of those, we have Mercury, then Mars, then Venus conjunct Pluto at that zero degrees. Okay. And if, if that was significant for you, I promise you, you're going to notice.And the last one, which was February 22nd is there's a Mars Venus conjunction in Aquarius at like six degrees. And so that area of life is going to be super, super obviously highlighted. The other thing I'm going to say is, as far as Aquarius previews go, I actually have a few other dates, March 30th.I'm sorry, March 31st of 2020. There was a Mars Saturn conjunction at the zero degree of Aquarius point, and it was probably a disagreement or warlike stance in this area of life or someplace that you encounter strong resistance or a need to change. December 21st of 2020. I know Sam's going to remember this one.It was a great conjunction. That we did a lot of work on. That was the Saturn and Jupiter conjunction. And that was at the zero degree point. And then there was a Mars Venus conjunction on March 6th of 2022. anD so if any of those dates, feel free to go back and write them all down. If any of those dates are like, Oh crap, something big happened then.Yeah. Welcome to your Aquarius era. Cause yeah, I promise you it's going to be a ride. WhatI was just realizing is like, that is exactly when I had the, cause I'd been writing. The regenerative business book, I'd been writing it for very inconsistently for, I don't know, seven months or something. And then in March of 2023, I was just like, I need this book out.I need it out now. And then like spent all of my free time writing to get it out by. May 26.SoI'm like, okay, February. What is coming with? Yeah. And I mean, that's your house or something. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's relevant or North node. It's something like that. It's your 10th house. I mean, there might be other stuff there too. I'd have to look. But yeah, I know it's going to be relevant for you in that particular way. And. You have like 19 years of transformative growth that's coming and there's gonna be a lot of things that trigger it, but it's just that very narrow window of period period of time in February that it's going to get hit over and over so often that I promise you, if you have anything there, you're not even going to need to ask anybody. You're gonna be like, well, that's obvious by the end of February. Right? And I'll tell you, like, that's if you have anything in Aquaria, if you have anything around 0 degrees of Aquarius. Leo Scorpio, and Taurus. Is that right? I feel like that's right. Big signs? Hmm, ah, I don't know. I'm, I'm not looking at anything in my, but, yeah, for sure though, Aquarius and Leo, around zero to two degrees, I'd say you, you're probably gonna notice. So that's the first part. And then, then we get, so that's January. Like, March is just kind of like, And February is only really interesting to me because you're going to get such a good preview of all the Aquarius stuff which is, I think, useful, since it's the beginning of a 18, 19 year thing, and if you look at your Capricorn house and think about how it's changed from 2008 until now, you'll get a, you'll get a taste of how big and how I'm going to talk about how long Pluto transits are and like how much they can change things. Mine was in my fourth house. I had two kids, got divorced, built my own house, built my own business in my house, right? That's all fourth house topics. So it's Capricorn house stuff is, is what's happening. That's what you're saying? It's what's wrapping up and we're moving into the Aquarius. Okay. So like I feel like this is another caveat of like this is slightly more advanced astrology topics that we're just kind of like running through very casually. I'm just realizing that I'm like some people don't even know what a house is. That's true. That's true. But it'll just pay attention to what's new. Like what's new and exciting in February is going to be an indicator. It's going to be a trend for a longer period. How about that? Yeah, whatever seems to be very focused. Also, I think people are just going to get a lot of New insights in January and February, which is another reason that I say it's, it's not easy. It's very productive, but it is it does have, like, my green light for it, like, until March 15th. So I'm going to switch to March 17th to April 28th, which is what I call the chaos zone. And I don't have really anything nice to say about it. It's a lot of confusion and aggression. We have 2 eclipses and a mercury retrograde during that period. And a lot of very challenging aspects pretty much the whole time. So for the business people out there, if I'm launching, it's not between March 17th and April 28th. I'm a hundred percent not doing that. And your vacations. I, or maybe not. If you want to like your family, I mean, I've done vacate. Like when I went to Alaska, it was during an eclipse. It was during an eclipse window. Right. And you can do that, but it, I mean, ultimately it depends on like where it's going to show up in your life. I'm not saying that it's a bad time, but there's going to be a lot of chaos. Right. And so one of the things that I tell the people that I work with a lot is. There's no, there's no period. There's no point in time where you just need to stop living your life. Yeah. Right. There are points in time that you're probably going to need more help managing your mind, or that you're going to need to be more resilient and more adaptable. And so March 17 to April 28, that's what that is right there's more external chaos, and there may be more internal chaos depending on where it is in your chart. And you're probably going to have the opportunity to be more resilient, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Is there any chance that, like, for people who hear chaos and are like, good things actually come out of chaos for me, like, maybe that is a time to, to leverage? I'm not saying that unless I look at their chart. Okay. I'm gonna say, like, There is no traditional astrologer that is ever going to say the period between March 25th and April 8th is a good time to do something. You aren't going to find a single person that's, I, I would put money down on that if they're a traditional astrologer, they would not say that because that's between two eclipses and there's a Mercury retrograde in the house of the eclipses. No, no, no. Now there are people who like chaos magic. Go with God. I'm not recommending it. Okay, but that doesn't mean like, don't do your business, right? Like, I'm still going to be running my business. I'm still going to be seeing clients. I'm still going to be living my life. I'm not going into a hole, but I'm 100 percent planning just like, like a hurricane plan, right? Like, just I live in hurricane alley. For those of you who don't know we plan for a category 5 hurricane to hit and then we hope it doesn't right. And if I'm looking at the year, that period is hurricane season. I, I'm, it doesn't look Maybe batch content ahead of time. Well, see, but like, I don't even consider writing content difficult. So for me, like, I'm not anticipating me not being able to write, because I know where it's going to hit in my chart. I know where the drama is likely to be. And this is where like working with an astrologer and just knowing the areas of life that are likely to be more challenging is useful because it's not in my work sectors, it's in my relationship sectors. I don't have a relationship. I'm not super worried. Right. I'm like, what can't you? Oh my gosh. I can't wait to hear the behind the scenes now that you've said that publicly. But that's not going to affect my work, right? Like, that's not a work thing. That's, that's some other form of chaos. So how do people figure out what sector it's in? It's what the house that what's what's in Aries, Aries and Libra. Okay. I have nothing in those houses. Yeah. Like I'm not like, do we want to let's cheat and like, we'll just give a little preview of what can happen if I have your chart. Most people really like it when I talk about other people's charts on podcasts. Because they are like, Oh, I didn't know you could do that. So I'm just going to pull your chart up. I have no, no planets in Aries or Libra. Okay. But since I don't remember that, I'm not going to, yeah, I don't think, but I think you're going to probably do a lot of publicity stuff. That's my guess. Okay. And have chaos. I have chaotic publicity. Okay, but I want you to think about that, right? Like, think about chaotic social media publicity. That could be something going viral. Yeah. Because chaos isn't inherently bad, but you can't plan for it. That's why when you were like, would you try to manifest something? No. But I would expect things to go probably viral or for you to unexpectedly get opportunities from benefactors. So like somebody So this is, this is, these are conversations we've had offline plenty of like I feel as though personally and I don't know about other people but I feel like when bad things happen collectively, like. I actually like personally do really well. Like I, I, I handle it well, like, like weird miracles and opportunities pop into my life. So like when I hear chaos, I'm like, okay, things could actually be good for me. Yes. Yeah, they could, but not planned things, right? And, and that's the difference. It's just like, that's why I say adaptable and resilient because yes, lots of opportunities. And, and eclipses aren't inherently bad. There's sudden new beginnings and sudden endings, right? And that's not bad. It's just not when I'm trying to plan something that I want to go according to plan. You don't play. Yeah. Just have your hurricane plan. Yeah. But even that is like, which way I evacuate is based off of which way the storm is projected to go. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I still have to be adaptable. So, so what about May? May through June is freaking delightful. I love it. Yeah. May is great. There are a bunch of really really lovely things that happen. I have it as a green period, May 1 to June 7th. Especially if you have a lot of Gemini or Taurus placements. And for the people in the back, what does a green period mean? Good things. I don't really have anything bad to say. So like a green light, you're saying like green light, green, yellow, red. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I'm basically green yellowing and red. This is my other green period, so January 1st of March 15th and May 1st of June 7th are my green lights. I like them a lot. If you happen to have significant TAUs or Gemini placements. Lord, it's about to be good. You have Gemini. Amazing girl, what? Yours is about to be good. You just know how much I hate Taurus. I don't hate Tauruses, I just like Taurus season is like the bane of my existence. Yeah but there's just a lot of really lovely things happening in Taurus and Gemini, and even if you don't have anything in that area, it's still a nice period for most people. Again, when I say that there are good periods, it very much depends, like, what's happening in your chart, blah, blah, blah. I have June 8th through July 31st as just sort of a yellow light. It looks like working hard more than anything else. Like, it looks like there's things that people are figuring out. And, but not, not hurricane season. I don't dislike it. August 20, August 4th to August 28th, so Mercury Retrograde. Mercury Retrogrades, for those of you who have not been working with me forever, is just a period that's better for reviewing. So like, review your copy, review your funnels, review your website. You know, it's not necessarily the best time to start something new. Back up your systems. You know, just like, very functional. Yeah. Let's scoot back to, you said June 8th through July 31st is this yellow period. And you're saying that it's like a working hard period. Do you mean by that, like, things don't, like, they're just taking more work or it's just a good, it's a good, like, what is the, face the grindstone? Yeah, nose to the grindstone. Yeah, I think it could be, it could go either way. It kind of depends on the person. I think it'll either be like, it'll either show up as people wanting to do work that's a little bit harder, like feeling like, oh, I can tackle this thing. Or Like something happens and they just have to figure it out. It could go either way. But it's it's like a productive forward kind of movement as opposed to netflix and chill I haven't heard any Netflix and chill periods so far this year. You're not going to hear any either. I don't have any coming up. Not a rest year. Excellent. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of opportunities for forward momentum, I would say. And then there's some really good opportunities, you know, like how you when you, oh, that's a really, nobody, but you and I are going to get this, but scrum, right? Like where you're doing sprints, there's a lot of sprint periods. For, for those listening, Scrum, I feel like it's less popular now, but there, it had like a moment in the online business world where everyone was doing Scrum sprints. I feel like there's another, another name for it, but it's this type of, this type of project planning and project working that was based off of, usually like app software developers and how they created apps. So like you would work for two, two weeks hard on this one very specific project essentially to try and get the next like 2. 0 version of the app and the 2. 1 version of the app and the 2. 2 and like you'd keep on doing these and then it kind of caught on for for a hot second. I don't know, maybe a decade ago in the online business world where people would work in sprints and do like have this two week. This is the only focus for two weeks. So you're, you're saying that's for the year or specifically this June, July period. I would say like often, like I, I kind of see this whole year as there's like little chunks that people are working on one thing and they go work on the next thing. And it's like, it seems very, very distinct to me, like, Oh, you're working on X project January and February, and then March and April, there's something else you're working on. And then may and June and then June and July. And then August is it's like own little beast. And that's that's very Mercury, like, almost all of August is Mercury retrograde. And so that, to me, feels like August is very much a reviewing what you've done kind of period, even more so than some of the others, because immediately in September, we go into eclipses again. And so September 6, September 16th to October 16th, I have as a red zone, for a couple of reasons, and now we're getting to the part of the part of the story. So September 17th is the first eclipse in Pisces. That's a new cycle. That's where the eclipses will be in 2025. October 2nd, we have our final eclipse. I think it's the last one in Libra. It's for sure the last one this year. And that'll be wrapping up the Libra Aries eclipse stories. And on October 4th, Mars It's his retrograde shadow. Mars is gonna. Here's the thing. Mars is gonna be in either Cancer or Leo for like eight months. So I mean those two signs and So it he first goes into cancer I didn't write it down. So I'm just gonna look real quick first goes into cancer on September 4th, and then he goes into Leo November 3rd And then he goes back into Cancer and then back into Leo and he doesn't leave until June 17th of 2025. What are, what's the, what are the flavors of Mars and Cancer and Mars and Leo? Mars and Cancer is like a warrior in full plate metal splashing around in the ocean trying to attack somebody. And that's how, and we're the warriors and that's how we feel. Yep. Great. Huh. Yeah, it's not a fun time. It's not where we want Mars to be. So we're fighting for our lives, but it's, it's, it's almost, I, what, the picture that comes in my head is, like, I had in my dream, not so much lately actually, but I used to have this reoccurring feeling in dreams where you're running and you can't move, like you're like, you're moving at super slow speed, almost like you're, you're trying to run through really dense water. That's Mars and cancer, and he's going to be there for like, Six months total. That's ridiculous. anD it's not a bad, like, if, if you're hearing this, you're like, well, I have Marsian cancer and I blah, blah, blah. Great. You're gonna love it. You're gonna feel so comfortable. Maybe not love it, but like, you're gonna feel, this is gonna be familiar. Yes. And for people who don't know, don't know Mars. Mars is action. Like, it's how you take action. It's like your, your masculine drive often, like this. Like the, the Yang part of the, yes. It was, and people, there are political correctness things that I'm going to blow out of the water right now, but Mars is masculine energy feminine and feminine energy is Venus. And it's a polarity and every human has both. You have both in your chart, you have both in your makeup, right? Like it's, it's not that I'm saying this is female and this is male, it's literally just the masculine principle and the feminine principle. And Mars does not like to be in cancer. He's not a fan. Passive aggressive sometimes. Not because they're trying to be manipulative, but because being aggressive feels so uncomfortable that the only way sometimes that Mars in cancer will make a move forward is, is in think about, okay, you know, crabs actually move side to side, but they still move forward. That's very much Mars in cancer. Like it has trouble going directly forward because. I love that. Yeah. And then why isn't Leo? Yeah, I was about to ask. Tell me. But you know the, the, the dude that was in Gladiator? Yeah, there you go. Russell Crowe? Is it Russell Crowe? Is that the guy? I don't know. I don't actually. But yeah, that movie, like, where he's like all buff and like his whole life is killing things and it's like very, very like, warry. So does that feel good? Like, because I know when righteousness feels good, like it might not like feel good to like be against it, but I'm like, it kind of sounds righteous to me like, but when you're feeling of righteousness, it feels good. So, so full disclosure, my Mars is in Leo, and you've seen me get angry. That's what Mars in Leo is like. And I do get very righteous when I'm angry. Like, if I'm angry, if I really am angry, I used, I, when I was a kid, I was a Christian and I wanted to be Michael's apprentice. Not, no joke. Michael is the right hand of God. He's the sword of God. He's the justice of God. I was like, I want that job. How do I get that job? And they're like, no, Robin, that's an angel thing. Well, but y'all said when I die, I could be an angel. Well, but not literally. And I'm like, well, then why did say it? I thought that was a possibility. So is this a scenario where We're going to get angry at things, and it's going to be productive. So let's look at the timeline, shall we? So the elections are in November. Okay, so Mars is I'm just gonna I'm like, I want to make sure I'm looking at the right time lines. I feel like everyone's already upset about they're gonna get more upset. It's gonna it's not gonna get better. So Mars goes into cancer September 4th and November 3rd, right around election day. Mars goes into Leo. Wow. So, November 4th is usually Election Day, yeah? So it's like literally before. Oh my gosh. So, thinking about that righteous anger, right? That's what's going on. You think like actual violence will happen? Because you were like referencing Gladiator. I'm not comfortable making that kind of prediction without looking at other factors. I will say that November 3rd is when Mars goes into Leo. And he Stations retrograde December 6th, which is generally when, around the time the elections are actually finalized and called and everything, right? And then he goes into, he goes into cancer again January 6th. So there's going to be like some weird, like, recalling the ballot thing, and Yeah, I mean, that's what I will say, is I think there's going to be election shenanigans. And I think they're already I already like, I feel like they're already happening. I'm just saying, like, I, I don't see how we get away from it. It looks very contentious or right around the election period with the way that Mars is stationing and a few other things are happening. Pluto goes back into Aquarius, November 19. And main stuff happening in post eclipses. The main stuff happening on October, November is this Mars stuff, or is there also other things happening? It's mostly Mars. We also had so Mars. So Pluto goes back into Aquarius for the final time on November 19th, and then it's full steam ahead and Aquarius. Because he spends like 2 months. So he comes back out like. end of August, beginning of September, he goes into Capricorn. The other thing in the end of the year, October 16th to the end of the year, I have a yellow. I don't even have it as red, right? Like the, but we do have a Mercury retrograde from November 25th to December 15th. And that Mercury retrograde shadow happens right around election time. And Mars retrograde is in Leo. It starts in Leo on December 6th and ends in Cancer on February 25th. Yeah, I mean, the fact that we haven't, the other thing that I didn't mention about the eclipses in March and April is that they go across the United States. One side of the other full solar eclipse. Last time that happened, Trump was elected. tHere's a lot and I don't even care what people's politics are about Trump, whether you love him or you hate him, or you think he's a devil, or you think he's a savior. Like, I don't really care. Nobody can deny that it created massive upheaval in the United States with him being elected. There's like families torn apart, you know, blah, blah. And that happened after the other great American eclipse. Right. And so even if it's not him, it doesn't look between that and Mars, the elections don't look. Oh, easy. No. And does that have anything to do with your business? No idea. Don't know what your business is. Might be great for business if you're a button maker and you're making buttons that say go vote for this guy and go vote for that guy, it'd be great for your business, right? Like if you're a political commentary person and you, and you make a lot of money doing that, like I can think of some Instagram influencers that I follow who are full on. It's mostly politics, right? Like I fully expect, I feel like even just, Okay, yes, with buttons and all those things, but often for online businesses, a key part of having a really solid following of people who will fight for you and your business, like, is having very controversial stances, like, or not necessarily controversial, but like Very like I I'm putting my flag in the ground on this thing, whatever that thing may be. And it sounds like Mars and Leo can help with that. So you could actually use this time period to and use the emotion of anger. Anger fueled posts can actually be the most viral posts. You have the most shared posts. You have the most, the most the posts that actually solidify people's love for you because it's, go ahead. Let's dial that back a tiny bit. I don't want to say anger. I want to say passion. Yeah. I actually think anger is a very useful emotion to feel posts by, not like all of them. Of course not. But, but there is anger and passion. This Mars is this action oriented thing. People will take action when they tap into their anger. There's no question about it. So it can, I want to just lean into the potential that this could be actually an amazing time period for you to actually make a name for yourself, to have people fall in love with you, to have your business do extremely well. Sure. Sure. I'm calling this in for all of us. Yes. I mean, I would rather people not. I mean, I know that anger is useful and sometimes that's the only way that people can make a change. It's also because it's such a volatile period. Typically, when people are angry, that becomes an us versus them mentality that is. dehumanizing occasionally. And I've seen it a lot. No, you have to do it gracefully. No, but Simone Soul, a client of mine, a client of yours, she, like one of her like top 10 tips in having a, a successful business is to tap into your anger, anger and talk about things that you're angry about because you'll actually put passion behind it. It doesn't have to be this, like we're tearing down the world. Of course, I'm all for that too, but But you actually having a stance on something is extremely useful in online business. So this is where y'all can tell if you know astrology that I have a lot of placements in Libra and Sam doesn't have any. Because I am very much. I also have Mars essentially conjunct my rising sign. Yes, she does. Yeah. So, and I, my anger is very I, I'm more like, you know, I am, I mean, I'm, I'm all about total warfare. It's just that video game. I feel like it is, is what total warfare. Oh, it is. It is a name of, it's also a war strategy, which you, we might disagree on if you were to look it up. Where was I going with this? I was going with the, I think that there's so much. contention and volatility and hate that is a possibility that if you're that I am not going to get behind, I'm just not, I am not going to say lean into your anger. I'm going to say lean into your passion and what you're passionate about while also remaining aware of the fact that even if these people have directly opposing views, they're still humans. Because there's the potential for people to forget that. Yeah. And maybe not your people, or maybe you hope it's not your people, but. I'm, I'm a historian first and foremost. For those of you who don't know, that's what my undergraduate degree is in. That's what I taught for a really long time. That's what I freaking love. The divisive nature of some of these transits makes me just want to remind people that those people that you disagree with, those people who are doing horrible things in your opinion, or even if you want to put it as an objective fact, right? There's still stuff going on in their brain that got them there. And they're still humans. And. There's still a place for compassion and I used to use World War II as my favorite example because it was one of the periods that I focused on. Individual Germans didn't hate the people that got put in the concentration camps, right? They got riled up because of the political situation and because they thought that somebody else would stop it. And some of them got riled up because they just wanted to feel powerful. And there are all these, all these different reasons, right? But like Germans as a whole weren't. Horrible people, right? And I don't know, I just, I guess that doesn't mean don't fight back. It does mean that not paint with huge broad strokes. And it's going to be real easy to do that when Mars is pissed off in retrograde. It's going to be real easy for people to just be like, no, you like, like, let's say you like Trump. You're the devil. There we go. Or you're a Democrat and a woman. Clearly you shouldn't have any rights. You're too stupid to think for yourself. I should be able to do all that. And for, and we've seen some of that happening already. It's not like we haven't. And I want you to think back to the Venus and Leo retrograde and how some of the women's issues got pulled up and how many rights we've lost. very quickly. I don't know. I just think that there's a lot of volatility. Yeah, but sometimes, I mean, in going back to the original, or the beginning of this conversation, where Social justice and moving it forward. Yeah, and sometimes war and violence and things are necessary in order to fix some long standing, horrible things that happened during quote unquote peace. And have been happening for decades, if not hundreds of years.Ahundred percent. Here's the thing. I just figured out how I want to say it. There are children on both sides. The children aren't the enemies. And so, extremism is what I'm afraid is going to happen. It's like, you know where people get very extremist and they And they do things that even if they were on the right side of history, it was the wrong thing to do.You know what I mean? Like, I would, I would say that people would, I think most people would be like, Hey, America going up against the Nazis and ending Nazi occupation was a good thing. And Americans, like, bombing children in Hiroshima, maybe not a great thing. Maybe there was a better way. Right? But we didn't, we weren't trying.We were just trying to brute force and end it. And I guess that's the thing I'm saying. It's like, There's still no, Iknow. I'm just it's an interesting week to talk about this because they're literally the I've been like anti federal government for a long time, but like I was pretty confident about the local government being okay up until like these last couple months where they're trying to put a toxic waste dump.Next to our farm and move the toxic waste from an already toxic area to a new place right above a mother coral reef and do it in the stupid possible way with the 99 percent of the community vocally against it and they're still moving forward with it. So like we're about to do like straight up civil disobedience against it.So like, I'm like, oh, I'm kind of in this, this Morris stuff right now. And I'm like, very, like, I don't think it might be quote unquote extreme, but there's. Some bullshit happening. Anyways, we have only a few more minutes. Yeah. Did we get through everything? Because I can do a quick recap. We got through everything.Okay, so we saw January, February is a green period. It's a great time for hustling and planting seeds all the way through March 15th. And if you have any Aquarius placements, you're going to feel it. It sounds like a pot in a positive way, right? Yeah,maybe. I think it'll be interesting. I'm not, I mean, I don't think anyway.Yeah, it'll be interesting. You said March is pretty meh. But, but March 25th through no, March 17th through April 28th is like this, maybe the worst time of the year of chaos, confusion, aggression, and. So hold, hold tight for six weeks, sixweeks is a long time. So like, I mean, I, this is like, if you go to some of the traditional astrologers, there's some parts of the end of the year that not everybody's going to agree with me on.It's for me, I think it's the most most opportunities to learn resilience and adaptability. And so I'm not saying it's not a good time to, I think you're just gonna have to figure things out. I think it's going to be a lot more of a. It's also a really, the other thing I'll say about it is there's a lot of trying to move forward, not being able to, and there's a lot of having to review and a lot of weird fact checky things.It's like, there's just a lot of confusion around that period. Because there's some Neptune conjunctions and I mean, there's a bunch of Neptune conjunctions, which. It's just confusion. And thenMay and June, you said are delightful. Greet period, do all the things, feel amazing. If you're Gemini and Taurus, it's going to be extra good for you guys.And then June 8th through June 31st is a yellow. Not necessarily bad, but it's going to, like, it's, it's a, it's a working hard period. It'll be productive forward momentum, but it'll definitely, like, feel like work. Like that, but you remember, like, whenever you were writing your book, like, you were just nose down, right?Like, you were like, I'm just doing this, but you didn't, you didn't feel bad. Yeah,no, I, I like that feeling personally. August 4th through 28th, this is Mercury Retrograde. It's just a review, reflection time, nothing else really happening. And then September 16th through October 6th. Oh, oh,oh, what? So, okay, so July 8th to July 34th, 31st, I have is like very working focused.I would say August is challenging. Okay. I wouldn't, I mean, it's more challenging than the months before. Yeah. And it's like leading up to the September, October eclipse zone right like August is when it starts getting challenging September, October, we just have a bunch of stuff that sort of adds on. So that's like the red period when we really are like, yeah, I don't think it's as bad as the first eclipse like the eclipses, the eclipses at the beginning of the year I think are harder.But it's also important to just remember that this is going to start being like where the election stuff kicks up real high. Yeah, it, there's going to be a lot of sudden information that gets changed and more aggressive stances that are going to be taken. And then we also have a mercury retrograde and mercury shadow period like.And so it's just more, it's less the first half of the year is more effective. I would say it's going to be easier to be effective in the first part of the year. And then, and then you said that November, December, it's. Well, after October 16th through the end of the year, it's a yellow period. So like, not, not sweet, sweet green, but it is not red.And it'll, it sounds like a very collective time with that Mars stuff and the election stuff. So stuff is going to be like flying around. Yeah, I think it's going to be a little chaotic. I think it's going to, yeah, between the eclipses and the Mercury retrogrades and everything else. I do think that there's going to be some.And then, overall, this is our last stable year for a while. Not to say it's going to be an easy year, but 2025, 26, 27 is going to be more instability. So this is a great year to really, oops, I just broke a pen, to really ground into or lean into creating stability and using this year to create stability for and prepare and create resilience, build resilience for the future years.Absolutely. And I mean, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's a lot of what the hard work looks like is like, what are you, what is it that you want to stand for? Right. And that's part of what you were saying. And I'm, I'm not disagreeing that people need to take a stand. It's just, my gosh, there's so much, there's so much anger and there, which I'm not saying the anger is bad either.God knows, like, I have a temper. It's just. Figure out what your, figure out where your lines in the sand are. Figure, you know how people say, I'm not going to die on that hill. Like, you know, you can plant your flag. I think this is the year people are going to figure out where their flags are going to get planted.Mm, yeah. Yeah, you have to, you have to hold, hold back. You can't, you can't fight for every cause. All the causes are valid, not all of them, but plenty of causes are valid, but, but there's so many of them, right? Like there's so many injustices in the world. There really are. Yeah. And you can't effectively fight for all of them.Yeah. Right. And so what are you going to fight for? Yeah. And where does your family come in on that? Right? Like, how is that like you specifically, one of the reasons that this is your cause is because it's literally on your back doorstep. Yeah. Right. Right. And there's no way that any of us who don't live there can really and truly understand the impact and the fear that comes along with a toxic waste dump being put right next to our home.Yeah, right. Yeah. And obviously that's going to be your cause. Obviously it should be. And I think that a lot of people, instead of looking globally, they are probably going to start looking more like, okay, but what about me and my rights? Like a lot of women are focused on other areas, but in some states like where I live, our rights have been ripped away from us.Like I'm literally like when women have only had credit cards for like five years longer than I've been alive. And I'm looking at some of the rights that are being rolled back and I'm like, might be something I'm interested in because I would like to have a personal autonomy. When I hit 70, you know, and I think that'll be some of the decisions people are making it's like what.Political issues. Are you going to be voting around if you can't vote for all of them because the candidates are so dispersed, right? Like, what is your issue that you're, you know, your thing? This isso good, Robin. Thank you so much for coming on. Obviously go to wickedveracity. com to book a session, but at least get on the email list.Every week Robin puts out a weekly. Email that literally goes day by day of what the energy of the week is going to be, or it's also on your podcast. So you could like, listen, if you're a listener versus, oh, you don't dothat anymore. The podcast is getting relaunched later this month with an astrology thing.And it's not going to have any of my forecast. I'll be talking more about. Okay. So definitely geton the email list. What is your podcast goingto be about then? I'm going to be talking about the way to think about astrology and the way to think about the circumstances because I do get a lot of people who go, Oh, that's really good.Or, Oh, that's really bad. And I'm like, I never said that. I'm not the words that I used. Cause I don't think that any of it's good or bad. I think it's neutral and you get to experience it however you want to. And I'm going to be talking a little bit more about that and how I think about each of the planets and signs and everything.Give people a way of thinking about them. My Instagram, I also put out daily. I hate email. So I never look at email, but I always, I tend to be like, what the fuck is happening today? This feels weird. And then I go look on your Instagram, which is wicked dot veracity. It is. Yeah. And being like, what is happening and seeing if it's similar or not than what I'm experiencing.But thank you, Robin. DM both of us to let us know what you're doing to prepare for your resilience this year. So good. The Regenerative Business Creation Lab is open now! Join our premium digital deep-dive for modern change-makers to install the Regenerative Business Framework into your business.Learn more here: https://regenerativebusinesscreationlab.com
Timestamps(00:00:02) Introduction (00:01:01) Healthcare Risk Management Experience (00:02:18) Fair Housing Act Explanation (00:08:15) Prohibition of Disability Discrimination (00:15:57) Understanding Essential Requirements (00:23:15) Rules Around Common Accommodations (00:29:42) Risks & Fair Housing Marketing (00:34:55) Legalities for Assisted Living Services (00:40:17) FSA & Housing Education (00:43:22) Rules Disregard in Senior Living (00:47:41) Risk Tolerance Discussion (00:49:06) Risk Management in Senior Living So as you mentioned, I did medical malpractice defense for a number of years in New York,and then I moved to Pennsylvania because I was getting married and my husband was fromout of state.And when I moved, I decided to switch hats, and I decided to do healthcare risk management.So I was tasked with starting up a risk management program for FSA.At the time, we started with 12 organizations, nonprofit, faith-based communities, generallyin the Philadelphia area.Since then, we've expanded quite a bit, and we now have 37 sites in six states.And so I give guidance and consultation on risk management issues.So today, we are going to talk about marketing risks, but I'm going to talk about it frommy perspective, you know, from a risk management perspective and a fair housing perspective.Okay.So thanks for that background.So let's get right into it.What is the worst-case scenario if someone says, you know, I'm going to market howeverI want to market?I'm going to say what I want to say, do what I want to do.What have you seen as like a worst-case scenario of someone has done this and this horribleoutcome has happened?Great question.Nothing like the fear factor right from the beginning.So what I'm going to preface that question with is an explanation of why there are risksin this venue, in this area.And so in 1968, Congress enacted the Fair Housing Act, which was what I like to callthe third leg of the stool for civil rights litigation, legislation rather.And so we had the Civil Rights Act, then the Voting Rights Act. And then in 1968, they passed the Fair Housing Act.And that precluded discrimination in housing choices and lending based upon what we callthe protected class status.So started out with race, religion, national origin, color, gender, which now includesgender identity and sexual orientation, and national origin.In 1988, Congress amended the act to include two additional protected class categories.Familial status, meaning that you are not supposed to be able to discriminate againstfamilies with children.And of course, there is a carve-out for our senior living settings.And the one for purposes of our discussion today, which will be very pivotal, is it sayshandicapped, but it's what we would refer to as disability.So you have now protections under the Fair Housing Act, and we just call it FHA for boththe Amendments Act and the original act for all those protected classes, which actessentially as a floor, not a ceiling.So state and local jurisdictions can also add an additional protected class categories,like, for example, maybe marital status, saying that, you know, you can't discriminateagainst somebody because they're unmarried or, you know, because they cohabitatetogether, for example, or source of income is another one that's fairly common.So I think for a lot of senior living communities, they don't necessarily recognizethat they are covered by this act as a housing provider, because I think for a lot ofcommunities, they say justifiably, well, we're not a housing provider because we do somuch more than that. And you do.However, in the eyes of the government, you are a housing provider and you are subject tothe Fair Housing Act.And so there are lots of risks that come along with that.Now, if you choose as an organization just to decide that you're going to market any wayyou want to and you're not going to pay attention to various marketing risks, includingfair housing risks, what's the worst case scenario?The worst case scenario is that you end up being in litigation, sued by potentially afederal government. So it's now the United States of America versus, you know, seniorliving community, A.B.State. You are in litigation with the government.You are being sued for housing discrimination.Almost always that ends very badly for the community.Almost always winds up in a monetary settlement.Many times there is also a settlement compensation fund where the community has toadvertise in multiple places for people that have been subject to what they've just beenfound by the government to be illegally doing.Let's just say discriminating against those with scooters, for example.And so they would have to advertise for anyone that's been impacted by that to give themmoney. In addition, there's almost always what we call a consent decree that comes withthat. It's sort of, if you're familiar with the world of compliance, it's similar toa CIA or a corporate integrity agreement whereby the government puts you into thisconsent decree.And the consent decree not only sets out the exact amount of money that you're going tohave to pay and how you would advertise to those who have been subject to yourdiscriminatory practices to give them money.But there's also usually quite onerous burdens that are placed on the community,including things like they get to and the government will review your actions for aperiod of time. Usually it's about five years.And so they will oversee and have to approve the policies, put policies in place forwhatever the particular topic is, change contracts, sometimes hire a fair housingofficer to perform acts to training and education for the staff on an ongoing basis.And again, being overseen by the government for a period of time.In addition, I would also say that you don't want to be the poster child for that.So again, I happen to mention scooters.And one of the pivotal cases in the world of, you know, communities that have been suedfor improper restrictions on scooters is a community called Twining Village.And I don't like to use them, you know, but that that case is out there and everybodyknows about it. So you don't want to end up having the reputational damage in our worldof, you know, senior living where it's like, oh, that's the Twining Village case.And so, you know, everybody knows based on that case, you know, some of the policiesthat you have to have in place and the no-nos, the things that you shouldn't be doing.You don't want to become the poster child for that, which can very easily happen.Well, so a couple of questions.Thank you for that. I mean, that's quite an overview.So it were someone to actually go ahead and let me just back up.So you're saying that there's the fair housing law, which puts nursing homes together inthat category. So therefore, they have these discrimination laws like you've outlined.So is this, first of all, is this specific to marketing?Are we talking about someone denies a patient because we don't take we don't want patientswith scooters because patients with scooters are dumb or whatever.Yeah. So I'm speaking broadly about senior living communities.Right. So it's anywhere that a person lives.Okay. So if you are running a short term rehab only, then potentially you are excluded fromthe Fair Housing Act because that's not someone's home.The intention is to treat them for a brief period of time with the intention to dischargethem. However, it does apply clearly.All the case law is very clear on this.It does apply to settings like CCRC, independent living, assisted living, personal care,long term care. So all of those things, you know, adult foster care, it does apply to allthose settings. It is questionable whether it would apply in the context of a short termrehab strictly.Okay. So let's back up.If I don't have if I have a regular store and I sell chocolate and desserts and flowers andwhat else? I can discriminate all I want?No. There are other laws.There are other laws that prohibit you from from doing that, that we're not necessarilyspeaking about today. But again, when it comes to housing, we are under the auspices ofmultifamily housing specifically, which means four or more people in a unit or, you know,four or more units, I should say, not four more people.Then you are subject to the Fair Housing Act.So. Okay.So the Civil Rights Act says that you can't discriminate.Right. Suggested.I understand that. So my point is that you have extra laws when it comes to if you'remanaging or you own a home that has multiple families, say for like you said, four unitsor more. So then you have you have extra focus.So now let's assume someone has an assisted living facility, a long term care facility,really can be an apartment building, too.But we're saying even senior living facilities and they're going to and then theydiscriminate against someone.So does that mean that they refuse admission to someone?Okay. So that's a great question.So discrimination can take multiple forms.It can be just as you said, refusal of admission or refusal to someone, an applicant tobe denied admission.That can be a form of discrimination.It can also be a form of discrimination, which is very common.Probably the most common form of discrimination is the refusal to grant what we call areasonable accommodation for disability.And that's where the scooters would come in, for example.So if I was disabled and I had a mobility impairment and I required a scooter to enableme to get around and to meet what we call the essential requirements of tenancy.And you, as the provider, refuse to allow me to have that scooter or, for example, thatservice animal, like you have a no pet policy and I wanted to come in with a serviceanimal. Well, that's not a pet, that's a service animal.That's for my disability. That's a reasonable accommodation.So you can refuse and then you could again potentially be sued for that.But in addition to also refusing to admit somebody, which is a form of discrimination,there are a multitude of other forms of discrimination under the act.And it can be I come in and I'm able bodied when I come in.And after I'm a resident at your community for some period of time, I now becomedisabled. And again, I've asked for reasonable accommodation, whatever that may be.And you now refuse to give me that reasonable accommodation or you are discriminatingagainst me and saying, because let's say I had a let's say I had a fall.I lived in independent living and I had a fall.And you say, well, now you're not independent anymore.And so you need to move to assisted living because you had a fall.You can't from a legal standpoint, from a fair housing standpoint, they'd have to be waymore to it than just forcing me to move up through the continuum for something like whatI just described. And then additionally, I would also say that, you know, there areagain, just treating that it's essentially under the Fair Housing Act, we don't want totreat anyone worse, which is the more common thing to do.We also can't treat anyone better because of their protected class status.So if so, again, we serve primarily faith based communities.So if I had a community that was, for example, a Quaker community and they said, becausewe are a Quaker community, we want to give preferential treatment in admission to Quakers.You don't have to meet the same kinds of financial requirements as we require from everybodyelse. You can't do that either.Right. So, again, it's admission, but it's also discriminating against somebody oncethey're there.OK, so there's also what's the line?And I guess this is where the gray area comes in between providing reasonableaccommodations in this type of living setting versus we have a noscooter policy, let's say, because of a certain maybe safety concern that we have due toour building. Or maybe we don't allow service animals, even though it's not a pet, becausewe have residents with advanced dementia and they view service animals as monsters.They're going to eat them up or any other sort of reason, assuming that it's trueor even if it's not true.I mean, you get a good attorney to make something up, but the reasonable accommodationsversus actual practical reasons why that it's not discrimination, but there's anactual ramification of being, you know, let's see your example.Someone was in an independent living and suffered from a fall and now can no longerambulate safely in that setting.And they want to say, OK, now you have to move on.You know, CCRCs, you have to move on to the assisted living.Like, I don't want to go to the assisted living.Well, over here, you can't take a shower.You can't, you know, prepare your food.You physically can't do any more.We're not discriminating because we don't like people who fall, people who are old orpeople who are weak.We're just saying that we feel that this is not appropriate.So is that where, and obviously the other side is that, no, I'm fine.It's just because I fell.Don't tell me I need to move on.Let me get some therapy.Let me go to the doctor.Let me let this thing heal and I want to stay where I am.So is that where, is that why people like you have jobs?Right.So, yeah, perhaps that's why people like me have jobs.But what I would say to you is, you know, there are parameters around certain things.So let's talk a little bit about that.So, again, when we talk about disability, we, there is a requirement under the law thatsays that in order to live someplace, whether that's just in the community at large, youknow, an apartment building or in a senior living setting, the tenant or the residenthas to meet what we call the essential requirements of tenancy, no matter what.Disability, no disability, you still have to meet the essential requirements of tenancy.So what are those?First and foremost is paying your rent and fees on time.Number two is keeping your unit in a safe, clean and sanitary condition.Now, you know, I think that reasonable people may differ as to what's safe, clean andsanitary. Right.Also obeying the reasonable community rules.Okay. Unless, of course, there has to be an exception made because of the reasonableaccommodation because of somebody's disability.But again, generally speaking, you should have a set of reasonable community rules becausepeople have to obey those rules.You also cannot have excessive damage to the unit.Okay. Normal wear and tear is okay.If I scrape the walls because of my scooter, that's okay.But if I decide to, you know, take a hammer and make holes in the walls, that's not normalwear and tear. Also not unduly disturbing the peace and tranquility of others.Okay. And the last one, which is very important, is not being a direct threat to thehealth and safety of others.Now, in my opinion, and this is not in the law, this is not in the essential requirementsof tenancy. When you are in a senior living community, I feel that it is reasonable tosay you cannot be a direct threat, a direct threat.That's very important language.Not speculative, a real direct threat to your own health and safety.Okay. So, but that's not been tested in the courts yet.That's Christina's theory.But I think it's a good one.And so.Hold on, let me talk about that for a second.If someone's, and they're a threat to themselves, and certainly if they're a threat tothemselves, even if they're not, if they're trying to physically harm themselves, they'retrying to slit their wrists, they're trying to jump out a window, they're trying to, Idon't know, whatever, anything else that's unsafe.And the facility has done everything that they can to prevent, stop, intervene, assist.So there's a question, there are those who say that, no, you cannot, let's say, Section12, you cannot send them out to the hospital because that would be discrimination.Is that even a possibility?Well, no, under the scenario that you just described, you're not evicting them.You're not getting them out permanently.You're just sending them out.So I would say, no, that's reasonable.But there have been situations, I like the examples that you use because they are extremeexamples. And I would argue, if I was a provider, that there is no reasonable accommodationthat will diminish that threat.But that's always going to be a question because tying in with meeting the essentialrequirements of tenancy, which everyone has to do no matter what, that's where thereasonable accommodations come in.So if I have a disability and I ask for a reasonable accommodation or you become awarethat I need a reasonable accommodation, then it should be granted because the reasonableaccommodation is generally what's going to help me meet those essential requirements oftenancy. Now, going back just to the example that you used.Someone who's suicidal or homicidal, even.The, you know, I could say I can't handle, I don't have, I'm not equipped to handlepsychiatric issues and I certainly can't, you know, protect my other residents from thishomicidal individual or I can't protect them from themselves because there's so manyways that they could attempt suicide.And so they are not meeting the essential requirements of tenancy because they are adirect threat. There have been occasions and there have been some cases.Where in circumstances like that, the courts have said, well, and it's not specific tosenior living, it's just general housing.Well, you should try a reasonable accommodation first.So, for example, if you send that person out, you know, to be involuntarily, you know,incapacitated in a psych facility for a period of time.And let's say that they have been given medication that would, you know, presumablycontrol their behaviors.Then the resident or the tenant in this case would be able to say, well, my reasonableaccommodation and I should be allowed to stay because I can remain on this medicationregimen and then my behaviors are controlled.But I know of a case from a number of years ago, multifamily housing out in Connecticut,and an individual had psychiatric issues and actually went after the landlord with a bigbutcher knife and threw him down to the ground and started to stab him.That gentleman was arrested and then the landlord sent notice, you know, you're herebyevicted. You know, after he got out of jail, after he spent some time in jail and cameback, he realized that he couldn't come back to the apartment because he had beenevicted and he sued and he said, you're discriminating against me.And the court in that case actually said, well, you have to try.Let him have his reasonable accommodation.And, you know, but I think that's not, in my view, that wouldn't be a reasonableaccommodation. It's not reasonable to allow someone who has, you know, extremebehaviors like that, you know, again, that's a direct threat that we can't keep otherpeople safe or that even that resident, we can't keep them safe.So that's the extreme example.But, you know, most cases are not as extreme and most cases you're going to have to trythe reasonable accommodation and sometimes multiple reasonable accommodations beforeyou would say you're violating the terms of the resident contract or the lease or theagreement, whatever it is that we have.And now you're going to have to leave or move up to a higher level of care.You're going to have to try a few different reasonable accommodations to be safe beforeyou can generally do that or you'll risk potentially a fair housing claim.Well, that's very messed up, just to realize that for everybody, because to see thatsomeone who physically attempted to murder their landlord was jailed for it and nowevicted, reasonable accommodation, that sounds crazy.But I agree with you on that.I wholeheartedly agree.I think that's fair.But I just felt like I, you know, I had to, you know, kind of raise that to say it's notnecessarily a slam dunk.But generally speaking, yeah, when somebody is a direct threat and it's not speculative,it's not fear that something might happen, it's something did happen.Right. So I want to be clear about something.When it comes to reasonable accommodations, as a provider, you can and should haverules. You don't have to make it willy-nilly, but you are allowed to have reasonable rulessurrounding common accommodations, reasonable accommodations.So, for example, let's use the scooters again.It would be probably very high risk if you just said we don't allow scooters.But it's OK if you said we allow scooters, but we have these rules.A rule, I always encourage my communities to have reasonable rules.A rule might be that you have to sit with therapy and review the rules of the communityto use a scooter first.You know, get educated on it and then sign off that you're agreeing, you understand allyour questions have been answered and you agree to abide by the rules.And those rules might be things like you can only drive your scooter as fast as anon-disabled person can walk.You don't have the right to drive your scooter around like Speed Racer.Right. It may say you have to have a horn and lights if you're going to drive outside.You have to obey the rules of the road on campus.You have to have a flag.You can't park and block fire exits.You can't block mailboxes.If you're going to drive into the dining room, you have to have room.And I want to touch on something that you mentioned a few moments ago, saying mycommunity is older and it's not equipped for these big SUV scooters that people havenow. Under the ADA, which also sometimes can tie in with the Fair Housing Act, thereare also construction requirements.So the ADA went into effect in March of 1991.So did those construction requirements.So if you have construction that occurred after March of 1991 or if your building isolder than that, but you've done any kind of a renovation on your building and the termrenovation is pretty flimsy and loose.It could be even like redecorating can be considered a renovation.You then have to comply with the dictates of the ADA in terms of the physicalrequirements. Like so, for example, it talks about thresholds.You can't have, you know, a big where someone can't come up on the scooter, you know,because of the thresholds or, you know, with their walker, that's an issue.Thresholds, grab bars, lowering cabinets in handicap accessible units.A certain number of your units should be made handicap accessible.That depends on how many units you have.It's a percentage.And simple things like aisles wide enough for people to use their scooters.And arguably in our setting, you know, knowing that many, many people do have mobilityimpairments, it's even more important, you know, to make sure that your community hasabided by the rules and the Department of Justice, you know, and lots of fair housinggroups. And HUD also has put in a tremendous amount of money to talk about people'sfair housing rights and to make sure that providers and architects and contractors areaware of what the physical requirements are for spacing and things like that andthresholds. And they've spent a tremendous amount of money talking about that andmaking sure that people are aware.So it becomes very challenging in these days.Every month a case will come out at least once a month on, you know, again, the ownerof multi-family housing, the owner of senior housing, a municipality, you know, manydifferent types for failing to construct their buildings in accordance with therequirements of the ADA.So you have to be careful about that.But there are reasonable rules.So have them about service animals.You know, you can have about scooters, you know, any other kinds of reasonableaccommodations. You should have, you know, rules around the private duty aides.They're another reasonable accommodation that you should have rules about.Got it. Sometimes we see this, the application of these rules, you know, don't seem soreasonable. I know a particular construction project that was not required to have anelevator, but was required to have handicapped accessible bathrooms on the secondfloor. Go figure.Right. Right.I don't know how, you know, somebody who's disabled, you know, then they would have tohave the right amount of housing on the first floor, you know, handicapped accessible.It wasn't a housing project per se.But, you know, we do see things like that sometimes, but that doesn't negate the rules.But if we can focus the conversation from a marketing standpoint.OK.We want to, you know, we titled this the do's and don'ts of nursing home marketing.So I know that there are things that we cannot say.For example, the nursing homes can't say that they're dementia units because there arelaws. This has nothing to do with Fair Housing, but this is the Department of PublicHealth. They haven't clearly defined a lot of regulations for what's qualified as adementia unit. And there's a whole process to go through.So you can call it memory here.You can call it a lot of other things.They can't call it by that name.I've actually walked in one of the nursing homes I was managing, at least in Massachusetts.I worked with the gentleman whose name is Dr.Paul Rea, and he's the one who wrote the regulations for what's called a dementia unit.And we were thinking of maybe turning one of our units, our memory, our unit thoughanyway was a dementia unit, to just make it an official one.And the cost and just the work that it would take, not just money, but also theinconvenience and the downtime that it would take to get it in compliance just didn'tmake sense. And we changed the wording in our marketing materials and we had the sameresult. So instead, we just decided, you know, it was a company decision, you know,should we do it, should we not do it, so how extensive it was didn't make sense.So question for you is what is the absolute, give me a great example of someone that didsomething horrific in their marketing or something that someone can do like really badin their marketing. And like, I guess I'm a worst case scenario person.And what happened as a result or what could happen as a result?So let me give you some examples of things that are risks in marketing when it comes tofair housing. And I've jotted a few of these down so that, you know, I cover everything.So the first one that I would talk about is models, models or people in your marketingmaterials, photographs of individuals, right?That can be problematic because, for example, we talked about the protected class of race,right? So if you only have photographs, they want to see, the government wants to seediversity. So if you have, you know, all Caucasian individuals, that could be a risk foryou because where are the people of color?You're not allowed to discriminate based on someone's color.What if everybody in your marketing materials is running, jogging, biking, doing yoga?Where are all the people that are on scooters, in wheelchairs, with walkers?So models can be potentially problematic.Another issue would be problematic language in your materials.Another one could be potentially, I know a lot of times marketing, especially in the CCRCsetting, will do what's called a targeting marketing campaign, right?So they want it, they're targeting to a particular income level.All right. And they're sending the materials out to that, to the people in a particulargeographic area that meet those income requirements.Well, there have been cases where that's been considered to be a discriminatory practice.Why? Because you're only sending all your marketing material specifically to potentiallyjust white people.Okay. And you're excluding and you may not have any discriminatory intent with that, butthat's the way it comes out.And in the Supreme Court has decided that in fair housing, there is something calleddisparate impact.It doesn't have to be that you purposely discriminate against somebody, but there is anactual disparate impact.So that's an area that you want to be careful about.Lack of an improper, lack of the fair housing logo, it's the little house, or having thelogo, but it's minuscule.You can't see it. If you have the logo and you should have the logo, the fair housinglogo, it's put out by the government.If you have one for leading age and you have one for, you know, whatever local societiesyou belong to and they're all of a certain font and your fair housing is teeny tiny inthe bottom, that's problematic.There is no requirement, by the way, on font, which makes it a little bit more complicated.But you want to make sure that it's the same size as everything else.Exclusionary practices for admission.Again, we don't let people in with scooters or we don't let people in with serviceanimals. Problematic applications, asking lots of, again, this is for independent living,not for nursing or, you know, assisted living or personal care.Asking medical questions, if you're not a type A community, that can be potentiallyproblematic. Asking intrusive questions, asking them to undergo a physical exam.If you don't have, you know, a guarantee of moving through the continuum of care, thatcan be highly problematic.Improper. Oh, I mentioned the improper request of physical exams.Steering, which is a term of art in the fair housing world.Steering means that I come in and I either and government, by the way, and so do fairhousing groups, send testers in to ask these questions and try if they think there'sdiscrimination going on, they will send somebody in who pretends to be an applicant oris looking for housing for their loved one and ask the questions to see what the answersare. Steering means that I come in and I say, hey, you know, my mom is looking forindependent living.She uses a scooter.She needs some help with her medication management.You know, she sometimes gets a little bit confused.And, you know, if you were to say to me, well, you know, she might feel a lot morecomfortable if she goes over into assisted living.That might be a better place for her.We don't really like those kinds of people in independent living.We don't want to look like a nursing home.That's steering. And that is illegal under the Fair Housing Act.Discriminatory denial of reasonable accommodations.And again, being aware of the state and local laws that expand upon the protected classesand making sure that you are not, again, discriminating against additional protectedclasses that your local jurisdiction or state may have in place.So those are a whole series of marketing risks that I would tell you you have to becareful of. Got it.So let's say I have an assisted living and I am targeting a certain group because this isthe group that actually needs the service, can afford the service, will maybe want theservice. Is there no legal way to target that group?If I'm going to put people, let's say, let's see an example of models or even, you know,language. If I'm going to put words on there or pictures or other things that don'tresonate with them, then they're obviously much less likely to, you know, to respond.It doesn't mean that these are the only people that are marketing to.I may have a separate brochure and a separate marketing plan for, you know, for adifferent ethnic group or a different protected class.But right now I want to focus on these people.You know, an open invitation is no invitation.Come over to my house any night you want for a barbecue.That means you're not invited. I'm not even telling you my address.But if I say Tuesdays at 4 p.m.having a barbecue, you know, please bring over, bring over your family.Here's my address. Then you're invited.Right. So the point is, people will resonate to marketing material if they will act on itresonates with them. So if it's, you know, if it's tailored to them, then it'll work.Can I? Is there no legal way to do that?There, you know, well, first of all, I want to be clear.I'm not giving legal advice here.I'm giving you advice from a risk management standpoint.And so, you know, listen, everything that we do is associated with a risk benefit analysis.Right. So I want to be clear about that.So a community can make a determination.What is their risk tolerance?If they really want to market and target towards a particular, you know, group because oftheir income. And it turns out that that they feel like we could be accused ofdiscriminatory behavior because it's going to go to, you know, all white people.That is a question.If you still want to market to that group, I'm not here to say you can't do it or youshouldn't do it. I'm just saying, be aware that that's a risk.Right. So anything that you market on could be a risk.But if you think that the benefit of targeting a particular group of people is going to,you know, bring in the people that you want or that you think would benefit from yourservices, then that would be your assessment of and that would be a risk tolerance toyour community. Right.Got it. Who are the discrimination police that are going to bring this case in front of,you know, they're going to get, you know, secret people coming in undercover and askingfor service.So the DOJ has testers that work for them in the Civil Rights Division.Now, who brings it to their attention so that someone would want to come down?Yeah. So I'm going to tell you, there are a lot of fair housing advocacy groups outthere. There are a lot of law school clinics that also have fair housing, you know,clinic that are staffed by law students.The government gives money.They're like quasi-public, private, public government entities.They get money from the government in recognition of their work and they get money fromthe government to do that.So they are there to enforce fair housing rights.Usually the way it would work is if I am an individual, many times this is how ithappens. I'm an individual.I go, I apply for residency at a particular community.I feel that I've been discriminated against for whatever reason that, you know, mydisability, my religion, the color of my skin, whatever it is.I go to a fair housing group and I make a complaint.If they, they will then investigate my complaint.If they feel that there is some validity to that, they will do their own research.They will start their own investigation.They will have testers.They will go out. They then turn it over usually to HUD.With their findings, if they feel that there is what we call a pattern or a practice ofdiscrimination, they will send it to HUD.If HUD, the Housing and Urban Development Office of the government, feels that it risesto a certain level and they think that there is a discriminatory pattern and practice goingon, then that gets referred over to the Department of Justice.So the lawsuit can either be me, Wildrick versus ABC Senior Living.If I feel that I've been discriminated against individually, I can sue you instate court or federal court.If it's a fair housing group, then a lot of times, you know, that fair housing groupwill bring it on my behalf.So it would be Wildrick and the Fair Housing Alliance versus if it goes to HUD, itwould be, you know, HUD, Housing and Urban Development v.the housing community.And again, in the worst case scenario, it rises up to the level of the DOJ, theDepartment of Justice, and they will bring the claim and it will then be the UnitedStates of America. It will be in federal court and it will be brought against you.So there are they are essentially what you're referring to as the police.They are the enforcers.They are bringing them. But private claims can be brought by individuals or by privatehousing groups. And there are loads of them out there or the government can do it.Well, so now on a professional standpoint, where do you come in the business thatyou're involved in? Which piece of this?Are you the police? Are you the defendants?Are you just educating people to stay away from the cops?Right. So my job as the risk manager for FSA, for the communities that we work with, webring we do lots of education.We do lots of fair housing education, both for marketing and admission staff, as well asstaff within the community that is responsible to move people through that continuum ofcare. So we do loads of education for them.We also come in many times and we do education for the residents themselves.We have meetings with residents.Sometimes residents, for example, may say, you know, things that we feel areinappropriate, like why is so and so in the dining room?She's in a wheelchair and and she's totally out of it.And I don't want to look at that when I'm eating and, you know, or asking questions.Why is this person living in independent living?This person doesn't belong here.She's not like the rest of us.She should go into assisted living.You know, we have a problem with it.We're here to educate the residents on their rights as residents, as well as, you know,what the Fair Housing Act says and why we're not going to share any details andinformation with them about other residents and what we're doing with them and forthem as far as reasonable accommodations or any any other way that we're working withthem. So we like to educate the residents.We also work specifically with marketing teams.We help them with, again, do's and don'ts in their marketing materials, language thatthey should have on all of their websites, on their brochures, on anything that they'redoing. We help them with information on, you know, things to share and not share duringtours. So, you know, we're here and we develop all kinds of templates for policiesand procedures and things of that nature.We also work with the risk management committees to review all of the marketingmaterials and the website before they actually go live and before anything's printed tomake sure that everything is, you know, on the up and up, both from a fair housingstandpoint and a general risk management standpoint.We don't want people over promising that, you know, it's all about for us settingrealistic expectations.So we're here at FSA to help our communities understand what it is, understand therisks, and also develop policies, procedures, rules, guidance.So we talk about rules and we have templates for rules for service animals, rules forscooters, rules for private duty aid, hold homeless agreements, indemnificationagreements when somebody does want to hire a private aide to make sure that theyunderstand that we're not responsible for, you know, what they do or what they doincorrectly or what they fail to do.So those are all things that we do at FSA in our risk management program to assist theorganizations that we work with.Fascinating.We've gone a little bit later because you're sharing, you're dropping all the jewelsthere. But the question for, is there anything, it may not be necessarily fair housingrelated, but if there are residents in a senior living setting that completelydisregards all discriminatory laws and regulations, to have some people that justdon't care anymore and they'll say things to the staff about their religion, aboutthe color of their skin, about the country that they come from, about their accent, andthey'll, they have nothing to lose.Is there any recourse, and you can educate them, but they don't care.Is there any recourse that providers can do to help really prevent their staff, notprotect their staff, or the residents from each other, when you have residents thatcompletely ignore all the rules that we're discussing?Well, that would be a topic for an entire other podcast.But what I will say is what you're describing for your employees is a hostile workenvironment. And even if you cannot stop the resident from saying, you know, thebigoted, you know, racist kinds of things that you're describing, you cannot, as aprovider, throw your hands up and say, oops, sorry.You know, in one particular case that was, it's a fairly recent case that was broughtfor a hostile work environment.The CNA was being, you know, spoken to in that manner that you just said, and alsosexually harassed, groped, touched, you know.And the administrator in that case, the language that she used was, put your big girlpanties on and deal with it.OK. And they got hit with a massive verdict.So you don't want to do that.But so, again, there are things that you should and can do to mitigate the harm thatcomes to employees. So, you know, for example, you might want to switch staffingpatterns around. You might, if it's somebody that is, you know, touching inappropriately,then you might want to use, you know, a male caregiver or you might send that person inwith a second caregiver at all times.Or you might, again, like in the case of the CNA that I was just talking about, she hasto be moved to a different wing away from that resident.And that's when the administrator said that to her.So, again, you want to look, there's all different things that you can do.But what you shouldn't do is to basically throw your hands up and say, there's nothingthat I can do about that.No, of course not. No, the question is not about the staff, but the question is, is thereanything that can be done to, I guess, to encourage or force the people who live inthat setting not to engage in those practices?Well, other than what you just described, you know, like the education, and obviouslyit's going to depend on the, you know, on the competency of that individual.If that individual has intellectual disabilities and or dementia, right, right.But if they don't have those things, then, you know, and they're not abiding by therules, then there may have to be, you know, after you've spoken to them, anddocumentation is key, you have to be documenting everything you're doing, everyeffort you're making, every conversation that you've had.And if that resident is refusing, then there may have to be a discharge in that casebecause you're not able to care for them anymore.Got it. Got it.Fascinating.If people want to learn more about the topics that we're discussing or learn moreabout you and your company, where's a good resource, where's a good place to send themto?Our website, FSAinfo.org, is a good place, and it has, you know, a number of theresources that we have on there.We, you know, we provide a lot of different services in addition to risk management.Awesome.Okay.FSA, what is it, FSAinfo?Yeah, FSAinfo.org.Okay.We'll include that in the show notes.I'm going to take a little peek.All right.Any final thoughts before we let you go for today?Again, I think it's really important that you recognize and discuss, you know, whatyour risk tolerance is because the message that I want you to take is, yeah, there area lot of fair housing rules and the advocacy groups really, you know, they take a verystrong position pro-tenant, pro-resident.You know, myself, you know, representing providers and on the, you know, trying tokeep providers out of trouble, I might take a more restrictive view of it, but it'sreally be aware of what the risks are and then make informed decisions about your riskbenefit analysis and what your risk tolerance is.Sometimes it might be better to decline admission to somebody, you know, and risk afair housing claim than to take somebody in that, you know, is not appropriate andit's going to struggle in a particular level of care, you know, and it's going to, youknow, be really a massive burden to you.You might choose to take the risk of potentially a discrimination fair housing claimthan to take somebody in that, you know, is going to be incredibly problematic andpotentially present you with a negligence action.Got it.Got it.Okay.I'm just going to, wait, you just want to unmute.I know you didn't, I'm sorry.I'm looking at the wrong place here.That's my bad.But there's just one comment here from Hannah.It says, thank you, Christina, for sharing your expertise as a marketing professional.Christina living in organizations is very interested in to think through the risks,which is definitely true.And there's something that you brought to us.Thank you very much, Christina, for joining us today and for sharing everything that youshared over here on the show.It definitely has been very informative just about, like you said, knowing the risks, whento take them, when not to take them.Right.Okay.You're welcome.Thank you for having me.
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词汇提示1.charm 有美丽的2.granite 花岗岩3.destination 目的地4.vicinity 周围地区5.dwellings 住所6.prominent 突出7.lobsters 龙虾8.thrive 生长9.spray 海浪10.carnivorous 食肉的11.nourish 滋养12.stately 庄严的13.beak 鸟喙原文Peggy's Cove, Nova ScotiaWhy do people travel hundreds of miles to look at beautiful scenery?And why does one particular place attract many more visitors than similar places not far away?Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia, Canada, is one of those special spots that draws people from all over the world.It is hard to explain its special charm, but anyone who has been there will know whatI am talking about.The southern-eastern shore of Nova Scotia possesses many picturesque fishing villages and many beautiful seascapes.But one doesn't have to go very far from the capital city of Halifax to see this special spot.The dominant feature are huge round granite rocks, many of them the size of houses.They seem to be pushing up and out of the land and sea.Nestled inside the circle of these rocks is a group of fishing huts.Now and then a fishing boat leaves by the little bay or cove, in order to travel out into the great Atlantic Ocean.For nearly two hundred years, there have been fishermen at Peggy's Cove.All around the little harbor there are huts or "fish stores" where the fishermen do their work.Here they bring in the fish, and clean them, wash them and salt them.The salted fish are then stored in barrels.Visiting as a tourist, I wandered into one of these huts while the fisherman was busy at his work.He explained to me that, although Peggy's Cove is a tourist destination, it is also a working fishing village.The fishermen get no money from the tourists, but have to take the time to talk to them and explain their work.There are, however, some tourist shops and tea rooms in the vicinity.Part of the charm of Peggy's Cove is that it is so small.The population has been well under 100 people for most of its history.The buildings are mostly small dwellings, with the lighthouse being the most prominent structure.A good variety of fish are caught in the area, including mackerel, herring,haddock, cod and halibut.Lobsters are also trapped nearby.However,because of over-fishing, catches have declined in recent decades.Showy purple lupins grow close to the ocean.They thrive on salty ground, and the closer they grow to the spray of the ocean the better.One of the world's few carnivorous plants - the common pitcher plant -also grows around Peggy's Cove.Its leaves trap insects, which are digested to nourish the plant.Common birds are the stately blue heron, which likes to fish in the marshy pools.The heron stands several feet high and spear fish and frogs with its sharp beak.Another bird is the osprey, or fish hawk.The osprey's keen eyes can spot a fish moving beneath the surface of the water.It can dive swiftly, hitting the water with great speed, catch the fish in its claws,and then fly away with its catch.I have also seen pools close to the ocean full of large tadpoles.These tadpoles spend several years in the water before they develop into bullfrogs.Bullfrogs,the largest Canadian frog, have been know to eat baby ducks and small fish.Looking over the little harbor and out toward the great ocean, one notices the contrast between the very small and the very large.If Peggy's Cove were larger, it would be more ordinary.As it is, it represents all the little fishing villages, where men have gone forth inlittle boats to fish on the wide ocean.翻译佩吉湾,新斯科舍省为什么人们不远万里去看美丽的风景?为什么一个特定的地方比不远处的类似地方吸引更多的游客?加拿大新斯科舍省的佩吉湾是吸引世界各地游客的特别景点之一。很难解释它的特殊魅力,但任何去过那里的人都会知道我在说什么。新斯科舍省东南岸有许多风景如画的渔村和美丽的海景。但人们不必离开首都哈利法克斯很远就能看到这个特别的地方。主要特征是巨大的圆形花岗岩,其中许多有房子那么大。它们似乎正在向上伸展,脱离陆地和海洋。在这些岩石圈内坐落着一群钓鱼小屋。偶尔会有一艘渔船从小海湾或小海湾驶出,驶往浩瀚的大西洋。近两百年来,佩吉湾一直有渔民。小港口周围到处都是小屋或“鱼店”,渔民们在那里工作。在这里,他们把鱼带进来,把鱼洗干净,再加盐。咸鱼然后被储存在桶里。我以游客的身份来到这里,当渔夫忙于工作时,我走进了其中一间小屋。他向我解释说,虽然佩吉湾是一个旅游胜地,但它也是一个工作的渔村。渔民没有从游客那里得到钱,但不得不花时间与他们交谈并解释他们的工作。然而,附近有一些旅游商店和茶室。佩吉湾的魅力之一就在于它很小。在其历史上的大部分时间里,人口都远远低于100人。这些建筑大多是小型住宅,灯塔是最突出的建筑。该地区捕捞的鱼类种类繁多,包括鲭鱼、鲱鱼、黑线鳕、鳕鱼和大比目鱼。龙虾也被困在附近。然而,由于过度捕捞,近几十年来捕捞量有所下降。艳丽的紫色羽扇豆生长在靠近海洋的地方。它们在咸的土地上茁壮成长,越靠近海洋的浪花越好。世界上为数不多的食肉植物之一——常见的猪笼草——也生长在佩吉湾附近。它的叶子捕获昆虫,这些昆虫被消化以滋养植物。常见的鸟类是庄严的蓝鹭,它喜欢在沼泽池塘里钓鱼。苍鹭有几英尺高,用它锋利的喙刺鱼和青蛙。另一种鸟类是鱼鹰或鱼鹰。鱼鹰敏锐的眼睛能发现在水面下游动的鱼。它能迅速潜水,以极快的速度撞水,用爪子抓住鱼,然后带着鱼飞走。我还见过靠近海洋的池塘里满是大蝌蚪。这些蝌蚪在长成牛蛙之前要在水里待上几年。牛蛙是加拿大最大的蛙类,以小鸭子和小鱼为食。从小港口望向大海,人们会注意到小港湾和大港湾之间的对比。如果佩吉湾再大一点,它就会更普通。事实上,它代表了所有的小渔村,在那里,人们乘着小船在广阔的海洋上捕鱼。
I will speak to you without words. No one but you will hear my story, even though I tell it in the middle of a crowd.* I have many stories to share,but for now, I need to sleep,and you need to stay Awake. You need to remain faithful to this Love. That's all you have to 'do'. Feel It like nothing else matters. Hear me. This is what was revealed while in Galilee and Nazareth. Love is all you need. Every prayer.Every mantra.Every chant.Every smile,is to hold you in Him,and Him in you. Turn to God right now and say, "can you hold me now?"And Listen. Feel, "God, everything I need You are."When you're feeling Love, everything is already alright. I Love you, Nik nikki@curlynikki.comPlease help me keep the show ad free + Get Merch!▶▶https://www.patreon.com/goodmorningsDefinition of Prayer = Felt-Love "Jesus is our Lord's secret Name, Christ is His revealed Name. In Syriac it is Messiah. The Nazarene is He who reveals the hidden.”-The Gnostic Gospel of Philip"I will speak to you without words.No one but you will hear my story,even though I tell it in the middle of a crowd."-Rumi"So where is the Father's house? The Father's house is - Love. The Father's house is first and foremost a relationship of Love with Him, a relationship that provides a sense of security, acceptance, understanding and peace. Through such a Love relationship with God, we can already feel at home with Him. As if in the house of the Father.If only we hold on to this Love, if only we remain faithful to this Love - then It will be: the safest Way, the clear Truth and the true Life for us and - no death and no lie will have power over us - and we will never be alone or homeless. "Therefore do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in Me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. I go and prepare a place for you!" (John 14:1-3).-Father Ephraim at sermon while I was in Galilee "A Lover is never alone. His Beloved is with him inside his soul... forever!"-Rumi "Many people feel it is either their destiny to realizethe Self or not. But the Self has no destiny. Boom!Who is saying, 'If it is in my destiny to discover the Self,it will happen? This one is not real.If you would reallylisten to what I am saying and whatI am pointing to,you would save yourself lifetimes of effort and suffering.However, if you have a secret commitment to preserving yourself as a person, self-inquiry will not help you.You cannot surrender and have something hiddenbehind your back. You have to put everythingon the table of Truth."-Mooji "When God is about to do a mighty new thing He always sets His people praying."-Jonathan Edwards"Any obstacle can be overcome if you're willing to accept that it's not really there."-Octavia Williams "Where can I goWho can I callWho's there to catch me when I fallYour hands they hold me through it allEverything I need You are"-Kirk Franklin, You Are"Hold Me Now" -Kirk FranklinSupport the show
This segment is on whatI have been doing the past few months and how my life is gradually evolving day by day! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anthony-jr8/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/anthony-jr8/support
Episode Summary Margaret and Agatha talk about mutual aid in Ukraine and Agatha's experience trying to go there to fight in an anti-authoritarian platoon, but ending up doing a bunch of mutual aid supply distribution work instead. They talk about he intricacies of relief work and some of the special circumstances in Ukraine. Heavy content warning on this episode. Towards the end of the episode around 46:00, Agatha starts to tell a really intense story about being in a war zone. Around 56:00 is when it begins to get graphic. Guest Info Agatha (they/them) can be found on IG @jalutkewicz You can donate to their mutual aid work on venmo @agathawilliams or on Paypal @jalutkewicz@gmail.com Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Agatha on Ukrainian Mutual Aid Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for it feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. And I'm really excited about this week's interview, I am going to be talking to an old friend of mine from quite a while back who haven't talked to in a while about what's involved in anarchists mutual aid in war zones, and specifically, Ukraine, and in the things that are going on there. Yeah, I'm really excited for you all to hear this conversation. But first, I'm excited for you all to hear that we're a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Margaret 01:13 This is Margaret, from the future, coming back to say that this episode deserves a content warning near the end of the episode and there'll be some heads up. We will be talking about, "Hey, so I hear you were attacked." That part contains graphic descriptions of war and violence. And so listener discretion is advised. Margaret 02:05 Okay, we're back. So, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then kind of a brief description of why you are in a good place to talk about anarchists mutual aid in places of active conflict. Agatha 02:20 So my name is Agatha. My pronouns are they/them. Yeah, I went over to Ukraine last year about this time to do mutual aid support with anti authoritarian units and anarchists units. Things got fucked up on my way over there. So, that wasn't a possibility any longer. So, I just started doing aid runs with a convoy of other solo operators who went over there to try and do something to help alleviate the suffering of folks. Yeah, I'm here to talk about that. Margaret 02:57 So one of my questions about that, is, what do these aid runs look like? I'm under the impression there are different organizations working to try to get new vehicles and armor and all of these things that, you know, to frontline units, to anti authoritarian units. And these are like, organizations from outside Ukraine that are like sending people and supplies to then deliver the supplies? Like what does this look like? Agatha 03:25 Yeah, so me and a few other folks went over there with a group of cash all of our own, you know, what I mean, and we use that for operational costs, which was, you know, feeding ourselves buying diesel in Poland. And then we worked with some more wealthy sympathizers to the cause, who, one person we worked with owns a distribution company, and they have a giant fucking warehouse in Warsaw, Poland. And, you know, they would make sure items that needed to get to folks close to the frontline, where bigger NGOs wouldn't go, could get things that they needed that were not getting there, i.e. like medicine, sanitary products, food, you know, and then later on body armor and diesel. So, this person would basically...they have a bigger organization that looks a lot friendlier on their website, and you can go and donate money and it has pictures of like Ukrainian kids smiling. So, the run would start like this, we'd get a text from this wealthy patron and they'd be like, "Alright, I've organized another run," you know, "Meet me at my warehouse Saturday at four in the morning and bring four vans," you know, "and eight drivers." And like, we wouldn't know where we're going. We wouldn't know what we're doing. And then we'd get there at four in the morning and then there'd be all these like, gnarly angry Polish dudes just like moving boxes around and making piles. And then the, you know, the person who lead everything and orchestrated everything, she's just a very strong, amazing woman. And she would come out and just start barking orders and be like, "You, you're driving this van, and you're putting all this in your van, but like, I have some other shit to hide at the bottom of the pile. So don't load it yet," you know, "load this van." And then she'd like really quickly, have one of her cronies, bring out a pallet full of body armor inserts that were like, made at a metal shop out of like, AR500 steel that can withstand 556 and 762 rounds. Margaret 05:31 Yeah, gun Twitter will be very upset about this. Agatha 05:35 What's that? Margaret 05:36 I said gun Twitter will be very upset that they're using steel. Agatha 05:40 I know. But if you're out there fucking around, you want something more than nothing, and it's not gonna spatter, AR500 is at least not going to spatter on you, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's not going to create any spalding. But, that regardless, you know, she did her own research on what steels are like the most bulletproof and then she fucking contacted a metal shop with a brake press that could you know, bend quarter inch thick steel that was hardened. And then she had them plasma cut out the designs that fit into vests that she had manufactured from different tailors around Poland, you know, it was just like, it was 100%, DIY, you know, ballistic vests. And it was just amazing. And she'd be like, "Alright, you're delivering all this, like toilet paper, and ibuprofen, and like, you know, baby food to this one location, then you're going to meet with my people at this location, and you're gonna give them these 10 boxes," you know, and those had whatever in them. I never asked, you know, but and then she'd be like, "Give them these 50 vests," you know, "they have like a poorly equipped unit that needs them. They have a mortar unit that's taken a lot of casualties because they're so ill equipped," like, blah, blah, blah. And then she'd be like, "Also, the next van, we're gonna fill it with all toilet paper. But, at the bottom of the toilet paper pile, we're gonna hide 300 gallons of diesel, you know, in these little containers." Margaret 07:02 Why are you hiding it? Agatha 07:05 Because there's like tariffs involved with transporting body armor and transporting fuel across conflict zone lines, apparently. I don't know very much about it. I just know that like, there was like, a big to do. And you had to file a lot more fucking paperwork that took weeks and weeks, if not months to get like 50 fucking vests across the border, and then to the east of Ukraine. Whereas she was just like," I don't give a fuck, you're going there anyways." I mean, she was crazy. She was like, linked up, she'd be like, "Alright, these are your things you need when you get to the border. If you get there early, wait till 5:30 shift, change or whatever. And wait till this one dude is working. Show him this paperwork, and he's gonna let you through without giving you hassle or looking in your van. If you go at other times, I can't guarantee you're gonna get through without a hassle." So, she had stuff going on, that I didn't know about. And I didn't care to ask about. I was just into helping and I was good enough just bringing food and medicine. You know. When I found out we were bringing other shit and like hiding it. I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I was like, "I'm into it. Like, I'm sketchy. Like, I'm down." you know? And so we just like, we would wait, we'd pack up all the vans at four in the morning when we met her there. And then there was a few Polish dudes who would run the convoy once we were on the road. And we all had radios. So, it's like, you know, head convoy dudes like, "You guys got to pick it up, we need to make better time." or people in the back would be like, "Hey, head of convoy slow down, we're losing ya." Yeah, because all our shit was painted drab green and had the organization we were working for plastered all over the side of it. So, we wanted to look like a convoy while we were in Poland and the West of the country, and stick together. And then once we'd get across the border, and hit Lviv, you know, then it scattered and we would take magnets off, and we didn't want to look like a convoy, because convoys get targeted and like, all this other junk. So we had basically leave Warsaw at like five or six in the morning, we'd drive for fucking ever, we'd get to the border, we'd sit there forever, you know, we'd give our slips to the guy we were supposed to give them to, they would just wave us through, they wouldn't search our shit. And then we drive fucking forever to Lviv. And then at Lviv, we'd unload like 80% of the stuff, you know, four out of six in the convoy would go back to Warsaw. And then you know, I was generally one of the ones who would go further east. So, I'd stick around, we'd get coordinates to a new warehouse that we didn't know about, and then we would go refill our vans and Lviv with other shit going further east. And then from there, we'd hit Kyiv. We'd drop a bunch of shit of in Kyiv. If we were transporting vehicles, we'd bring them to the specific units that was asking for them, basically just four by four vehicles that can carry around and a little Assault Squad through mud and shit that they didn't have. And then we'd deliver that shit. And then, you know, we'd spend a night in Kyiv and then we'd get more coordinates the next day. We'd go to another warehouse. We'd fill it up with whatever the fuck was planned for us. And then all this is going on while we are like doing our own shit. Like, last time we were in Zolochiv, they needed salt because their bakery had run dry of salt. They had everything to make bread for the frontline troops except for salt. So, they're like, "We need three vans worth of salt" you know, "We need like 5000 pounds of salt." So, we'd be like moving our salt around to make room for our wealthy patron's shit that she wanted to go to specific units that she had friends in, or whatever that were hard up. You know? So we were just have to like, juggle shit around. And then like, make sure everything fit, throw our 50 gallon drums of diesel on the fucking roof of the car and siphon it out and fill our fucking tanks back up, because you just can't get diesel in Ukraine when we were there. So we had to smuggle in all the diesel for the entire trip. And then, we'd be on our way again. And then we'd eventually get to Kharkiv or wherever, in the far east of the country, get rid of all our shit. And then just like, usually pick up some passengers who wanted to get the fuck out of Kharkiv or wherever the fuck they were, and bring people back and get them out of sketchy situations. And then we'd slowly make our way back to Poland. And we didn't really stop when we were driving. So, some days we drive for like 48 hours straight or some couples of days and then we would take naps and switch out drivers. But on the way back, it was a little more relaxed, like we'd get a hotel or something like in between Kharkiv and fucking Kyiv and try and take showers and get like a good night's rest and then whatever. And then we finally make our way back to Warsaw or Krakow, wherever our next pickup was. We'd rest for 24 hours without doing shit. We would just eat food sleep, nap, like fucking whatever the fuck we felt like doing. Go on walks. Then we'd get another another call from from our person who was funding a lot of this and she'd be like, "Meet me at the warehouse, Tuesday at 1"30 in the morning and bring seven vans this time," you know, so yeah, that's pretty much the cycle that was going on when I was there. Margaret 12:42 Yeah. Okay, so I have a bunch of questions about this. There's so much that's curious to me. Yeah, one of them is like, like, what's in it for this lady? Like, I don't know, if you want to like out her specifically or whatever. But like, it's international solidarity? Is it like... Agatha 12:57 I couldn't tell. Margaret 12:58 Is it just like, we don't want Ukraine to fall because then we think we're next? Is it just the same reason you're there, we just got to fucking help each other? Like, what's going on? Agatha 13:09 So, everything I gathered from talking with this person was that she just like, thought what was going on was super fucked up was like, disgusted that like civilians, were paying such a high price for the actions of, you know, a fascist imperialist government's need to try for a land grab and was just like, honestly disgusted about how little the rest of the world seemed to care about these people who, like, were fucking starving to death and are still starving to death and like fucking living in occupied villages that change hands every couple of weeks, and like, can't get anything because NGOs won't go there. Because Red Cross thinks is too dangerous or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it is but like, that's your fucking job. Like, that's what you should be doing. And it like, came down to like, hundreds and or thousands of like, solo operators who have like these little groups, there's a bunch of us, like, but it's like, hard to...It's hard to say what her end game was. Like, she had a bunch of fucking dudes who, I don't speak Ukrainian or Polish, but there's some words that are the same, you know? And I mean, like, we'd be driving and the radio chatter would be all Polish. And I'd hear like "Americanski,"" and then, "Blah, blah, blah," and then nothing for a minute. And then you'd hear like, "Blah, blah, blah, Pistoleta, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, what do they got in their van? You know what I mean? But I'm not asking, you know. The most I ever asked was like, the lead dude who took us on the convoys just seemed like he knew his way around a warzone, knew his way, you know, bunch of those motherfuckers were into Brazilian jujitsu. And that's where we like, connected a lot, because that's something I'm into, and they all knew how to handle themselves. They all seem like ex military or something. And one day, I was just like, I was like, "Hey, dude, like, are you ex... It's like, don't answer mean if you don't want to, but like, are you ex military or like current military or something?" And he says, "Kind of." and then walked away. And I was like, "Okay, that's enough." You know what I mean? So like, I don't know what their motivations were. They were like, super not into Russia, I can say that. It like, a little uncomfortable for me because like... and especially the closer you get to the border of the Russia, the more you start hearing terms like 'orc,' and like, stuff like that, as opposed to 'Russian.' I don't know, they had seen more shit than me at that point, had really strong opinions and like, as much as I could tell, they just wanted to, you know, kind of ease some of the suffering that normal everyday people were going through because of the conflict. Margaret 15:47 Yeah. Okay. So that brings it back to like, you know, you mentioned that you, you headed out there hoping to specifically work delivering aid to the anti authoritarian units and stuff. Is that work that you got to continue to do or like? Agatha 16:03 in some ways. So, just to clarify, I originally went out to fight in an anti authoritarian unit made up of English speaking foreigners. That was my my first goal. I had issues with getting my passport in a timely manner. And then there was this like, horrible incident where the unit that had accepted me, they knew when I was coming, they had someone picking me up to bring them to the base and get me situated and fucking geared up. But they're like, "You need body armor. You need a ballistic helmet. You need your own IFAK. You need like, your own fucking compass, you know, basically full kit was needed to be provided by me, because all they were going to....they're going to stick me on a mortar team and I was going to be like, stuck with that mortar team with whatever I brought, or essentially, and then, on my way over there, something happened where the platoon leader was found dead on base. They got assigned a new Platoon leader. This dude was like, "You guys can still fly you're anti anti authoritarian and anarchists flags as a unit, but we're not taking in any more foreigners. And that's that." So while I was on my way there, I was told, you know, "No go on the, on the infantry unit. Blah, blah, blah." So I just like, didn't know what to do. I had like $5,000 worth of tourniquets, and quit clot and fucking chest seals. You know, I had I had ballistic helmets, I had a level four ceramic plates with me. I had more shit than I could carry. I looked like an asshole coming from the Warsaw airport to my hostel, you know. And then I couldn't leave my hostel for like, a week and a half, because I had like, all this gear in there that wouldn't fit in my tiny little safe and like, everyone was like, "What the fuck are you doing with all this shit? And like, why are you here?" And I didn't want to say anything. So I just like seemed sketchy. And then I eventually found a group that was working directly with anarchists fighters at the front. And I was like, "Hey, I brought all this medical supplies. It's basically only heavy bleed stop supplies to treat gunshots and amputations and things of this nature. Do you want it? Like, how do I get it to you?" And they're like, "Yes, totally. One of our people, we'll get with you soon," you know. And this is when I started my waiting game in the hostel trying to like, not leave my shit for too long. And be there waiting for the call. And like a week and a half went by before I got any kind of information. And honestly, I was like, kind of bummed out. This group seemed like they knew what they were doing. Their social media presence was like on point. They were like, just vague enough to like, promote their cause, but like, not giving too much information out. You know, they're just like, whatever. So, I was like, I'll deal with these guys. Fine. I'll give them this medical equipment. And then they just like, totally dropped the ball. And like, they kept saying, someone's going to call me. Every day I texted them. I'm like, I'm sitting on all this crap, I need to get rid of it and be on my way and try and find another way to like, do what I'm trying to do. And it just kept going on. And then, you know, a week and a half. I'd never left the country before I left for this. And I speak no other languages. I'm like super neurodivergent, have like really high anxiety and was just in this foreign city where I didn't understand anything. And just like, every day felt like a week. You know, I was just waiting for my phone to ring and then I could hand the shit off. And like, I had a couple of leads on folks who were like, "Yeah, when you're done doing your thing, like, give us a call and we'll set you up doing some aid work." So I was just waiting and waiting. And then they finally called me. They're like, "Go meet this person at this address. And they'll take all your shit from you." And I was like, "Okay, great." So, I take a fucking cab like across Warsaw, I ended up at this place. I eventually find out it's like, basically like a methadone clinic for like houseless people. I was like, oh cool, whowhoever's doing this also works doing this kind of work you know, but then I just look like a sketch ball, sitting outside of this place with like three fucking duffel bags, waiting for.... Agatha 20:09 Yeah, I have no idea who's coming to meet me. Every person that walked by I'm like, "Are you them?" You know like, yeah, I don't know shit. I'm there. Like the time they're supposed to meet me goes by. I got there like half an hour early because I just wanted to not fuck this up. And then like the time they're supposed to meet me comes and goes and then it's like an hour later. And I call my dudes and I'm like, "Hey, your person's not here yet." They're like, "They're on their way." and then they hang up and I'm like, okay, like literally like four hours goes by of me doing this. Like I'm just like, whatever I'm so bummed and then this like, door flies open to this place and this little person comes out and they're like, "Hey, are you Agatha?" And I was like, "Yeah," and they're like, "Alright, I'm gonna take this shit. Like thanks a bunch." and then like, drags in three duffel bags really quick and slams the door shut and I'm like, fuck like they knew my name, but like I'm pretty sure that was who I was supposed to give this to you know, and then I go back to my hostel and then like whatever. So like, it was like super disheartening to be told I couldn't be in this fighting unit, and then like it was super disheartening to have trouble handing the shit off, but like, in the end, it was probably the best thing that could happen to me, because like, after being there for a while, I was like fuck, "I don't know if I could have been of service in a unit where I have no military training," like, you know, I probably would have been a liability more than anything. So like, Thank God that happened. And then I got hooked up with these people who like, it was like perfect for me. You know, I just drive for 30 hours and then like that was fine with me you know? Like I traveled the country a million times as like a dumb useless punk. Like this was like the same shit, just like felt better because I was like helping people you know what I mean? Margaret 20:09 Thousands of dollars of gear. Agatha 20:36 For everyone that's listening. That's how we that's how we know each other, is being dumb, useless punks traveling the country. Agatha 22:02 So, I just applied whatI knew about like traveling and being comfortable being uncomfortable with like, doing shit and it was like a perfect fit. So, I originally went over to do that. Yeah. And then it switched to this. And then I was only there for like six more weeks. But, I did a bunch of shit while I was there. And, you know, I will probably get into it later. But, I needed to do like a lot of trauma therapy once I got back and like, it's been a year and I just felt comfortable enough to buy another plane ticket there and I'm on my way back. But this time, I don't have to figure anything out. I already have a crew. We have a fleet of nine vehicles. We have deliveries lined up for fucking months. So it's like, I can just jump right back in you know, and like, it's just nice when you like hand a bunch of fucking hungry people food or you know, yeah, like. And that's the thing that struck me most is I went out there as an anarchist and then while I was there, I kind of just turned into like a humanist. I was like, you know, I just didn't give a fuck who I was working with anymore. I was like, "Oh, you're hungry and you need food. I'm gonna bring it to you," and it didn't matter to me anymore who was picking it up. You know, I even worked with some known fascist units who supposedly kicked all the Neo Nazis out, and anti Semites got kicked out, but they still have unscrupulous pasts as like street gangs and stuff, but like, you know, I was bringing them stuff to like, keep people alive. I didn't. I just stopped caring, you know, about political affiliation and shit. Margaret 23:39 No, it makes sense to me though, like, because one of the things that has been so interesting to me about like studying disaster stuff and disaster responses, right, are these like, you know, there's this moment that I wasn't there for but sticks in one of my head, my head is that one of my best friends. I've probably mentioned this on the show before, but one of my best friends is this, you know, crusty traveling punk kid who went to go do flood relief in a place that you could normally drive into, but could only be flown into. And the people who were flying in, were all of these people with like, tiny airplanes, which means rich libertarians. And you know, and so my friend is like talking about being like, and you know, and they're nervous person, and they're in this tiny airplane driving and like flying into a storm with this, like, random libertarian guy, right? And it's just like, and they were fine. And they landed and they delivered supplies and they got food out and got stuff out to people who needed it who were trapped and hungry. And I think that's what's so interesting about disaster, whether it's, quote unquote natural, like the accelerating climate disasters, or, you know, the invasion of an imperialist power into your country is just this like....like the goal isn't to help anarchists. The goal is to help people who are being destroyed by an imperialist power. You know? Agatha 25:05 Yeah, exactly. Margaret 25:07 It's interesting to me, because I do have I have a...like it's like cool, right, supporting the anti authoritarian unit specifically. It's cool and like anarchists organizing this is cool, but a lot of that is like...well, I'm excited that an anarchist is at least one of the drivers of this organization that you're working for, you know. Like you. You know? What is it? What is it like interacting as an anti authoritarian person within this like...you know, yeah, you have this like, rich industrialist lady who's just like, pouring everything and all kinds of risk into just providing things for people and I presume you have this very...like is it this melting pot environment. Like, what is it like socially? Agatha 25:50 It's fucked up, man. Like the guy I got stuck with like, when the group I started driving for wanting to vouch for me, they're like, "We have a solo run. It's like not very sketchy. We're not going that far east. We're just going like outside of Lviv. It's like a fucking shit ton of sanitary products. And then like, you're going to come back to Częstochowa and you're going to fill up the van full of strollers and bring it to this orphanage that's only run for orphans that were victims of losing their parents in fucking Bucha you know. Margaret 26:21 Well, it better be anarchists babies, because otherwise they don't deserve strollers. Agatha 26:24 Yeah. But, the fucking guy picks me up and he's wearing a fucking Black Rifle Coffee Company t shirt. Margaret 26:30 Oh shit. Agatha 26:31 And I was like, What the fuck is this? You know? And I was like, this sucks. And I was like, cuz I knew they weren't going to be anarchists. But I was like, this dude is wearing just a straight up fascist companies t shirt. Margaret 26:44 Yeah, this dude wants to kill you in the United States. Agatha 26:47 Yeah, well, he's from Canada. And that's the thing, like, his view on it was like totally different. I was like, you know, after like, nine hours in the van and like 18 cups of coffee. I was like, "So what's up with your shirt, dude?" And he's like, "Well, I just really like their coffee. And like, they have pictures of guns on their shit. It's like good advertising." I was like, "You know those are the assholes who like bailed out Kyle Rittenhouse, right?" and he's like, "Who the fuck is Kyle Rittenhouse." and I'm just like Jesus Christ. And, it was just like, super fucked up and like, we had like really long conversations about what like being an anarchist means to me. And you know, the more we talked, the more I realized our like end goal was exactly the same. He was like, just a farm boy from from South Central fucking Canada who grew up on a fucking....what's that stuff called? I don't want to say the name of it cause I hate it. And there's another name for it. He's from a canola farm. And he joined the military when he was young. And he's like....I'm a pretty tall person. I'm like 6'2", and he's like three inches taller than me, built like a brick shithouse.Just look like the dude you don't want to run into as an anarchist in like a war zone wearing a fucking Black Rifle Coffee Company t shirt. But the more we talked, the more we were just like yeah, we just want to fucking help people. And like that's it. Like, I just don't care anymore. Like it basically came down to everyone in our group wanted to ease some suffering that was happening at the behest of like, fucked up agitators who were acting on like imperialist like logic, you know? And yeah, that's basically what it all boiled down to. So, like I went there as an anarchist trying to support anarchist endeavors....and because they were helping just normal people, right? And and then it just turned out like, you know, circumstances change. They didn't...like multiple groups didn't want any more foreigners. You know, I was never given explanations as to why....Someone said it was because my social media presence was too hard about going to Ukraine, and they didn't want people getting their spots blown up. But, I was like literally all I said is I'm going to Ukraine, bringing medical supplies to anarchists units. And if you want to donate, donate here. I gave zero information on what unit I was delivering to, where I was going, who my contacts were. It was like vague as possible to just get donations, so I could buy more tourniquets. That's like all I was doing. That's that's the most explanation I got, which never added up. Margaret 29:19 They must have had their own shit going on. There must have been like something that had happened recently or like something within the internal structure where they were like trying to hold on to their anti authoritarian unit within an authoritarian structure, you know? Agatha 29:34 Exactly. And I later found out like, once I was back from a couple runs, and the unit that had originally accepted me, and said no more was like, "Hey, we got a guy coming to Warsaw and he wants to meet you." And I was like, "Okay," and it was just like the most giant man I've ever met and he was just like, decked out in like fucking workout gear and he's like, "I'm coming from the gym and I only got an hour I'm going back to the gym. I'm with this unit. I'm on leave blah, blah, blah." And I guess what it was was like, you know, it was other foreigners who were in the group who were posting shit online they shouldn't have been, you know, and one example was, there was someone who posted a picture of themselves outside of a building being like "Training for the good fight," or whatever. And whatever fucking Russian like ops that we're monitoring social media saw a picture of the building, did a bunch of fucking research, found out where it was, what the building was, and fucking a missile strike happened and like 500 volunteers died or some shit. Agatha 30:39 It was like super fucked so like, I totally got it, but like, and I wasn't gonna argue with them, you know what I mean? I was like okay, I'll find something else to do, but like that's not me. And that's not what I'm doing, but like, whatever I'll try and help out some other way. So, I think that's the kind of shit that was happening that led to me not being invited into these like strictly anarchist groups, because I mean, you know, fucking anarchists. Everyone's like security culture. Like the feds are like bugging my phone because they want to know what dumpsters I'm hitting or whatever. You know what I mean? It's like... Margaret 30:39 Oh my god. Margaret 31:12 Only here, it's like they're actually throwing missiles at you. Agatha 31:15 Exactly. Exactly. So I was like, I get it but, like whatever, so I think that's really what it was and like I couldn't fault them for it. I was like whatever, but yeah, I'm just some like scumbag from America anyways. Like you don't know me. Like you don't know if you can trust me like. Sure, I have tattoos on my face, but like whatever. Like you know what I mean? Like yeah, so I got it but like, I don't know. I'm kind of rambling at this point. I'm gonna let you direct the conversation a little more. Margaret 31:39 No, no, I'm really curious about all of this kind of stuff, like I'm very curious and I think the audience will be curious about....I mean, even down to like how do people take you as this tall, you know, person who presents somewhat masculine, but often has a non masculine name, has face tattoos, doesn't have like, you know isn't like mister Mr. heterosexual cis man, but also is like a tough as fuck looking, like face tattooed punk, right? Like, what do people make of you? Like how did that go? Agatha 32:18 It just depended, you know, some people were just like, "Who the fuck is this guy?" Like? Yeah, cuz I mean, I do have a lot of visible tattoos, but just to like, give it some context. Like my tattoos are like of puppies and like, I have a giant heart on my throat. You know what I mean? They're not like tough guy tattoos. Aside, I have some air 15 magazines tattooed underneath a "Do not resuscitate," tattoo on my chest. My chest looks like some pre-schooler went to prison and got tattooed or something. It's like light hearted. There's like skulls and puppies and yeah, rifle parts and like a 'do not resuscitate,' banner and like shit, but like, that's not stuff people generally saw. But they'd see my heart tattoo on my throat and my shit on my face. And like my hands were all blacked out. And you know, people were either like...A good example is like, people either didn't say anything, or they'd be like...like, one time we were in Kyiv we're kicking this grifter who had gotten caught up in our shit out. We needed like five to six hundred litres of diesel that we had shoved in his van. We needed to get that out before we kicked him out. Because we knew he would just steal it from us. I mean, I found out the guy had gone through my phone when I was sleeping. There was like links to his aid organization to the like, PayPal link on my phone. Like my Safari was open. And it was like, please enter your Paypal password to donate to this group. And I was like, "Who the fuck is this group?" And then we realized it was this guy and we needed to kick his ass out. But like, whatever, we didn't know where to kick him out. Like we didn't know if he was gonna get violent with us. So we picked like a super populated spot and Kyiv which is where we were at the time. And we're like, "Meet us here," you know, "at this parking lot for this fucking train station." But the parking lot was closed. And, it was like, all the spaces were empty, but we couldn't get in, and there was this like drunk ass dude wearing a body camera in this little booth. And he was like....we just went up and we're like, "Hey, are you the one watching this parking lot right now?" And our interpreter could not understand a fucking word this guy was saying. He was so drunk. And it's like the farther east you go like, the more the dialects change, so like our interpreter was 18 years old from from Lviv. He had never been this far east, you know, which Kyiv isn't even that far. But like, you know, if you've never been to Kyiv really and you get there and then there's people from the opposite end of the country who you know, I mean, it's just like, there's a big disconnect with with local dialects. He could only you know, figure some shit out. And we eventually paid the guy like a bunch of grivna not to fucking, just do this deal real quick. We're like, "Hey, we'll give you this wad of cash. Just let us park here for like 20 minutes, this guy is going to meet us. We're going to move a bunch of shit around from Van to van, and then we'll be out of your hair," and he's like, "Alright, fine." But, he was like fucking hammered. And he would not leave us alone. And he was like, uncomfortable drunk where he was like in our faces, like breathing on us, asking us questions. And our interpreter was trying their best to like, fucking answer. And then it just got hot during the day, and I went to take my shirt off, and all my tattoos are black line work. They look like fucking prison tattoos. And this guy, I see him catch my eye as my shirts about to go over my head for a second. And I pulled my T shirt down real quick. And he's like, "Ah, prison." And I was like, "No, no, no, no, not prison," and he's like, "Prison." And I was like, "No, it's not prison," and the guy just wouldn't shut up about it. He just kept saying "prison" to me and like, give me the 'okay' sign with his hand. And I'm like, "No, dude," you know? So, it's like, it was like, stuff like that. And then other people just being like, "You're a fucking freak American? Are they all like you", kinda shit. it was just like, I don't know, it was super weird. I got some shit for it. But like, most people, like I would talk to them for five minutes. And they'd be like, "Oh, you're just a person who wants to like, do shit." You know what I mean? But then, the more I got into this shit, and the more I was like, getting deeper into the east of the country, like, it got like, less and less about personal identity and what you what you were presenting to the world, right? Like I am an assigned male at birth guy who's six foot two inces and like, I have tattoos everywhere. And I carry myself like, like, really confidently, because I'm a martial artist, and blah, blah, blah. I'm just like...and I don't take shit from people like...It just was like a little easier for me to get by. But like, I was with this really well known fascist unit, who was giving personal protection to this trans woman, who was in the east of the country and had been there for months. Like she had gotten fired from her news organization because she started using the term 'Orc' in her in her pieces, and they're like, "You're no longer unbiased." And she and she was like, "You can't be unbiased. If you've been out here," like, "These Russian soldiers are fucking pigs. Like, they're like, they're raping people. They're killing children. They're doing all sorts of shit. They're bombing schools. They're bombing hospitals, like, and all these people could just shoot their officers and come across the line with a white flag. And the Ukrainians would treat them fine, right? Like yeah, but they're not doing that they're doing what they're told. And they're being complicit in these atrocities, blah, blah, blah." So she was like just going around doing all these pieces and her personal protection unit was all these supposed fucking homophobic, you know, fascist pieces of shit and granted, I never got drunk with these guys. I didn't have beers with them. I don't know what they really think but, they thought what she was doing was important enough to like give her a pass, you know what I mean? And like protect her, and get her to these like places to interview these people. And that's the kind of like, shit I mostly ran into, was like, you know, you don't have to agree with me right now, but we have a goal in mind. And once the Russians are gone, fuck it. We'll figure out our differences later, but like right now, like were chill, and I got like pretty hopeful about it till I met this like, platoon leader in an infantry territorial defense unit who, after...we were bombed at one point our fucking vans got destroyed, and we were looking for a mechanic to fix our shit, so we could get out of the east of the country. And this dude who spoke perfect English came up to us and was like, "What are you doing? What are y'all doing?" We told them what was up and he was like, "I'll try and find a mechanic. I got a mechanic buddy, like right around the corner, blah, blah, blah." And then while we were waiting for a callback, me and him just like got some coffees and like, talked for a while it turns out, he's like, uh, you know, he was a fucking, like, a human rights activist who was a lawyer forever, and like, graduated college in '92, and started his own organization to help like, LGBTQ refugees from like Belarus and shit, you know? And I mean, he was like, super fucking cool. Yeah. And the guy just eventually was like, "Yeah, I went to school at a military accredited college. So when I joined the territorial defense units, they're like, "You're an officer. You're, you're in control of a whole platoon,"" and he like, tried so hard to convince them that he was not their guy. Margaret 39:44 That he has the wrong platoon. Agatha 39:46 Yeah, he's like, "No, dude, I don't know how to fight blah, blah, blah. These are all like seasoned infantry men that I'm supposed to be...." So he's like, "I just fucking started listening to the most experienced dudes in my company and like, like, let them decide basically," and then, but like I got talking to him, I was like, yeah. You know, I introduced myself to him as my birth name. And he's like, yeah, you know? And then we started talking and it became apparent that he was not straight and all this other shit. And I was like, "Yeah, like, we've been working with this one group," and he's like, "Oh, yeah, they're bad news, you know?" And I was like, "Are they, though? Because like, they've shown me to be like, pretty decent to like, a lot of marginalized folks. As far as I can tell. I don't know." Yeah. And I was like, "I go by Agatha in the states and like, my crew calls me Agatha. But like, I do feel scared enough to not introduce myself as Agatha to the people in this unit, because they're, they're staunchly fascist, right? Like, you know, they, they're not into it." and they're like quick like without missing a beat they're like, "Oh, yeah, no, do not introduce yourself to these motherfuckers as Agatha. They're like, they did get rid of a lot of antisemites, they did get rid of a lot of overt racists, but there's like homophobia is still a huge problem in the Ukrainian military and population in general. It's very conservative. And so like, he like really opened my eyes that like, I was like, "Yeah, we're all in this together. Like, who gives a fuck your political affiliations? You know?" And then he was quickly like, "Yeah. No, people still disappear all the time during wartime. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, watch your fucking ass and like, keep doing what you're doing. But like, don't get too comfortable with these people." And it was just like....It was hard because like, I fucking was just feeling good about, working with people of different ideological backgrounds. And it felt good to just feed people and have this shared goal. And then just to be like, brutally reminded that, like, that's not actually the case. And it could get backwards really quick. You know what I mean? If I like yeah, said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Like, I have like an antifascist action pin on my hat. It's just like, you know, the little two black flags. It says "Anti-fascist action." He's like, he's like, "I wouldn't wear that, you know, I just wouldn't. you know, and I was like, "Okay." I listened to the guy, you know, he's fucking awesome. And I like, kept in touch with the dude through Telegram, and it was fucking on and then he got captured by the Russians, and he's still in captivity, and like, they're trying to act like he's a super Neo Nazi, because, like, that's what they do to human rights...and you know, people who are obviously leftist who get who get taken prisoner. But, you know, he's facing fucking 12 years in prison in the Donbas now, you know, and I'm just hoping, because he's an officer, they're going to do a prisoner swap, you know, but they're like not into it. And I, you know, if I had weird questions, I'd ask them, and then they'd always give me like, a nice response. And, you know, didn't treat me like an idiot American. They're like, yeah, "You just don't know the culture, blah, blah, blah." So, now what? Margaret 42:48 Yeah, that's, that's a really good...it's a sad, but it's an important counterpoint in this conversation we're having is to realize that like some of the civility between these units is probably short term, probably a veneer, and like, probably necessary veneer to drive out the invading force, but it makes sense to not to get too comfortable with it. And that's sad, but it's interesting because it's like, I hold, perhaps naively, that a lot of center Right, people really are distinct from far Right people, and like, have, you know, some really good ideas in terms of "Hey, what if we all left each other alone and sometimes took care of each other?" And it's like, easy for me to say as like someone who lives in a rural center Right area, but not a far Right area. And that's an important difference, you know? Agatha 43:45 Yeah, but I think that's like a pretty fair assessment too, of people out there. It's just it doesn't...you just can't count on that for long because even though like you could be a center Right, dude, and then you spend nine months in a fucking infantry unit full of fucking mutant goons who are espousing all this hate and it's easy to go from center Right to far Right, you know? Margaret 44:05 Yep. Yeah, no, totally. And it's...Yeah, fuck. Well, to go from that light subject to another really light subject. You mentioned that you were attacked, your caravan was attacked. Agatha 44:20 Yeah. Margaret 44:21 Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to say what happened? Is that right? Agatha 44:24 Sure. It's hard for me to just like, do it kind of like, you know, like, give you the synopsis. Like I kind of rant about it when I start going into details, because I start going into like lizard brain thinking about how I felt while I was there. So, with the caveat that like I want you to like be like, "rein it in," if you're like...if I'm given too many details, or if I'm going off on a fucking rant or whatever. Basically, we had done....we had been driving for like 48 hours on and off. We left Krakow. We got to Lviv. We dropped a bunch of shit. Picked up a bunch of shit. Got to Kyiv, dropped off a bunch of shit, picked up a bunch of shit, and this all started like insane. I was at the fucking ladies warehouse, loaded up like usual. And that grifter dude we were working with....so his thing was, he was working with the....What the fuck is their name? Not the Rotary Club. They're like something like that. The Lion something? Do you know what I'm talking about? Margaret 45:28 Yes, one of those like weird things. It's like not the Masons, but it's basically the Masons. Agatha 45:32 Yeah, t's not the Masons, but it's kind of like the Masons, and they do like whatever.....So, he, I don't know how he fucking did it got a bunch of funding for them, bought like two brand new vans and was out there, under the auspice that he was working for them. But he had all these weird things he was doing that he wouldn't share too much information on. And he had a Land Rover and it was one of those fucking British Land Rovers with a steering wheel on the wrong side, or the other side, not the wrong side. Margaret 46:01 When we're British people, we can say the wrong side. That's fine. Agatha 46:06 So, we're loading up all the shit. I'm waiting for the rest of my crew to get there. We got there a couple hours early. We get all loaded up. And I'm like, "Hey, person who runs the shit, like, what can I do to be of help while I wait for other people? Do you have shit that needs to get like moved around in the warehouse? You know, like, what do you need for me? She's like, "I need you to get this fucking guy off my back. He won't leave me alone. He wants to leave right now. And I told me, he's got to wait till the rest of the convoy gets here so you all get to the border crossing at the same time when you're supposed to. And you can give this paperwork to the guy who needs it." And I was like, "Okay." So the guy won't shut up. Eventually, they get in a huge fight. He says, "We're leaving," and looks at me. And I was like, "What?" and the lady's like, "Alright, good luck crossing the border," you know. And he's got his own van and he's like, "You're gonna drive this Land Rover full of shit by yourself. And you're just gonna follow me to Kyiv where we drop this off to a unit of American volunteers who are all ex military. And they're working on their own outside of the Ukrainian military. And they need a four by four vehicle to get in and out of like weird spots." And I was like, "Okay, fine." And then. So, I call the main planner of my group and I'm like, "Yo, dude is trying to be sketchy. He got in a fight with Lady. They're at each other's throats. He just wants us to leave. She wants us to get the fuck out of there just so she doesn't have to deal with like, this, like sketchy male bodied person yelling at her. She just doesn't need this, you know?" And he's just like, "I'm so sorry to do this to you. But like, just go with him. Just like get out of there with him, like, help him out. We need his van space once we hit Kyiv because we have more supplies than we can bring to Kharkiv in the space we have. So, I was like, "Okay, fine, whatever." And this guy like we eventually....She looks at me, she gives me a big hug. And she says, "I'm so sorry about this." And I was like, "Sorry, about what?" And then she looks at the guy and she's like, "Have fun crossing the border," and handed him a thing of papers and like was like, "See you guys." And then she's just like, "Please stay safe, Agatha." And I was like, "Okay." And and then I was like, I don't know what's going on. This dude throws a radio on my lap. I had never used a fucking CB radio at this point in my life. And he's just like, he's like "Try to keep up." And then he like fucking takes off on me. And I was like, What the fuck, and I'm like, racing to keep up with him. But, he's passing all the semis on the highway and I'm driving a right handed vehicle. I have to get all the way in the other lane to see if there's oncoming traffic, which is sketchy as fuck. I have never driven one of these things. It's still like normal driving lanes, you know what I mean? It's just a different driving side on the car. And it just was like the most stressful thing that's ever happened to me. For four hours trying to keep up with this guy. And then we finally get to the Ukrainian border. We're well outside that window of time she told us to get there. And he's like, "Don't worry, let's skip the line. Let's drive on the outside of the line in this like break down lane and get up to the gate and I'll get us through." And I was like, "I don't think that's gonna work, bro." And he's like, "Whatever." We get all the way up there. I'm still sitting in the car. I see him arguing with the border guard. The border guard's just pointing to the back of the line and then I'm like, "Fuck," and then eventually he's like, "Oh, we gotta try again blah blah blah." And he like turns around and we go...we do this like three times. He argues with three different border guards. And eventually we just have to sit in line for like eight fucking hours like Lady told us we were gonna have to do if we didn't fucking wait and he's all griping about it and blah blah. Yeah. And I'm just like I want to be like, "I fucking told you so." I don't like this guy already. He's like, super macho, has no regard for other people's emotional like capacity for anything and it's just about him and blah blah blah and he's got to get this vehicle to this unit or they're fucked and blah blah blah. We finally get through. He does the same shit, and I don't know if you know anything about Ukrainian roads, but they are that was fucked up roads I've ever seen in my life. Like, before the war. Like there's just like...they are fucked up. It's like the main highways are just packed with potholes that like, are just so devastating when you hit them. You're like, Oh my God, and like, he's just flying down this highway and like, he's like, "Keep up," like I keep hearing in the radio get more and more staticky. He's like, "I can't see you back behind me. Like keep up. Blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Dude, you're going too fast. Blah, blah, blah. We do this for a whole day. And we get to Lviv and then whatever....I missed a detail. It wasn't Kyiv we were going to deliver this vehicle to. It was Lyviv, which is much closer to the border. We get we get to Lviv, and he's like, "We gotta meet this fucking dude, and hand off this fucking vehicle. And I was like, "Okay, fine, whatever." We finally get to this gas station. And there's these two dudes dressed in fatigues with their weapons out, like totally out of place, and they're holding gas cans. And he's like, "There's my dudes." And I was like, "Okay." Margaret 51:16 From the Lions Club or whatever? Agatha 51:18 Yeah, yeah. Well, no. He didn't tell me how he knew these guys. He alluded to the fact that he was in Afghanistan for a while working with Blackwater motherfuckers doing the same shit, but just equipping Blackwater units like not other stuff. So, I was like, alright, this dude's got sketchy friends. Whatever. Turns out this dude doesn't know the fighter at all. They met through the internet. He's not donating this vehicle. He's selling it to them and then fucking dudes like all sketched out because he looks at this Land Rover and is like, "So, this thing's good to go. It's all like mechanically sound?" And dudes like "Yeah, it's good. I had a mechanic look at it and everything in Poland blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Yo," I could not shut up. I was like, "Yo, I drove this thing from fucking Krakow and it is not sound. Like you at least need new tie rod ends." Like I'm a proficient mechanic. "I was like, You need new tie rod ends and or like fucking drag link for your steering unit. And like, I don't know if you've looked at the back hubs, but like, they are rusted to fuck, like, Good luck getting the rotors off of the hubcap kind of shit. You know what I mean?" And he's like, "Well, what the fuck, I can't use this dude, we already paid you. I told you this was to get infantry units into hot zones, to do some sketchy shit. And to get out. Like, you told me this thing was going to be mechanically sound, and it just wasn't and like, blah, blah, blah." And I still had my whole kit from when I thought I was going to use my time there fighting. So, I feel bad for this guy. And I was like, "Hey, do you guys need any like, PPE or anything for one of your members of your unit? Like, he's like, "Yeah, the Russians just overran our base. And we lost everything. Some of our dudes are wearing jeans and sneakers." And I was like, "Okay, I got like, three sets of BDUs. I got a pair of combat boots. I got knee pads. I have a fucking thermal imaging camera. I have weapons sights. I have, like, you know, weapon attachments," all this shit. And he's like, "Oh, fucking A. Thank you so much." And he's like, you know, "Fuck this dude. I don't know how I got mixed up." I was like, "Whatever, just take all my shit. And we're gonna get out of your hair. I'm so sorry this happened. Yeah, blah, blah, blah." We get to Kyiv. We kick them out like I told you we did with a drunk dude. And then. And then like, another day later, we finally ended up in Kharkiv. We get rid of all our shit. Margaret 53:32 Okay, how much of this is lizard brain? I'm just... Agatha 53:35 A bunch. But I'm I'm at the point now it's starting to matter. Margaret 53:40 I appreciate that you're telling like a hitchhiking story. So it's like, it's very relatable to me. Yeah, please continue. Sorry. Agatha 53:46 So, we're in Kharkiv. We've given up all our shit. We've re-supplied and done that shit like four times. We have one more delivery to do. And then we're going to head back to Poland. And.... Margaret 53:57 Wait, who you with at this point? This is the rest of...The rest of your crew has caught up with you at this point? Agatha 54:03 Yes, yes. The rest of the crew has caught up. They caught up with us after we handed off that vehicle to the unit. And they caught up with us in Kyiv. We did a bunch of drop offs. We did a bunch of pickups and then we all drove as a unit after we kick that dude out to Kharkiv, which is, I don't know. It's like 20 miles from the Russian border or something like that. I could be wrong. It's not far. I mean, while we were there, you could hear artillery going off in the background. Yeah. You know, whatever. So we have 75 IFAKs to deliver to this one particular unit who, we had another wealthy benefactor, those two were in contact, the unit and this wealthy benefactor, this wealthy benefactor said "I know these people who will deliver it to you," and that was us. So, we have 75 IFAKs. I don't know if you know what an IFAK is. Margaret 54:51 Yeah. Individual first aid kit. It's a trauma kit for gunshot wounds, for anyone who's listening. Agatha 54:56 Yeah, it's got a tourniquet. It's got some quick clot. It's got a chest seal. It's got like a aluminum brace, it's got all the shit you need to like, stop some bleeding for 20 minutes to hopefully get them to like a more well equipped place but... Margaret 55:08 They save a hell of a lot of lives. Agatha 55:10 They save so many lives and they're so important and like...So, we were delivering 75 of those. We're meeting this unit at this restaurant. It's one of the only restaurants open in in Kharkiv that we can find. There's like three Ukrainian families eating there. And we just start hearing artillery getting closer and closer to us. And we're like, "Fuck, this is getting scary." Like, we start feeling it in the table. Our glasses start shaking. And my friend with the Black Rifle Coffee shirt, he's like, "Fuck, they're bracketing us." And I was like, "What is that?" And he's like, "It's when you have a, you know, an end goal in mind of where you want to hit. And then you like launch a round of munitions. And through whatever means whether it be like drones or whatever you see where it hits you readjust your calibration on your aiming device, you launch another round. It gets closer and then you're getting closer to your target, right? Yes, I think they're bracketing us." The shit is getting closer and closer, because we're at the base of the Soviet monument. And it's like a 100 foot tall statue of a Ukrainian dude wearing like Russian combat gear from World War II and it's like, supposed to be a Soviet monument to people who lost their lives fighting the Nazis in World War II, but someone had climbed all the way up there and taped a huge Ukrainian flag to their to their gun and it was like...it just seemed like that's what they had to have been aiming for because it was like a big "Fuck you," to Russia, you know what I mean? And yeah, so we're like okay, and you know, we're trying to get our social media presence up so we can get more donation so we ended up with this fucking Tik Tok'er with 2 million followers with us. And he doesn't want anything to do with us most of the time. So, he got an Airbnb. We're getting bracketed. We're waiting for the.... Margaret 56:56 This sounds like a movie. You've got a Tik Tok guy with 2 million followers.... Agatha 56:59 It's insane. It was fuckinginsane and we're waiting for this military unit to come pick up the 75 IFAKs. We have our food boxed up. We're like as soon as we give these dudes this shit we're out of here. We're leaving Kharkiv. And then someone's like, my buddy, who's the main planner is like, "Yo, y'all need to go get dude, he's at an Airbnb, like fucking 10 blocks away." So, we're like, okay, so me and Canadian infantry dude get in a van and we start like going like 110 kilometers through the middle of Kharkiv literally shit blowing up all around us. We're trying to get to this fucking dude. And we finally get there. And we're like, "Where are you?" on the phone? We're like, "We're down here. Get the fuck in the van." He gets in the van. We throw him a fucking vest with like body armor and give him a helmet and we start racing back to the fucking restaurant and it's just like...there are just like artillery munitions going off all around us. it was fucking terrifying. And then we finally get to the park where this monument is that and we have to park, walk through the park itself to get to the restaurant where all the rest of our crew is at, right? So, we park our last two vans we have in the convoy. Me and Tik Tok'er get out. Dude I'm with gets out. Se start walking across the park and I mean even with....like people are just used to artillery going off in the city right, so there's like old people everywhere soaking up the sun on benches and shit like that and people just like ignoring it and then we get like about I don't know 30 minutes or 30 meters into the park and then all of a sudden I hear this explosion really close behind me. I turned around I see all the glass in our vans get shot out all at once. And then something blew up like right next to me and I lost consciousness. I woke up on the ground. Tik Tok'er was confused and like we both didn't know what was going on. I couldn't hear anything. All I heard was like the biggest like ringing in my ears I've ever heard. My chest hurt from the impact of like the sound wave hitting me. Agatha 59:10 Yeah, yeah, I couldn't breathe. I was just like freaking out. I just started like grabbing my body armor and seeing if there was like blood anywhere. I was like whatever, and then I realized I'm okay and then I'm like, "Fuck all the windows of the the restaurant that my buds were in are blown out and it's like fucking on fire. It was like....so I run over there. Buddy is trying to....military dudes trying to tell me to get back in the van. I was like "I'm not getting back in the van, like that things like destroyed and blah blah blah." And so I just follow him and we both run in and he's just like "Boys, boys, where are you?" and we hear them yelling from the kitchen and everyone that was in the the dining hall went to the kitchen and we're hiding behind this like knee wall and the military unit we were supposed to give this shit to was there and I was like "Fucking great. Like, there's someone who knows what they're doing." Yeah. And everyone's like, "Are you okay? Are you okay? Like, what's going on?" And Meantime, there's still rounds hitting all over the fucking place. And he's like...everyone's like, "What do we do? What do we do?" And I was like, "Yo, we got 75 IFAKs in the van right now. And there are people like hanging out with like, missing limbs and like, screaming, bleeding everywhere outside, like, we need to get out and try and help people. And I tried talking to the medic who was with the unit that we were meeting up and he just like, didn't understand me. The interpreter was having a hard time. They lost their shit, you know? Yeah, everyone's freaking out. And like, I'm just trying to get these people to follow me. I was like, "Just come to the park. Like, we know how to put tourniquets on. We know how to pack wounds, like, please, like, let's just do this." And everyone's like, I don't know." A few of the people in my crew were like, "Yeah, let's do it." And then the people of this unit, like pissed me off, they're like, "No, we should just hang out here till the artillery barrage stops." And I was just like, "Fuck you. I'm going." And then like me and four people went out. We ran to the vans, we fucking grabbed all these IFAKs and then we just like, dumped them on the ground and started ripping out tourniquets. And then we split off into different little teams and just started fucking tourniqueting people who were bleeding everywhere, like this one dude was like missing limbs and was just like screaming. It was like the most intense thing I've ever experienced. He ended up fucking dying. Like, it was just like, so nuts. And that went on for like, 25 minutes, 30 minutes. And, um, and my personal IFAK that I wore on my chest rig was like, that was the first one I ripped off, you know, and yeah, tourniqueted at this lady was bleeding heavily from her inner thigh and I was scared it was like a femoral artery or something. And, after like, 30 minutes, this ambulance shows up. And they're just creeping by the park. They're not stopping. And I was like, "Fuck," and I like, stopped what I was doing because I had treated everyone I could find at this point. And I was like, in like, crazy mode. I was like hiding under a tree that would provide me no protection from an artillery round, but I was like, freaking out and then I saw them ran up. I was like, "Yo, you guys gotta get out of here. There's people bleeding all over the place. Blah, blah, blah." And then the military dude, I realized the medic had never even opened his fucking med kit. He was just standing there with hi AK watching us like tourniquet up...watching us of civilians like tourniqueting up all these people, and then fucking whatever. They're like, as soon as the EMTs arrived, they eventually get out. They start tending to the people, we had been triaging. And then the military dudes just like, "Alright, we gotta get out of
Interview by Erin Eddy.Punk rockers A Wilhelm Scream will be heading back to Aussie shores in March and are ready todrink beer outta shoes with us all!HEAVY got to chat with Trevor, Nuno and Nicholas who are very enthusiastic about returning toAustralia for the first time since 2016.They also explained why they took nine excruciatingly long years between album releases.“I think someone from The D4, or some really cool band, said something really cool like ‘I neversigned no fucking contract that said I had to put out a record every year! This is punk rock! I do whatI want!' I am paraphrasing of course but yeah… I mean, we had a lot going on.”A Wilhelm Scream spend a lot of time on the road touring, and this also contributed to the lengthytime period between releases.“Every time we put out a record we're pretty much on tour non-stop, so in that regard, it's difficultto write on the road – not impossible, but it's difficult.”Check out the interview with the guys, who will be on the road across Australia, including someregional locations, as of March 2.
Episode SummaryIn this livecast episode, we welcome back Dr. Zain Chagla, Dr. Stefan Baral, and Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti to address some of the issues we've seen throughout the pandemic, new variants and what to expect with future variants, discussing what we've done well over the past few years, misinformation, the effect of social media and the messaging on Twitter, the role media plays and the influence of experts on policy, public health agencies, booster shots to combat new variants and who actually needs them, where we are at with public trust, and much more!SHOW SPONSORBETTERHELPBetterHelp is the largest online counselling platform worldwide. They change the way people get help with facing life's challenges by providing convenient, discreet and affordable access to a licensed therapist. BetterHelp makes professional counselling available anytime, anywhere, through a computer, tablet or smartphone.Sign up today: http://betterhelp.com/solvinghealthcare and use Discount code “solvinghealthcare"Thanks for reading Solving Healthcare with Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Thank you for reading Solving Healthcare with Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng. This post is public so feel free to share it.Transcript:KK: Welcome to ‘Solving Healthcare' I'm Kwadwo Kyeremanteng. I'm an ICU and palliative care physicianhere in Ottawa and the founder of ‘Resource Optimization Network' we are on a mission to transformhealthcare in Canada. I'm going to talk with physicians, nurses, administrators, patients and theirfamilies because inefficiencies, overwork and overcrowding affects us all. I believe it's time for a betterhealth care system that's more cost effective, dignified, and just for everyone involved.KK: All right, folks, listen. This is the first live cast that we have done in a very long time, probably a year.Regarding COVID, we're gonna call it a swan song, folks, because I think this is it. I'm gonna be bold andsay, this is it, my friends. I think what motivated us to get together today was, we want to learn, wewant to make sure we learned from what's gone on in the last almost three years, we want to learn that,in a sense that moving forward the next pandemic, we don't repeat mistakes. We once again, kind ofelevate the voices of reason and balance, and so on. So, before we get started, I do want to give acouple of instructions for those that are online. If you press NL into the chat box, you will be able to getthis. This recording video and audio sent to you via email. It'll be part of our newsletter. It's ballin, you'll,you'll get the last one the last hurrah or the last dance, you know I'm saying second, secondly, I want togive a quick plug to our new initiative. Our new newsletters now on Substack. Everything is on therenow our podcasts our newsletter. So, all the updates you'll be able to get through there. I'm just goingto put a link in the chat box. Once I find it. Bam, bam, bam. Okay, there we go. There we go. That's itright there, folks. So, I feel like the crew here needs no introduction. We're gonna do it. Anyway, we gotDr. Zain Chagla, we got Dr. Stef Baral, we got Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti back in full effect. Once again, like Isaid, we were we chat a lot. We were on a on a chat group together. We were saying how like, we justneed to close this out, we need to address some of the issues that we've seen during the pandemic. Talkabout how we need to learn and deal with some of the more topical issues du jour. So, I think what we'llstart with, well get Sumon to enter the building. If you're on Twitter, you're gonna get a lot of mixedmessages on why you should be fearful of it or why not you should be fearful of it. So, from an IDperspective, Sumon what's your what's your viewpoint on? B 115?SC: Yeah, so, first of all, great to be with you guys. I agree, I love doing this as a as a swan song to kind ofmove to the next stage that doesn't involve us talking about COVID all the time. But so yeah, I think thatwe've had a bit of an alphabet soup in the last year with all these variants. And you know, the most oneof the newest ones that we're hearing about recently are BQ 1, xBB. I think that what I talked aboutwhen I was messaging on the news was taking a step back and looking at what's happened in the last 14months. What that is showing us is that we've had Omicron For this entire time, which suggests a levelof genomic stability in the virus, if you remember, variants at the very beginning, you know, that wassynonymous with oh, man, we're going to have an explosion of cases. Especially with alpha for the GTAdelta for the rest of, of Ontario, and I'm just talking about my local area. We saw massive increases inhospitalizations, health care resources, of patients having been sent all over the province. So, it was itwas awful, right. But you know, I think that was a bit of PTSD because now after anybody heard theword variant, that's what you remember. As time has gone on, you can see that the number ofhospitalizations has reduced, the number of deaths has reduced. Now when omicron came yeah, therewas an explosion of cases. But you know, when you look at the actual rate of people getting extremely illfrom it, it's much, much, much less. That was something that, you know, many of us were secretlythinking, Man, this is great when this happened. So now where we are is we're in January 2023, we'vehad nothing but Omicron, since what was in late November 2020, or 21? Maybe a bit later than that.And x BB, if you remember, be a 2x BB is an offshoot of BH two. Okay. Yeah, if you're noticing all thesenew variants are their immune evasive, they tend to be not as they're not as visually as, I see this in myown practice, like all of us do here. You know, they are, well, I'm kind of piecemeal evolution of thevirus. Now, there's not one variant that's gonna blow all the other ones out of the water, like Oh, microndid or delta. Right. I think this is a good thing. This is showing that we're reaching a different stage of thepandemic, which we've been in for almost a year now. I think that every time we hear a new one, itdoesn't mean that we're back to square one. I think that this is what viruses naturally do. And I thinkputting that into perspective, was very important.KK: Absolutely. Zain just to pick your brain to like, I got this question the other day about, like, what toexpect what future variants like, obviously, is there's no crystal ball, but someone alluded to the ideathat this is what we're to expect. You feel the same?ZC: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting, because we have not studied a Coronavirus this much, you know, inhistory, right. Even though we've lived with coronaviruses, there probably was a plague ofcoronaviruses. What was the Russian flu is probably the emergence of one of our coronaviruses areseasonal coronaviruses. You know, I think we had some assumptions that Coronavirus is when mutate,but then as we look to SARS, cov two and then we look back to see some of the other Coronavirus has,they've also mutated quite a bit too, we just haven't, you know, put names or other expressions tothem. This is part of RNA replication of the virus is going to incorporate some mutations and survival ofthe fittest, the difference between 2020, 2021, 2022, and now 2023 is the only pathway for this virus tokeep circulating is to become more immune evasive. This is what we're seeing is more immune evasion,we're seeing a variant with a couple more mutations where antibodies may bind a little bit less. But Ithink that the big difference here is that that protection, that severe disease, right, like the COVID, thatwe saw in 2020/2021, you know, that terrible ICU itis, from the COVID, you know, for the level ofantibody T cell function, non-neutralizing antibody functioning mate cell function, all of that that's builtinto, you know, humanity now through infection, vaccine are both really, you know, the virus can evolveto evade some of the immunity to cause repeat infections and, you know, get into your mucosa andreplicate a bit, the ability for the virus to kind of, you know, cause deep tissue infection lead to ARDSlead to all of these complications is getting harder and harder and harder. That's us evolving with thevirus and that's, you know, how many of these viruses as they emerge in the population really have kindof led to stability more than anything else? So, yes, we're going to see more variants. Yes, you know, thisis probably what what the future is, there will be some more cases and there may be a slight tick inhospitalizations associated with them. But again, you know, the difference between 2020/2021/2022/2023 is a syrup prevalence of nearly 100%. One way or another, and that really does define how thisdisease goes moving forward.KK: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe Stef we could pipe it a bit on, the idea that, first of all, I just want toreinforce like as an ICU doc in Ottawa with a population of over a million we really have seen very littleCOVID pneumonia since February 2022. Very minimal and it just goes to show know exactly whatSumon and Zain were alluding to less virulent with the immunity that we've established in thecommunity, all reassuring science. One question I want to throw towards Stef, before getting into it. Youdid an interview with Mike Hart. As you were doing this interview, I was going beast mode. I was hearingStef throw down. I don't know if you were, a bit testy that day, or whatever. There was the raw motionof reflecting on the pandemic, and how we responded and far we've gone away from public healthprinciples, was just like this motivator to say, we cannot have this happen again. I gotta tell you, boys,like after hearing that episode, I was like ‘Yeah, let's do this'. Let's get on. Let's go on another, doanother show. I'm gonna leave this fairly open Stef. What has been some of the keyways we'veapproached this pandemic that has really triggered you?SB: Yeah, I mean, so I guess what I'd say is, in some ways, I wish there was nobody listening to this rightnow. I wish there was like, I don't know what the audience is. I don't know if it's 10 people or underpeople, but I think it's like, I wish nobody cared anymore. I want Public Health to care. I want doctors tocare, we're going to keep talking because you know, Kwadwo, you've had folks in the ICU we we'vewe've seen cases in the shelters, we have outbreaks, like public health is always going to care aboutCOVID, as it cares about influenza cares about RSV, and other viruses, because it needs to respond tooutbreaks among vulnerable folks. That will never stop COVID, it was just clear very early, that COVID isgoing to be with us forever. So that means tragically, people will die of COVID people. I think that, youknow, there's that that's a reality, it's sometimes it's very close to home for those of us who areproviders, as it has for me in the last week. So COVID never ends. I think the issue is that like when doesCOVID And as a matter of worthy of discussion for like the average person? The answer is a long timeago. I mean, I think for the folks that I've spoken to, and the way that we've lived our lives as a family isto focus on the things that like bring folks joy, and to kind of continue moving along, while also ensuringthat the right services are in place for folks who are experiencing who are at risk for COVID and seriousconsequences of COVID. Also just thinking about sort of broader systems issues that I think continue toput folks at risk. So, one: I think it's amazing, like how little of the systematic issues we've changed,we've not improved healthcare capacity at all. Amazingly, we've not really changed any of the structuresthat put our leg limitations on the on the pressures on the health system, none of that has changed. Allof it has been sort of offset and downloaded and just like talking about masks and endless boosterswhen we've never really gotten to any of the meaty stuff. As you said three years into it, andeverybody's like, well, it's an emergency. I'm like, it was an emergency and fine. We did whatever wasneeded, even if I didn't agree with it at the time. But irrespective of that, whatever that was done wasdone. But now it's amazing that like the federal money expires for COVID In next few months, and allwell have shown for this switch health guys got became millionaires like a bunch of people, I don't mindnaming and I don't care anymore. These folks, these Grifters went out and grabbed endless amounts ofmoney. These cash grabs that arrival, the ArriveCan app with, like these mystery contractors that theycan't track down millions of dollars. So it's like all these folks like grabbed, you know, huge amounts ofmoney. And I think there's a real question at the end of it of like, what are we as a country? Or youknow, across countries? What do you have to show for it? How are you going to better respond? Andthe answer right now is like very little, like we have very little to show for all this all these resources thathave been invested, all this work that has been done. That I think should be the conversation. That tome needs to be this next phase of it is like billions and billions and billions of dollars trillion or whatever,like 10s of billions of dollars were spent on what? and what was achieved? And what do we want to donext time? And what do we have to show for it? that, to me feels like the meat of the conversationrather than like silly names for these new variants that do nothing but scare people in a way that isn'thelpful. It does not advance health. It doesn't you know, make the response any more helpful. It justscares people in a way that I think only detracts them from seeking the care that we want them to beseeking.KK: Yeah, I think you brought up a point to about or alluded to how some of this was the distraction.That was one of the points that really stuck home is that we, we didn't really dive into the core s**t, thecore issues. This is why at the end of it all, are we that much more ready for the next pandemic that wellsee, you know, and so like maybe Sumon, what do you think in terms of another tough one, are weready for the next pandemic? Do you think we've done enough? do we think are in terms of what we'veinvested in, how we've communicated to the public. The messaging to the public. Are we learning? Is myquestion, I guess.SC: I'm a clinician and I don't work with the public health and the policy aspect as closely as Stefan does.But I will say that, obviously, I've been in this realm for quite a long time, since in ID, I think that, youknow, what that's important to remember is that for SARS 1 we actually had this document thatoutlined all of this, you know, masking, social distancing, what to do with funding and all that kind ofstuff. Basically, I was actually interviewed about this, I remember back way back in 2020, and half of itwas basically just thrown out the window. I think that a lot of what happened is that fear came indecisions were made from emotion, which is, by the way, understandable, especially in April 2020. I'veshared with you guys before that, in February 2020, I was waking up at night, like nervous, that I wasgonna die. I that that's where I was thinking I it was, it was terrible. I completely understand makingthose decisions. I think as time went on, I wish that, you know, there's a bit more of public healthprinciples. You know, making sure that we're dealing with things without, you know, stepping onpeople's bodily autonomy, for example, you know, doing things in an equitable way, where you, youknow, we all know that every intervention that you do is squeezing a balloon, you must remember theunintended consequences, I think that we did. So, kind of putting that all together. I think, right now, aswe stand in Canada if we do have another pandemic. I fear that a lot of these same mistakes are goingto be made again, I should say, a disruptive pandemic of this because it's not forgotten H1N1, thepandemic it that was a pandemic, right. It wasn't nearly as disruptive as COVID was, but I do think thatinquiry and like you mentioned at the beginning, Kwadwo was talking about what we did, well, we didn'tdo well, and making sure the good stuff happens, and the bad stuff doesn't happen again, because this islikely not the last pandemic, in the information age in our lifetimes.KK: Zain, was there anything that stuck out for you? In terms of what you'd really want to see usimprove? Or whether it is messaging, whether it is public health principles, does any of those stick out inyour mind?ZC: Yeah, I mean, I think the one unique thing about this pandemic that is a lesson moving forward andfor us to kind of deal with I think we talked about messaging. This was the first major pandemic thatoccurred with social media and the social media era, right, and where, information, misinformation,disinformation, all the things that were all over the place, you know, we're flying, right, and there doesneed to be some reconciliation of what's been we have to have some reconciliation of some of thebenefits of the social media era in pandemic management, but also the significant harms the people,you know, we're scared that people got messaging that may not have been completely accurate, thatpeople had their biases as they were out there. I will say even that social media component penetratedinto the media. This is also the first time that I think we saw experts you know, including myself andSuman and all of us you know, that you know, could be at home and do a news interview on NationalNews in five minutes and be able to deliver their opinion to a large audience very quickly. So, you know,I think all of that does need a bit of a reconciliation in terms of what worked, what doesn't how youvalidate you know, good medical knowledge versus knowledge that comes from biases how we evaluatepsi comm and people you know, using it as a platform for good but may in fact be using it you know,when or incorporating their own biases to use it for more, more disinformation and misinformationeven if they feel like they have good intentions with it. I you know, I think this is a, you know, for thesociologists and the communications professionals out there, you know, really interesting case exampleand unfortunately, I don't think we came out the other side. Social media being a positive tool, it mayhave been a positive tool, I think in the beginnings, but, you know, I think I'm finding, it's nice tocommunicate with folks, but I'm finding more harm and more dichotomy and division from social mediathese days is compared to the beginnings of the pandemics where, you know, I think, again, there's justbeen so much bias, so much misinformation so much people's clouds and careers that have been, youknow, staked on social media that it's really become much, much harder to figure out what's real andwhat's not real in that sense.KK: Absolutely, I fully agree Zain. At the beginning, in some ways, I'll tell you, ICU management, thatwhole movement for us to delay intubation, as opposed to intubation early, I really think it was pushedby in social media. So, I think it saved lives, right. But then, as we got through more and more thepandemic, wow, like it, like the amount of just straight up medieval gangster s**t that was going on thatin that circle, in that avenue was crazy. Then just like, I mean, this might be controversial to say, I don'tknow, but news agencies got lazy, they would use Twitter quotes in their articles as, evidence, or asproof of an argument. It's like, what is happening? It? Honestly, when you think about it, it was it wascrazy. It still is crazy.ZC: Yeah. And I think expertise was another issue. Right. And, you know, unfortunately, we know of, youknow, certain experts that were not experts that weren't certified that weren't frontlines and a varietyof opinions and various standpoints and epidemiology, public health, intensive care, infectious diseases,whatever is important. But, you know, there were individuals out there that had zero experience thatwere reading papers and interpreting them from a lens of someone that really didn't have medicalexperience or epidemiologic experience, that chased their clout that made money and, we know someexamples that people that eventually had the downfall from it, but you know, at the end of the day,those people were on social media, and it penetrated into real media, and then that is a real lesson forus is that validation of expertise is going to be important. You know, as much as we allow for anyone tohave an opinion, you know, as they get into kind of real media, they really have to be validated that thatopinion comes from a place that's evidence based and scientific and based on a significant amount oftraining rather than just regurgitating or applying one small skill set and being an expert in many otherthings.KK: SumonSC: So we're just gonna add really quickly is that, in addition to what Zain saying. When this stuff bledover from social media to media, the thing that I mean, at least what it seemed like is he was actuallyinfluencing policy. That's, I think that's the important thing is, so you can have 10 people 20 peopleyelling, it doesn't matter if they're extreme minority, if it's influencing policy that affects all of us, right.So, I think that's important.KK: I'll be honest with you, like, I got to the point where I really hated Twitter, I still kind of hate Twitter.Okay. It was conversation. I remember Sumon that you and I had I don't remember it was we weretexting. I think we talked about this. But the fact that policy could be impacted by what we're throwingdown the facts or the messages that we were doing on media that this can impact policy, you had tolike, especially when there was some badness happening, we had to step up. We had to be a voice oflogic, whether it was mandates, whether it was you know, lockdown school closures, whatever it mighthave been like, the politicians, we heard about this politicians looking at this, the mainstream medialooking at this, and for us not to say anything at this point, like we had, we had to do something Sorry,Stef, you're gonna jump in?SB: Yeah, I think I think what was interesting to me to see and I think a clear difference between H1N1was that in a lot of places, and including in Ontario, across the US, where this sort of emergence of theselike the science tables, these task forces, these whatever you want to call them, it was like a new bodyof people often whom had never spent a day in a public health agency. Often academics that you know,are probably good with numbers, but really don't have a lot of experience delivering services, you know,all of a sudden making decisions. So I think there's a real interesting dynamic that when you compare,for example, Ontario and British Columbia, one has this science table one does not, and just howdifferent things played out, I mean, given it's a, you know, an end of have to, or no one in each camp,but I think what you see is like, there's a place there where like public health or you know, let's say,Sweden, you know, as a public health agency that didn't strike up its own taskforce that used itstraditional public health agency. I think was in a place to make more like reasoned and measureddecisions, and just was better connected, like the relationships exist between the local healthauthorities and the provincial health authorities and the national ones. I think when you set up these,the one thing that I hope we never do, again, is that something like the science table never happensagain. That's not to sort of disparage most of the people. Actually, most of the folks on the science tableI like, and I respect, say many of them, maybe not most, but many of them, I like and respect, but it isthe case that there was it was they weren't the right group of people. They weren't representativeOntarians he was like, ten guys and two women, I think, I don't know many of them white, they weren'trepresentative socio economically, racially diverse, anything. They didn't have the right expertise onthere. I would have liked to see some like frontline nurses on there to say ‘listen, this stuff is silly' orsome frontline, whoever just some frontline folks to be say ‘listen, none of the stuff that you're sayingmakes any sense whatsoever'. And luckily, there was some reason, voices on there, but they were theminority. But luckily, they prevailed, or we would have had outdoor masking and even tougherlockdowns. I don't know how folks really; it was really close. I think we fortunately had thatrepresentation, but that should have never even happened, we should have had public health Ontario,being its agency and making recommendations to the ministry and to the government. There shouldhave never been a science table. Then second thing, I just want to say I've we've talked about thisforever and I do think we should talk about this more, not in the context of like this, this podcast, but isalso just absolutely the role of the media. I do want to say that, like historically, media had to do a lot ofwork, they had to go to universities or hospitals and ask for the right expert, and then the media orcomms team, ‘you should really talk to Zain Chagla' Because he has good example, you know, it givesgood expertise on this or you start to like, I don't know, like Dr. so and so for this or that, and they puttogether the right person, they organize the time and then they talk. Now you know that it was reallylike the story I think was more organically developed on based on what the experts had to say. Nowyou've got reporters, for people who are not from Ontario, there's a sports reporter in the city ofToronto that I looked historically, I can't see that they've ever done anything in public health suddenlybecame like the COVID reporter in the city of Toronto, for a major newspaper. It's like this person hasnot a clue of what they're talking about, just like has no clue they've never trained in. I don't disparagetheir sports reporter like why should they? but they became the voice of like public health for like theaverage person. It just it set us up where that person just had a story and then just found whateverpeople on Twitter that they could to like back up their story irrespective to drive controversy, to driveanger towards the government based on sort of political leanings. Even if maybe my political leaningsare aligned with that person, it's a relevant because it's not about politics, it's about public health. So Ithink the media, we have to think about, like, how do we manage the media's need for clicks and profit,you know, during this time, in with, like, their role as like, the responsible are an important part of like,you know, social functioning, in terms of the free press. So, I, there's no easy answers to that. But I'll justsay, I think there was a fundamentally important role that the media played here. And I have to say, itdidn't play out positively, in most places.KK: I gotta say, like, this is gonna be naive talk. But we're in a pandemic, there had to be so many of ushad a sense of duty, like, I was surprised at the lack of sense of duty, to be honest with you. Even if youare about your cliques, ask yourself, is this is this about the greater good here? Is this really gonna get usfurther ahead? I've said this a few times on my platform, I would have a balance of a mess. The balancedmessage on was usually one specific network that would bail on the interview. They would literally bailon the interview because my message might not be as fearful. What the actual f you know what I mean?Like it's crazy.(?) I will say there were some good reporters. I don't want to say that that you know, there were someincredible folks. I was talking to someone the other day, I won't mention who but I think the mark of thegood reporter was, you know, they have a story, they want to talk about it. They contacted us. And theysaid, what time can we talk this week, right? They didn't say I need to get this filed in three hours. If yousay you need to get this filed in three hours, the expert you're gonna go to is the one that's available inthe next three hours, right? They wanted to hear an opinion, they wanted to get multiple opinions onthe table, but they would carve out the time so that everyone could give their story or, what theiropinion was or what evidence they presented. They made sure it rotated around the experts rather thanthe story rotating around being filed. I think it's important and, you know, you can get a sense of certainthings that are on the need to be filed this day, or even on the 24/7 news cycle, where they may not beas well researched, they're they're a single opinion. They're quoting a Twitter tweet. Now, I think insome of these media platforms, you can just embed that Twitter tweet, you don't even have to, youknow, quote it in that sense, you just basically take a screenshot of it basically. Versus again, thosearticles where I think there was there more thought, and I think there were some great reporters inCanada, that really did go above and beyond. Health reporters, particularly that really did try to presenta picture that was well researched, and evidence based, you know, with what's available, but therecertainly are these issues and it's not a COVID specific issue, but with media ad reporting, in that sense.Yeah, it's and it's important to say like, it's not actually just the reporter, it's the editors, its editorialteams, like I had said, OTR discussions with reporters very early on, I've tried to stay away from themedia, because I think the folks who have done it, I've done it well. But it was interesting, because BobSargent, who sadly passed away, an internal medicine physician, and an amazing mentor to manyclinicians in Toronto. Put me in touch with a couple of reporters. He's like, you know, you're a publichealth person, you should really talk to these reports. We had this; can we talk to you privately? It wasso weird. This was summer of 2020. So, we had a very private discussion where I said ‘Listen, I haveconcerns about lockdowns for like, these reasons' I think it's reasoned, because it's not it, I've got noconspiracy to drive, like, I've got no, there's no angle in any of it. So, but it was just fascinating. So, theywere like we might be able to come back to you, and maybe we'll try to do a story around it. Then theycame back and said, we're not going to be able to pursue it. I said that's fine. It's no problem. It just sortof showed that I think, similar as academics, and clinicians, and all of us have been under pressure basedon everything from like CPSO complaints, the complaints to our employers, to whatever to just saw, youknow, the standard attacks on Twitter. I think there was also a lot of pressure on reporters based on thiswhole structure, and of it. So I think, I don't mean to disparage anybody, but I do think the point thatyou made is really important one is. I'll just say, in our own house, you know, my wife and I both werelike talking at the beginning of this and being like, what do we want to know that we did during thistime? So, my wife worked in person, as a clinician alter her practice all throughout her pregnancy? Shenever didn't go, you know, she did call she did all of that, obviously, I have done the work I've done interms of both clinically and vaccine related testing. But this just idea of like, what do you want toremember about the time that you would like what you did when s**t hit the fan? And, you know,because first, it'll happen again, but just also, I think it's important to sort of, to be able to reflect andthink positively about what you did. Anyways,KK: I hear you both, part of it, too, for me, I'll just straight up honesty. In some ways, I'm just pissed, I'mpissed that a lot of the efforts that were that a lot of people put into to try and get a good message outthere. The backlash. Now people reflecting saying, ‘Oh, I guess you did, you know, many of you do tohad a good point about lockdowns not working out'. I know it may be childish in some way, but it's just,you know, a lot of us have gone through a lot to just try and create a balanced approach. I think therewas a little bit of edge in this voice, but I think it comes with a bit of a bit of reason to have a bit of edge.I think in terms of the next couple questions here are areas to focus on. A lot of people in terms of like,decisions regarding mandates, boosters, and so forth, like we talk a lot about it on public health, it's thedata that helps drive decisions, right. That's really what you would think it should be all about. So, one ofthe many questions that were thrown to us, when we announced that this was happening was, the needfor like, almost like universal boosters, and Sumon, I'll put you on the spot there, at this stage in thepandemic, where I'm gonna timestamp this for people on audio, we're on January 10th, 2023. There aresome questions that we get, who really needs to push through to we all need boosters? What's yourthoughts on that?SC: So, I think that one of the things that I said this, as Zain makes fun of me throughout the pandemic, Icame up with catchphrases, and my one for immunity is the way that we've conceptualized immunity inNorth America. I think a lot of this has to do with an actual graphic from the CDC, which likens immunityto an iPhone or a battery, iPhone battery. So, iPhone immunity, where you have to constantly berecharging and updating. I think that has kind of bled into the messaging. That's what we think of it. Iremember back in I think it was October of 2021, where they were also starting to talk about the thirddose. The third dose, I think that at that time, we knew that for the higher risk people, it was probablythe people who would benefit the most from it. We had Ontario data from it was I think, was ISIS.There's vaccine efficacy against hospitalization, over 96% in Ontario in health care workers 99%, if you'reless than seventy-seven years of age, yet this went out, and everybody felt like they had to get thebooster. So, I think that the first thing that bothered me about that is that there wasn't a kind ofstratified look at the risk level and who needs it? So now we're in 2023. I think that one of the big thingsapart from what I said, you know, who's at higher risk, there's still this problem where people think thatevery six months, I need to recharge my immunity, which certainly isn't true. There wasn't a recognitionthat being exposed to COVID itself is providing you a very robust immunity against severe disease, whichis kind of it's coming out now. We've been we've all been talking about it for a long time. And you know,the other thing is that the disease itself has changed. I think that I heard this awesome expression, thefirst pass effect. So, when the COVID first came through a completely immune naive population, ofcourse, we saw death and morbidity, we saw all the other bad stuff, the rare stuff that COVIDencephalitis COVID GB GBS tons of ECMO, like 40-year old's dying. With each subsequent wave asimmunity started to accrue in the population, that didn't happen. Now we're at a different variant. Andthe thing is, do we even need to be doing widespread vaccination when you're with current variant, andyou can't be thinking about what we saw in 2021. So, putting that now, all together, we have as Zanementioned, seroprevalence, about almost 100%, you have people that are well protected against severedisease, most of the population, you have a variant that absolutely can make people sick. And yes, it cankill people. But for those of us who work on the front line, that looks very different on the on the frontlines. So, I really think that we should take a step back and say, number one: I don't think that thebooster is needed for everybody. I think number two: there are under a certain age, probably 55 andhealthy, who probably don't need any further vaccination, or at least until we have more data. Numberthree: before we make a widespread recommendation for the population. We have time now we're notin the emergency phase anymore. I really hope that we get more RCT data over the long term to seewho is it that needs the vaccine, if at all. And you know, who benefits from it. And let's continue toaccrue this data with time.KK: Thanks Sumon. Zain, are you on the along the same lines assume on in terms of who needs boostersand who doesn't?ZC: Yeah, I mean, I think number one: is the recognition that prior infection and hybrid immunityprobably are incredibly adequate. Again, people like Paul Offit, and we're not just talking about youknow, experts like us. These are people that are sitting on the FDA Advisory Committee, a man thatactually made vaccines in the United States, you know, that talks about the limitations of boosters andprobably three doses being you know, The peak of the series for most people, and even then, you know,two plus infection probably is enough is three or even one plus infection, the data may suggest maybe isas high as three. Yeah, I think, again, this is one of these things that gets diluted as it starts going downthe chain, if you actually look at the Nazi guidance for, you know, bi-Vaillant vaccines, it's actuallyincorporates a ‘should' and a ‘can consider' in all of this, so they talked about vulnerable individuals,elderly individuals should get a booster where there may be some benefits in that population, the restof the population can consider a booster in that sense, right. And I think as the boosters came out, andagain, you know, people started jumping on them, it came to everyone needs their booster. Andunfortunately, the messaging in the United States is perpetuated that quite a bit with this iPhonecharging thing, Biden tweeting that everyone over the age of six months needs a booster. Again, wereally do have to reflect on the population that we're going at. Ultimately, again, if you start pressing theissue too much in the wrong populations, you know, the uptake is, is showing itself, right, the peoplewho wanted their bi-Vaillant vaccine got it. Thankfully the right populations are being incentivized,especially in the elderly, and the very elderly, and the high risk. Uptake in most other populations hasbeen relatively low. So, people are making their decisions based on based on what they know. Again,they feel that that hesitation and what is this going to benefit me? and I think as Sumon said, theconfidence is going to be restored when we have better data. We're in a phase now where we can docluster randomized RCTs in low-risk populations and show it If you want the vaccine, you enter into acluster randomized RCT, if you're in a low-risk population, match you one to one with placebo. You wecan tell you if you got, you know, what your prognosis was at the end of the day, and that information isgoing to be important for us. I don't think that policy of boosting twice a year, or once a year is gonnaget people on the bus, every booster seems like people are getting off the bus more and more. So, wereally do have to have compelling information. Now, as we're bringing these out to start saying, youknow, is this a necessity? especially in low-risk populations? How much of a necessity is that? How muchdo you quantify it in that sense? And again, recognizing that, that people are being infected? Now, thatadds another twist in that sense.KK: Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit about public trust in a bit here. But Stef, you were among someauthors that did an essay on the booster mandates for university students. As we've both alluded toZain, and Sumon there's this need to be stratified. From an RCT booster point of view that we're not wellestablished here. When Stef's group looked at university mandates and potential harm, when we'redoing an actual cost benefit ratio there, their conclusion was that there's more room for harm thanbenefits. So, Stef I want you to speak to that paper a bit.SB: Sure. So, I will say this, I don't actually have much to add other than what Zain and Sumon said. Runa vaccine program we are offering, you know, doses as it makes sense for folks who are particularlyimmunocompromised, multiple comorbidities and remain at risk for serious consequences related toCOVID-19. We'll continue doing that. And that will, you know, get integrated, by the way into like, sortof a vaccine preventable disease program, so offering, shingles, Pneumovax, influenza COVID. And alsowe want to do a broader in terms of other hepatitis vaccines, etc. That aside, so this, this isn't about, youknow, that it was really interesting being called antivax by folks who have never gotten close to avaccine, other than being pricked by one. Having delivered literally 1000s of doses of vaccine, so it'salmost it's a joke, right? but it's an effective thing of like shutting down conversation. That aside, I thinkthere's a few things at play one as it related to that paper. I find it really interesting, particularly foryoung people, when people are like, listen, yes, they had a little bit of like, inflammation of their heart,but it's self-resolving and self-limiting, and they're gonna be fine. You don't know that. Maybe sure we'llsee what happens with these folks twenty years later. The reality is for younger men, particularly, thishappens to be a very gender dynamic. For younger men, particularly, there seems to be a dynamicwhere they are at risk of myocarditis. I don't know whether that's a controversy in any other era for anyother disease, this would not be a controversy would just be more of a factual statement, the data wereclearer in I'd say, probably April, May 2021. I think there's lots of things we could have done, we couldhave done one dose series for people who had been previously infected, we could have stopped at two.There are a million different versions of what we could have done, none of which we actually did. In thecontext of mandating boosters now for young people, including at my institution, you were mandated toget a booster, or you would no longer be working. So obviously, I got one. There's a real dynamic ofwhat is it your goal at that point? because probably about 1011 months into the vaccine programbecame increasingly clear. You can still get COVID. Nobody's surprised by that. That was clear even fromthe data. By the way, wasn't even studied. I mean, Pfizer, the way if you just look at the Pfizer, Moderna,trials, none and look to see whether you got COVID or not, they were just looking at symptomaticdisease. That aside, I think that it just became this clear thing where for younger men, one or two doseswas plenty and it seems to be that as you accumulate doses for those folks, particularly, it's alsoimportant, if somebody had a bad myocarditis, they're not even getting a third dose. So, you're alreadyselecting out, you know, some of these folks, but you are starting to see increased levels of harm, as itrelated to hospitalization. That what we basically did, there was a very simple analysis of looking ataverted hospitalization, either way, many people say that's the wrong metric. You can pick whatevermetric you want. That's the metric we picked when terms of hospitalization related to side effects of thevaccine versus benefits. What it just showed was that for people under the age of 30, you just don't seea benefit at that point, as compared to harm that's totally in fundamentally different. We weren't talkingabout the primary series, and we weren't talking about older folks. So indeed, I think, you know, thatwas that was I don't know why it was it was particularly controversial. We it was a follow up piece tomandates in general. I'll just say like, I've been running this vaccine program, I don't think mandateshave made my life easier at all. I know, there's like this common narrative of like mandates, you know,mandates work mandates work. I think at some point, and I'll just say our own study of this is like we'rereally going to have to ask two questions. One: what it mandates really get us in terms of a burdenCOVID-19, morbidity, mortality? and two: this is an important one for me. What if we caught ourselvesin terms of how much pressure we put on people, as it relates to vaccines right now, in general? Thevery common narrative that I'm getting is they're like, oh, the anti Vax is the anti Vax folks are winning.And people don't want their standard vaccines, and we're getting less uptake of like, MMR andstandard, you know, kind of childhood vaccines, I have a different opinion. I really do at least I believesome proportion of this, I don't know what proportion, it's some proportion, it's just like people beingpushed so hard, about COVID-19 vaccines that they literally don't want to be approached about anyvaccine in general. So, I just think that with in public health, there's always a cost. Part of the decisionmaking in public health as it relates to clinical medicine too. It's like you give a medication, theadvantage and then you know, the disadvantages, side effects of that medication. In public health, thereare side effects of our decisions that are sometimes anticipated and sometimes avoidable, sometimescan't be anticipated and sometimes can't be avoided. You have to kind of really give thought to each ofthem before you enact this policy or you might cost more health outcomes, then then you're actuallygaining by implementing it.KK: Yeah, number one: What was spooky to me is like even mentioning, I was afraid even to use a termmyocarditis at times. The worst part is, as you said, stuff, it's young folk that were alluding to, and for usto not be able to say, let's look at the harm and benefit in a group that's low risk was baffling. It reallywas baffling that and I'm glad we're at least more open to that now. Certainly, that's why I thought thatthe paper that you guys put together was so important because it's in the medical literature that we'reshowing, objectively what the cost benefit of some of these approaches are. Sumon: when you think ofmandates and public trust, that Stef was kind of alluding to like, every decision that we madethroughout this thing. Also has a downside, also has a cost, as Stef was mentioning. Where do you thinkwe are? In terms of the public trust? Talking about how the childhood vaccines are lower. I don't knowwhat influenza vaccine rates are like now, I wouldn't be surprised if they're the same standard, but whoknows them where they're at, currently. Based on your perspective, what do you think the public trust isright now?SC: Yeah, as physicians, we obviously still do have a lot of trust in the people we take care of. People arestill coming to see us. I wish they didn't have to because everyone was healthy but that's not the case. Ido think that over the last two and a half, we're coming up on three years, I guess right now, that peoplethat we have burned a lot of trust, I think that mandates were part of it. I do think that some of it wasunavoidable. It's just that there's a lot of uncertainty. There was back and forth. I think that one thingthat were that concern me on social media was that a lot of professionals are airing their dirty laundry tothe public. You could see these in fights, that doesn't, that's not really a good thing. We saw peoplebeing very derisive towards people who were not listening to the public health rules. You know what Imean? There's a lot of that kind of talk of othering. Yeah, I think that that certainly overtime, erodedpublic trust, that will take a long time to get back, if we do get it back. I think that the bottom line is that,I get that there are times that we have to do certain things, when you have a unknown pathogen comingat you, when you don't really know much about it. I do think that you want to do the greatest good forthe, for the population or again, you always must remember as Stefan alludes to the cost of what you'redoing. I do think that we could have done that much early on. For example, Ontario, we were lockeddown in some areas, Ontario, GTA, we were locked down in some regard for almost a year and a half. Ifyou guys remember, there was that debate on opening bars and restaurants before schools. It's just like,I remember shaking my head is, look, I get it, I know you guys are talking about people are going to beeating a burger before kids can go to school, that might ruin everything. But the problem is, is that youmust remember that restaurant is owned by someone that small gym is someone's livelihood, you'remoralizing over what this is, but in the end, it's the way somebody puts food on the table. For a yearand a half, we didn't let especially small businesses do that. I'm no economist, but I had many familymembers and friends who are impacted by this. Two of my friends unfortunately, committed suicideover this. So, you know, we had a lot of impact outside of the of the things that we did that hurt people,and certainly the trust will have to be regained over the long term.KK: It's gonna take work. I think, for me, honestly, it's, it's just about being transparent. I honestly, I putmyself in some in the shoes of the public and I just want to hear the truth. If we're not sure aboutsomething, that's okay. We're gonna weigh the evidence and this is our suggestion. This is why we'resaying this, could we be wrong? Yes, we could be wrong but this is what we think is the best pathforward, and people could get behind that. I honestly feel like people could get behind that showing alittle bit of vulnerability and saying ‘you know, we're not know it alls here' but this is what our beststrategy is based on our viewpoint on the best strategy based on the data that we have in front of usand just be open. Allowing for open dialogue and not squash it not have that dichotomous thinking ofyou're on one side, you're on the other. You're anti vax, you're pro vax, stop with the labels. You know,it's just it got crazy, and just was not a safe environment for dialogue. And how are you supposed to he'ssupposed to advance.SB: Yeah, I do want to say something given this this is this idea of our swan song. I think there was thissort of feeling like, you know, people were like ‘you gotta act hard, you gotta move fast' So I thinkeverybody on this, you guys all know I travel a lot. I like to think of myself as a traveler. In the early2020's I did like a COVID tour, I was in Japan in February, then I was in Thailand, and everywhere Ilanded, there were like, COVID here, COVID here, COVID here. Then finally, I like got home at the end ofFebruary, and I was supposed to be home for like four days, and then take off. Obviously things got shutdown. It was like obvious like COVID was the whole world had COVID by, February, there may have beena time to shut down this pandemic in September 2019. Do you know what I mean? by November 2019,we had cases. They've already seen some and Canadian Blood Services done some showing someserological evidence already at that time. There was no shutting it down. This thing's gonna suck. Thereality is promising that you can eliminate this thing by like, enacting these really like arbitrary that canonly be described as arbitrary. Shutting the border to voluntary travel, but not to truckers. Everythingfelt so arbitrary. So, when you talk about trust, if you can't explain it, if you're a good person do it. If youdon't do it, your white supremacist. Kwadwo you were part of a group that was called ‘Urgency ofNormal' you are a white supremacist. It's so ridiculous. You know what I mean? It creates this dynamicwhere you can't have any meaningful conversation. So, I really worry, unless we can start having somereally meaningful conversations, not just with folks that we agree with. Obviously, I deeply respect whateach of you have done throughout this pandemic, not just actually about what you say, but really whatyou've done. Put yourselves out there with your families in front of this thing. That aside, if we can't dothat, we will be no better off. We will go right back. People will be like ‘Oh, next pandemic, well, let'sjust get ready to lock down' but did we accomplish anything in our lock downs? I actually don't think wedid. I really don't think we got anything positive out our lock downs, and I might be alone in that. I mightbe wrong, butut that said it needs to be investigated and in a really meaningful way to answer that,before it becomes assume that acting hard and acting fast and all these b******t slogans are the truthand they'd become the truth and they become fact. All without any really meaningful evidencesupporting them.KK: I gotta say, I'll get you Sumon next here, but I gotta say the idea of abandoning logic, I think that'sthat's a key point there. Think about what we're doing in restaurants, folks. Okay, you would literallywear your mask to sit down, take off that bloody thing. Eat, chat, smooch even, I mean, and then put itback on and go in the bathroom and think this is meaningful. Where's the logic there? You're on a plane,you're gonna drink something, you're on a six hour flight, you know what I'm saying.(?) During the lockdown, by the way, you're sending like 20 Uber drivers to stand point. If you ever wentand picked up food, you would see these folks. It'd be like crowding the busy restaurants all like standingin there, like arguing which orders theirs, you know what I mean? then like people waiting for the foodto show up.KK: I mean, that's the other point. The part that people forget with the lockdowns, tons of people willwork. I'm in Ottawa, where 70% are, could stay home, right? That's a unique city. That's why we werevery sheltered from this bad boy.(?) Aren't they still fighting going back to the office?KK: Oh, my God. Folks, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's like 70% could stay home, but you're in GTA your area. That'sa lot of essential workers. You don't have that option. So, how's this lockdown? Really looking at the bigpicture? Anyway, sorry. Sumon you're gonna hit it up.SC: We just wanted to add one anecdote. I just think it kind of talks about all this is that, you know therewas a time when this thing started going to 2020. Stefan, I think you and I met online around that time.You put a couple of seeds after I was reading stuff, like you know about the idea of, you know, risktransfer risk being downloaded to other people. That's sort of kind of think of a you know, what, like,you know, a people that are working in the manufacturing industry, you're not going to receive them alot unless you live in a place like Brampton or northwest Toronto, where the manufacturing hub of, ofOntario and in many cases, central eastern Canada is right. So, I remember in, I was already starting touse this doing anything. And when I was in, I guess it would have been the second wave when it was itwas pretty bad one, I just kept seeing factory worker after factory worker, but then the thing that stuckout was tons of Amazon workers. So, I asked one of them, tell me something like, why are there so manyAmazon workers? Like are you guys? Is there a lot of sick people working that kind of thing? Inretrospect, it was very naive question. What that one woman told me that her face is burned into mymemory, she told me she goes, ‘Look, you know, every time a lockdown is called, or something happenslike that, what ends up happening is that the orders triple. So, then we end up working double and tripleshifts, and we all get COVID' That was just a light went off. I was like, excuse my language, guys, but holys**t, we're basically taking all this risk for people that can like what was it called a ‘laptop class' that canstay home and order all this stuff. Meanwhile, all that risk was going down to all these people, and I wasseeing it one, after another, after another, after another. I'm not sure if you guys saw that much, but Iwas in Mississauga, that's the hardest, Peele where the manufacturing industry is every single peanutfactory, the sheet metal, I just saw all of them. That I think was the kind of thing that turned me andrealize that we what we'll be doing. I'll shut up.ZC: Yeah, I would say I mean, I think Stefan and Sumon make great points. You know, I think that thatwas very apparent at the beginning. The other thing I would say is 2021 to 2022. Things like vaccinationand public health measures fell along political lines. That was a huge mistake. It was devastating. Iremember back to the first snap election in 2021. Initially great video of all the political partiesencouraging vaccination and putting their differences aside. Then all of a sudden, it became mudslingingabout how much public health measure you're willing to do, how much you're willing to invest in, andit's not a Canadian phenomenon. We saw this in the United States with the Biden and Trump campaignsand the contrast between the two, and then really aligning public health views to political views, andthen, you know, really making it very uncomfortable for certain people to then express counter viewswithout being considered an alternative party. It's something we need to reflect on I think we havepublic health and public health messengers and people that are agnostic to political views but are reallythere to support the health of their populations, from a health from a societal from an emotional fromthe aspects of good health in that sense. You really can't involve politics into that, because all of asudden, then you start getting counter current messaging, and you start getting people being pushed,and you start new aligning values to views and you start saying, right and left based on what peopleconsider, where again, the science doesn't necessarily follow political direction. It was a really bigmistake, and it still is pervasive. We saw every election that happened between 2021 to 2022 is publichealth and public health messaging was embedded in each one of those and it caused more harm thangood. I think it's a big lesson from this, this is that you can be proactive for effective public healthinterventions as an individual in that society that has a role, but you can't stick it on campaigns. It reallymakes it hard to deescalate measures at that point when your campaign and your identity is tied tocertain public health measures in that sense.KK: Amen. I am cognizant of the time and so I'm gonna try to rapid fire a little bit? I think, there's only acouple points that people hit up on that we haven't touched on. There was a push for mass mandates inthe last couple months because of of RSV and influenza that was happening. It still is happening in,especially in our extreme ages, really young and really old. Any viewpoint on that, I'll leave it open toalmost to throw down.(?) I think mass mandates have been useless. I don't expect to ever folks to agree with me, it's like it's aninteresting dynamic, right? When you go and you saw folks who were on the buses, I take the bus to theairport. Our subway in Toronto just for folks only starts at like, 5:50am. So, before that, you gotta jumpon buses. So the construction workers on the bus who were wearing masks during the when the maskmandates were on taking this what's called, it's like the construction line, because it goes down Bloorare basically and takes all the construction workers from Scarborough, before the subway line, get todowntown to do all the construction and build all the stuff that you know, is being built right now.Everyone is wearing this useless cloth mask. It's like probably the one thing that the anti-maskers who Ithink I probably am one at this point. The pro-maskers and all maskers can agree on is that cloth masksare useless. That's what 100% of these folks are wearing. They're wearing these reusable cloth masksthat are like barely on their face often blow their nose. So, to me, it's not so much about like, what couldthis intervention achieve, if done perfectly like saying the study you were involved with the help lead,it's like everybody's like, but all of them got COVID outside of the health care system, they didn't get itwhen they're wearing their N95. That's like, but that's the point, like public health interventions live ordie or succeed or fail in the real world. I was seeing the real world, I would love to take a photo but Idon't think these folks have been friendly to me taking a photo of them, but it was 100%, cloth masks ofall these folks in the morning all crowded, like we're literally like person to person on this bus. It's like aperfect, you know, vehicle for massive transmission. I just I just sort of put that forward of like, that'swhat a mask mandate does to me. I think to the person sitting at home calling for them, they are justimagining, they're like ‘Oh but the government should do this'. But they didn't. The government shouldbe handing out in N95's. How are you going to police them wearing a N95's and how are you gettingthem? It would be so hard to make a massive program work. I would say it's like if you gave me millionsand millions and millions of dollars, for me to design a mass program, I don't know, maybe I could pull itoff you really with an endless budget. But for what? So, I just think that like as these programs went outin the real world, I think they did nothing but burn people's energy. You know because some people itjust turns out don't like wearing a mask. Shocking to other folks. They just don't like wearing a mask.Last thing I'll say is that just as they play it out in the real world, I think we're functionally useless, otherthan burning people's energy. I'm a fervent anti masker at this point because it's just an insult to publichealth. To me everything I've trained in and everything I've worked towards, just saying these two wordsmask mandate, as the fix. That is an insult to the very thing that I want to spend my life doing .ZC: Yeah, I mean, three points, one: you know, masks are still important in clinical settings. I think we allunderstand that. We've been doing them before we've been continuing to do them. So I you know,that's one piece. Second: I mean, to go with the point that was raised here, you know, the best study wehave is Bangladesh, right? 10% relative risk reduction. It's interesting when you read the Bangladeshstudy, because with community kind of people that pump up masking that are really trying to educateand probably are also there to mask compliance. Mask's compliance people, you get to 54% compliance,when those people leave compliance drops significantly. Right. You know, I think you have to just lookaround and see what happened in this last few months, regardless of the messaging. Maybe it's thecommunities I'm in, but I didn't see mass compliance change significantly, maybe about 5%. In thecontext of the last couple of months. You must understand the value of this public health intervention,Bangladesh has actually a nice insight, not only into what we think the community based optimalmasking efficacy is, but also the fact that you really have to continue to enforce, enforce, enforce,enforce, in order to get to that even 10%. Without that enforcement, you're not getting anywhere inthat sense. That probably spells that it's probably a very poor long term public health intervention in thecontext that you really must pump it week by week by week by week in order to actually get compliancethat may actually then give you the effects that you see in a cluster randomized control trial. Again, youknow, the world we live in is showing that people don't want to mask normally. Some people can, i
People are using ChatGPT to write everything from poetry to entire books. So far it seems like it's doing it very well and ridiculously fast. I want to talk about what this means for the future of writing.Related article - https://thespectator.com/book-and-art/artificial-intelligence-ai-destroy-writing-chatgpt/If you want to reach product-market fit faster, sign up for my free 5 day email course here - https://nxtstep.io/fit/Episode TranscriptHey folks, Sean here and today what I wantto talk to you about is with the latestdevelopments tool Chat GPT from OpenAI, how I thinkAI may ultimately replace humans as authors.So my friends and I have been spending quite abit of time with Chat GPT and in particular frommy perspective, I'm most interested in the unique use casespeople are coming up with in terms of how toleverage this technology to generate value.And I'm using that for the most part tocreate content, content like this so I can sharewhat I'm learning with you so that it helpsyou figure out how to make your products better.But of all the other folks in my network,they're using it for different reasons as well too.And I wanted to learn more about that.So I have a bunch of content that Iwant to produce, right, and that includes email courses,ebooks, even books and things like that about thistype of content specifically and all the various othersubjects that I usually cover.Now, one of the biggest bottlenecks todoing that is it's time consuming.It takes quite a bit of time for me tohave to sit down, plan it out, create outlines andthen ultimately write everything, proofread it, get the grammar correct,which is definitely not a strength of mine.I'm an engineer by trade, which means for themost part I can't spell in almost any language.But as I'm learning about some of these otheruse cases and what folks have been using itfor, I'm hearing everything from people are writing remarkablepoetry that's indistinguishable from some of the greatest artistsall the way to and through.People are leveraging it to create entire books forwhich they may have already been publishing on Amazonof different categories and things like that.So that really sent me down a rabbit hole of figuringout and really asking the question what is an author?Because where this came from was when I was speakingwith some of my colleagues, I was trying to figureout for what Chat GPT has been producing in termsof the questions we ask and the help that wewant, the information we're trying to gain access to.When it's asked sometimes for sources, that's kind of thequestion that came up is like when you're asking itto cite where it's got that information from.Because I know attribution is a big thing that alot of people in particular authors are concerned about andin some instances, in terms of at least from whatI've heard, I still need to do more testing.Sometimes it will list the sources, but sometimes it'spulling it from so many different locations that sometimesI think there's a little bit of pushback there.So this part is at least unclear.But that made me think about yet another questionin terms of, well, what makes an author?What would the difference be in terms of what a humanmay be doing versus what the AI may be doing?Because as I started to think about it, Iwas thinking that I think the AI or thetech is essentially following the same, if not asimilar process as a human would, but just ata remarkably faster and more efficient pace.It can be more effective as well too, becauseyou can apply different types of rules like grammarand spelling and all that kind of stuff inorder to make sure that it's essentially as perfectas it's going to be and you can introducedifferent styles and all kinds of things like that.So anyway, that's the question that I'm posing here.I want to dive into some detail from anarticle that I read which really painted a veryparticular picture about what the future of writing lookslike with the advent of this technology.Now, from one of the enlightening articles that Ifound, which paints somewhat of a gloomy picture herein terms of what the future looks like forauthors, it makes two specific key points which Ithink are very relevant in this context.And that's the fact that, number one, the predictionfrom this writer with decades of experience is thatwriting is essentially over and that authors should dropit or switch almost entirely because rather soon thecomputers will be here too.And their words quote, do it better, which I canunderstand and has kind of been the plot for aton of sci-fi movies for decades at this point.And the second, which is even more interesting to mebecause I'm not sure I completely, 100% agree and Iwant to talk about what I mean by that, butI do see where they're coming from, is that ifyou break writing down to a formula, so to speak,it essentially is an algorithm.And this is where I would agreewith this author as well too.Is that's kind of where I was when I wasthinking through citing sources and pulling information from where?And is AI essentially an author?Can it become an author like chat GPT?What's the difference between Chat GPTwriting something and me writing something?Chances are we're going through a similar process.We're going to do research, we're goingto create outlines, that type of thing.The difference is the technology is doingit ridiculously faster than I am.So that's really what it broke down to for me.It's pulling information from different sources.It's arguably learning.Like when I was going to school a millionyears ago, what they would talk to you aboutis you needed to paraphrase, you couldn't just plagiarizeand all this other type of stuff.You got to cite your sources and whatnot.And I understand all of that, but the thingthat always was questionable for me was like, well,what's the difference between me just reading and learningand kind of like paraphrasing, so to speak, versustaking that information and sharing it.It seemed very similar to me.So to me there appeared to be quite a bit of gray area.So if you look at it at a fundamentallevel in terms of what writing is, I would100% completely agree that it's an algorithm and theprocess that's followed by humans probably very similar tothese language models like Chad GPT.As such, the results that are produced probablyare of equal, if not greater quality anddone remarkably faster and more efficiently than ahuman who could ever do it.So that brings me to the next question,which is, if that's the case, then whatdoes the future of writing actually look like?So as I asked myself this question and starteddoing research down another rabbit hole here in termsof what does the future of writing look like,I realized that ultimately what it really boils downinto is will writers in the current format inwhich they exist essentially survive?And that was a more difficult question to answer.But I would still fall back on what haslargely been the case when any new revolutionary technologyhas made its way to the open market, inthat it doesn't essentially necessarily eliminate everything the waythat we did it before.It usually just changes it.As in if you want to prepare yourself as bestas possible for surviving or remaining doing the work thatyou love or the way that you do it, thechances are you need to get comfortable with it evolvingin terms of you figuring out how to leverage thetechnology to do significantly better than you did before.As that leap forwarded, technology makes thingsthat previously were not possible, possible.You need to figure out how to become trainedand educated on it so that you can leverageit in order to reach a different level ofperformance than before was ever possible without that technology. Free Email CourseHow to Build a Profitable AI-Powered B2B SaaS Business for Less Than $750Notes generated by Podcast Show Notes (podcastshownotes.ai)
Most product development processes don't consider ROI, but it's probably the best way to improve the effectiveness of this process for your product company.Let's talk about how to find your customer's bottleneck and what that means for providing them and your company with more value.For lessons like these by email sign up here - https://nxtstep.io/learnEpisode TranscriptHey, folks, Sean here.And today what I want to talk to youabout is my favorite way to get more ofan ROI out of your product development process.And it starts with finding whatI refer to as the bottleneck.So if you're unfamiliar with this as a concept, youcan think of a bottleneck almost if you're like, goingover a bridge and you have to go through atoll, usually it goes from many lanes down to afew lanes as you go over said bridge.Now, that is kind of visually how you canthink of of what is a bottleneck, right?It goes from high traffic area to a low trafficarea or vice versa, as in slowing the process downconsiderably because you are funneling what was moving much morequickly or in higher volume into what's ultimately going tomove a lot more slowly or much lower volume.Now, that is a good visual kindof understanding of what a bottleneck is.But to understand what it means from a processperspective, the same thing happens when your customer maybe trying to do something much more quickly, butsomething in that process, any given step, like goingthrough a toll of a bridge, for example, isslowing that process down.They may want to get from Ato B much faster, but they can'tbecause something's preventing them from doing that.And that thing that's preventing themfrom doing that is the bottleneck.So if you're trying to level up your productdevelopment process, a great way to be able todo that would be to, through research with yourcustomer, better understand and find these bottlenecks in theirprocess that are slowing them down.Now, in order to be able to do that,as I mentioned, you need to do the research.So you need to speak with them and youneed to talk to them about not what theywant necessarily in the future, but what's preventing themfrom getting what they want right now.Focus on historically what they've tried todo, what's worked and what hasn't worked.That'll give you a much better idea for wherethey need the most help and what may bethe biggest bottleneck in their process to date.So if you start with that approach, it's going toenable you to find areas of opportunity to turn.What I refer to is problemsworth solving into solutions worth building.So let's talk more detail about what happenswhen you help them make this transformation.Now, to me, by far the most exciting part aboutfollowing a process like this is it enables you tocalculate the return on investment built into the process.And that's something that doesn't happen a whole lot.In terms of the clients that I work with tryingto help them level up their product development processes, whatgets built is often not based on ROI or customervalue or even value for the business, which sounds weird,but it happens a whole lot.So what I love about this process is it'sstraightforward in going from the customer's problem, looking forthe best area of opportunity to try to improvetheir situation and quantify it along the way.That's going to be important aswe figure out how much value.Ultimately, building that solution to eliminate saidbottleneck is going to provide for them.Because if that number is high enough, that's going toenable your product or your company or both to beable to generate more value as well too.In terms of if your customer is getting ahigh enough return on investment, in terms of thatnew solution that you're providing for them in theform of your product by eliminating this bottleneck, thatmay give you the ability to generate more revenuethrough your product, which is going to increase thevalue of the product and the company as well.So that's the most exciting aspect ofthis and that's essentially how it happens.So if you go from understanding what the bottleneckis, which again, just to summarize, is figuring outthe type of progress your customer is trying tomake, understanding what is specifically slowing them down andtrying to make that progress, as in they wantto move faster, but they can't. Why can't they?You need to figure out what that isand that's where you're going to laser focus.But you also at the same time need to understand whatthe impact of them not being able to move faster is.This is where you start to getinto the ability to quantify it.So if they tell you, well, we could move tentimes faster if we eliminated this step or solved somethingrelated to this step, that's great, but what outcome isthat going to enable them to achieve?If you can ultimately figure out what that outcomeis going to enable them to be able toachieve, like, are they going to reduce how muchtime gets invested into this process across an entireteam or the organization by 90%?If so, that leads to a huge number.As you start to quantify how much we're talking about interms of what you would need to pay that team inorder to do and how much time they're going to getback, or maybe it enables them to charge more, right?Whatever it is you want to drive towardsthe successful outcome, eliminating that bottleneck is goingto enable them to be able to achieve.So if you've found one, that'sgreat, but don't stop there.You have to keep going until you get greater contextfor understanding what eliminating that bottleneck is going to meanfor them, as in what transformation are you going tohelp them be able to make once you know thatyou have a better understanding for the value that theywill get if you prioritize building this solution.So, like I said before, if you move fromwhat we've uncovered in eliminating this bottleneck is aproblem worth solving into a solution worth building.You want to understand what type of outcomethat's going to enable them to achieve andwhat type of return on investment they're goingto get as part of this process.And if you understand that, you understand how to quantifythe value the customer is going to receive if youprovide them with that solution through your product.And if you do that as well too, and thatnumber is high enough, that may give you an opportunityto generate more revenue through your product because of howmuch value you're providing them, which makes your product morevalue and your company more valuable.So this is one strategy that I use on aregular basis which can provide pretty immediate results in termsof how to level up your product development process andbuild return on investment into the process itself.
The type of product you choose to build has implications on everything from the customer experience to the pricing model.Let's talk about the differences and why you might choose one or the other.For lessons like these by email sign up here - https://nxtstep.io/learnEpisode TranscriptHey folks, Sean here and today what Iwant to talk to you about are thedifferent type of product companies you might build.When I say different type, what Imean is low touch versus high touch.There are some key differences between the type ofexperience that you might create for both your customerand the type of product company that you're goingto build for both yourself and your team.And I'm going to start by kind of categorizing eachin terms of what are some of the more importantor typical characteristics you might see in each of theseand then sharing some examples with you.I also want to talk about how you can becomemore of one or the other as and you don'thave to remain in either of those categories indefinitely.So when I say low touch productcompany, typically from a strategic perspective, whatthat means is you're creating a customerexperience that is typically product led.And when I say product led, whatI mean is your customer's first experiencewith your product is typically the product.As in they will go right into usingthe software and that's kind of their firstexperience with your product and your company.Also from a pricing model perspective, low touch products oftenleverage simpler models as in customers might pay the sameamount on a given month or year in order togain and maintain access to your product.Now, an example of a low touch product I wouldlike to use is Calendly, something I've used for years.I get a lot of value outof it and it's relatively simple.Calendly, if you're unfamiliar, helps you with essentially thatwhat can become a merry go round of tryingto figure out how to get everybody synced upso they can meet at a time that's mutuallyavailable for both of them.So it helps you with managing your calendar butthe use of the calendar product is rather simple.As such it fits well intothe low touch product category.Now, on the other hand, a high touchproduct from a strategic perspective, you're usually leveraginga model similar to being Sales lead asin your customers first experience with your productis actually through your team.So they will meet with sales team orsomeone to figure out what onboarding them mightlook like or qualifying them as a prospect.Because a high touch product is typicallymore complex, it's got more moving parts.The whole experience is difficult to kind ofjust dump a customer into and enable themto be able to figure it out.Also the product itself isn't theonly thing that's more complex.Almost everything is the pricing model as wellas in gaining and maintaining access to ahigh touch product typically involves multiple components.Maybe an implementation fee may be ongoing costs.There may be contracts with commitmentsthat may go beyond a year.So the contracts may berelatively inflexible and rigid.So those characteristics typically speak to what weconsider to be a high touch product.An example of a high touch product inthis instance might be something like Salesforce.If you've never used Salesforce before,it's a heavy duty CRM.But they as a company own aton of other products as well too.So navigating kind of theirenvironment gets complex fast.As such, some of your early contact with acompany like Salesforce, if you're interested in a productlike that, is usually with someone on their team.Now, like I said earlier, just because yourproduct is delivering one or the other ofthese type of experiences or falls into eithercategory, either low touch or high touch today,doesn't mean it necessarily needs to stay there.I've seen products make a successful transition fromone to the other and you'll often seeproducts trying to do that as they arekind of figuring out product market fit.So the most straightforward way to think aboutit, if you would like to be oneor the other that's why I described thosecharacteristics and some examples of each first, becausedepending upon your experience with those products oryour ability to familiarize yourself with them.That may or may not be.It might become clearer for you in terms ofthe type of product you'd prefer to build versusthe customer experience that you're looking for and theexperience that you'd like for yourself and your team.There are different implications depending upon which ofthese two paths that you choose and youdon't need to wait to choose this.I think more often than that makesthe most sense to think about thisalmost essentially right out of the gate.But let's assume you have some traction and you havean established product with paying customers as well too.Transitioning from one to the other or taking advantageof the respective strengths of each is also possible.Now, the easiest way that I typically think abouthow to do that really is the core componentof that is the product experience, as in howcomplex is it to use your product.In order for a high touch product tobecome more of a low touch product, you'regoing to have to simplify the experience.So you might need to do things like cut way backon in terms of what your product is capable of.That might mean removing features or buildinga new version of your product that'sactually dramatically simpler than it was before.This isn't necessarily a bad strategy.There's obviously some engineering involved here.But what you can do is if you kindof got out of the gate with more functionalitythan you were expecting to and you have someearly traction, what I'd recommend you take a closerlook at is where are you having that traction?As in where are your customers the most active withusing your product and what are they getting the mostvalue out of soft, circle those features and essentially doa quick mental calculation in terms of what percentage ofwhat your product is capable of.Are those features where they're getting themost value and using the most frequently?And can you create a simplerproduct experience around just those features?If you can, that's where you havegreat potential to convert essentially a hightouch product into a low touch product. I know that.On the other hand, if you have a low touchproduct and you kind of want to go beyond whereyou are, some often may want to do that.Depending upon if they want to raise their pricesor they want to scale their product company, thingslike that, low touch products are less likely togo further in that direction, so to speak.If that's the case, then you wantto have a better understanding for howyou want to continue your product experience.And if you're fulfilling a good regular experienceof performing research and discovery, that will helpyou better understand what features you can addto your product experience in order to addand provide more value for your customer.And if you're doing that, over time, your productmay become more complex, which might make sense interms of transitioning to more of a high touchproduct as opposed to what you might have beenbefore, which was a low touch product.
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Like the tide, this journey ebbs and flows.. Tara Moala of Rakau Tautoko and Keu Iorangi from the Manurewa High School Makerspace join Manawa in the third episode of Ka Tū Maia. Take a journey through the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows of building a community change initiative and becoming a brave future maker. The crew get real and raw about sacrifice, failure, humility, consistency, learning through it all and celebrating the wins along the way. This journey isn't for the faint hearted, it's for the brave. Ka Tū Maia is a podcast series for those who want to create a better future, featuring real stories from some of South Auckland's most innovative community change-makers. Listen in as they share the highs and lows, the passion and the persistence, the mighty wins and the epic fails. It's a real and raw kōrero that will leave you inspired and equipped to take the next step in your purpose-driven journey. Ka tū māia - be brave!
Join the nerds as they talk about The Wonder Twins getting the axe(handing Discovery Media the L of the Week), the Steam Deck being a Switch killer, an R rated Punisher movie, and review Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The nerds talk about what they enjoyed and touch upon why opinions of this movie are so divisive in a new segment called, "Hoes Mad".
Don't waste what you have been given! I remember the first time I heard this in a sermon, and it stuck in my head. The pastor was talking about our spiritual gifts, as well as the other things of value in our lives. His point was that Christians needed to live ‘responsible,' lives. It was alright to have fun and goof off, but there does need to be a serious side of life, devoted to serving God and others. Samson had a hard time with this lesson! He was born for greatness, to be sure, and raised in the Nazirite tradition, which was what we would today call an ‘old fashioned' or ‘traditional' lifestyle. His parents dedicated their precious son to God for service, and raised him well. Unfortunately, Samson wasn't interested in a responsible or serious life. He instead liked to fight and drink, and chase the ladies. This lifestyle finally caught up to him! Towards the end of his life his girlfriend betrayed him, and told a group of her friends the reason for his great powers – his long hair, that had never been cut. The hair wasn't special, of course – but the devotion of his family towards God, symbolized by the hair, was. The men caught him when he was asleep and cut off his hair; he couldn't fight them in his weakened condition, so they gouged out his eyes and made him a slave on a farm. Eventually he was the entertainment at a drunken party. He prayed to God for strength one last time, and God restored him. He pulled down the pillars to which he was chained, and a large group of Philistines, as well as Samson himself, were killed. He was buried later by his family. What a story of a wasted life! Samson would tell us, “Don't do what I did – it's not worth it. Keep the faith, and serve God with all you've been given. That is the secret to a life that is worth living.” The best way you can support our Ministry is by sharing these videos with your friends and family. We also need your financial contributions to make our Ministries a possibility. You can contribute online at https://firstbaptistofindependence.aware3.net/give/ If you would like to stay up to date on all things FBC, download our App by clicking here https://a3a.me/firstbaptistofindependence or by Liking our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/1stBaptist/ Thank you for listening. We will see you next week.
Podcast #491 MORE QUESTIONS ON CONFIDENCE - ANSWERED! [PART 2] We gave you the opportunity to ask the confidence questions that most weigh on your heart, and you, our faithful listeners, weighed in! These are the most common questions that you want to know about confidence! In this episode of The Confidence Podcast, we're talking about: Raising kids with confidence Social anxiety and confidence Overthinking and overwhelm And more! REVIEW OF THE WEEK I'm submerging myself in your content. It has helped me keep my thoughts captive. I am more self-aware of my thought and emotions and I'm better equipped to redirect the negative thoughts. Thanks again!Xavierwes YOUR MOST ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT CONFIDENCE: I've asked you what your biggest questions on confidence are: How do you resist stress at work, which is getting harder every month? On the plus side, I am retiring 2/1/23-Matt Does being fit and healthy give you confidence?What makes you confident you are loved just as you are? Karla Is doing what I love and being myself without being so concerned with whatI may think others view me. Sometimes I'm very quiet and may appear unapproachable or stuck up but in fact, I just kept to myself. I tread lightly withWhom I allow into my life. Another bad habit is overthinking everything. And second-guessing myself. I can't stand that I do that. Thanks Trish for following up-Shao-ling Regarding happiness and confidence, I think my biggest hiccups come after disappointments or mistakes. I can carry that negative energy with me much longer than it's welcome.So, how do you stay unshakably confident and happy during or directly after a difficult situation? Something that's embarrassing or shameful? And part 2, what kinds of affirmations do you personally use for encouragement regarding happiness and confidence? Thanks for asking!-Ang(ela) Lovely to hear from you. You always brighten up my day. Two questions I would like to ask about being confident are Have you any tips on how to remain practicing the confidence you have gained. I find it very hard to keep confident I always seem to have a setback and end up back at the beginning. No matter how hard I try I always end up back comparing myself to others. I feel so inferior to other people. I never feel like I'm enough. Would you have any advice on how to stop comparing myself and also any advice on how to believe that I am enough?Have a wonderful evening Kindly always Audrey xx How do I overcome social anxiety? How do I overcome feeling like I am that annoying little fly that keeps buzzing around your head and just about the time you think you got rid of it, it's back! -Deb Why can't I find happiness? I've never been happy and confidence is out of the question -Sheila When do I know, or how can I tell that I'm truly confident?And how can I be happy without being in a relationship? -Ida My two questions about being confident and happy would be 1 Why can't I maintain them2 Why do I allow others to take them from me instead of standing up for myself-Edith I'd love to learn more about how to raise confident kids... How to walk the fine line of getting after them but also building them up and encouraging them to be themselves. Also not let other people's moods affect yours. -Ranell RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE: Affirmations Workshop:www.trishblackwell.com/affirmations 30-Day Journaling Course:www.trishblackwell.com/journal Stop Caring What People Think Masterclasswww.trishblackwell.com/stopcaring SNEAK PEEK INTO NEXT WEEK: When you learn how to accept compliments, you appear confident, humble, and open. And yet, most people resist compliments and downplay themselves. It's time to reprioritize the art of accepting compliments, which in turn, will empower you to be more generous in the compliments you give - to others and to yourself. This podcast will give you 20 practical and humbly confident ...
Bible Reading: Matthew 6:6-13When Mom heard Milo slam his bedroom door, she knew something was wrong. She found him sitting on his bed with tears in his eyes. "What's wrong, Milo?" Mom asked as she sat down beside him."I had a rotten day. I got a D on my English test--the one I spent an hour studying for." Milo sniffed. "And we played basketball in gym today. I missed the basket so often, and then some of the guys in my class made fun of me." "I'm sorry you had a tough day," said Mom, putting an arm around Milo's shoulder. "Tell you whatI'll help you study for your next English test. We'll see if we can bring that grade up, okay?"Milo nodded. "Can you help me with basketball too?" "No, but your sister can. Why not ask her to work with you on that? After school, you can practice what she teaches you.""Okay," said Milo, and when Kennedy got home from basketball practice, Milo asked her about it.Kennedy nodded. "Sure, I'll shoot hoops with you. I can show you some pointers, but don't expect to make every basket.Just do your best and enjoy it."Before climbing into bed that night, Milo knelt and began to recite the prayer he had learned when he was small. He stopped in the middle of it. That little kids' prayer isn't what I really want to say, he thought.As Milo thought over the events of the day, he remembered the conversations with his mom and sister. It had helped a lot to talk with them about his problems. Then another thought struck him. I guess I can talk to Jesus just like I talk to Mom and Kennedy. Before he knew it, Milo was telling Jesus about his bad day. Please help me do better in school and in basketball, he prayed. Thanks for giving me a mom and a sister who love me and help me. Thanks for listening, and thank You for caring about all the stuff I do. I'm glad You understand what I'm going through and are always there to help me. Milo finished praying, got into bed, and pulled up the covers. I'm going to talk with Jesus more often, he decided. -Kathy LaheyHow About You?Do you share your problems with Jesus? He cares about what you're going through and wants to help. You can talk to Him just like you would a friend or a family member. Tell Him what's going on in your life. Ask for His guidance, and thank Him for all the good things He's done for you. He loves and cares for you, and He's always there to listen and help. You can talk to Him anytime. Today's Key Verse:Trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62:8 (NLT))Today's Key Thought:Talk to Jesus--He cares
We give examples of some errors that can happen when writing or reciting karakia, and incorrect tikanga practices around the building & opening of Whare. We then discuss the effects that these mistakes can have on the intentions of important kaupapa.
Ka hoki mai anō te takitoru o Taringa ki te āta matapakihia tēnei kaupapa te whati me te hapa me kī hei tō te tirohanga Māori i roto i ngā whakaritenga Māori pēnei i te whaikōrero me ētahu atu tūwhai āhuaranga. The Taringa trio return to discuss this topic of errors and falters in according per se to the Māori perspective within Māori contexts such as formal oration and other aspects.
Most humans struggle with decisions in the form of:I don't know what I should doI don't know what I want to doI don't know what to doI know what I should do but I just don't want to do it but I don't know what to do insteadI know I should be doing something else but I don't know whatI've been in all of these. In most of these situations, people can end up overthinking, which causes procrastination and a general sense of feeling stressed and unhappy. The worst part, from all that overthinking? Nothing happens. All the overthinking does is generate more stress and frustration.The antidote to not knowing what to do is t do something. Action, the active engagement with life itself, always yields more clarity. Clarity is often more useful in the long-run than the quest for more information that can keep people immobilized in overthinking.*****I've helped thousands of professional, spiritual, perfectionist women (and some amazing men) create happiness and success in an imperfect world. Finding out your life's purpose is essential for reaching your full potential for one glorious, bodacious and fulfilling life. For more information on me, check out linktr.ee/AdeleWangBook a complimentary Discovery Conversation: https://my.timetrade.com/book/3MDN1 Or grab a free gift from me here,, "The Ultimate Women's Stress Relief Guide": http://usrg.safehavenhealing.net/
What is a hapa? What is a whati? What are they in the context of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori? What are the underpinning principles that make them Māori concepts? Why can I say "KAITOA!" when I'm relieved or satisfied with something?
The word 'Distraction' has found itself in such a negative light - but it comes from the original meaning, “to draw away from the mind.” Being drawn away from the mind can be a fundamental healing process right now that guides us back to our hearts and returns us to our lives with a very different perspective.I hope you say ‘yes' to those healthy distractions that draw you away from the mind and into the heart. It's medicine for these times (not to mention for our creative businesses) where we are all feeling this new sense of exhaustion.Questions for today:What are my healthy distractions? (activities, hobbies, practices that draw me away from my mind)What am I curious to try but haven't because I feel it's irresponsible/too expensive/not practical etc.?Thanks for listening, sharing & commenting! Sezwords by @sez.kristiansenPOEM LYRICSIt Took Me AwayI took a break for a while.Not for any reason other than I heard the rustle of a wild bodiedanimal in the dark woodsand decidedto followed it.And it took me away...It took me away from whatI knew,and it took me awayfrom the place I had been standing stillfor so long in.It took me away from evenmy most meaningful work,It took me away...And when I left the woods, I came across a dragonfly,I wanted to see my own reflectionin its mosaic wingso I followed it too,and it took me away.It took me away from myselfand even from the things I most love,it took me away...And when I came across a heaving field of oats, I wantedto know why a tree stood in its center, and so I followed its furrowedlines into its core.And when the berry blackraven perchedhigh up on the oak's eaves invited me to follow it, I willingly said yes - and it took me away.It took me awayand weaved me so tightly around the landthat I began to loosenmy bearingsand before I knew itI didn't know my way backand all I knew was that I was away.And when I came to a smallcleft in a rockwhere the rainwater pooleddown into the earth,I followed its trailand it took me away,it took me away from the woods,the raven, and the dragonfly.It took me away and I kept following the stream down and down, away and awayuntil I stood at the mouth of agreat oceanand there was nowhere left to go.But now I was no longer away, I was here, in this body, in this heartand I no longer neededthe distance nor the distraction.And with one deep breath,I took the first wind current home, back to where I had once stoodin the woods,but everything was differenteverything was bathed in light.And all the things I thought wereso important were now meaninglessand all the things I found little importance in were full of urgency.And in that moment I realized that being taken awaywas the only way I could truly return home again.
durée : 01:00:00 - Cultures Monde - par : Florian Delorme, Mélanie Chalandon, Antoine Dhulster - Le 18 mai se tenait à Paris le sommet sur le financement des économies africaines. L'occasion pour de nombreux politiques et intellectuels africains d'appeler à repenser les mécanismes de l'aide au développement sur une base plus équitable, au sein de laquelle l'Afrique aurait aussi son mot à dire. - réalisation : Vincent Abouchar, Benjamin Hû - invités : Cheikh Guèye géographe, coordinateur de la Plateforme Stratégique Commune de l’ONG sénégalaise « Enda Tiers Monde » et contributeur au Rapport Alternatif Sur l’Afrique (RASA); Gilles Yabi économiste et politiste, fondateur et directeur de WHATI, think tank citoyen, participatif et multidisciplinaire sur les dynamiques ouest-africaines et ancien journaliste à Jeune Afrique; Haïdar El Ali ancien ministre de l’environnement du Sénégal, directeur de l’agence sénégalaise de la reforestation et de la grande muraille verte.
I spent the majority of my life not knowing whatI felt about myself mattered. Living like this was a really volatile way of going about meeting goals and building myself up. How you treat yourself and how you feel about yourself dictates everything in your world and how you treat everyone around you as well. I want to teach people around me how to value ourselves, our opinions & our feelings. This, I believe, is where love is bred. It comes from within ourselves first and then we can share that w/ those around us.
Flan's black card is in jeopardy. Chef Elise ditches the smoothies. Mos Def inspires an interesting topic.
I found myself frustrated as I tried so many things to get in shape, or at least what I considered a nice shape but wasn't being able to achieve it after so long. Then it started to click little by little as I started with nutrition, then fitness and mobility. My life changed for good once I had my kid, and with that, I struggled more to find time to working out. Life is challenging from time to time, it throws us curved balls and we need to know how to swing. I. My case I learned that In order to be healthy I needed to incorporate in my life certain practices and mindset. To remove those mental barriers and start seeing my son as someone who would push me to be better. I wanted to have more energy to play with him, to feel better and be more productive in my life, to look better and gain more self-confidence. This podcast is for those who have a busy schedule and want to be healthier while maintaining your lifestyle. It is possible to keep enjoying life, socialize, spend time with family, work (even overtime), run your business (or side business) and still achieve your fitness goals. Join me for more fitness, nutrition and health tips. I'll be sharing how have I done it, whatI do, and what has worked for others as well to get to that sustainable healthy lifestyle. Instagram: @PonchoAramburo FonsiFitness.com
Abuse, Divorce, Loss, this Pandemic; Trauma comes in many shapes. You may still be figuring out all the ways trauma has left its mark. Trauma may have impacted your ability to build healthy relationships. The memory of your past trauma may still haunt your present day. The common denominator in all this is YOU. Our offering, in this podcast, is a look at how you can help you.Josh and Kit dive into the topic of Self-Kindness and Attachment Repair. Being kind to yourself plays a significant role in how you heal - heart, mind and body. You’ll hear how important it is for you to pay attention to your emotions and how to lean into them with God. You feel emotions in your body. And, you have a God who knows what a hurting heart, a stabbing headache and that pit in your stomach feels like - you have Jesus. We’ve provided a list of valuable resources below. Also, look in the “Homework” section and consider printing out or writing out the Affirmations on note cards and placing them around your home. You are powerful. Right now, your power rests in being kind to you. Listen in.Highlights:The concept of Self-Compassion is a vital part of healing.There are physiological, emotional and spiritual things that happen as we learn to be self-compassionate in our places of wounding.Taking care of yourself is not selfish. When you take care of yourself and receive the love that God has for you, you become a person who cares and loves better.Homework:AFFIRMATIONS OF SELF-KINDNESSI am capableIt’s okay to disappoint peopleI have choicesI can set boundariesI am loved no matter whatI am valuableI can ask for supportIt’s okay to need helpMy emotions give me informationMy body supports meI’m responsible for only myselfIt’s okay to take care of myselfThis emotion is temporaryI am belovedResources/Extras:Jay StringerWhy Emotions Matter by Jon and Tristen CollinsDr. Patrick Carnes“Try Softer:A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode--and into a Life of Connection and Joy” by Aundi KolberTranscription:Full Transcription Available hereOriginal music by Shannon Smith. Audio engineering by Gabriel @ DelMar Sound Recording.Support Becoming Whole
Dealing With Unemployment During CovidAnne-Marie wrote in with a follow-up question for Rita on the lastepisode, and Walt thought it would be a good question for Louis toanswer today.She wrote:“You answered a question for me previously, and thank you for yourwonderful response. My husband was laid off, and we’re really trying tostay positive. I know in my heart it’s going to be fine. However, I’mstruggling to keep my vibe up generally in my life. I’m focusing on whatI call my tool box of techniques which usually help, but it is feelingreally hard. Can you see anything that will help clear this cloudy mindof mine? Thank you all for all that you do, I love listening to thepodcasts while working from home in lockdown.”I was right. Louis was the right person to ask about this question!Remember, you too can use the Ask A Question feature in the LOA Todayapp to send in your question or topic for any of my co-hosts and me todiscuss on a future episode, so please use that form to send in yourquestion or topic!Be sure to “tell a friend to tell a friend” about the LOA Today app.The easiest way to install it is to visit:https://www.loatoday.net/download.
Welcome to the AdoreKnit Podcast! A Show about a scattered caffeinated mom who loves her family, knits, makes stitch markers and tries to keep it all running smoothly. This episode has July AdoreKnit prize winner, finished object, additions, works in progress, shop talk, life chatter and whatI’ve been reading and watching. Desert Vista Dyeworks Knit-a-long: … Continue reading Episode 33: Quarantine Haircut and Knitting →
Noise of the Broke Boys Episode 018DJ Phixion shares his music production process and the inspiration behind his recent album, Cinemadeck. We talk about DJing, turntablism, and the artistic relationship music has to other mediums.DJ Phixion's album, Cinemadeck is used as a backing track to this entire podcast. Peep his Bandcamp site to hear and purchase the full album:https://djphixion.bandcamp.com/Follow @Instagram: noiseofthebrokeboysTwitter: BrokeBoysNoiseListen to the Audio on all Podcast platforms. All The Links Here: https://linktr.ee/NoiseOfTheBrokeBoysA broke degenerate hooligan documents conversations about being a Bboy, Breakin', Hip Hop, Dance, Art, Music, Creativity, Innovation, and the slow subtle crumble of society in audio form.----more----[Music]this episode of noise of the broke boysis brought to you by memes you lovearguing over the Internetwhat about condensing out the nuances ofa complicated topic by adding a sentenceof text over a picture of a cute dog areyou too busy to read news articles infact check their sources and wouldrather look at a poorly photoshoppedpicture and gather everything you needto know from that or are you more of thetype that loves to troll the world andwatch it burn with silly low-qualitystock images either way memes are aperfect solution for all theaforementioned desires please check outnoise of the broke boys on Instagram formore information about low-quality memesnow on to the show[Music]in this episode I meet with my boy DJfiction we were both part of the samegroup of delinquents back in school atthat time I was amazed to find out thathe was also an amazing DJ and musicproducer since then he has traveledaround and lived in several countriesincluding the Netherlands and Luxembourghe recently released a new album calledcinema Dec that I absolutely love I putthe entire album as a backing track tothis episode but I encourage you tolisten to it in its entirety without myannoying voice over it included a linkto the album in the description pleaseenjoy the episode with DJ fiction helloeverybody welcome to the end of theworld show international edition today Igot a very special guest his name is DJfiction what's up man how you doing goodman how are you good to be here I'mgreat manso you're out there in Luxembourg rightcorrect dope so we could talk about thatlater but what I what I know you justcame out with a brand new album cinemadeck I checked it out it's one of thedopest shit's I've heard in a long timeyou've been making music a long time manso can you tell me a little bit aboutlike what was the inspiration for thisfor this musical project cuz I know youhaven't really put something out in awhile right it's been a while but likejust like yeah that's probably becauseit's just the way I live like I movedaround hella the last like six sevenyears yeah and yeah it was just it wasmore because of that but the inspirationbehind this specific album is likeold-school movies like sixties moviesespecially French movies Italian moviesthat kind of shit I really like thatshit like Fellini movies or jean-lucGodard Francois Truffaut this kind ofshit so the inspiration for that waslike around 2015 I started watching likehell of these movies like hellaokay then I was just thinking to myselflike there's a lot of good music inthese movies yeah there and also thequotes and stuff and I had it in my mindto make kind of like a concept album andthen revolves around these and yeahpretty much like even the name the nameof the album by cinema deck like inFrance and here in Luxembourg as welllike the theater theater it's like retrotheaters right where they showold-school movies and shit really okaythese are called cinema Tex cinema Tibetso then I just took dick like aturntable yeah yeah and dude like alittle what combination ding okay that'stight that's tight oh yes so you yousaid that they're they're like 50smovies is around the era that like likelet's say like late 50s to like latesixties yeah because it's it soundedlike that you know when I was listeningto it I would hear you know some kind ofold-school stuff you know it has thatthat the recording quality from thattime and so that's what I was thinkingit was probably that you know what ImeanI mean it's also the music I sampledright like a sample hello jazz and funkand shit like that yeah yeah I would saythe vast majority is from the 60s yaknow it was nice because I would hear Iheard a few breaks that you put in therethat I was familiar with and then Iheard a lot of stuff I've never heardI've never heard of and I was kind oflike yo did this guy sample this or didhe make this like what's going on solike I mean it sounds like you obviouslysampled a lot of that stuff so it's likeyou really had to do a lot of diggingI'm guessing obviously sure movie stufflike so when you're Lizzy - I meanuh-huhso when you're like watching some ofthese movies you're hearing you'reyou're just like going that's a dopetrack I'm gonna try to find it and likehow do you how do you I guess pull itout are you able to find the trackpretty easy like how's your digginprocess for thatso like most of the music is not sampledfrom the movies but some of it is how Idig for shit I mean is like how anybodyelse does right I mean like go to recordstores discogs.com is like my fuckinokay I'm buying hello shit on therebut also just like hell it fools uploadshit on like final RIT blogs ok justfine a hellish it like there butbasically like digging um and just undidthe shit the old dudes used to do youknow I mean like premier or Pete Rock orlike the dudes that I admire like DJshadow DJ Krush yeah cam and you justfind out what they sampled from yearsand years of before you know like whosampled calm now everything everythingis outed right like now every is peoplefind the shit but before you didn't haveanything like that you had to just findit yourselfyeah maybe a little bit based on anartist or a label or something like thatof the sampled artists and then youcould kind of like dig a bit further togive it further old shit like this is amaybe obscure album by this artist or bythis label that nobody sampled let'syeah yeah and then with the movies isthe same shit I mean hella old likethere's this one dude it's Dimitri fromParis ok came out with the album in the90s called the sacre bleu that kind ofis sort of the same thing said hedoesn't sample so many French movies hesamples American movies examples havelike Audrey Hepburn and shit like thathad music from those movies as well sothat was kind of like an inspiration forme as well mmm so you were kind of doingthe like the reverse of that of what hewas doing even though he's Frenchfunnily enough but yeah and I'm Americanbut so you're pulling on how to frontyou're pulling out French movies okthat's tight no I mean getting gettinginspiration from like other people likethat is really dope I mean and like whatI really liked about the album is thatit really I could really tell that youwere digging for it and I feel like it'ssomewhat of a lost art at least fromwhat I see on like the mainstream radiosand stuff and it's like it's kind of sadbecause I think maybe because of a lotof copyright laws and stuff that that isgetting like kind of pushed to theunderground a little bit more now butit's like it was super refreshing tohear that because I was like yo this guyput so much time into digging like I cantell this is likeyou know you were had you had the likethe early 90s type of like diggingattitude in that in that in the wholealbum is what I was feeling as Lisa it'spretty much my whole my whole idea likeall I've ever wanted really with musicis just to sound like mid 90s like crushand shadow like I always just went forthat that kind of aesthetic why nobody Imean people still do sample I mean lookat like hotline bling right that wasfucking huge and that was fucking yeahyour sample right nothing else I don'tknow if it's because a copyright orbecause people's tastes have changed youknow people like now more syntheticsounds which also do I also do likecompose some shit and like yeah there'sone track that has practically nosamples I can think of on the album butstill I like that grainy that you getfrom it's kind of like a nostalgic typeof sound you know like right now it itwas very moody what and that's what Iliked about it it was um like I mean itwould yeah I guess similar to like amovie really like you you get like thesemoody tracks in it I was like okay thisis tight you know and it really feelslike you're going through like a wholelike a whole storyline almost you knowwhat I mean is that kind of what you'regoing for pretty much exactly you nailedit like even before I had the idea tosample like specific dialogue and haveit in order throughout the album to makea storyline what I mean but that wasjust way too fucking complicated and inthe end I kind of scrapped it but stillI have that idea in my mind that I couldhave done that like could have made afull-fledged like chopped up my ownstory from all these other movies likeimagining 20 movies that you sample allthese different lines and all thesedifferent languages but yeah you canmake a cohesive story out of it yeah andthen set it to musicit's can opera in a way yeah like hiphop yeah yeah no that's tight yeah I'vealways liked those kind of like albumsthat have some sort of kind of storylineor whatever like what immediately comesto mind is on the album that Dell didwithmmm Dan the Automator remember that oneit was a home runyeah yeah it was like super weird kindof story but it was like it was like Ikind of I kind of dig it yeah or like Iknow Kendrick Lamar does a lot of likeconcept type of stuff like that he's gotsome kind of storyline that like looselyconnects everything I always liked thatbecause this this that the single trackslike our good standalone but then whenyou listen to the whole album you'relike oh I get it dude he yes he has heyou know you you put a lot of likeeffort into like really pulling thelistener in I mean it reminds me sort oflike you know like Pink Floyd used to dostuff like that where they would likethe wall exactly yeah ya know the it'slike the you you put their record on andit goes from beginning to end and it'slike man this was a whole story andevery single song kind of like bleedsinto the other and stuff it feels itfeels like you're on like a I don't knowlike a like a Disneyland kind of likeride or something code through the wholelike the whole album it's it's dope yeahso I really dig that that's tightthanks man that's definitely kind of theapproach I had I missed back in the dayshow to use to have a cohesive album thatpeople would listen to you know cover tocover like nowadays it doesn't seem likethat's the case I mean now it's likekind of more single tracks yeah I thinkeverybody just puts out single tracksmost of the times but I missed I likedthe album format I always liked it yeahyeah yeah albums are like perfect lengthreally for like a listening you knowlike you sit down it's usually about anhour to you know 45 minutes to like anhour which is kind of like what I try todo with podcast to but it's like perfectto sit down listen to some stuff andjust you know take yourself on a rideand stuff but yeah a lot of people don'tdo that anymore which I miss I mean withwit plank with vinyl especially you haveto do that right yeah yeah like a recordand just listen to it right you sitthere I mean I'm in my head like diggingfor samples and shit but I have you knowa bunch of records from like you know90s guys and shit like that and yet youjust have toyou gotta just sit there and listen tothe fucking thing you gotta have allyour you know sense is kind of focusedon that yes so actually so like whileyou're listening to music you're sayingyou're like digging so like what's thatprocess like what's going on in yourhead I guess what makes a sample kind ofstick out to you are you kind of like hiJay how are you just like so I'm notlike musically trained that's the thingyeah yeah I played I played piano forlike I don't know five six years as akid look that was a long fucking timeago I don't remember it but I don't knowyou just kind of hear something like alittle phrase you know a sequence ofnotes or not even just like some kind ofyou know a feeling really and and maybeyou can you know manipulate it a bitlike a lot of samples doesn't sound goodat the speed it's at you know so youjust slow it down oh shit now it soundsgood like a good example of that is doyou know the survival of the fittest bymob deep oh yeahlike there that sample was only justdiscovered recently like what it what itis and it's like fucking ten timesfaster you would never recognized it ohokaybut another another thing is like you'llhear so this maybe could work but maybeI have to chop it up and like rearrangeit or whatever okay what are you doingthat in your mind as you're listeningnot really you kind of just hear it andyou're like maybe that I can use thisokay maybe like you'll end up using oneout of ten it's just like it's that'swhy it's called digging gram you're justdigging for shit and most of it's gonnabe worthless yeah ya know when I wasyounger and I would do that I had a lotof like just trash track you know trashlike records just that I heard like onelittle piece of a thing and I was likeexactly but yeah it's like a ton ofstuff that's just junk though but youwait you're waiting through shitbasically I mean yeah but you thinkabout it in another sense I remember Ithink it was DJ Shadow thatinstead from already recorded music thathas already sold right it's alreadysomeone at one point thought this wasgood so if you're making music frommusic that somebody at one point thoughtwas good your shits probably gonna begood too right mmm I mean how could itnotmmm I see in a weird way yeah that nothat that that's tight no you know whatthat reminds me of like um what's hisname Bob James oh shit yeah yeah likecuz that guy what his his music was justit would always like every two secondsor whatever it would like change thewhole mood of it and I remember there'slike a couple songs he has that so manypeople have just sampled from and I waslike like Nautilus not exactly and it'slike I did not know that that was thesame song because this guy song soundsso much different from this song but itwas a track that you can sample yeah Iwas like holy crap dude that's dope sono but that makes sense I mean like andI know that a lot of times you'll you'llfind an artist that has yeah like youknow say like premiere sampled somethingand you go okay let's check out thiswhole this artist's whole distantdiscography and then find a lot of otherstuff that's just kind of hidden inthere and or whatever or like say likein James Brown's a case like you knowhis band like they had their own albumsand stuff so you go and check them outand stuff or like they're just thedrummers and stuff like there's a lot oflike just hidden gems out there for surebut it's a problem needs to find it Imean I've been doing this for like youknow 13 14 years you know you do thisover time it becomes almost secondnature you don't even think about itanymore you're just like alright here'sthis here's this you just startconnecting the dots until the pointwhere yeah you kind of almost know whereto look now No so does that change theway you listen to just music in generallike so when you're on the radio you'relike picking out okay what was thissample from or like what is this drumdoing or whatever I mean that just comesfrom learning music production rightokay yeah I can't listen to any musicanymore without thinking in my headwithout like they do this how I was thismixed how was this produced how was thisprogram bah bah bah yeah withoutbreaking it apart and finding all thecomponents of it ya know I've like I'vebeen like trying to do that too I kindof do that for dancing anyways becauselike it's just good to it's a good levelit's a good way of adding like depth tothe way you dance because you can youknow say dint you can follow like abaseline and then you can follow like adrum pattern or whatever and yes whenshe turn that and I noticed that thatskill transfer is really well to musicbecause now you're listening for thosesame things that you would have beenlistening for in dancing but you're nowgoing like okay now how did theyactually make that that little neatpattern or whatever you know this is thethe snare is doing this doot doot dootor whatever so a site no but yeah itreally it it it deepens the way youlisten to music is what it sounds likeit's kind of annoying at the same timetoo like I probably pissed hello peopleoff like they'll be listening to somesong like this these drums a week likethey should have done this they shouldhave yeah so do I do a lot of people golike oh let's not talk about music withyou is that yeah it's just it's justsomething that happens I mean when youwhen you start to I guess yeah they'llkind of deep into something that mayit's probably the same for everythingright you probably have a full sore likehow I entered like video productionshould they get break apart everybody'sYouTube channel like yeah and I meanthat's I guess part of the artists Imean and I know a lot of times when Ilook at like a painting even I'll golike okay you know I like to try to takea step back and just go like okay takeit in what it is what it is and then gointo and like look at how they did somebrushstrokes on it or whatever how thecolors are composed but like you can'thelp but do that because you're tryingto figure out how they made what theydid and you know you know I guess that'sa that's part of the artist quality Isuppose you know I do it with dancing itjust just comes with the territoryyeah it does but itI think it makes the conversation aboutthat particular content even betterbecause from are you talking to right Imean it's best if you're talking tosomeone who knows as much or even morethan you do rightwell even someone who doesn't know likeI mean cuz I don't know that much aboutmusic but I really like hearing your youknow what you have to say about itbecause it's it's making me realize likeoh yeah this stuff goes a lot deeperthan I thought you know what I mean andI'm hoping that oh you know open-mindedpeople would gain the same kind ofinterest into that because I mean musicis just soaked it's so complicated andand just listening to you know just asong on the radio I mean just the likethe primal instinct of yourself is to golike oh yeah like this this is somethingthat groove - it's kind of like you shutoff your your conscious mind and justlet your subconscious like soak in themood or whatever but then if you do letyour conscious kind of like take it intoyou're like man this is reallymathematical in a way you know what Imean it's very scientific it's cool likethat you know and we're just talkingabout production I mean that's all IknowI don't know any fear right you don'tknow any theory at all like like I saidI used to play pianolike I know basic chords scales likecircle shifts this kind of shit but Idon't know anything beyond that likeokay well I mean I feel like that'sthat's a good starting point that maybenot people don't even know I mean it'slike yeah I would say that's as basic asyou get oh yeah sure sure but I know alot of people that wouldn't even knowwhat you're talking aboutyou know what I mean scales and circleof fifths and stuff and you know and Iguess even how that relates to likeharmonics and stuff so yeah yeah sureI mean like I say like well when Iproduce a track I practically alwaysstart with some bass like not not basicinstrument but like a bass likefoundation sample and then maybe I'llcomposeof that so I know I'm already startingwith a key that I didn't think of rightokayyeah I could I could tune the sample toa key that you know let's I want this infucking I don't know I mean you can onlytune it to certain keys that it'salready harmonized with right anywayI usually never start from scratch let'ssay you know I mean yeah I don't needsomething but that it someone probablydoesn't even know what you're talkingabout in terms of like pitch shiftinginto like a different scale and stuff Imean back when I was like a highschooler and I didn't know anythingabout music and I would go and grab likea song like I would try to make littlemixes and stuff and I would grab a songand like I didn't know how to doanything and so it would always soundkind of weird because it would always gofrom like this key to a different keyand and so it was just my you know highschool mix or whatever that I was tryingto make and you could tell that there'ssomething wrong with itbut you musically don't understand itand that's probably me nowadays I meanyou don't even have to like you gothella programs and shit that will justidentify the key for you and like youcould just harmonic mix so breezily yeahthat's true that's true yeah so do youuse a lot of like plugins and stuff whatprograms you use actually so I justproduced using FL okay L studio 20that's what I use since the jump I usedit since like FL five or something butyeah I tried all kinds of other ones Ihaven't tried Ableton that's the onethat everyone uses now yeah I started byusing Ableton actually and that's Itried Pro Tools I tried sonar at CubaseReaper I mean they're all pretty muchthe same from what I can understand it'sjust whichever one you'd like yeah Ireally like about FL is the piano rollit's like super intuitive too- both with like instruments and withwith drums but you know for sequencingbut and then yeah of course hell offucking mixing and and and yeahproduction Suites yeah well games so doyou know a lot about like soundengineeringoh so that's one thing I don't really dolike sound design like designing theinstruments and the voicing no no nowhat do you do like you master your ownstuff yeah yeah okay so that took likehello time to learn as well yeah butit's a art formobviously I'm never gonna get it as goodas a treated room in an engineer yeah byhand I'm cheap man I mean it sounds goodto me so like I mean I don't have likethe best equipment but like the roomreally matters like this room has hellafucking echo I should like put likehello like foam and shit on the wallsokay yeah I wonder if that I wonder ifthat actually helps make it um have moreof a nostalgic sound almost you know Idon't know but I do try to like listento it in different environments likeheadphones car yeah this that whateverwhatever I mean it's it might sound goodon the monitors but it might sound badsomewhere else yeah it's weird how thathappens yeah it's just you'll play it inyour in your headphones and you're likeoh this sounds dope and then you'll goin your car whatever you like manheadphones are the easiest by far tomake sound good as yeah experience yeahyeah yeahso so when you're when you or whenyou're working on mastering a track isthat like part of your workflow or youknow they should be done at the very endlike you've already done you're done butthe production you done with the mixingand you bounce it as a final wave stereowave and then you just master that yeahyeah but when you're in that masteringphase are you going like okay let me getit perfect in the headphones and thenlet me get it perfect in the car let meget it perfect on like a cent a wholesound system in like an auditoriumwhatever the the monitors like thesethesespeakers the studio monitors that's whatI you totally get it perfect on that ohI see okay and so that ideally you wannalike the flattest sound you know theflattest frequency response which isyou're not gonna get unless you havelike I mean sound you know come bouncesback and forth all over the place rightso yeah you're not gonna get the bestsound unless you have a treated room andreally like treated speakers everythinghas to be that's why you would pay amastering engineer like thousands forthis right yeah yeah it's it's crazyunless I was gonna get like returnedlike on my money yeah I don't know Ijust don't see the pointso you you sell I know you obviouslysell your music on Bandcamp but do youdo like a lot of shows and stuff man notfor a long time like I used to but thatwas like Haley years ago deejay live butyeah I should get back into it like butthat's a thing like I mentioned earlierlike I moved around a lot man like inthe last 10 years I lived in like yesSweden Netherlands Belgium yeahSan Diego Netherlands again and then nowhere in Luxembourg and like just so manytimes I had to find sell my equipmentover and over and over you know yeah soI remember you you were gonna ask melike yeah like what's it like to youknow does living in a different countrylike influence your art and yeah forsure it does just because of theinconvenience of moving around all thedamn timeso so what areas you've I mean you'refrom San Jose right and then you livedin Amsterdam for a while and then thelast time I saw you in Amsterdam yeah inAmsterdam and then now you're inLuxembourg were you in anywhere elsebetween there yeah yeah I lived in SanDiego for 3 years % yeah San Diegothat's right and so I mean like whatstake what's been taking you in thoseareas I guess jobs man just don't workso it's just working and so then youknow I like to I like to travel and andlive in different places and shit likethat it's fun I mean it's inconvenientas all hell and yeah pain in the ass butit's cool yeah yeah and so it you thinkit influences like the music you makebecause yummy for sure because sometimeslike when I was in San Diego I had likeno money and I had to just make the shitwith what I had you know yeah I couldn'tbuy the shit I wanted now I practicallyhave everything I wantso she'd become easier now it's alsodepends like what kind of people youmeet right like what kind of you knowmusic with other heads you knowdifferent kinds of people all over theplace right yeah yeah and be myinfluence so do you do have you done anyprojects with other people so a bit butnot that much I had back in San Jose whorecorded some shit over some of mytracks real talented musician here I wasgoing out to Paris for a while it's likeonly two hours away by train and there Imade some some friends and we kind ofwork on some shit together kind of morelike jungle music like you know likeearly mid 90s like Bristol German withway more syncopated break beats for anysizethat and then I met this one Japaneserapper dude be otha goes by our whiteyand we worked on a little bit of someshit together but usually for the mostpart I'm just like a standalone yeahperson okay I'm just like a controlfreak I think in the end like I need tohave like full creative control over allmy shit yeah that's like it's hard toit's hard to not do that because it'slike what you it's like what's yourworkflow dictates you know alone so thenwhen you're working with somebody you'relike oh I want it look like this butthen yeah it's sometimes hard becausethe vision is like not quite matched upit I relate to that because like a lotof times when you're doing like dancestuff like and you're trying to makelike some routine or whatever or likeyou know do some kind of battle orwhatever you're like working with a lotof people and it's like everybody hastheir own idea of what's gonna happenand it just doesn't quite come togetherbut what you always have to do I thinkis just like go okay I'm I'm open tolike taking everybody's thing cuz thisisn't this isn't my thing this iseverybody's thing you know what I meanyeah so it's it's it's it's hard to getover that that fact you know or acceptit you know what I'm saying yeah so uhare you working on any new projectsright now so just nowyeah just put out the album like a monthago mm-hmmand now I think I'm just gonna actuallyfocus on on DJ mixes for a little whileokay I just got this this this mixer yousee right here this is like a super rarevintage Vestax from like 1990 and it'sgot some cool shit this is the same samemix our DJ Krush uses okay dude is likemy fucking idol my hero okayso I think I'm just already put out acouple of DJ Mix's recently but but Ithink I'm gonna focus on that a bit andI mean I'm kind of tapped out now forproduction because I just put the shitout yeah it's like starting from zerowhich is cool at the same time like ohshit I I can make like something yeahyeah tabula rasa yeah it's I mean youyou hustled hard to get the thing doneand now you're kind of like okay let'slike take a second to breathe let thatmusic kind of get around and then workon your next thing how actually how longdid it take you to put together thatwhole album cinema day yeah it's kind ofhard to say because like some of thetracks I made back like in 2015 oh he's16 okay and I just had them I justdidn't do anything with him I just hadto sit and then some of the tracks Imade just like six months agookay we're like four or four months agoso you could say it took like five yearsbut that's not really accurate becauselike you know helot like I would I thinkwhen I first moved to Luxembourg Ididn't work on music for like a wholeyear I was just running around travelingyou know I was back in Europe was likeoh shit let me do this go here have funget drunk blah blah blah yeah so I yeahyou know I don't know total time sometracks probably have like 30 or 40 hoursof work into them whereas others maybelike less than 10 but like the wholeconcept of what I was trying to do Ithought of that years ago okay so it'sit's been kind of like something thathas been in the back of your mind tooyou know put together eventually okayyeah no I feel like I'm kind of likethat with with with like painting youknow cuz I like paint I like to painttoo I'll have like an idea of somethingand I'll start like a lot of times I'llstart painting something that's likeit's a like just a concept of what I'mtrying to go for and then I'll justnever finish it and I'll just kind oflike hang it up and stare at it to makemyself like you know cuz it seem likeit's yes sorta yeah no that's very truecuz yeah you're what I would always tryto do is just have it there look at ityou know everyday just look at somethingand go okay let's let that kind of soakin my head and see if I can come up withanything cool to do with it you know cuzI think a lot of it is always just cuzI'm really good at just throwing outrandom ideas and stuff but it's notcomposed into anything that makes anysense so but I have to always keep thoseideas in the forefront of my mind orelse I just forget about them so that'swhy I'll try to just paint like aconcept of something and just hang it upor whatever and then like look at it andgo okay that maybe I could use that withsomething else that I come up with sureor like with dancing I do that too Imean with dancing it's like I'll havelike a cool little move that I made butI'm like man there's no way in hell I'mever gonna use this alone so I just kindof write it down and hope that this iswhat I call like frankensteining shit ohyeah yeah you just like take bits andpieces from shit you made that's all notreally good let's say on its own yeahyeah like Frankenstein that shittogether and put it into one thing nowit's pretty good would you would you saythat there's a lot of tracks that you'vemade that are like that oh yeah all thetimehell at times are like I'll find somesample or something I try to use it Itry to make a track out of it nothingever works so I'm say I fucked this it'snot gonna work then like four or fiveyears later I'll have another track I'mlike you know this needs something elseand then I'll go back and go through allmy old man I have like you don't evenknow like a whole library of chopped upsamples like the thousands broWow and then I'll just like keep likelistening to them after this one thisone's holy shitwhoa this is like already in tune orlike oh this like fits harmonicallysomehow or like this fits rhythmicallyor whatever if I my tune it right or ifI chop it yes suddenly becomes usefulthat's that's really tight and that's sosimilar to us to what I do it's it'skind of crazy how similar that is it'show do you keep track of those things Imean like you say you got like thousandsof stuff like Joey it's like I fell intothe program every time you samplesomething and you just like drag it intothe playlist or whatever it'll save itas a separate wav file and then that wavfile is named whatever your sample wasnamed and I'm like a fucking meticulousNazi motherfucker when it comes tolabeling music okay I'm super meticulousabout all of it's all catalogued andeverything so all that shit is just yeahboom right there you would think thatlike so back in the day right you had tolike sample directly from vinyl intoyour MPC or sp12 or whatever whateverbut now what I do I don't know I youcould do that but I just record thewhole record as a wave then I label itand I import it into FL to chop it up orwhatever okay so you have the whole thewhole song and then you have all yourother chops okay that's tight I don't Idon't record a sample on its own likeyou would have done back in MPC daysyeah yeah okay no that'd make that makesenseand and so then like the way that I dolike when I when I'm doing kind of thisthis whole Frankenstein process withlike dancing it's like I'll make a moveand I'll just write down how it startedhow it ends on a piece of paper and Isave that and you know I know that it'slike junk moves but I'll just you knowkind of go on with my life and then oncein a while I'll get I'll start makinganother thing and then I'll end up kindof in the same position and I'll go likeoh yeah let's look back at that movethat I used to do or like that I wasworking on back then and just try tolike Frankenstein it in into it becauseI know that mybody is in a similar position as it wasin that move so let's see if I can likesomehow put it together or like changesomething so that it fits together but Ihonestly don't have a really goodprocess of like remembering that otherthan just writing it down it's hardit sounds I'm way harder with whatyou're talking about it's I mean I knowa lot of people will record themselvesand sometimes I do that but that worksyeah but then you got a crap ton offootage that you gotta go I mean yougotta go back and actually like watchthat shit ya know but yeah I don't Idon't really have time for that so it'smore like I try to associate like a moodto it or like a some kind of feeling toit so then when I'm doing something itin that same feeling it triggers thatand I go oh yeah let me try these likecolors and shit you know my yellownotebook for like this kind of feelingthis is my green notebook whateverwhatever ya know I used to I used tocategorize stuff all the time like thatbecause if I had a move that I thoughtwould make it would be really good aslike an introduction to like a you knowsay like because when you break you kindof you're standing up and then you'll goon the ground I'll go like okay thismakes sense for one of those types ofmoves or like if another move whereyou're going from the ground andstanding up or a way to like end yourset or a way to start it or whateversomething in the middleI'll categorize it that way but theseFrankenstein type of moves like yousometimes lose track of them I man I gotso many notebooks of stuff that I lookat it and I go like oh manI kind of remember how to do this but Idon't remember how to do this so it'shard like I really that's where thefootage would come in handy yeah yeahyeah but I've never been good at likecategorizing like recording myself sobut ya know it's it's it's a process butIII honestly think that that processmakes some some gold sometimes you knowwhat I mean I mean I would say most ofthe stuff I've ever made what came fromthat process anyway and it was that's Ithink that's the only way to really doit I mean no one's gonna just shit out agolden egg right yeah yeahhave you ever shit out one golden egg onyou never works that way yeah it'salways just like months and months ofyou know try this just trial and erroryou know try this try that try this trythat maybe something will work what whoayeah so it's kind of like a playful wayof like creating stuff I mean at leastthat's how I approaches is like I'llplay I'll just play around withsomething and exactly I have a wild assidea just try it out you know andsomehow after like you know God knowsdozens of hours of work you just sitback in actually sounds good yeah yeahso it is is that how you know that atrack is done when you could sit backand go like oh pretty much yeah yeah andthen you're listening to the whole thinglike okay this thing is ready to getmixed like well I do the mixingthroughout the production I shouldn't dothat but I do that okay I think mixingfor me is it's not if I work okay but sothen yeah you sit back and you're likeokay this makes sense I can start youknow maybe mastering it or whatever yeahI can bounce this yeah okay that's tightno wow so yeah so is that you thinksometimes takes forever like sometimes Ihave a track like got a had in a backburner for years okayyeah man so like I I just you know thislast probably a year and a half orwhatever I started getting like moreinto music production and like literallyeverything I've ever made is that it'slike it's shit that I just saved I yeahyou know and I just will listen to itand go like okay hopefully somedaythis'll like turn into the dope I havean idea I like I want to make some kindof album someday but like and I kind ofhave an idea of what I want to do butall these tracks that I potentially wantto use there it's like they're probablyat like 25% to 50% of what I actuallywantedto be but I think it's on to somethingand so I've just been kind of like I'llplay it once in a while to just listento and go ok see if I have any goodideas with it but it's like they're alljust like unfinished projects in my mindso and I'm afraid that it never willbecome that and I never will put out analbum but I'm hoping that someday I doit but most of the stuff I do isn'tsample it's all it's all like acomposition yeah but like in terms ofthe instruments and shit what are youusing because they're all electronic orare you trying to get like realinstruments it's all electronic I have akeyboard over here it's an akai it's a61-key whatever whatever mpk yeah yeahand I have a smaller one too that I cantravel with sometimes take it when I'mtraveling or whatever just to like pullwhat about the voicing the voicing ofthe instruments it's all like yeah it'sit's all I'm trying to like find likegood samples of stuff to use that but Idon't know I honestly just compose somestuff and if the notes sound trying tosound like yeah that that that's hardbecause that's getting into like soundengineering and I'm not good at that atallyou know I got some friends that arebetter at it but it's like you know thatthat's my idea is to like take thecompositions I've made and then you knowsomeday come back and then really likework on the voicing of it because Ithink that's where the big gap is reallyin what I do so I don't know I'm curiousI'm trying to like understand like whoare you trying to sound like if you toldme a I'm trying to like emulate thisdude or you know kind of you know I'mnot trying to sound like anybody reallylike because I approach music kind oflike when I hear something that I like Igo why do I like that and then um soI'll try to like dig deep into like thesong is it is it's just this chordprogression that I really like is itthis instrument the way it's soundingyou know a lot of reallygone back into a lot of like old like90s rock music like Nirvananothing I'm like sure oh man I just lovethe way that they did the guitar work onthis or something and it's like so I'mlike basically when I see that I go okayhow do i how can I make that samefeeling myself and so just what I do isI really study the way they made thattrack and then I go okay this is thepart that I do like about it let me seehow I can make them I said like how Ican I can create like a feeling likethat but in terms of artists dudehonestly I love all sorts of artistsdude all types of music I mean it's notjust hip-hop music or whatever for me sothere's a lot of times I'll listen tolike a country song and I'll be like ohman the way this guy sings this likethis little this course or whatever I'llbe like man I love it and like you knowjust try to figure out why I love it somuch and then you know try to figure itout I don't know I can't really sing butit'd be dope if I could that's that'sone other thing but you know I don'tknow so so essentially every time I makelike a new track it's just it's a it's aconcept of trying to recreate a feelingthat I heard that I really liked so yeahliterally everything I make soundsdifferent I think I mean cuz I couldn'tpin a style to it you know I imaginethat's probably like how Kanye West orwhatever like approaches artists likehim they just have so many differentsounds that are like attached to themyou know what I mean or like who else issimilar to that Keith I was gonna saymaybeI mean maybe even Pink Floyd like it'slike it's hard to pinpoint like whatexactly their style is I think you knowI don't know but you get what I'm sayingoh you know who woulda Tyler the Creatorlike we don't listen to his I neverreally listened to too much and stuff Iknow uh just like a bit I liked hismusic is just kind of like it's I feellike he doesn't have his style is tokind of like have it open I think youknow in a way where it's it's hard topin something to it you know like howyou hear some guys is like okay theseguys do like trap style music orwhatever this is more like a low fighttype of style or whatever it's hard topin it to to those guys you know so umit's good to incorporate all kinds ofdifferent different styles in your shitfor sure yeah like I can give him evenme I'll throw in like drum and bass andshit like I can I can just tell thatwhen they were making the song it wasinspired by something kind ofoff-the-wall you know what I mean yeahyeah I mean shit look at even like De LaSoul or something or Called Quest's backin the early 90s so like you know hippierap yeah yeah it isyeah we're like you ever listen to likefucking brother Lynch or like AK someKool Keith it's like horror movie shityeah it is it's it's kind of crazy yeahthose guys yeah they're like yeah theytell some crazy stories yeah I meanengine but like a brother Lynch I justimagine him and his buddies sittingaround like you know like like okaywe're like gangster rappers but what'seven crazier than like killing peopleeating them yeah yeah dude yeah theythey go they go they take it a stepfurther for sureso actually so who would you say areyour favorite artists right now I meanobviously you're saying like what wereyou saying premiere no all right nowyeah I don't listen to too muchcontemporary music like I'm I'm too busystill digging like what came out in the90s I mean I feel like I'm never gonnabe done okay especially like hellaJapanese shit man like fucking Japaneseproducers from the nineties are so goodand they're really around - yeah it'slike just some random label that onlyput out like five or six records andthat was it and yeah you never heardanything from these fools again butDanna some good shit yeah but like whostill makes good music now like the onlycontemporary producers I can think ofare more like electronic not so much hiphop hip hop to me like like it'sprobably I don't know I sound like adickhead or something but like hip hopto me died like a long time ago likewhat comes out now is not hip hop to meit's like some other thing it's trappedit's whatever it is that it's somethingkind of yeah it's it's it's it's morphedinto something different I mean like II've always said that like hip hopnowadays it it's it looks so differentthan what it started out as but it kindof like follows this in the tradition ofhip hop in the sense that everygeneration of it has tried to dosomething different than the generationwhich I would say follows kind of thehip hop tradition you know of like we'renot biting nothing you know like we'remaking our own thing so like I Irefrained from saying it's not hip hopbut I do think it looks completelydifferent than what it used to be youknow what I mean we're in wearing like anew John or a sort of but exactly youknow it's now it's I feel like it's ifyou were to say hip hop is notnecessarily a genre it's like anumbrellagenres and so you got is trash style ofhip-hopyou got this like 90s style like agolden era type of style yeah you knownow there's like the loaf I shit andthen there's you know I don't know theold-school stuff you know but you knowwhatever the fuck they do like yeahrapper's delight' yeah that kind of shitso all that stuff sounds so differentand you can tell that there was like ageneration and then that influenced thenext generation and then the nextgeneration but between those generationsyou're like man do they really jumpedbetween them so I yeah I I don't likesaying it's not hip-hop but I don'tthink that it sounds anything like whatit isn't it what it used to be so to melike like like even the basic structurechanged a lot like now the beats perminute are super slow you knowbefore hip-hop was always like what 9385 to like 1 105 or something like thatand that was it and then now it's likefucking like 60 70 beats a minute andyou're like double time high hats allthe time yeah yeah it's you know whattrap music is so weird to me becauseit's like it almost has two tempos to ityou know what I mean it's half time it'shappened exact time yeah and so it'scool because when I listen to it I'mlike all right this is like some shitthat you're just like chilling too butthen also it's like oh this kind of getshyped though but I don't knowthat's why musically it's interesting tome and when I first heard it I was likeand this is some stupid shit but alittle bit it kind of grew on me in in aweird way so I don't know but yeah it'sit it's weird because like the hip-hopdance was breaking and a lot of newmusic yeah a lot of the music now youcan't really break to it now I mean itall just slowed down over the yeah yeahyeah I mean you can dance you can danceto it but doing like traditional breakstyle moves you can't really do due toit so it's it's a it's a weird subjectbecause it it is in the vein of hip-hopbut it's also like I mean for sure theybecome something different you knowbut yeah no I don't know I I dig it it'sthey're doing what they're doing youknow it I'm excited to see where it goesfrom there you know in like 20 yearslike what's gonna be happening peopleman fuck knows man I mean you couldn'tlike predict people say that shit'scyclical right and sometimes I see itlike even like I remember in the 90selectronic music or like the early 2000sas well it was all just a rehash ofdisco music like straight up it was justdisco music yeah yeah yeah and then nowlike not now but okay what like five sixten years ago you had like vapor waveand that shit became LM big and that wasjust a rehash of like later 80's discomusic and especially like the Japanesecity pop shit which is good I love cityyeah so like this is a there is acyclical aspect to it and especially inthese genres like hip hop and electronicmusic where you're sampling all the timereusing shitI think the cyclical nature of it ismore of the feeling or the the mood ofit you know what I mean because likedisco for instance it has this like kindof party like dance with you know theladies or whatever kind of feeling andthen like they kind of went to you knowto like like in house music in a way islike kind of the same sort of thing youknow it's got that same kind of mood toit or like you know I don't know reallyjust dripped down disco yeah it is theycame from the gay clubs in Chicago yeahwhat they were just like yeah it's juststrip it down and make it just pure forto the floor shit yeah yeah yeah butyeah it seems to me like people go oh Imissed that mood I missed that feelingand then now new artists are going likelet's try to recreate that mood withthis new shit that we got you know whatI mean yeah sure that's what I see withthe cyclical nature of it which I thinkit's tight but like I don't know likewhat trap is maybe from nothing maybeit's totally like a new thing but Idon't know where they got this idea tomake it like all half time to make thelike these like really staggeredsyncopated especially with the high hatsand snares yeah yeah I don't know whereI came fromI don't know where it came from eitherbut to me it seems like like maybedubstep kind of like influenced it alittle bit in the way that they do thesekind of drops and stuff like cuz whatabout music as well yeah yeah I meandubstep was always interesting to mebecause what would happen is like itwould do this crazy build-up and thenright when it drops it slows everythingdown it's kind of like the opposite ofwhat you were thinking was gonna happenyou know what I'm Sam like and it's likea traditional techno song it probablyjust start getting crazy you know what Imeanbut it's like you know the drop is likeyou know a transformer sound and it justkind of slows down the beat kind ofdisappears or in a way and I feel liketrap music took that same idea sort ofand then maybe extended it and made itmore of like a you know a rhythmic kindof wait I don't know but yeah it's it'san interesting style of music yeah but Icould see that there's pieces of otherstuff that are kind of in there I don'tknow I think honestly someone probablywas just messing around and then it just[Applause]caught on so I don't know who knowswhat's next yeah maybe a rehash of theof the 90s hopefully well you know whatactually to be honest low-five music isreally blowing up in the last likecouple years and I really think thatthat has huge influence from the 90s youknow what I mean yeah it does it's kindof like I would say that's like acontinuation of like the early 2000slike nujabes and Dilla those are likethe godfathers of this genre right yeahyeah yeah people often put my music inthat genre but I think it's like yeahnot quite butthe thing with like lo-fi music is yeahyou have that really low fire aspectright we're like the shit sounds likeit's actually mixed badly purpose yeahor like has this really like tapequality like where the fucking timeof the pitch you know of the sample orthe whole song even starts to go offright yeah so it sounds like this wobblylike riverboat you know yeah yeah Ithink it's specifically made to soundold and and I guess in a way that it itmakes it sound more nostalgic sort ofexactly which is why I'm going okay notthe 90s is when you would have beenlistening to something on a tape likethat and so it may it reminds me of thatand they got like kind of you know somelike chill like hip-hop beats orwhatever so but it it seems to me likeit's it's kind of some derivative ofthat style of music yeah you're probablyright[Music]so you said yeah you're not working onany new projects but you're just doingmore like DJing now yeah just diggingdigging for for other tracks to mix andlike setting up set lists and shit likethatokay are you gonna try to do any morelike DJ shows I mean now with fuckingnot yeah yeah actually you know what I'mcurious like I've been seeing like a lotof like DJs that are going on yeahvirtual social media and they're doingjust mixes and stuff and like I thoughtabout doing that I would need to buy acamera but yeah I thought about that Imean yeah I could do that ya know thatthat'd be tight no I think there's onedude from Japan DJ Coco have you seenthis fool no he's crazy man he'sincredible like he only uses 45s okayand and nothing else apparently andthe dude is just incredible his mixingskill his like you know blending his hisselection is just bananas I'm thinkinglike this motherfucker must sit all daytill I come up with these these sets youknow he's got to live that life I meanyeah he's nuts man check him out he'slike incredible sick Coco against KOC ohyeah what is he on YouTube or where canI find him on Instagram Instagram okayyeah that's where I see a lot of peopledoing it he's crazy man he's got likethis one like fuckin like he's blind inone eye so like you just like see thisfool doing it likes one eyes like oldwhite looking in the other direction butlike his hands and everything is so fastoh shit and so this is he does he does alot of mixing does view a lot ofscratching or yeah a bit not so much manscratching like that's one thing Ireally like kind of em I mean it's nottotally dead but almost like right youwanna go I don't hear anybody reallyscratch anymore which sucks because theydo it I mean they sweeping it in and ofitself it's become like just like anovelty like you'll go on Instagram andyou'll find like twelve-year-old girlsthat'll out scratch like the DMCchampion straight up but no oneincorporates it into their music anymoreback in the day you would have had somesome scratch hook like the you know DJpremier the 7/3 whatever but now yeah Idon't know yeah no I I definitely missedthat I remember I used to try to scratchit it's like it's a art form in itselfdude yeah for sure I loved watchingthose old bat those like battleswhat is it championships with likeGooglers yeah because it's like dudethis shit is crazy I remember they usedto throw a few shows like in Sacramentowhen I was a kid of like the same kindof thing like they would just bring someDJs in and do it and I was like god damnthis is crazy and it was all like beforelike cerrado and stuff and so yeah yeahjust like you you couldn't just tap abutton and be like okay here we go likeyou know what I mean I can know wherethat shit is on you you see guys withlike they'd stack their records all onthis on the thing so that they can likemix it and they throw that one off inand they keep going I was like dude thisis crazy the process is so it's so crazyI just haven't thought out like yeah youjust planned that shit like practicepractice practice practice practice andthen you got your nice little yeah doyou think you can do any kind ofscratching like that I know you do somescratching but I scratch but I'm backdude nowhere near the level of anythingyeah do you ever try to do that that'slike I never tried to do any like crazyshit like you oldies like crab into theflare into this no no I was always justlike how do I make scratching into partof my productions okay okay like that'swhat I always wanted to do okay like inthe beginning when I first started likeback in college like in Davis yeah likein oh three or something yeah you wouldbe DJing the parties I think that's howI met because you were DJing and thenyou started scratching or some shit andI was kind of like oh this motherfuckerknows what's up cuz like most DJ's likewouldn't do that but I was like oh thisfool has some technique and I thinkthat's why I started talking to youmaybe we're like are you like playingsomething that like some off-the-walllike kind of music and I was like yothis dude was digging for this like it'snot just some fucking Nelly song orwhatever you know yeah I always did tryto do that yeah but yeah that's how Istarted out with DJing parties and shitin Davis and then I also like I waslearning how to scratch but then likesuper quickly I just went you know whatI just want to make my own shit I'm notinterested too much now I'm getting backinto the DJing shit but likelike as soon as I shift it intoproduction that's all I wanted to doyeah so it was like okay like such asfor production I just need to knowsomething so okay I kind of just yeahyeah that's dope so you used outs rightwhen you started producingmaybe oh six oh seven okay yeah that'sprobably when I first heard your musicactually yeah I don't know probably yaknow trying to remember cuz it was likeAnnie I don't you I think probablythrough Andrews yeah I think it wasthrough auntwell I know I think I met you Adam oneof his parties and you were DJ ah likeyuanbao I think we're DJing or somethingah I was probably the Halloween party wethrew no I don't know you before thatyeah maybe I don't know yeah that was along time ago but yeah I I definitelyremember you know what I probably metyou before that but I didn't know youwere DJing but I I really I remember amoment when I was at one of thoseparties and I like heard the DJ justplay something crazy and I was like holyshit dude who's DJing this shit is dopeand then I looked over to wherever youwere and I was like oh shit I know thisdude and I think I talked to you and Iwas like bro you know what's up like youknow what I mean like I had an immediaterealisation that it wasn't some fuckingjust regular ass person just DJing youknow what I mean it wasn't you know wellanyways dude we're hitting about an hourright now so we should probably closethis show out soon do you have where canpeople find you yeah any fucking musicplatform Spotify turns title band campYouTube whatever whatever youtube soit's DJ fiction pH IX IO n is that rightyep yep like we were talking before likewhat were you sayingI picked that name because I wanted aname I could scratch yeah you know Icouldn't make up I couldn't use my ownname I couldn't make up some other nameotherwise I would never be able to findsomething saying it but Iname like shit let me find fucking youknow whoever jaew the damager you knowFat Joe or somebody saying that shitthat could be fiction you know ya knowthat's some old-school shit for sureit's like a lot of people used to dosomething like that because you can findyou can find a record or whatever thatsays that word exactly yeah I know Ineed someone that went by chemical orwhatever there you go same kind ofvalues I just used Serato I mean youcould just have your home where you'llrecord whatever yeah now it's a loteasier you couldn't just do a littleMike shout-out or whatever you needed tolike find a record that you can actuallylike scratch or whatever now it's Seratoyou can kind of do whatever the hell youwant which is which is tight I think itmakes for some I mean shit I haveSerrano right here so what the fuck am Iyou know I don't change Serato at all Ithink it's it's not pushed it's pushedthe world of like music production intolike its realms it could have never goneto so I really like that you know itallows like the I think it extended thelife of turntablism you know what I meanfor sure for sure man you know regulartechniques 1200 you know whatever thatcould have been man it wasn't for Seratoyeah people were just using controllersand CDJs forever yep yep yeah exactlyand so you know it allowed like italmost aloud like turntablism to go moreinto like a mainstream in in a way Ithink I mean not that it wasn'tmainstream in the 90s but it was a sortof dying out out a little bit you knowso but yeah I would save I can't buy theearly 2000s I meanwas I mean still had like fools likeBabu and shit like thatmm that's true battle records yeah withall the steel ones super seal that'sdope so everybody check him outDJ fiction cinema deck it's a reallydope album there's like what 15 tracks16 tracks something like that no is itme okayokay yeah yeah really dope I've beentrying to play I think my phone turnedthe music off but I'll make sure I put aplaylist on this whole podcast so youguys can check that out thanks for beingon dudethis was great thank you amazing manhopefully I'll get this out this podcastout pretty soondope hey thanks for listening guys peace[Music][Music][Music]
Illjaz of the Ruffn'x crew talks about the European breaking scene, coming to America, and various other important topics in breaking.A broke degenerate hooligan documents conversations about being a Bboy, Breakin', Hip Hop, Dance, Art, Music, Creativity, Innovation, and the slow subtle crumble of society in audio form.Follow @Instagram: noiseofthebrokeboysTwitter: BrokeBoysNoiseListen to the Audio on all Podcast platforms. All The Links Here:https://linktr.ee/NoiseOfTheBrokeBoys----more----[Music]this episode of noise of the broke boysis brought to you by math are you anintellectual because you can solve amath problem posted on social mediausing the correct order of operationsyou operate on a higher plane ofintelligence because you recognize thatalgebra is the mathematicalrepresentation of knowing how many boxesof tissues you can buy for five dollarsafter losing that dance competitioncongratulations you are officially aconnoisseur of fifth grade mathematicsand well on your way to mastering sixthgrade mathematics however if this isn'tyoudon't fret I'm excited to announce toall my listeners that math does not needto be a burden on your life it is asubject that not only has immensepracticality but it will also help traincritical thinking and strengthen yourlogic based argumentative skills pleaseconsult a local library or onlineresource for further information on howmath can change your life and now ontothe show[Music]in this episode I talk with a b-boy whohas significant experience in both theEuropean and American breaking scenesthis guy really puts me on game aboutlife as a dancer in Europe in the early90s I had a great time learning abouthis history and picking his brain aboutvarious topics please enjoy the episodewith ill jazz or Elyas of the Roughneckshello everybody welcome to the disastershow that I just fucked up Dana pressrecord so here we are hopefully I cansalvage something from what we recordedwith my boy ill jazzhe's from Switzerland we are talkingabout break dancing and you know how Idon't know how to record podcast so okhow long have you been dancing oh I so Istarted dancing with my younger brotherhe's one and a half year younger than meand we started in 9899 okay and it was agood time I'm happy we started still inthe nineties yeah and before that weplayed soccer we did inline skating likehalfpipe and everything and then we tieand then one day we we saw like the RunDMC it's like that music you know andthat was like dope and shit you know butwhen when to use scented they have ahalfpipe and we went with the inlineskates yeah and then we look insidethere was a zombie voice you knowunderneath no it was a halfpipe andthere was a building right next to it ohand there were windows and I looked inthe windows and then I want I needed togo to the bathroom I go inside and I seesomebody doing 90 oh I didn't know what90 is you know and that was a shit Iwant to learn that you know and thensince then we threw out the inlineskates and we started breaking and sohow old were you I was 15 15 that'sprobably about when I startto us and 14 or 15 em and I had noflexibility because of Socratic likeXena almost like I was pretty flexiblewhen I started because I did Taekwondofor a long time and so we would you knowyou'd have to kick really high and stuffso I was kind of flexible from that butI used to skateboard actually um so Iknew about half pipes and stuff I had alot of friends that did inline skatingand so we would go to those lots ofskate parks and I wish I had beenbraking at that time cuz I totally wouldhave done windmills on it because it wasjust so smooth yeah I didn't break Iquit I kind of quit skating to breakyeah because it was waiting let's I justfelt like skating was so dangerousno it's I saw so many people just falland break the wrists my cousin broke hiswrist actually but I had another friendwho broke his ankle and they were doinglike you know shitty tricks yeah youknow kickflip and they like mob and it'slike if you did a windmill and brokeyour arm like you know what I mean it'sjust the generic you know beginner tricksort of like the sport and you justbreak you know I I started with skatingfirst actually yeah and then I went tothe mini ramp and I went there theskateboard stayed thereoh do back oh yeah I tried I triedinline skating I picked it up prettyeasily actually but I just never was toointo it um I was just more intoskateboarding yeah but I had somefriends they would like you know jump upand grind on stairs they showed me howto do that so I learned kind of some todo that stuff man like 10 years after Ihaven't done anything on the inlineskates mm-hmm I stand on the halfpipe Icouldn't go down it's scary yeah I waslike man how did I do that yeahyou know what I mean yeah no shit we'renot yeah when I was in she wouldn't Iwas skating I think I started when I wasprobably like 11 and I went tillprobably 15 or 16 maybe and yeah I usedto go on half pipes and stuff and now Ilook at him like holy yeah and it wouldgo off like stairs and stuff and go ontorails and I'm like what the heck how didI even do this I mean I wasn't reallygood at it or anything but I just I feellike I was maybe less fearless yeahyeah now yeah yeah back then we just didit man yeah I remember when I started alittle bit braking and still a littlebit in Nice skatinghey they have like this ramp going downand then this little island yeah I flewyou know I started breaking I had somuch energy and different I flew overthat thing and I landed like two metersaway from it you know and that was likeshit whatever I gotta do I just roll thereally coin drop and then you know whatbraking has saved my life a couple timesgood yeah there was times when I wentsnowboarding and you just you're goingso fast down a hill and you just hitlike something and you just eat shit andI'm like you know I probably should havebeen wearing a helmet but I wasn't andit's just like woop and then for somereason it kicks in I'm like oh I knowhow to like land and I'll do a coin dropor something in like you know so my headdoesn't get hit and you know I kind ofrollers or whatever to roll out and thenI stand up and people are like I gotsomething from cats yeah cuz I mean in away braking is just like falling butshowing off at the same time sort ofsmooth so it's like you got you you gotgood at jumping on the ground yeahbut fun fact is when we started breakingwe thought it's a sport oh you did yeahlike so we yeah before we startedbreaking with inline skates we welistened we discovered to puck and weknew that hip-hop and Cypress Hill yeahyou know to pass episode exhibit NWA alittle bit you know so all that madetheir way to but I thought this iship-hop yeah yeah in the nineties men welistened all the golden era yeah and wethought that's hip-hop but we didn'tknow aboutwe knew graffitis somehow mixed withhip-hop you know DJs they have therappers have a DJ you know but we didn'tknow breaking is part of hip-hop youknow but when we started we learn allthe four elements and yeah knowledge theculture and everything you know yeahyeah but first we we did it because welike this sport yeah yeah yeah I meanit's it's definitely cool and I firstsaw I mean I I don't know when I firstsaw I think I first saw it when I usedto watch pro wrestling and there was agroup - cool and the one guy his specialmove was he would just throw you on theground and then he would just dancearound you and then do the worm she allthe way across the ring and then justwhoo and like elbow using the base I wasin probably in middle school I wasprobably maybe 12 years old when I firstsaw that so I thought breakdancing waswrestling that's crazy but so yeah butmaybe because we stop breaking in onlymusic videos you know back then you knowand it was all kinds of music it wasn'tonly like hip-hop music yes like housemusic dance music you know techno youwere always saw a b-boy somewhere youknow yeah so we didn't connect it withhip-hop yeah I think in the 90s that waswhen house music started really likecolliding a lot with with hip-hop yeahyeah yeahbut yes so I'm interested in like howhip-hop looks in Europe compared to herecuz just like I've seen hip-hop as Igrew up here and I imagine it's waydifferent in Europe because like herehip-hop was always associated with likegangs and like you know people mischiefcausers he's done you know I mean I meanI don't know there is two ways ofhip-hop like people that are passive andthere are people that are active youknow they like back in the 90s hip-hopin Europe was like you're not hip-hop ifyou're not in an element you know if youbeatbox you okay you when it's not likereally official apart or of hip-hop butyou're still hip-hop you know okay butif you break or beatbox or MC or DJ orgraffiti you you part of hip-hop andthen there is other people they justfriends and they hang out with and theydress a pup listen hip up and whateverbut they're not active you know okaythat's how you us okay I guess it's kindof like that now yeah yeah I know butmore back in the day it was like yougotta be super down like b-boy was yourlife you know you you lived that lifeyeah we used to go like to Germany youknow like 16 I told our parents thatwe're gonna go to a friend we're gonnapractice and then stay over there but wewent like 500 that's the way you know wetrain and we go to a different city toJohnny go to hm next day practice andthen come back yeah you know it wasn'tgood timing yeah like when we went firsttime bad luck year 19 2000 or 2001 wetrain it was like five six hours away wetrain and then you go to the Battle ofyear cipher everything and eventeverything and then you go the event isover after party is over and then youhave to wait for the Train the firsttrain that starts going back home yousee like a hundred of b-boys at thetrain station just inside for practicechilling some people sleeping in thecorner starting practicing andexchanging you know people like peoplesfrom France Germany Holland SwitzerlandItaly you know you connect you knowexchange and practice that's cool and itwasn't backed and it wasn't like reallya cypher and or calling out somebody butit was more of a circlesomebody practiced something you knowand you go there and exchange and hey dothis like this or ain't look try likethat look I do something similar youknow so was it like a pretty friendlyscene in Europe in terms of like becausebecause what I'm used to is like I'vecome from Sacramento in you know we justget all jump in a car and we'd go to theother city to do a jam or something andeverybody calls us out because it's likehey you're in our neighborhood and wewould just get battled so that's niceman it's like it was almost I mean itwas definitely less friendly now it's alot more friendly I can come you knowlike me moving to LA if I had done thatwhen I first started breaking I probablywould have got battled for like a solidyou know three or four months and peoplewere like okay I think this guy's coolyou know cuz dude the first time I thinkI went to a practice in Sacramento likeI was in high school and like we justshow up and they're like who are thesethere's me and my brother that we justshow up and they're like who are thesetwo kids and we like couldn't even do doanything really like my brother could doin vert and like I think I don't knowwhat I could do like a head slide andfreeze or something and that's like ouronly moves I guess we seriously we'rebreaking for maybe like six months andit's like the whole like room is apsycho fuck these comments we on thetitle you know and then I think you knowafter you battle a couple times thenthey realize okaytrying to cause harm or like because thething was that everyone was scared thatyou're gonna like bite their moves stealtheir yeah so it was like you knowthey're automatically sort of hostile toyou but imagine you guys would havestopped dancing because of that you knowyeah what's up it wouldn't ya know Imean yeah there was a lot of reasons tostop I mean for sure but it but it's itwas all the way it makes you strongeryou know to not give up and you stay onit you know motivate you maybe you knowI just yeah it was just I had to learnwhat the scene was like you know whatwhat was acceptable in the scene and gowith that you know like well I think Iremember I told this in another podcastbut I remember we brought this thisshitty camera because me and my brotherused to we used to make a lot of homevideos we used to make like skits wewere really into MADtv do you rememberMADtv it's like Saturday Night Live'sokay so we used to make all these stupidskits and stuff so we had our parentsgot us this like really crappy videocamera so we can make all these stupidskits just for fun and then we broughtit to go practice cuz we were just gonnafilm ourselves and stuff and then peopleare like what are you doing with thiscase you get beat up for like bringing acamera to practice and stuff because youknow because they automatically thinkyou're filming these guys to take theirmoves on amou say yeah we learned realquick don't bring the camera therewe brought the camera yeah very early inour training you know to see what theydo wrong because we were the youngesttoo and there were all the generationyou might know buzzer City attack ohthat's the older generation they battledrock four screw in the 90syeah so control so Cujo and there wasthe older generation and we look up tothem and but we didn't get like help youknow so oh we got this ourself you knowhe was looking me and I was looking himand then we see the older generation andwhat what's the difference between himand you you knowyeah that's how we learn you know thenbring the camera and see what we dowrong yeah that's how we stop we werethe youngest and our first battle wasalso about a six month in her making inthe first round we won against all theguys yeah keep going you know you'regood we're goodthat next round we battle younger guysthe nose and the smoker so yeah thenyeah and then it's like man we need topractice was a good wake-up call andthen we from then on we startedpracticing every day you know some dayseight hours yeah our parents didn'tbelieve that we we practice eight hoursthey thought we're doing somethingcriminal you know yeah exactlywe would do kind of the same thing canyou practice eight hours yeah but it'sjust like you get totally immersed intothat that world and you just wanna youhave a focus to get better I thinkeventually my parents realize we're notdoing anything bad yeah like and theysaw us getting better at it so it's likeoh they're obviously like practicingthis so yeah like all right whatever andwe we also stole my parents camera youknow you didn't have their camera andthey used it only for a special whenfamily came to visit us you know so wejust took it and then practice and thensometimes they would see the tape youknow we just buy a new tape put it inand then record yeah take the tape outso they see but we were like crazyaddicted to practice man yeah not evenjust battling just practice you know tolearn the move to yeah you know we werethere first and we left there the lastyou know people were coming and goingand we're still there yeah yeah yeah Imean I was the same way just alwayspracticing always practicing definitelythat's like my favorite part notbreaking for sure is just like gettinggetting down playing like your favoritemusic and just practicing coming up withsome new movies training some new stufftraining old stuff you know it's that'sthat I feel like that's where the realcreativity comes in when you're outbattling whenperforming and stuff it's just kind ofshowing off you do what you know yeahyou're just I think if you practicedwell and then it's the performance inthe battle is gonna go it's gonna gowell because you did you did thehomework but the the real work is reallywhen you're practicing and trying tofigure no you know how I prepares forbattlesI never prepared full set oh no like Inever practiced full sets in practiceyeah because then if I'm gonna just dothe same solar what I did in practiceit's gonna be boring it's not gonna havethat fire feeling whatever you know so Ialways put like practice only half setokay yeah and then practice I do onlyhave sets and then I maybe just add somepower moves just to so I have thecondition the cardio but in the battle Iwould mix my small set together you knowlike I put three sets in one yeah sothen you know so it's always new it'salways fresh and you can alwaysimprovise it freestyle it and yeah youknow depends of the music moment andeverything you know I used to make fullsets and it just got really boring to meto do that so what I started doinginstead is practicing those full setsand then when I go to battleI just don't think about them I justtotally try to just focus on you knowthe battle focus on the music focus onmy opponent and just let it happen and Iyou know I practice a lot of freestylingtoo so it's like I know that thematerial I have this you know the set ofmoves I put together I know that it'sgood and if I don't do it perfectly Iknow how to freestyle out of it and soon it gives me confidence to just go outthere and basically with a clear mindand just let it happen and I think thatthat's a way better way of breaking yesbefore I would go out and go okay I needa pre-plan everything and it distancesyou from everything from the moment fromthe music from the battle DJand it's just I don't think that's agood way to do it yeah I but I wasalways trying to figure out a good wayto mix you know because there's a lot ofcreativity in the combinations that youput together that you pre-plan I alwayswanted to be able to still showcase thatbut I don't want it to look sodisjointed yeah and so the yeah the waythat I figured out how to do that is tojust make some sets and be content withnot doing that and by practicing them somany times and then you just kind offorget itit just kind of happens or like piece ofmemory and yeah it's almost exactly it'slike I mean like with martial arts a lotof times you'll train like a combinationlike a kick punch combination you knowhit hit to the body hit to the head orwhatever and you train that so manytimes going you actually are fightingyou might not do the full combinationyou'll do like one two part of it youmight do it twice in a row you mightlink this combination to that one justbecause you see the opportunities andyou you have to improvise you improviseto make it happen and so I I took a lotfrom thatyeah very good yeah and so since I'vestarted doing that I feel like it'shelped me a lot but then for example Iwanted to say some bash beam for examplethat meets in German for example when westarted performing like performancesshows right it's a much easier than forus right so because then we prepare asolo for the show to the music you knowso you can be much more confidence in aperformance yeah yeah yeah because weare if you think about it in a battleyou are in so many uncomfortable yesinaudible but somehow you practice to becomfortable you know and in aperformance you're fully comfortable youknow yeah so you can shine much easier Ihope if you go like to a quarry yourworld people struggle and are nervousyou know yeah I never understood in thebeginning why are you guys nervous manwe've been practicing this I don't knowhow long yeahyou know I think it's just because thereyou're in front of a bunch of people youdon't know and you're like you knowyou're out in front of everybody andjust doing what you want to do andthere's a little bit of fear that theymight not like what you're doing but youjust gotta go man who caresyou really care yeah you have to do yourthing with you just got it you cannotchange it anymore you know what yeah init and really at the end of the day ifthat whole crowd says you suck like doyou really care yeah yeah it probablystings a little bit but then you go likemen I don't give a fuck about these yeahthat's the best thing when you dosomething you love you know yes I'mbetter because what other people thinkyou know what I mean yeah I I take thesame approach with like judges too youknow like when you're actually battlingand the judges vote against you or votefor you really like really I look at itas they're just they're they're a crowdmember and they're just saying you thattheir opinion of you was either you wantor you lost but I I really think that ifyou enjoy what you did then youshouldn't really worry too much aboutthat I mean you could obviously like tolisten to what they have to say becausethey might have some insight intosomething you maybe didn't know aboutyour own dancing um and that's alwaysgood to do but at the end of the day ifyou enjoy what you do I don't think youshould let anything holding me hold youback so like the way the way I alwaysput it was like if my mom was a judgeand she was like you suck I'd probablybe like okay maybe I gotta practice welllike if some random dude that I don'teven know it's like oh I thought youlost and I honestly thought I won I'd belike okay well whatever you don'tyeah it's mean was totally different inthe beginning you know I when I wasyoung I was getting mad when I left thejudges men you have no idea and but thatcomes with maturity you know if you loseand you take it easyyeah but yeah yeah I would get mad tooeventually you get to the point whereit's like win or lose it doesn't reallymatter that much like cuz again it'sjust three people three or five peopleyou know judging on this thing and theyjust said you want are you lostI mean I'm one battle is that I thoughtI lost and I was like I want I rememberI there's a couple of them where I waslike dude I walked to the judges I waslike dude you got this wrong and I gavemy prize money to the other guy cuz Iwas like dude I didn't win and I'm notjust cuz these dudes say that I wantthat's correct I'm not gonna keep themoney because I thought you you knowthis dude one or this crew one so I justgave it to them there I've done thatlike a couple times that I can think ofprobably two or three times it's crazyman but it's just cuz you know I don'tbreak to like make to get money oranything it's like I just want I justwant to do it and I like battling butthe competition part of it I don'treally care that much about it it's it'sfun to win but I don't like I don't likewinning when I don't think I'm that'scrazy man that you gave money you know Inever heard that beforeI mean I know people and I used to beone of those yes I needed to win moneyto pay rent and yeah you know what Imean so because I didn't do performancesie back in the days I battles was moreimportant to me than performances youknow K so and I needed to win thatbattle too yeah you know to pay somestuff up and then years later I judgedcompetition and in the final I judge andagainst one guy and he told man yeah youknow it came to me like what okay Iunderstand but man I need the money manI need to pay bills and there was I saidman I was to say like you you can neverrely on winning palace to pay yourperson I thinkyeah I I I mean there was times when Iwas I could be I could have been in thatsituation but I was like what I need todo is actually cook his job so I got ajob instead of like I mean there'd betimes where I I needed some quick moneyor something and so we would go and dosome street shows and stuff so that wasgood to kind of and that's always beenmy back-up plan in a way if like youknow the world blew up or something andI don't have any moneyI'd go do a street show I know that I'dsurvive for at least one day yeah cuz Icould do I could at least do somewindmills and someone might give me alike but ya know I was always like okayI need to just go get a job to actuallypay ya there's been times when I neededto win again but I I really hated theidea of like needing to win - yeah andand well and also - I was always scaredof the idea that you know I might bewinning and don't deserve the win and soI was it always made me feel like crapto even think of that situation in thismoment I with the time I learned tounderstand that you know it's in soccerfor example you take the ball and put itin the net that's a goal that's a pointyeah but in art it's hard to to give apoint here or here you know it's anopinion if those charges think you wantyou know it's it's their opinion evenyou did maybe just a baby freeze and theguy did the baby freeze - 90 baby freezeyou know and they liked your form bitbetter maybe you know yeah so it's it'shard to judge art you know it's veryhard so that's my yeah that thatactually is a good segue to a question Ihave because now breaking is becomingkind of more of a mainstream sporteventually getting into the Olympics yousee like big sponsored events andstuff and my fear is that we are doingthis but don't have a solid way ofjudging it because it is an art and youknow I think the way that we've alwaysjudged it makes sense for the smallcommunity that we have as b-boys butlike when it comes to the mainstreamstage where there's like lots of moneylots of sponsors involved if you thinkabout white yea H and you know comparingit to you know soccer for instance orlike basketball or any kind of sportthat's on a huge main main stage that Idon't think the judging system we haveright now is is gonna cut it becausewhat's gonna happen is a sponsor isgonna look at it and be like ok why didthis guy win over that guy and you go ohbecause these three judges said so okaywell what exactly made them say that youknow he's got you know 50 years in thegame and he thought that his backspinwas better than this guy's windmill andthen the sponsors gonna be like no thatdoesn't make any senseI'm out look for me it's how I comparedhow I compared breaking to mix martialarts right you remember mixed martialarts in the beginning yeah nineties itwas like a karate guy versus of wrestleryeah jujitsu guy was kickboxer you knowthere was like we had Shawn versus likeyeah and that is a Wild West that'sbreaking I would say most of the timethat's that's it right because there isall right now but it's been four yearsthat you have a guy that does more likefoundation style or a guy that does moreblow up style or a Power Move guy or mixguy you know but a complete mixedmartial artist is somebody that can dolike kickboxing wrestling jujitsu takeone toe karate whatever you know andthat should be with be born into menlike if you want to be an Olympicchampion you cannot justroll around and do Foundation and thefries and that's it you cannot beOlympic champion with only that you haveto have all the elements you know inbreaking and you have to put it on alevel you know so everybody understandsotherwise it's gonna be like you saidyou know people will not understand ityou know yeah I think with mixed martialarts it's a good example of this becauseyeah back in the day it was just thesestyles versus each other and eventuallyit evolved people were seeing thatcertain styles were just dominatingevery everything and so then it evolvedto where now the fighter isn't just thisone style he takes a little piece ofthis other style and it makes thembetter but and so like eventually yousaw everybody now doing that same thingall taking out different pieces of it sonow you see guys that I mean basicallyand I'm not like a an authority on thisor anything but like in general likeusually a good fighter would have somegood striking some good grappling andsome good crown stuff and so and thatwould make them somewhat effectiveagainst anybody and that's what that'sthe type that's a style that flew to youknow to the to the top of it mixedmartial arts in I mean Zee right let'stake Conor McGregor right he's astand-up guyyeah southpaw very effective yeah but hehad to learn takedown defense grapplingyou know he had to learn because youguys would do that yeah you know he'sgot to but now or maybe the last coupleyearsthere is people like young people theycome up with the full game they don'tstart they don't come from karate orfrom rest oh yeah they come and traineverything right away there is MMA gymsand like from 2:00 to 3:00 it'swrestling from 5:00 to 6:00 iskickboxing from 7:00 to 8:00 is MuayThai and then jujitsu from 9:00 to 10:00you know and they train all at the sametime so it's a complete fighter thatshould be with be going man yeah seelike a standard that would be a standardwith mixed martial artsI see how it makes sensedo it because it's the most effectiveway of fighting and like having thisbroad range of ability to combat againstall these different things it makessense for fighting but like withbreaking I think there's an argument tobe made that you're not you're notnecessarily you know the the the full Iguess how do you say maybe like fullpackage of b-boy one who has like everysingle Power Move every single likefootwork move every single whatever Ithink there's an argument to be madethat somebody who maybe doesn't do thatbut has a strong certain part of youknow one of those styles and can beeffective against them because there's alot of creativity and artistry thatcomes in with it and that's what you'rereally being that that's what you'rethat's that's the main way of I guesswinning a battle I guess is what I'msaying like cuz in fighting you getpunched in the face and you get knockedout or you get yes submitted you lose sothe best way to get to that is to beable to defend against it and go andattack that way right but in breakingthere's not like there's not a there'snot like a I guess a relation tofighting in that way because you don'tnecessarily need to do a specific powermove or whatever to win a battle orwhatever yeah I mean we don't have to do5-1 and our flare so yeah and 90s youknow but at least have some basic powermoves you know because that part ofbreaking you know if people say if youdon't do food work you know the b-boyhey if you don't do windmill backspinhead spin thank you another b-boy - yeahthey were here before cc's you know whatI mean but I know what you mean withlike artistry and just own style youknow and everythingMaina for example yeah you know so yeahyeah like Meno for instance he's does alot of like footwork and flowy type ofminutes not a lot of powernot a lot of top rods not a lot of Imean that's kind of really the onlystudy he doesn't do a lot of freezeseither and then compared to let me picksomebody someone who's missing one finalhuh let's bc one final did you see thatwho was in kazakhstan guy Ohk2 lost something khailayes yeah yeah that guy is really goodyou know you know I could see how it wasclose I think actually men will probablythought he lost too and that's why Icalled him out four more rounds um Imean I thought it was pretty close if Iwas a judge I probably would have votedKilla koyla me to it you know I'm notjudging because I personally justthought that he he had brought more tothe table and had unique style hesuppresses doing was a lot of uniquefreezes and stuff and he came out everywrong with some new stuff easily youknow yeah he's a pretty well-roundedb-boy but I would say he still airs onyou know more of like a thread type ofstyle and um like a freeze type of styleI'm trying to think of a b-boy thatwould be like very very well-rounded andthat's it like um he's better soon hehas power I think which flips yes theless food work yeah okay so let's gowith him yeah so him versus menace sosomeone who's well rounded versussomeone who's very specialized I couldsee how it could go either way with thatto those and that's also one round hedepends what round but you know let'slet's say they both throw their likedopest around though rightyou know Meno does some crazy likeloop-d-loopspin around thing one mean the flowingwaves yeah and it's a really dope roundin their little zoo duck comes outdoesn't flip does power moves us somefreezes does some footwork hits a solidroundI think there's an argument to be madethat either one of them would have wonyou know it's awesome depends on themusic but I think this was mixed martialarts he probably would have been like ohthe new well-rounded guy would win youknow but you know such distancesometimes in MMA you know and thenjudges take it yeah decided wrong but Iguess I guess if you in mixed martialarts if you had a guy who's very good atmultiple styles versus one guy who'smaybe just good at let's say kickboxingyeah you know I mean this is a hard topredict example or anything but I wouldsay you probably would put your money onthe guy who's more well-rounded justbecause he can like attack from multipleanglesright and he could get this got theother guy into a situation that that guycannot defend in whereas the other guyis banking on being able to like keephim in his in his world where he's thebest right whereas in breaking I feellike the guy who's very specialized hecan still like blow you up the samething that the gut the guy who is verywell-rounded can still blow you up andso the the moves are just as effectivein a way you know what I mean and thestrategy is a little bit differentbecause this guy doesn't need to keepyou in his pocket anymore he just needsto perform and kill it right and thisguy needs to do basically the same thingkeep it in his pocket and do what he'sgood at you know visually better yeahthat's been important but yeah what'sgonna make it look visually better isthe music you know the music I thinkthat's breaking what plays a big factorthat's the biggest compared to MMA ohyeah yeah really breaking is hard toobut compared to any I think it's theclosest thing sports wise to comparebreaking with MMA I would say a decisionyou cannot compare with soccer orfootball there's not really a goodthere's a sport I can think of thateveryone compares to the things that Ithink make the most senseis somewhere between mixed martial artsand skateboarding or like something likethat there's a sports 3 the reason I saylike sporting because in a lot of thathas to do with like they'll they'll makeup a trick knee and go like this is whatI'm gonna do it's like yeah it's it'sjust like making up your own breakingyeah you know but then skateboardingkind of it doesn't quite match upbecause then you see okayhe's he says oh I'm gonna do thistricking and they judge you on how wellyou hit that trick but in breakingyou're not telling any judge what you'regonna do you're gonna surprise them andprobably surprise them with the movethat they've never seen beforeyeah and so you have this surprisefactor too so it's really hard to youknow nowadays I I miss the exchangesometimes in battles you know yeah yeahback in the days when I talked to stormyou know they they would do like andthat's how I grew up you know mm-hmm Iconsider him the only master linebreaking it I never took his class orsomething but I took his locking classyeah but I I learned from him just bylistening you know okay andconversations with him yeah I justremember him you do like a six-step youcan go like no you try like Big Brotherand T you can learn so much and I canlisten for days to him you know yeahwhen he talks III don't talk man I justlisten and then I ask something you knowbut how I grew up with bounces exchangeyou know for example he tells me like hehas somebody do flare windmill babyfreeze and then he goes footwork andthen ends it nice you know I have to gothere and I have to do flare windowflare windmill turtle and then go in afreeze and then go up and you know whatI did better and then he has to come andbring it never that's how we yeah youknow a burden that's like exchange youknow ace yeahyeah on the podcast like a couple weeksago a couple of months ago actually umhe and he told me a story about when hehe doesn't call it battle but I wouldsay it probably was a battle between himand storm mm-hmm when storm was visitingand I guess they just went they you knowbattle like 30-something rounds orwhatever and it was like that they werejust exchanging like they would just oneup each other each time and it wasn'tlike they weren't you know you knowtalking smack to each other it was theywere respecting each other and he wouldbe like oh that was dope let me show youthat I can do now did it do to do andhe'd go oh that's cool too and then thisis how I would do that boom and so theyjust went back and forth for 30 roundsit may seem I mean that's that's crazybut it's also like back then it was likepractice you know yeah each other youexchange and you know but when youbattle inside for like ladies generationyeah and when the people start talkingwhen they're unsecured and then they seethat they're losing I have to talk tohim that so he messes up and you knowwhat I I hear that I made this rule withshit-talking is I'm not gonna sayanything unless they say it but if theydo talk I'm gonna say the wildest thingso that they feel terrible and sobecause like I don't know I've alwaysbeen good at like talking shit to peoplebecause I just I have a lot of friendsthat we would do that to in battles it'sit's you know I always try to be veryrespectful but as soon as somebody sayssomething I'm like okay I got I can makeand I usually don't make fun of theirbreaking I usually just make I don'tlike that part of breaking I think Ithink it's I think it's kind of it'sit's taking the focus off of yourdancing and putting it more on your likemind games which I don't you know I meanI guess this in a way that's kind of howgreat how battling is but I don't know Iand I don't like I don't think it's trueand I to to what it should beyeah but like I said if somebody's gonnatake a shot at me I'm like well I'm 32 Igot I got nothing better to do let mejust talk yeah of course maybe you haveto defend yourself yeah but man my bestmemory of call outs is I had a crewmember back in 2003 yeah thing aroundTroy Kehoe was his name and somebodycalled him out you know because he wastalking smack and he said yeah come onokay now you you know give me 10 minutes[Laughter]because he was flexible he didn't wantto get the injury you know he needed towarm up and then what yeah man give me10 mins how did he call you is he likeno no another guy called my friend outyou know my friend said give me tenminutes and then he he lost one time helost a battle and then he calls out boomyou know their friend you know it's funto get called up as long as like it'snot it's not fun when there's like beefsomeone's trying to like cause sometrouble I think that gets kind of crazybecause in but you usually just turnsinto a fight which I really don't likein breaking there's like there's reallyno room for violencethat's why you break right yeah so wedon't touch each other there's been alot of times where there's likedefinitely my old crew flexible Flav wewould get into some crazy battles cuzyou know some crew would be beefing withus and so then we'd get into a newget crazy crazy cut everything escalatedand people with ok crew it start pushingeach other and then it's like you knowas soon as that happens it's like ohthis is gonna turn into a ok crew bellsyes we got many colors in crew bad okand we are like my crew and me we arelike produce most of them don't danceregularly ok but we still like brothersyou know yeah but back then we crewbelts we belt like almost a lot of crewsalmost many crews here yeah we go tofriends would bail like whoever is onthe opposite side you know we go to yesAmerica or Germany whatever whoever isacross us and they do something that wedo better we go inside and show way yeahyeah and then it starts so so actuallythis is something that probably gotdeleted from because we didn't recordbut you were talking about we first cameto America in 2007 for freestyle sessionin 10 with my whole crew yeah and westayed the machete hostel on HollywoodBoulevardeverybody talks about yeah it's funnycuz like outside of Hollywood people areprobably like oh Hollywood's is greatdude it's like freaking bums pooping onthe streets and stuff it's all bad crazyHollywood yeah but yeah there's a lot ofshit was crazy em and to come herefreestyle session we grew up with thosetapes yeah yeah and so then once youwere here it was probably a big likeculture shock huh yeah that was thefirst time you came to America secondtime I came first time was 2003 in SanDiego okay it was like there is like aheap of community company called cultureshock yeah you know if you know and thatwas in the soup Switzerland cultureshock oh and we came to San Diego toperform at the culture of showcase ohthat's cool okay then back then I bailedactually I bailed rainin yeah raininganda long time yeah he's in Vegas Vegas andall Cutshaw peoples of San Diego and myfriend that was a b-boy he didn't findthe way to the circle you know so I wasthere aloneand I bet like three four B voice oh youknow but I did like my thing you know Idid like already elbow one and a halfand I need some car plates you knowbecause men in Europe I never starteddancing like on the street you know wehad a nice youth center we had nice woodfloor yeah you know so I came to shitcarpet oh man no it's been no 90s yeahthat was the first time it was a goodexperience and then second time my wecame with my crew 2007 please let's Ishouldn't ten when did you decide tolive herewe came in 2010-11 new year when it wasvery cold in Switzerland we came to LAit was nice weather so my brother me wecame here to to practice and see how isthe industry because we take alsohip-hop classes also hip-hop and we sawhow how it is they industry you know andwe see b-boys here and they poke chopmovies and commercials and stuff likeman we can do some good stuff here youknow we decided to move here okay I wantto move here since a long time but 2014was the time to move yeah make yourbrother 2015 I don't know if I felt himit was like a seven to smoke in that fitExpo in convention center yeah that'sright he did surprising he doesn'treally battle that often so yeah we washaving fun man I like to start becauseIII I could see like yeah yeah he'shaving fun you know it's not like tryingto kill that other guy in a bell youknowyeahthat's good like when there is a bigdifference if you have a funny style butthere is I I always watch the skills youknow if you have a funny character or aserious character you watch how itmatches with the level of the skills youknow yeah and I said she has a level ofskills and he is having fun you know hedoesn't take it too serious you know hedoesn't need to take it too serious towin around you know so that's why I likeit and I remember him like his style islike kind of goofy and then him as aperson he's like more like serious and Ithink that my style as a breaker is moreserious and my personality is probablymore goofy than him swiss-styleI always ask people can you tell that meand him our brothers buy our styleno it's yeah I think if you look closeenough you can tell because we do a lotof the same moves it's just he doesn'twe do them differently from and but weyou know we learned from the same peoplewe you know practice like every daytogetherso it's weird how our Styles divergedlike that but I don't know yes moreflexible right he's he's more flexiblethan me and I think I'm more like flowythan him yeah and so and then I probablydo more power moves than him he doesmore freezes than me but that's maybethe main differences I mean my brothermy brother does everything more than me[Laughter]yeah so I guess in terms of like breakbreaking for you now are you still intocompeting or you just I haven't battledin many years okay yeah I belt I thinkmaybe once or twice since I moved toAmerica oh reallyyeah because I didn't move for battlingyeah yeah you know for the industry andeven my like last serious bad that weyou know with my crew and everything wasleft year 2011 yeah because I had like acrazy surgery I tore my biceps andtriceps ligament oh yeah I miss my armsyou know and that was a thing how do youdo a thousand 90s on that arm a lot ofphysical therapy and yeah but in it wasactually in June it's gonna be ten yearsago that I thought I'm gonna stopdancing yeah I'm gonna work a regularjob and that's it for me I lived a goodlife and I enjoyed my hobby for manyyears and that's it that's why I enjoynow what I don't have to practice setsor you know that I don't prepare forsocial I just have fun you know yeah youknow I don't mind doing competitionsonce in a while because it keeps itkeeps me like I don't know I guess itkeeps your both sides of the brainworking yeah yeah but for the most partI just break to like you know relievestress and it's like a meditation for meyou know cuz training yeah it make itmake it forces me to stretch my mycreative brain you know so like when Igo to a practice a lot of times I'm justI try to go into my own world and justmake up whatever I can and it's hardit's hard to think about all the likeyou know whatever stuff is going on inyour life when you're so focused on justyeah cuz you can't really dance well ifthere's something else on your mind youknow and a lot of times you feel like Idance better when there is somethingthat was on my mind because it's like itmay it makes me try harder to like focuson the music and everything you try toget that out of yeah excited you bygetting this out of you focus here yeahand then verse writer yeah well in a lotof times it's because you go like Igotta focus on this and if I don't I'mgonna think of something crappy oh Idon't wanna think about that let me justdo thisit's like kind of a nicely practice yesbefore I started talking to you and youalways practice for yourself and do yaknow yeah I think in I yeah and a lot oftimes I just focus on that and then youknow if someone wants to talk to me orwhatever I'll talk about like most ofthe time I don't really go too far outof my way to like talk to people I meancuz I used to just practice alone Iwasn't living in Sacramento and inOakland I would just go to the gym andpractice by myself like maybe once ortwice a week I'd go practice with someother people but most of the time I'djust be by myself where do you get themotivation from to practice by yourselfI think it's just I like creating stuffokay and so you can practice like hardstuff just to create I mean I'llpractice hard stuff sometimes but yeahit'll be it'll be a lot of timesit lets me I don't have any otherdistractions anymore so it's like I cango okay I really want to get this moveso I can practice you know what I needto do and then I can like adjust my handposition or whatever when I'm with abunch of people there's always like it'smore playful to me where there's like alittle bit of I need to perform I needto you know react to what they're doingtoo so it's it's always it's more of anexchange kind of environment going on bymyself it's just I'm only doing what I'mdoingyou focus on yourself yeah it's I have Ihave a lot of fun doing thatyeah it's probably my favorite part ofbreaking actually my favorite part ispracticing with my crewmen uh-huh yeahbecause like everybody like pushes eachother you know yeah and we don't have toworry about practicing anything soanybody else could practice that orthat's how it goes you know we push eachother you know oh um okay well dudewe've been going for like 56 minutes ohshoot probably wrap this show up there'sa lot I can still talk to youI don't want to go too long probablyyeah well is there anything else youwant to say before we close the showwhere can people find you here oh yeahit's the old one it works pretty wellthough and I got that tooOh yep go for a - it's not there yeah noI I bought this because I told myself Ineed to start filming myself breakingmore yeah because I seriously had likeno footage of myself because I neverreally filmed myself cuz ya know it'sjust I don't it's just not something Inormally do so I bought that to filmmyself in itmaybe you filmed for like a couple weeksand then I just got sick of it and so Idon't I don't really use it and thenwhen I started this show like oh I gotan extra camera now so I have the DJIpocket Pro no pocket and the small DJIfits with the camera and everything okayand I used it a couple times yeahokay it does also have white you andeverything okay but I know minutes Irecord with my phone most of the thingsmy phone doesn't have any space in itbecause I have a ton of music in thereso it's like but you can put an extra SDcard no I have extra I got I'm likereally into music oh you to beat I makeyeah I make music and then I just listento lots of music I guns I love you knowman I seriously can talk that's anotherman I mean for now yeah I like jasmineyou do yeah yeahsince everybody calls me ill jazz inAmerica I know but for me I don't knowman I think I like martial arts I alwaysliked like Jackie Chan Bruce Lee Johnyang and then music wise I always likedStevie Wonder Tupacoh yeah yeah that was like my LL Cool Jyeah you know and thenhe was dope sports-wise and human isMuhammad Ali's Muhammad Ali okay thoseare your influences this is mycombination of what I yeah and butbefore that GodI've always loved Jackie Chan cuz I gotjust mr. past he doesn't give off man Ithink he's gonna be appreciated morewhen he dies oh yeah dude he's alreadyappreciated yeah God that guy but manhis legacy I feel like man needs he samewith Bruce Lee yeah yeah you know uh youknow because Bruce Lee's kind of youknow I think we made mixed martial artsbecause the idea of it kind of it wasalready around but it wasn't mainstreamby any means but he just kind of that'sthat was what he was all about was thisis or the I guess it wasn't called mixedmartial arts at that time but it wasjust like the idea of pulling pieces ofevery martial art that makes you betterthat was he kind of brought it to themainstream yeah but I think Jean VanDamme is the best fine Johnson what'sthat freakin movie kickboxers was itbreaking oh yeah breaking he was likeeach he's like that's his first stepinto Hollywood it was like I mean thatmovie sucks but yeah I never owned it Ithere was a bunch of b-boys I knew backin the day that would say you'd ask himwhat their favorite movie was andthey're like breaking and I was likebreaking and beats me they would saybreak in do you like themlike it's like a parody of hip-hop likeit's so freakin goofy I mean I don'tknow I just wanted to make some moneyman I don't see some producers they sawsome kids seeing something where theycan make money okay throw some moneymoney back yeah it's it I mean all I cansee is I don't wanna hate on it but it'sso over-the-top goofy they're like Ican't get me how many movies are thereof this breaking one day there's onlytwo or to break into electric Boogaloo Ithink that's it there might be a thirdone I don't know I honestly watch themonce and I was like what am I doing withmy life I need I need to go practicewhat am i watching this crap and I grewup with Battle of teir VHS tapesyeah yeah right that that was the stuffI'd rather watch it's not all the year Iwatched one of the old freecell saysyeah yeah when you could only get theVHS tapes it wasn't any YouTube so therewas like a man fuck VHS man I still havea lot of VHS tapes yeah my god all rightso I switch on it okay I got I've got abunch here I think um yeah like Lords ofthe floor I have and they're the oldstyle elements video there used to belike absolutely made b-boys sessionGermany it was kind of like PC one manoh yeah yeah there was like b-boys allover the world one was swamp battlesyeah that was cool but battle of tier 96man it's my first yes yes it's very goodit's still good yeah yeah and I missquad versus Tyson effect I was a swisscrew it's the only time is Swiss crewone rest in peace - nice kid he wasright here yeah he did like that's I dosometimes the head spin with ball andpeace yeah yeah and me and my brothermet him and we were very youngyeah and his crew came to our city totrain with buzzcity attack and he wasthe only guy approachingus you know yeah and he was pushing usand yeah you know like teachers likedhow to do better head spin and you knowmoves just like the only guy talking tous even we were just kids you know yeahand then we from Tenali wow man you arethis guy and you talked to us and wasthere another seamless crew that wasreally popular back then that went tobattle of the year they didn't win but Ithink they got third place or somethingI don't remember yeah scrambling feetscrambling feet yeah yeah yeah that'shis crew yeah that's nice kid with toughkid he joined them too from badLafayette they bailed South Africa Ithink so I should actually go to thefinal and battle flying steps yeah thatwould have been a crazy battle and whenhe came to freestyle sessions Easterbreak yeah instant breaks man is nowhe's like pushing the community in Baselyou know in our city and they put usyoung kids and like a community centerwith dance you know can yeah it's it'sthere's good things you know okay wellyeah peace well before we do that isthere what's your like Instagram orwhere can people like talk my so Grammyselect my name yes I change a Instagramand anywhere else you want to give anyshoutouts shout-out to my crewRoughnecks and shout out all my friendsthat know me andall right thank you guys Robinson sorrythis show sucks and I don't know how topress the record but it's red it'srecording I know at least I got thatright the second timeall right let's everybody eight[Music][Music]you[Music]
Welcome, everyone. It is now time for COVID Episode 6.0. We have an incredible special guest this time, of course, I'm Eric Rieger with your host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. But today, we have Aubrey Levitt. She is the CEO of Postbiotics Plus. She's very much into research and an incredible entrepreneur certainly knows a lot of the people in the scientific community that have inspired Ken and I to dig deeper to look further. Without further ado, Ken would you like to say hello to Aubrey, and we'll get started.So you can imagine my excitement when I found somebody that was discussing postbiotics also. So Aubrey, thank you so much for coming in. Eric, do we have any...we need to shout out to our sponsors real quick? No, we don't have to do that. We just did that. You're all you're all here.So Aubrey Levitt. Oh my goodness. This is so cool. I felt like I was alone on an island discussing post biotics and then I have this little routine. I'm a very routine type person. I like to work out and go to the sauna. And I do a little mindfulness meditation. And then I just kind of scroll for the last little 10 minutes on podcasts and I just typed in postbiotics and I couldn't believe it. The CEO of postbiotics plus I'm like, not only does she know about it, she's an entrepreneur. She's smart. And she's got like, and then I went to your website, I'm like, she's got like six PhDs working for her like, holy cow, we have got to track this woman down. So I apologize that I stalked you. But thank you so much for coming on the show.No I was so happy about that. It's so nice to have somebody else on this island with me. Yeah, we put our stake in the ground like postbiotics and then echoes for a couple years, just looking back but no, it's very...So we're calling this COVID episode 6.0 because although we're gonna talk about the microbiome I want to let you in on something that you're doing. So congratulations to you and your desire to go through science first, hire these PhDs make something effective because you're going to change the world like I believe that we're helping to change the world. A article just came out this month, discussing the gut, the actual title is this gut microbiota and COVID-19 possible link and implications. And then another one just came out that said a comprehensive review on the effect of plant metabolites on Coronavirus. Plant metabolites means postbiotics and then somebody that we will get you in contact with is a PhD that we're working with her name is Silvia Molino, she did it to get her PhD. Her postdoctoral study is so cool. She actually looked at invitro digestion and fermentation of stable polyphenols. So she was able to do an in and of course, invitro means in a lab. So she was able to show the postbiotic effect once through digestion and then once the microbiome comes in contact with it. Absolutely brilliant and so cool. So COVID you're making a difference!Yeah. All across the board. No, yeah, I just want to say that one of the things that started this fascination for me was you just look at fermented foods, right, which are full of postbiotics and how much of a role they have played in every culture. And we may not have known why in the past, but when we're looking through the lens of the microbiome, we can see maybe a deeper into what's happening here. You know, I know people know probiotics and they know prebiotics of fiber. But when the probiotics eat the prebiotics, then this magic happens. And that's what's also happening in your gut, right if you have all those elements working.Yeah, totally.And I think why and what I've seen also why it directly relates to COVID is, you know, people are getting are at risk for secondary infections. And also people are getting antibiotics and whatnot. And that directly destroys the microbiome as we know, which leaves them vulnerable to being populated by whatever's there. And, and weakens them.If I'm knowing that kind of research and listening to the PhDs while y'all are constructing the studies, and or the clinical trials to find out what is actually going to work. What are some of the endpoint measures that you that some of your PhDs are examining? Is it because they're looking for what the bacteria will do with the things that you present like postbiotics, as you mentioned before, and how do you measure that, is it like short chain fatty acid stuff or what...We were looking specifically at one thing and just diversity overall, so we were looking at a point of injury. So the one because we wanted to kind of pare it down to. Okay, we know, we're researching the microbiome, and we're looking all these various things, but it's a complex ecosystem, right. And the one thing we do know is that when there is a lot of diversity that always correlates with health. And so we really pared it back to that of okay, but in our modern lifestyle, we have many, many things that affect that diversity and really, you know, strip it. So we looked at antibiotics first in our first study to say antibiotics is one of the harshest things that wipe out gut diversity and leave us susceptible in this window afterwards to either an opportunistic, you know, pathogen taking over or maybe just not recovering to the diversity that we had before. And so we did a study our initial study was to look at these antibiotics because think about it, also, people are coming in for maybe a sinusitis. So having their gut wiped out is a, you know, side effect that is not intended. It's a consequence that's not intended. So we gave them a fermented herbal product, which is full of postbiotics, because essentially, we put probiotic bacteria with the herbal components and it's breaking them down with we gave them that with some live probiotics as well. And we had a control group and we we took their stool samples to see if we are protecting their diversity. So right when they got the treatment, and then you know, all throughout the treatment and 10 days after, and we saw Yeah, so the endpoint was gut diversity is looking to see if the ecosystem was intact.I couldn't agree more and Brown we've talked about this in the past. And of course, we've seen this in the hospital. Oftentimes when people are given really powerful antibiotics and they come to the hospital. Unfortunately, the end result is often c diff, and it's exactly what it does. It goes through it wipes out all of the bacteria we and it tears down all c diff is all that's left in incredible diarrhea which persists forever so that you're certainly speaking I think that bringing up c diff is probably the most extreme version of lack of diversity because you wipe out everything but one particular bacteria that then populates so it's almost like having a neighborhood where only one family dominates and they decide what happens well c-diff kills people. It's very serious. I'm a huge as a, as a gastroenterologist, I reluctantly ever try to put anybody on antibiotics and I see So my research was in bacterial overgrowth SIBO, which is, which is a consequence of antibiotics all the time. My classic patient would be somebody that said, I got a sinusitis just like you said, five years ago, took this big round of antibiotics and I've never been right since. And that's that's the patient comes to me as a gastroenterologist.Yeah. And I was that patient because when I was a kid, I had antibiotics probably every week for years and then I had to go in and have two weeks straight of antibiotics, because I punctured a lung. And so they put you on IV antibiotics. And you know, ever since then it was just sort of this imbalance that couldn't get. I couldn't figure out how to right. And I didn't even know because that was sort of so early on. It was just this uphill battle that I wasn't aware of. So that was one of the things behind of like, you know, I could do everything perfect, but the moment too much stress would come on or whatever else would happen, I would fall back on my resiliency wasn't there, the normal resiliency that you would think you would have.So I could talk postbiotics all day, but now you just got me super intrigued about Aubrey Levitt. And how I built this, how does a woman this powerhouse CEO doing this? You just said you essentially had a very traumatic childhood, what was going on?Well, you know, it's a bit of a layered story, but it was I think it started also with this more, you know, trauma when I was a baby of someone had broken in and I actually had a memory of it, which is even weirder, you know, with a gun, but it put me on this hyper vigilant, very stressful response for years after where I was watching the window and the door couldn't sleep. And you know, this leads to an increase in illness where I was having strep throat probably every week. And I'm only putting these pieces together now actually looking backwards retrospectively, but you have these series of illnesses that which lead to pneumonia and then lead to puncturing a lung. And this is all pre second grade, you know, that happened in second grade. So you're on, you know, just a massive amounts of medication, and not compared to maybe some to what some other kids are having, but it was a lot for me at the time.I mean, I would argue that getting antibiotics that often could be one of the most traumatic things that somebody could do because you will never be able to rebuild this microbiome.Yeah, it becomes and then you only realize later how much it's really affecting you. It throws off your hormones, it throws off your immune system throws off, you know, all sorts of things that were just out of whack with without a real explanation. You know, you'd go to see these various doctors and they couldn't pinpoint what was the root cause.Wow, how are your parents through this whole process?You know, I don't think anybody thought anything of it at the time, right? They were actually very healthy and very conscious of all these things and did their best. But, you know, what are you going to do when your kid has 104 fever every other week? Right? I mean, you just don't really have a choice.Yeah. Wow. And that is wild. So I would, I would even couple that did on top of that. On top of the biodiversity that's being eliminated through long term antibiotics, you've also got, I mean, the stress of anxiety, which is obviously something that you're referencing, if you're staring at a door or window as a young kiddo, and it persists for days. I mean, the time to repair is constantly being thwarted by your body's vigilant state of trying to always be in fight or flight, there is no repair time. That's pretty wild.Yeah, and I don't think people realize how much stress wears on their, their immune system and their body and just like you're saying, it doesn't give you that rest and digest time to recover, which is very essential, you know, to bounce back. So. And I think also that got me very interested in like the gut brain response and how that vagus nerve talks between the two because you're just always reacting. Right?Okay, so we're both smiling because this is just right up Ken's ally. This is exactly whatI just think it's hilarious. This is the first time that we've actually talked. And you're literally mimicking everything that we say. We are a kindred spirit here. We've been on the same island...studying the same stuff.Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, even when we when I created this first product, I think one of the issues that I was finding is that okay, I would take these herbal remedies, I would, you know, eat these great foods, but I still wasn't able to digest them properly or really utilize them properly. And because I wasn't seeing the results I wanted and when I fermented these herbs, what what was very interesting is I actually even felt a focus and a mood difference right away, which is how I got into this post biotic work because I thought, wow, they're like, I think there's GABA or something in here that is different than what was in here when you started with the original product.So you felt it almost immediately.Yeah, I did, I did. And I felt the difference. And so then I went and tested and that there was GABA in it. And also too, if I was actually feeling that and because it was a small amount, I mean and I can't be sure that's just a assumption on my part, but that got me really interested. I started talking to these guys out of corp, you know, Ted Dinin, and they were studying this essentially how the gut communicates to the brain through the signaling molecules and these neurotransmitters that are released through this fermentation process, even if it's in your gut. And so I just went down this rabbit hole and ended up partnering with the scientists out of Memorial Sloan Kettering. Now he's at NYU, who, who was also interested in the same thing of these metabolites. And not only they also signal to the other bacteria in your gut, so there's just this constant communication going on between everything. Not not to get too in the weeds,No, totally because this perfect, this is the conversation I have with my patients all the time, is when pharmaceutical companies and I'm not putting them on blast, but when pharmaceutical companies try and do something they tend to focus on on a molecule that they can patent. And what we're learning is that the microbiome is way too complex, where we're at right now with our, with our research, so you can do these giant stool studies. And so I get all these people that come from functional medicine doctors with these, these gi DNA analysis, and they're like, Yeah, do something like that we can do the test, you don't really know how to manipulate 100 trillion bacteria. Exactly. And so what I tell everybody is, we do know that if you can diversify, they will figure it out. Meaning they when you have a proper diversification, a proper signaling mechanism where they will keep control of each other, and they send signals to your brain, we now know Eric and I did a whole episode just on the negative effects of short chain fatty acids, when they're out of proportion, meaning butyrate being real good. But yeah, if you have too much acetate, if you have too much propionic acid out of proportion, that crosses the blood brain barrier and creates that that gut brain situation. So it's all about just let your body let those microbiome, figure it out. We're not going to out think them.Yeah. And that's, that's also something that really excites me about this whole field is the ecosystem approach, I think is really an opportunity to look at medicine differently than how we've been looking in the at in the past, like this lock and key approach is doesn't work as you're saying. It's sort of the it's very complex, it requires more systems medicine approach of looking at how, if you touch this point, it affects this whole area around it. And I think it's also to me, the one area that's speaking to all different fields, you know, it's speaking to Western medicine, allopathic medicine, speaking to functional medicine, and it's kind of everybody because we don't know exactly what's happening here. But we all agree, it's important, and we all agree it matters. And that that hasn't really happened before. I mean, you guys are the you're the doctor, so maybe you could speak to that more but that's, that's what I see happening. And it's also saying we can't outsmart it. We have to work with it.Yeah. And that's where the whole, that's where I got really interested in the whole postbiotic thing because that's when I started doing. We started realizing that when, when you start decreasing the inflammatory response in the body by eating a different type of diet, I start asking why. And then that's when I started meeting scientists that said, Oh, it's because you're producing, urolithin or you're producing, you know, now a GABA. I didn't realize the GABA. So that's what's so fascinating. So I'm a doctor. And I imagine you've got what six or seven PhDs that you're in this postbiotic thing. What is how did you end up you were sick and then then you sort of jump forward and said, then I started this company. How did we get from there to here?Yeah, God, it's been a windy road. So I you know, I was a, how do I say this? So i i got obsessed with the science part because I always do have to measure and kind of look at...okay, starting with an idea of something that I may feel in myself or that matters to me, but I wanted to look at, okay, how can we measure this in a larger population? Like, it's not enough for me to I didn't want to go out there and just create a product and see what happens? And I guess Okay, so one step back, I do have a background in pharmaceutical advertising and marketing or whatnot. And so it started there. And I was working those jobs and I thought, okay, I, this is not what I'm going to look back 40 years from now and be happy with what I created. I wanted to go out there and solve a problem. And then once you create that solution, then I have to go back and measure and make sure it works. So that's what led me down the science path. And it just it wasn't necessarily the intention of starting a company. It was always coming from solving a problem and wanting to find the answer that didn't already exist. And if you're looking for an answer that doesn't already exist, then you have to test that answer multiple times before you go out there and offer it to somebody else. So, that's sort of the windy road there, I guess.Well, I'll tell you what that is, is that's you've when we you've said several times, allopathic and naturopathic boy, if there's ever anybody who I would not believe would somebody with a marketing background in pharmaceuticals that came up with a novel idea, usually its market first we'll worry about the science later. We're going to make cash on this thing. I've gotten a lot of flack for that. No, not flack at all. I'm giving you so much props you lead with science first. I mean, that is amazing. Especially because you come from a marketing background, holy cow.But to me the best marketing is truth and honesty. Right? And that speaks for itself. And so I was not interested in this...okay, you have this end product and you put a shiny package on it, and you hand it over somebody it's like how many of the layers can peel away so that you really have a clear understanding of where something starts and what the thought process is behind it and you and you just communicate that clearly at the end of it. And that's that's where I think things are going even on a marketing standpoint, but he you're just telling a clear story of why you did it and then what it is and why it works.I could not agree more I think the most stable marketing is knowing that your story is true, can be proven, can be reproducible. Generally, those who just flash in the pan the the charlatans are always revealed over time and then it's just it's just a trend or a fad that fades away but what you're doing is very much in line with what what drew me to work with Ken it's this is what I believe we'll figure out how to tell people about it later, but this is what's working and that made a lot of sense to me.And and even if it does, if it works the other way, do you is that something you really want to be a part of or like is that like I would lose interest over time. So doing it for me more than anything. And then I had to turn around and be like, okay, now how do I find a business story around that that other people get behind? Because I want to do the science for me, because that's what I need to move forward. So it really came from that place, read more than anything else. And to say, Okay, how do I get scientists that are smarter than me that are gonna think they're gonna challenge me? And then we're going to do the research around it and find some answers.There's so much similarity here. You being a CEO now, I had no business background, and now I'm in the throes of essentially, you know, I mean, it's a five year startup and I realized that Apple was a 20 year startup and Right, exactly 20 year startup and all this other stuff. So you you get that that side of it. I was super impressed with your team. I mean, you are just filled with PhDs and a couple MDs.Yeah, yeah, we got really lucky of and at this point, everybody's kind of donating their time. Like they've got on board out of passion. And that's what I think is even more exciting is that they believed in the process and we just kind of found scientists that were really obsessed with what they call this ecosystem science and looking at how these interactions happen in the microbiome. And I love the idea of ecosystem science that encompasses so much and it actually flies in the face of what Ken and I both kind of find challenging with, unfortunately, the pharmaceutical world which is just trying to find that one little bitty active molecule to try to solve all of the issues with that because it doesn't generally work that way. That being said, what are the goals with the company and utilizing ecosystem science? Where do y'all want to go? What what is what are some some pinnacle finish lines for y'all?Yeah, I mean, what's so there's two things that we have really exciting on the horizon and one we we are working now. We just talked to a doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering and what the research they've done at Memorial Sloan Kettering is a cancer hospital. And they really looked at how diversity affects cancer patients. And that's been something that was, you know, a long term almost impossible thing for me and and the fact that we're actually pursuing being able to do that is exciting. And what they found is that so they did some FMT studies there. And they really found that if a patient comes in and they have higher diversity, then you know, when they go through their chemotherapy, and then their antibiotics and the most severe treatments, for the third, specifically working with bone marrow transplant patients, the patients who have the higher gut diversity do better. They surv...they're more likely to survive, it actually affects survival rate, and it reduces complications. And so this has sent them down the path of really looking into what can they do to protect the gut diversity and help these patients and so one of the questions they asked which I found fascinating is okay when you receive high doses of chemotherapy and antibiotics is there really anything you can do, or is your gut so destroyed at that point that it doesn't matter? And what they found was actually even a little bit helps these patients and helps their survival rate. And what that means is even if there's no intervention, so they may just happen to be someone who bounces back better than somebody else. And so, and they bounce back to a just slightly higher level than the other patients whose guts destroyed that slight increase in diversity, they do better. So that means even if they eat a better diet, they're potentially going to do better, which is to me huge because you can come in with something that is a more dietary or intervention and improve their outcomes. And so again...Very, very interesting and very congruent, Brown, with what, what you've been talking about even back to the inception of Atrantil. We, we have what we think are these incredible polyphenols this polyphenolic blend to feed bacteria. But, you know, the opposite needs to be true. Also, if if the correct bacteria aren't there to be fed in the right ratios, then we're just not going to have the byproducts, the postbiotics that we need for the body.Yeah. So Aubrey, so I'm sitting here listening to you, and I'm thinking, okay, so we talk about bio diversity and all this stuff. But the reality is, is that the bio diversity leads to this complex cascade of things that happen. Yes. And if I've got in my world, gastroenterology, I've got patients that have their colons taken out due to ulcerative colitis, due to cancer, due to different things. And we've actually talked, we've got one of my graduate students, actually, Angie will be very excited to know that you came on. I've got a graduate student that Eric and I work with carefully, and we started discussing this that well, what happens nobody's talking about If you don't have your microbiome, how can you make sure they have sufficient amounts of butyric acid? How can you make sure that there's urolithic come out there? How can you make sure that now Gaba and now we know that are they getting the appropriate amount of vitamin K, are they getting the glutathione things that we know that the bacteria break down, nobody's talking about that. And the ability to say, okay, during this acute process of getting chemotherapy, I would almost think that your particular product should be the protocol to ensure that there is something.Well, and that's what I think we got passionate about if there's nothing done to support the body to recover better when certain treatments or therapies are given and why not. So it's, you know, I mean, I think it brings me back a little bit to this COVID situation, what what's your best defense, your immune system, your own body, you know, and I think that no matter what you have, no matter what treatment you're given, your own body's going to be doing some of the legwork to get you back to where you want to be, or at least even to be able to handle the treatment better because a lot of these treatments are so harsh that they're also taking a toll on your own immune system or your own body in various ways. So, and we're not doing anything to help mitigate that or support the body as it's recovering. And that seems like an easy place to intervene and have because it's, it's gonna fall back on that on your body anyway.You know, I'm sitting there thinking about you as a young girl looking out the window, being hyper vigilant with the sympathetic nervous system, and then I'm thinking about a cancer patient that wakes up and goes, oh, shit, I have cancer. That thought sympathetic nervous system goes up. Exactly. Then a nurse comes in says, Remember you have chemo. Oh my God, I'm gonna have diarrhea, and nausea and vomiting. And I mean, you cannot think of a worse scenario, then and my, I mean, we've treated a ton of cancer, and the thought of the sympathetic nervous system going overboard the worries that are going on the financial stress, all this other stuff, it's very similar to the COVID situation. So similar,And that's our lifestyle these days, is this a high, heightened, stressful situation is we're constantly under stress. And so, and I think why, until you get something more severe, a lot of times, we're not thinking of what the effects of this are. But really the goal would be anytime you're sort of hitting a heightened stress, how do you balance that with also protecting yourself? And we're not really ingrained to think that way yet. You know, because it's having one round of antibiotics, we should be doing something to build ourselves back up to protect our gut microbiome. So that's why we looked into that in the study of like, how do you protect the diversity and make yourself and help yourself bounce back, right? Because that directly affects your immune system, which is suppressed during that medication and it's going to need to bounce back, you know, the microbiome helps with that. So that should be when you're in a stressful period when you get you know, because then we may not have it cascade into these larger problems, we start looking at it early. But then again, when you have the most extreme problem even then it helps you bounce back. And I, I just keep seeing this also vision in my head of the COVID situation of what happens when the whole world takes a break for a little bit. You saw how even like nature bounced back so quickly, right? Like the amount that we can all bounce back is actually incredible. If you just give a little bit of help...for a second.And I love how you're saying that because there's I have so many patients that when they they do something that let's say that they are...well, we've seen this. So Eric and I, we've we launched a program, Aubrey that we call the frontline program, because we believe so strongly that gut health, you cannot have a healthy immune system without a healthy gut. Because health begins there. And so we have launched a program where we're just giving away Atrantil because I know that it increases diversity. I know that it actually has anti pathogenic activity. I know this and we discussed it as a company, that we have a moral obligation to at least help the people that I'm with like I could, the thought that I could go to my hospital and find a nurse that maybe, you know, if somebody died, that maybe we could have just given them something to help, then that, that really that that drive starts getting me thinking about all the stuff that you're talking about, which is like, why can't we start doing protocols at a hospital that are essentially harmless, which is what you're talking about. There, the risk to benefit ratio, and it's insane the hurdles you have to go through. Like you had to find somebody at Memorial Sloan Kettering, you had to sit down, you had to go through meeting after meeting after meeting he had to then get passionate enough to go to the IRB to go to that. I mean, I've been there. And you're like, for God's sakes! Right. I mean, we're on the cardiac floor. The cardiac diet is pancakes and syrup and...Right, right. Yeah. I in and it's, it's kind of like Why not? You know, it's as you're saying it's why not do something that is going to do now it may help it may not in some situations, but why not?Yeah, we're going so far as we're giving away. I mean, we're losing a ton of money doing this just trying to make sure that if it does, if it can help, and we learned that it helps later, then I would look back at myself at this time and go you're a jerk for not at least trying to tell people. That's really great. That's really great.But it brings a question to my mind, Aubrey with your PhDs and we kind of set the stage here a little bit. So medicine in its early day was all it's all predicated. All the information we have is predicated on people doing experiments it's how we, we came to find everything and then ultimately which seemed like that we're at this intersection where innovation which might occur outside of, you know, the small little nucleus of companies or a handful of doctors is just summarily rejected until finally, over time, it's finally accepted because it happens to work for for someone else, or it's disproven and it doesn't work at all. But what inspires your PhDs to work with a company that's essentially helping challenge the status quo by using natural solutions? Because I know what works for Ken and I, it's because we see people smile and get real relief after trying for so long. So that's an easy one. But what is it about the PhD at that level who's like, you know what, I'm going to go to work today and keep challenging this because why?You know, that's great question. So I think a couple things I do think the microbiome has really opened the door to it's almost looking at it through the lens of the microbiome being complex, and not necessarily as much what the input is, because when you're looking at postbiotics, it kind of takes it one step away from like whether it starts as a natural product or not. I also think this next generation of scientists is they're very, the ones I'm meeting now are very interested in how can I make a difference? How can I not just stay in the lab? And how can I put something into the world and see that research be realized? And I think I happen to meet scientists that were passionate about, okay, this approach of taking the one missing bacteria, or this group of missing bacteria is not going to work. And they were willing to kind of stand on the edge and say that and my co founder who I work directly with, he did some research in Japan and you know, overseas, so I think it really opened up his eyes to hey, there are these things that have been studied for a long period of time that have been used with patients, but it just wasn't under a scientific rigor. So what happens if we look at that information and we start putting it under the lens that we look at other scientific remedies, what will we find? And it's more of just an openness to asking that question, and not really saying, okay, let's pick something more natural. It's more just like, okay, let's open our door to this wider range of things, whether it's natural or not. Let's look at what works.You know, I love how you say that. Let's open the door. Because what I've run into, which I'm sure you have run into, is what I I call cognitive dissonance. If somebody believes something, and they don't want to think about anything else, you described it as opening the door, just look outside and see and keep an open mind about that. That's really cool that you found people like that because when you get up a team, one thing that has been really neat about this whole COVID-19 issue is the collaboration of the scientists around the world. People are running with...people are just sharing data. And they're just saying, hey here, just what can you do with this? And this is, I think that the collaboration that's going on right now with you and your team is so cool, because this whole idea of opening the door and saying natural solutions and what is natural the most, you almost it has this implication that, oh, I'm going to try something unusual. And what you're saying is no, we're going to use our body and we're just going to feed it what it wants and allow the bacteria to do what they do, which is the most basic fundamental thing you can do for your health. I love that.And it's also not looking at the two extremes, right? I think, you know, just because something's natural doesn't mean it's healthy either. I think that's that's pretty clear as well, I you know, that there's, we can't jump to an extreme on either side of this. It's like okay, we can have a wider array of what we're looking at to support the body and then we test it and that's it. So what got the scientists I'm working with fully on board was our first study, we had a control group and we had results that were surprising to all of us because we went in saying, we don't know, maybe this could work. And then we got the results from the first study. So that's really what sealed the deal. Not not any kind of hope around it. Right?Yeah. Let me pin you down a little more. I know that Eric poked you a little bit here. But I'm going to take you one step further. So well, I want to know the because I'm, I'm much like you I'm into the science, but also own a company. And so I'm curious where Aubrey sees the business side of this. Where do you see that going? And you already said that science. You're correct. You're helping people. So morally, you're on the right place, but you also have to pay these six PhDs you also have and, and the beauty of having a successful company is that you can hire more people, more people can can can get insurance more people can, you know, there's nothing wrong with taking a beautiful scientific idea and turning it into a successful company.Yeah, yeah. And I and I tend to think of I prefer building a company where maybe there's a bigger hurdle upfront. And then hopefully, once you get over that, you're gonna have an easier time rather than sort of getting out the gate and meaning if you do the science, you get the credibility and you'll get people behind me and that could be your marketing that you go out the gate with. So what we're hoping is to get this next study done, which we hope we can get this study done with these cancer patients, which is more extreme scenario, right, and then we could put it as a medical food and that would be the hope and then you can also use it as an adjunct when these other medications are given because it's essentially 24% of medications affect your gut microbiome negatively, right. So really want to pay attention to when you're taking these medications, how do you protect it and I think also in these stressful situations, so the idea would be to get it as a medical food and then also take it when you take antibiotics and other things. And so it's not kind of it's when you need it right now like an ongoing every day sort of thing.Well, I see it as a not to have death by 1000 cuts, because I'm seeing going to my company, digestive health associates of Texas, I think that you have a relationship to Dr. Rogoff, one of my partners.Yep. Don't you?Yes, I do. He's a great guy. Yes.So we've got a Research Division that does pharmaceutical research. My background was in pharmaceutical research. That's how I went from that's how I discovered a a hole that they were missing and that a natural solution could fail. And that's very similar to what you did pharmaceutical marketing. Well, it would be really interesting that you got me thinking that I'm like, wow, we could easily do an inflammatory bowel disease study. And people that have had colectomies and see how they feel just a quality of life scale something super easy. Now you really got me thinking like, are they? Are they living their life with one hand tied behind their back? Because we took out their colons?Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that would be that would be very interesting to do. I would love to do that. And I think, you know, here's the other side of it if we find something really interesting in one of these studies too to be able to take a collection of metabolites to say to really look at what are what are the predominant ones that are sort of the this lever for the inflammatory or the immune response is is a way to go, you know, because I think we can dig even deeper into so my interest is not looking at okay, these bacteria are the ones that are responsible but which metabolites are responsible in which collection metabolites that can potentially trigger the system?Yeah, fascinating that you say that because I've met with scientists that are actually working for pharmaceutical companies trying to get the one metabolite. And they're trying to get the patent on that. And I just laugh because I'm like, so you get this so does it survive in the gastrointestinal tract? Does it is it the actual one that the bacteria can you have, like we talked about on our show, Eric, you can have too much of a good thing. Your everything has to be in balance. Eric frequently will hyperventilate when I work with him because he thinks that air is good for him, and he'll just do too much. He doesn't do that.One time I realized that shoes made my feet more comfortable. So I just I just covered myself in shoes. Really, really bizarre. Well, hey, I think that, undoubtedly and away from even just this, this, this COVID interview that it's obvious that we could find some synergy between efforts, but for everybody who's listening, anybody else who's interested in postbiotics plus, how can someone else become involved, get in touch with and possibly even help you find what your goals are as well?Yeah, I think the easiest way is the websites postbioticsplus.com and send an email through there and anybody that's interested in helping us move this research forward, that's that's sort of our biggest goal right now or yeah, that's that's the easiest way to do it. I think we're trying to do it in an organized way with a formal study and then we'll go from there, soWe will try our best to do that I have an ask of you though.What...oh noThere's gives and asks, I don't remember his name, but you've got some badass person at Baylor that's head of virology and micrology, microbiology on I saw that on your team on his page. I would love to get in touch...Oh Joseph. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.You've got, I mean, from an academic standpoint, you've got a pretty heavy hitter page. That was a...We've got a good group.Yeah, I mean, like, I'm a I'm a nerd through and through. And so I was like, oh my gosh, look at this. Oh, yeah. And I start looking at the research. I'm like, oh my gosh.Yes, yes, we can. We can make that happen. We can make it, have you talk to him, so...Cool. Cool. That is awesome. Aubrey. For those of y'all who may not know she's the hardest working woman in postbiotics because we're talking on Memorial Day morning. So. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah. Thank you so much for carving out time to visit with us. This was an incredible discovery of synergy between efforts and it's I mean, to me, it's just it's not only a relief, it's exciting to find somebody else who also realizes that there isn't just one solution and to find solutions, it takes a team effort and it's different thanNow we have a club. This is awesome. So so let's start a Facebook group and other things that clubs do I'm not much into social media, but okay, we'll try it. It'll just be awkward staring at each other. Secret handshake.How did this work again? Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys for having me.I love the work you're doing. Thank you so much for everything Aubrey Levitt postbiotics plus. We're gonna try we're gonna stay in touch. We're going to collaborate like crazy. I've got some scientists you need to meet around the world, some crazy smart people doing very similar things. I'd like to meet some of your scientists, so on and so on. And I don't think that I think that maybe a collaboration between us could probably help out this crisis that we're going through right now eventually. Not in a not in an arrogant way. But yeah, I believe that you see it also that immunity starts in the gut. Yeah, can it can I say one last thing? I know we're, but there's a study. I mean, when you think of collaborating, there's a study. I think it's at Columbia right now that's looking at fiber and inulin, of how it can prevent secondary infections in this COVID thing, and I think there needs to be one in postbiotics of how we can look at.Well, the article that, that that that Sylvia did was really wild because she showed the increase in butyric acid, and it was tenfold. It was 100,000 fold, it was nuts, that I had no idea when you start looking at this where you can actually show this and then we start to I've got this, do you have a Mandalay account, the repository of literature? No.I'll hook you up with this. In fact, we probably team up I've got a I've got an enterprise level Mendeley account where you can just put literature, download literature and put it into files so that you you can search your what you want. So I could like go right now and type in postbiotic you know Sloan Kettering and your your stuff would pop up. It's really it's just it's just a way to collaborate with other scientists that I've really enjoyed so that we can do stuff like this.Great, great. Sounds good.Ladies and gentlemen, that's, that's COVID Episode 6.0 Aubrey Levitt postbioticsplus.com thank you so much for joining us and thanks to our sponsors atrantil.com of course ilovemytummy.com KBMD health and unrefinedbakery.com Aubrey, thank you so much. Ken-any last words?No, thank you so much for taking the time and and on Memorial Day you know not being out on a boat using proper social isolation taking the time to do a podcast. Thank you guys.Have a good one. Bye. Bye.Talk to you soon, bye.Oh, she she jumped out.
Eric, a bboy and Hip Hop community contributor, sits down to discuss the importance of community and the creation of J.U.I.C.E. Follow @Instagram: noiseofthebrokeboysTwitter: BrokeBoysNoiseListen to the Audio on all Podcast platforms. All The Links Here: https://linktr.ee/NoiseOfTheBrokeBoysA broke degenerate hooligan documents conversations about being a Bboy, Breakin', Hip Hop, Dance, Art, Music, Creativity, Innovation, and the slow subtle crumble of society in audio form.----more----[Music]this episode noise of the broke boys isbrought to you by deodorantare you a large hairy purse paradingindividual with no regard for personalhygiene you attend social gatheringswith no self awareness of your ownpersonal body odors perhaps you're adancer that rolls on the ground for funallowing various dirt grime fungi andbacteria to collect on your grotesquebody if this is a constant struggle foryou perhaps it is a good idea to applydeodorant to your body before attendingsocial events such as your best friend'swedding or a family reunion no longerwill you cause scent inflicted faintingof others at the club you'll finally befree from causing your peers tospontaneously vomit at the first whiffof you get ready to make other dancersjealous of your new hygienic upgradeyattaman should not be used in lieu ofdaily bathing activities and othernecessary hygienic events do not use theordinary soap supplement or adjusted forrespiratory disease treatment and now onto the show in today's episode I sitdown with a b-boy I met when I moved tothe LA area about a year ago he is thepresident of juice an organization whoseaim is to support the local Los Angeleship-hop sceneI really respect the work they do pleaseenjoy this episode as I get to knowb-boy Eric hello everybody and welcometo the terrible trashcan talk show I amyour host Kurt rock ski and today I havea special guest his name is b-boy Ericjust you know government name he is thepresident of juice what's up man heyhow's it going thanks for having me yeahI'm glad you could comewhat I want to ask you because I don'tactually know what juice stands for butI like I just you know show up to youguys as practice and stuff and use yourfloor and everything so can you can youtalk to me a little bit about like whatjuices yeah so juice is an acronym Ialways tell people you know think aboutorange juice and theynever forget so say he's juice hip-hopand they go okay I remember looked thatup yeahbut juice is an acronym stands forjustice by uniting in creative energy soJu I see I'll say one more time it'sjustice by uniting and creative energyby uniting creative energy yeahinteresting okay yeah okay I think thatmakes sense yeah it's like yeah it'slike justice that's tight okay so thenum where are you the one who started itI know you're the president now but wereyou the one who started it or was it agroup collective or like how did thatactually fall into your lap yeah sothere's an interesting history of juicejuice has been around in Los Angelessince 2001 okay our founder she was amentor for incarcerated youth okay so Iwasn't the founder I kind of came inprobably earlier on in the existence ofjuice but still in this early stages butthe history of juice is that you knowwhen our founder was asking incarceratedyouth what could have made a differencein your life oh that was the bigquestion that she'd asked some of theyoung people that had made a mistake intheir life mm-hmm and just reflectingback on you know what could have made adifference they said you know you know Ireally wish I had a place that I can goto just a place that I could feel like Icould belong to yeah place that was safea place that I could feel that I wasaccepted for who I wasa place that did really interestingthings run by and for young people yeahspecifically hip hop arts not thetraditional YMCA or Boys and Girls Clubit's something that was more somethingthat I could relate to yeah and so whenasked that question you know those werethe items that our founder Don she saidyou know what if we had an organizationthat is in these underservedneighborhoodsthat could promote the free opportunityfor young people of any background tocome through to express themselvesthrough the hip-hop arts would not beamazing I mean well you know that couldmake you know life-changing things ifyou know these young people could havehad this opportunity in their life yeahso the history is over the yearsdawn formed a group of dancers to comeout and do festivals and get-togethersand this became a weekly eventeventually we ended up having a practicesession on Thursdays over on Vermont and8th Street in the Pico Union districtyou know specifically a neighborhoodthat had a lot of a lot of crime a lotof young people that you know probablydidn't have a path in their life but waseither in high school dropped out ofhigh school or was in transition betweenbeing a kid and being an adult and nothaving that path yet you know it's bestspecifically you know speaking with alot of the young people at juice theysaid you know I was a place in my lifewhere the streets were calling my nameyou know I just needed the house I needto make money you know I didn't have anoutlet but you know juice was a placethat I at least I can go to so we wereover on 8th in Vermont for a handful ofyears over time we moved to a coupledifferent locations and finally we endedup over at McArthur Parkstill in the same neighborhood at PicoUnion in the West Lake District and youknow we've been there since 2011 mmm2011 we became a 501c3 10:11 we did andwe decided to take that leap of faithand we had a fiscal partner before andsay hey let's let's go big and let'sfigure this thing out you know nothaving you know the specific road map weknew what we want to do we knew we weredoing something right we knew that therewas a need in the community and therewas just this huge following of artistsin the community that that came throughthe organization at one time in theirlives and hey you know what I metyou know my partner or I developed acraft in my in my art form because youknow there was a facilitator there thatjust kind of took me in under his wingor you know it just friendships developfrom here or you know it was the onething I could focus on in my life thatmade me feel like I could live again sowe knew were doing amazing work in thecommunity just you know in our capacityand you know our big thing was you knowlet's build a program that has you knowall the elements of hip-hop you know thethe four elements of em scene DJinggraffiti art and breaking and had thatall under one roof and and be able tohave a hip-hop collective where you knowhey I'm a graph writer but I also wantto learn how to be boy yes or you knowI'm a beat maker but I also you know Ilove I love graffiti art you know acrossyou know or I just I wanna learn how toDJ you know I've always seen these DJ'sout there so you know we were able tocreate an organization where we haddifferent facilitators that had aspecialty in their craft where theprogramming was it was unlike atraditional class or workshop programbut the idea was you know we wanted tocreate an organization that really kepttrue to the hip-hop arts where it wasjust really pure to peer teaching mm-hmmI think that was the key thing is iswhen you're able to work with youngpeople that feel the world is againstyou or just really not sure of places orpeople you know the best way to learnand the best way to develop friendshipsis really through that natural organicpeer-to-peer mentoring and where youknow doesn't matter where you come fromor where I came from you know we allcome from different backgrounds but wesee each other as friends as artists mmmand we're able to mentor each other ondifferent capacities you know it's it'syou know I always talk about you knowJuice is a place where you find peoplefrom all different backgrounds know somehave been educated and you know amazingIvy League schools or have amazingprofessions and some are just haven'teven finished high school but when wecome together it'swe share in this mentor of each otherand no one has seen as better than oneanother but we're all seeing each otheras friends and peers and I don't think Iwould have ever met the unique peoplethat I would have met unless it was forjuice because I just I would have neveryou know I think when we we get older wekind of have our own community andgroups that we connect with and so youknow for me you know my profession myday job you know I work in the city ofCalabasas you know a nicer neighborhoodyeah I work in commercial real estateand I deal with a lot of individualsthat are you know very savvy have beenvery well-off financially and then Itravel to downtown LA or the mid area ofLos Angeles and I and I and I connectwith people my age and older but stillyou know may be of a differentbackground but we connect on thisamazing level where I just I'm able toconnect and just feel a human again andand and live through these arts sothat's kind of the synopsis of juice isjust this community space where artistscome to it's free so anybody can kind ofcome through and find their own thingthere I've seen individuals that justcome just you know they see the b-boysand b-girls breaking in they just theyjust want to sit down and write andwatch and get inspired and you know Iget to know them and they'll go I didn'tknow you're amazing you know musician inthe Vocal Arts or something like thatya know I think it's important todevelop like a sense of community amongcreatives I mean I would say that a lotof times you know artists would maybethey I think it comes down to you knowpublic schools now don't really stressthe importance of creative arts and sosomeone who innately has this creativetendency in their life is somewhat likeshunned a little bit I think likesometimes they don't fit into school somuch and so that might you know go intohow widethey're you know feeling left outand so they don't have a community intheir typical day-to-day life and soit's important to find that communitybut you know I think once there see oncethey're seeing this they're like ohthere's so many people that are likethis and there they come from alldifferent walks of life and so I thinkthat it's it's such a great thing thatyou guys are doing this because it's ayeah it's a it's a great thing that isneeded in the community because I thinkit it's not it's not inherently in ourpublic school system and just in oursociety in general yeah you know it's Iover the years I've gotten to know a lotof young people that have been throughthe program and we always talk aboutsports in schools you know schools focuson traditional sports baseballbasketballmaybe soccer football but when it comesto the creative arts you know it's oneof those things that just it's notacademic in terms of scoring it doesn'thelp bring funding to our school sothose are things that are typicallydropped right away yeah and even thetraditional sports you know not everyoneis is laid out to to be excited or evenhave that natural ability within withincertain specific sports and so you knowwhat breaking does specifically I thinkit creates an avenue in an opening doorfor individuals that may not relate tobasketball football soccer and says heyyou know what but but breaking issomething that I can actively do and Ican learn how to do and I don't have tohave this natural ability to be you knowstrong or I don't have to be super tallto become Baska player you know and Ithink it it's the one one type ofactivity that I think anybody can beinvolved in and it doesn't cost youanything yeah and I think that's thegreatest thing it's you don't have tobuy uniforms you don't have to be partof a program that costs funds it's justyou know if you have space you have adesire you could do it wherever you wantya know that's what drove me to itbefore I was big into like martial artsand stuff and I just felt this likedisconnect between me and like a lot ofthe things the activities I was doingbecause it was always like oh you needto do it this way and this and I waslike I just want to do whatever the heckI want and so in a way I was like ab-boy before I even knew it breaking wasand once I stumbled upon breaking I waslike oh it's okay to do whatever thehell you want like it's encouraged infact if you're not doing thatit's discouraged you're you're a biterright so I was like man this is what Iwant to do this is like so fun it's youknow I love it because it's like anactive thing to do it's it keeps you inshape but you know it's encouraged tojust explore like different movementsand you can kind of make whatever youwant into something cool it's it's likeit's like taking you know a canvas andpainting and you just kind of turn itinto whatever you want that's how I lookat it and I had been a you know painterbasically my whole life before cominginto Breaking and so um it was like anatural thing for me to get into I meanobviously I needed to learn moves andstuff I needed to understand the colorpalette is what I could call it thecolor palette the techniques of how tohow to perform the dance but once Iunderstood that is like okay let me justput these pieces together in whateverway I can conceive of in my mind and Idon't know in its encouraged to do thatso I found that this is like what I wantto do this is I was like I say that Iwas like destined to be a b-boy you knowmy whole life really even though Ididn't know what breaking was until Iwas probably like 13 or something youknow so I think a lot of people probablyfeel the same way and a lot of peoplethat probably don't know what breakingis right now and so I I want to get themessage out to them that there is thiscommunity and I think that that's likethe mission statement of like juiceright and that you want to get thisthing out there so that people can cometo the community explore their differenttalents their different things buildtalents and you know ultimately becomepart of the hip-hop communityand do art together with us yeah I havean interesting story because I wasn't Iguess I wasn't I guess I wasn'tintroduced to hip-hop till much later onyeah I knew of hip-hop and you know Ilistened to hip-hop music mm-hmm but Ithink you know it didn't come till muchlater in my life where I reallyunderstood the true culture of hip-hopgoing back where I came from I I was agymnast growing up oh niceand so started when I was really youngdid it through college and my lastcompetition I was done oh I mean since Iwas probably five years old yeah Iworked out you know maybe five to sixdays a week three to four hours a daycompeted you know every other weekendand then one day it just it was I wasdone there was nothing left for me Ididn't have a desire to compete you knowany further I wasn't I wasn't at thatlevel either where I could go hey youknow is I could be in the top ten theUnited States I was you know I was I wasokay for where I was and and I had agood time doing it and I took a hiatusyou know I didn't even just stopped andI still kept in shape after I finishedschool I I moved to Japanmmm and I lived in Japan for about ayear and a half I always knew aboutbreaking but you know and I and Ibecause I was able to do some of themoves in gymnastics I saw you know breakdancers that time going oh hey that's athat's a that's a Thomas flare or that'sa team player and I was like yeah I wasdoing that when I was like six years oldyou know that's and so you know that wasthat came really natural to me I waslike get on my hands and I can do youknow an aerial flip you know that wassomething that I go yeah it's kind of inmy my bag of tricks you know so when Iwas in Japan I went to a universitythere had a relative that allowed me tokind of enter into a university justkind of as a spectator and okayit was really cool I stay there forabout almost half yearand I met this young man who was doing astyle of dance called tutting yeah infront of a glass mirror at theUniversity and I just went up to say heyyou know that's really cool yeah my nameis Eric and sure enough we just kind ofhit it off and he's like yeah I alsob-boy I am and so hey won't you comepractice with us yeah so he introducedme to his crew in Japan called chitinninja oh yeah yeah and then all of asudden you know this thing that I waspracticing since I was a fire his oldgymnastics all a sudden startedtransforming to a street dance and thenthat street dance became breaking yeahand then I started to go wow this isreally cool you know and and I just Ithink more so was just the need in thefeeling of being able to have a group tobe around and in just being able toexpress you know something that's verynatural in me in movement you knowgymnastics without perfection straightlegs and plenty of toes and eventuallyyou know it allowed me to just to go heywhat if I just bend my right knee andflex my front foot and just do somethingfunky you know and creating your ownpersonality through it but you know Ialready had that skill set at that ageand I was like you know this is reallycool but what I really learned is aboutcommunity and I think it was about thecrew aspect because I'd never had thatit reminded me about how I had a teamwhen I was in gymnastics and about someof the close relationships that I haveand it just allowed me to go how thiswould it feels like to be a crew andjust to share in and just yourexperiences with each otherpractice hard with each other eat witheach othershare stories with each other and justbe there for each other I felt that wasthat was kind of the opening up of whathip-hop culture was really all aboutyeah it's about that community and thatneed for belonging and just aboutsharing in your life so eventually youknow I startedaccessing learning about breaking andjust some of the basic fundamentals butyou know I was like I was always doingjust doing power moves I mean I didn'tlearn about the basic fundamental stepsoh thank godyou know what I was gonna do this nowand then see where it takes me but I wasreally into and eventually I came backto the United States and I was just kindof more aware about what you know Ilearned in Japan and they go gosh thismust exist here somewhere yeah yeah soone day you didn't even know you know soI was just you know cuz I didn't Iwasn't exposed to breaking I was exposedto a lot of hip-hop growing up and thenone day I was over at work and I heardthis girl talk about this place that isjust an open session yeah a lot ofreally dope b-boys and b-girls go dothey have an awesome MC program live DJthey have graffiti art walls I'm likewhoa so I just went up to her and sayhey I overheard you talking about thisplace can you tell me about it I'mreally interested it's just like yeahjust come follow me it's in LA yeah Iwas like okay and remind you so I grewup in the valley I was super suburbia Ohand I and I was living I think on thattime on the west side of Los Angeles soI was like oh la it's kind of dangerousout there isn't it yeah like I don'tknow you know um so I remember going outthere I was like where are we in LA cuzI never went to a Laker I've alwaysthought it was like a dangerous placeyeah I mean that's how sheltered I wasI'm growing up but you know sure enoughit was it was in it was in the heart ofLA and the minute I walked into juicethat one day I mean I felt this amazingfeeling over going wow there's so muchenergy here there's so many amazingtalented artists here and it's free andI just I was kind of in awe and I just Iwas just watching everybody collaboratetogether just people talking going wowthis is a place I really need to be atyeah that was my first experience and Ithink I sat down for the first 30minutes just watching cuz I was justlike wow there's just so much amazingthings going on here that's tight yaknow I I guess I probably have a similarexperience walking into one of the firstjams I've ever been to when I wasprobably 13right 14 13 14 I walked in and it's justlike all these people are just dancingbattling and I was like whoa okay atthat time I was like a skateboarder andyou know I was aware of like whatbraking was I could do a few moves orwhatever but I'd never been to an eventbefore and so I go in and I just seethese like top level guys but I didn'tknow who they were at that time but andI see them actually Rob Zilla was theirstuntman was their Cujo was there and Iwas like oh my god who's this guy justlike literally flying on his hands andand you know come to know it later it'slike oh that was Cujo yeah it just likeblew my mind to see that and thatthere's this huge community of you knowof b-boys because before that it waslike oh it's just some high schoolersthat get together in the lunchroom youknow at my high school cuz the janitorsaid we could be there until he comes inthere basically and so that's that thatwas breaking to me before that momentand so yeah it like hit me it hit melike a brick going oh there's this ismore than like what I'm what I thoughtit was you know it's more than justfreaking rolling around on the floorthis is like this is a real movement soyeah that's that's that's tightyeah was interesting you mentioned someof those names uh-huh stop man Rob Sillagood Joe because they've been aroundjuice since the very inception oh yeahand they they were actually very muchinstrumental and bringing together theorganization and the b-boy communitymm-hmm and so you know it's just amazinghow many b-boys and b-girls have beenthrough juice at one time in their lifeand have come through the doors you knowI always hear so many internationalvisitors come we go hey we heard aboutthis place in LA yeah and you have sucha long history of alleys you know b-boyswe used to watch on VHS tapes and noware on YouTube but this has been like aniconic spot where people have comethrough at least one time in their lifemm-hmm and so it's really cool to hearyou know how individuals from like JapanGermanyjust you know they'd say hey we're herewe want to take a picture of thisyou know Amazings yeah or a lot ofhistory has come from yeah yes is itreally it's always really encouraging tohear something like that yeah no I knewabout juice before I moved to LA I meanI had I probably known about it for along time I didn't know exactly what itwas but um it was like there was alwayslike a buzz around like what you knowwhat this is there's this thing out inLA and I had I only moved out here likemaybe less than six months ago and so Ihad no idea you know what I guess howdeep it was and so once I got here I waslike oh it's this is uh this is like areal like thing I thought it was justlike a dance studio or something youknow what I mean that had been aroundfor awhile but no this is like this isthis you guys have a whole freakinmission that you're trying to accomplishI mean you are accomplishing and so yeahit was just amazing to see that so thatand that's why I wanted to talk to youtoday so yeah um so you said you were inJapan about what age were you when youwere in Japan I was about 23 okay23 years old and so that's when youfirst got into breaking I thinkseriously okay taking it more seriouslyjust really training because before thatI mean you know I go to a party and Iwas like oh there's a circle here let meshow them how to do flares oh yeah yeahyou know so I kind of knew of did you dothe gymnast start where you're like yesI tried no I cuz I saw like I go thatlooks really corny if I'd you know do itlike like that I know you should havedone it you should have put on a wholeyeah and then just do it yeahbut but I would you know I would I wouldremember you know going to these likeevents where like you know a circlealways forms right and then you get homeyou know people going in there and doinga lot of like footwork and then all of asudden I go in there and you know atthat time of my life I was I was prettygood at gymnastics I was really in goodshape and soI was just doing like t flares yeah likeand then I was like super easy then I godried into like these flares where youknow it looked like gymnastics well Igot a funny story so the first time Icame to juice and I started to I startedget down and you know I started doingthese flares yeah there's a b-boy comesup to me and says gymnastics gymnasticshe knew right away because he goes youknow the way I did was like it was justyou know I was almost a splits - enginelike yeah like his flares were likepointed toes yeah you know and I wasable to do it in Reverse ways where elselike doing flares and spinning the otherway and yeah he pointed out right awayhe goesgymnastics so I always remember that andso yeah kind of go I go oh gosh it isthat obvious that's when you do abackflip and just do this yes yeah yeahthat's what I would have done but Ican't do that so but no yeah if I was ifI was a gymnast I would have totallyjust embraced it and been like most formperfect flares and then go yes and boomand you don't rip off your hoodie youguys it's hard underneath I don't know Ilike to mess around with stuff like thatbut that's tight so um so I guess whatage do you think you started breakingthen I like I think it was always partof me like gymnastics and they're likeshowcasing I always like to perform Ithink that was the aspect of somethingyeah and part of my lives were destinedto be a B so I would say seriouslyprobably around 23 24 I mean I didn'teven know what his sick stuff was I waslike yeah I just thought people ranaround like with I go oh there's anactual fundamental way to do this yeahyeah yeah and so I was like cuz I usedto pretend like you know just go oh Igot this you know and then you'rerunning around yeah and so it's funnynow because I a lot of young kids yeahand you know they always see what peopleare doing but they just run around withherand feet and thinking that's exactlywhat everyone else to do which is trueto a certain extent but I think you knowyou start to break it down you okaythere's an actual there's a formula tothis and there's usual hand-feetmovement that you know everyone learnsfrom mm-hmm yeah and I mean the bits andit's so deep - I mean there's like everylittle position you're putting your handand your foot is like a different movealmost I mean I have a whole thing aboutmy perspective of Fork but we don't haveto talk about that but so breaking soyou you always felt like you were kindof destined to be a b-boy you're a b-boyand a gymnast body I'd suppose and soyou came into it and you already had thearsenal as if you had been breaking yourentire life and just forgot to dofootwork or something yeah I gotta behonest I I didn't learn footwork tillmuch later on and then you know as youget older you know I think the powermoves become a little more difficultbecause it hurts your elbows or yourshoulders your wrists and so I mean forme like I even stopped doing playerslike five six years ago just because itwas just every time I did it I just ithurt my body a lot and so what I startedto do a little bit more was focus onstyle and just almost fundamentals andgo in the reverse way where I'm goingbackwards where I'm going all right Ican do these things that that you know Ican condition my body to not do so muchI guess power moves but I can go more tostyle and try to do what I can do withinmy age and and still feel healthyafterwards yeah yeah I mean I thinkthat's what's so great about breaking islike there's just it's such a branchingthing I mean there's so much I mean lookas someone outside looking in they'reprobably like I don't understand thisbut like when you go into it it's likeman there's so many things to learn thatthere's no way you're gonna learn it allin the your lifetime as a b-boy and so -taking pieces of everything and you canjust mix it in whatever way you want Ithat that is like so cool you know youryour style kind of develops as you agebecause of it like develops around whatyou're capable of in a way you know Imean like for me I started out doing alot of footwork then I started doingpower moves then I started injuringmyself and I stopped doing powerfulmoves and just started doing otherthings I started freestyling a lot moredoing more top rocks and you know otherlike flowy type of moveslots of transitions and stuff and then Idon't know now I'm where I'm at kind oflike dude like I can do moves but it'slike oh there's a risk to it I mighthurt myself so yeah one thing I loveabout breaking is is you know it's justthe the free flow of creativity I thinkcreativity comes from differentinspirations in your life mm-hmm andmaybe what you do outside of practice orthings that you see and I get a lot ofinspiration by watching other styles ofdance yeah and I love just you knowhouse dance or just different movementsand go wow that's really cool what if Iyou know you know create that movementin my top rocks and just be a little bitmore funky you know and yeah and I lovethat aspect of just being unique andjust developing your own style throughwhatever inspires you in lifeyeah I always got inspired by those oldlike corny kung fu movies that for somereason they were just so cool to seelike someone whooping the other dudesass and then he just like sits in somecrazy fries and he just you know hismouth moves and then it says somethingelse buddy oh dude my style is betterthan yours I always thought that thatwas the dopest thing ever and they wouldyou know I used to watch this one moviecalled the Buddhist fist a long time agoand this dude would just jump into thecraziest freezes and I was like dudethis guy's a b-boy like for reals he'sjust hitting I remember he hit thiscrazy like chair freeze on his elbow andhe's just pointing at the guy and he'sjust like talking shit like oh dudethat's loveand then you know he obviously gets upand whupped his ass or whatever but Ialways like that because it was just socorny but so dope yeah totallybut yeah the movement is so is so coolbut yeah just getting the inspirationanywhere I mean is is encouraged inbreaking in I think that that's theoverall I don't know message to be saidand and and why it resonates with me somuch and resonates with a lot of peopleyeah yeah so outside of hip-hop do youhave any other creative endeavors orhobbies in your life yeah so it soundsfunny but there's a couple things I liketo do one of them is scene karaoke mybrother are hell in the car I mean likewe're I'm not we're not good singers butdo you don't doubt yeah so that's one ofmy how would you say was one of mypassions I have a a singing group that Igo to every Wednesday oh dang so you'relegit and so we do karaoke everyWednesday and so I've been doing thisfor the last you know five or six yearsstraightthat's tight so I really enjoy thataspect of being creative but you knowsinging renditions of songs and in myown way what's your favorite song thisthing oh man you know that's a greatquestion I don't have oneyeah I would say you know all depends onthe crowd of like what type of musicthey like it okay and maybe that wouldbe like the song genre I would choosejust you know if if there was like awhole crowd of b-boys of what would youpick oh man it wouldn't be it wouldn'tbe a pop love song that's for suremaybe like a Bruno Mars song okay yeahjust something that has a little bitmore funk to it that what people can getinto and likeor whatever yeah 24-karat you know yeahyeah yeah just something that's likegroovy funky you know that people canall go yeah let's get down to the Hatokay so what about if it was like a likea senior citizen home yeah a seniorcitizen home well a funny thing youmentioned senior citizen home so one ofmy good friends right now what he'sdoing is he's going to different seniorcitizen homes and he's sitting upkaraoke at dude before that so andbecause it does a lot of things it helpsstimulate the mindyeah and whether they sing well or notit's it's the matter of readingsomething on television keeping you upand it justthey reflect on the past and I think youknow memory is a big thing with with youknow older folks and so there'ssomething there's something there's areally deep connection between singingthat stimulates the mind but also beingwith a read and do a little thing so theinteresting thing was I went to a seniorcitizen home and to join them in karaokenight yeahso they most of them probably won'trecognize you know anything that'sprobably from the 90s and on yeah unlessand they're like oh do you know likeDean Martin or something really old soone of the songs I sang just because Idon't really know a whole lot of reallyold songs I mean I seen a lot of Beatlessongs too but okay you know maybe somelike the Rascal Flatts like life is ahighway that just kind of is they maynot recognize it but the melody is kindof cool so they go they start to likeyou know maybe even dance to it a littlebit yeah yeah yeah that's tight so areyou like a pretty good singer in my mindI'm a pretty good singer but to otherpeople I'm probably just mediocre okayI've always wanted to learn to sing likeI've I've recently got pretty into likemusic production and I've like in mymind I've always been like oh I want tosing over these but I don't know I don'tknow how to sing I mean I kick I canfake it I do I mean me and my brotherwould always do karaoke and we we don'tdo it too often anymore but we used todo it literally like every week we wouldgo to this this Japanese restaurant inSacramento and we were just we would bethe only people doing it too and we werejust freaking take over the restaurantjust singingI don't know we would always sing likewelcome to the junglethose are tough songs yeah and those arereally hard hard songs to sing so I meanwe sucked at it so but um what was theother song I'd singI believe in a thing called love by thedark the darkness okay yeah that songwas all we were all about that one umyeah I don't know we tons of BackstreetBoys songs a shit those are classics youknow everyone knows some too so I was inJapan going back to that time period andI remember you know I would be new tothe location the area I didn't have anyfriends at that point I just knew youknow we have our days off you know fromwork because I taught English in Japanso you're doing like a jet program itwas it was a private school program okayand so on my days off you know like okayyou know what should I do there's allthese karaoke places all over the placebut I was like all right how does thisworkyeah I'm just gonna enter it so one dayI decided to go let me just check it outyou know and so I get there and it'slike yeah I like to sing karaoke this islike my broken English I make the brokenJapanese yeah and like one yeah just meshe's like I think they asked me likethree or four times like one just oneare you crazyand so I said yeah just me is that okayso and they did it by time so I rememberI would like jam you know like becausehe charged by hour so I invited her youknow and you have to order a drink -that's like their minimum oh okay so Iwould like pack and you know as manysongs like in and then do that and so Iremember going back to the class becauseI used to teach adults English hmm andwe were talking about karaoke and inthis one Japanese student of mine she'slike you know seeing karaoke by yourselfis like going to Disneyland by yourselfand running all the rides by yourselfthat's how weird it might be but I wasso into it I mean I loved it and I lovedbeing part of like a group sing karaokethat's a burnshe burned you pretty hook you know andthat's I guess it just kind of it waspart of something that I'd love to do isZ and I don't even know how to sing welllike I think in my mind I can sing okaybut in terms of seeing lessons and howto really resonate your voice and how todo it properly you know it's all beenself taught just like kind of somewhatlike breaking is but you know it's allbeen self talk you never took any voicelessons or anything never took anythingI've always thought about taking it Ijust don't have the time right now but Ithink eventually I'll probably do itjust cuz it's always been something Iwanted to learn right when I was youngerwe would go to my mom had us in likewhat is it called Sunday school and sowe would always we'd have to be a partof like a choir there so at a young agewe were learning how to sing you knowprobably through elementary school orwhatever and then you know and then Istopped doing that and but it always wasyou know I guess the little bit ofsinging lessons I had when I was youngerthrough that is it's really the onlything I've had but sometimes I'll watchlike youtube videos about how to likeuse your lungs better your diaphragmbetter I'm not a good singer though butit's something I definitely want to getgood at hey well you know what we got aset date and just bang it out you knowwhenever my brother has like a party athis house he has a little what's itcalled Magic Mike uh-huh and we justlike go off on it yeah so so I set up atmy placeuh-huh kind of this I have two Mike's ofa mixer and I have a karaoke programthat has tons of songs I just kind of gothrough that's things so I remembergoing to it was a juice offend we justall got together a lot of the staff andthe friends came by and my friend who'sa DJ yesyou're like because I brought the wholesystem over I brought my PA system themics the stands he's all like you'relike a DJ for care yeah because I waskind of likeall right next Sangha you know who is ondeck you know that's tight yeah dude Ialways was curious all right I alwayshad this weird idea that to do karaokeat a jam like while people are battlingjust have a deed I don't know how Iwould quite work but like you're playingmusic and then someone's up there justsinging like this song I don't know howit work quite like I always thought thatthat'd be so dope to make that happen itwould like totally lighten up the mood Ithink of a jam and that's I'm all aboutthat kind of thing yeah I I thinkbreaking away from the traditionalstructures that'll be interesting youknow one aspect about jams I love is youknow live music I mean gosh just havinglive music is so different it's so coolI remember going to one of Jeff's killsevents and it was awesome this had afull-on live band just going off youknow for a handful of songs and you knowit was just really cool just have thataspect of it like it was a concert yeahit feels like it and it you know andthey're just like a lot of times I sawit would be like the DJ is playing theirmusic and then this live band would justjump on and just put a bass line orwhatever you know and I always thoughtthat was tight they'd hit the drums andstuff they yeah kind of play along withit yeah we did a couple of jams over atthe park where we brought in drumsetsaxophone and we had two DJ's justspinning at the same time and usingother instruments along yeah it justreally created a different vibe and Ithought was really cool yeah yeah itcreates a concert vibe and it's it's notit's not even like you had an entireband or like you know they they had likea whole set that they were doing it wasjust some guys just playing you knowplaying to a song that's already existedthis is probably how they practice to behonest and so they were just like heyI'm down with this doo doo doo doo dooyou know playing that junk and theneverybody loves it so I I actually met afew drummers recently and I was like ehis this the kind of is this like how youpractice because this is like somethingthat b-boylove you know b-boys and b-girls loveand so if you ever wanted to just go toa jam or something or a practice evenand just jam out like it would bedefinitely yeah I I would invite thattoo to just like you know let's justspring out some congas and just havesome beats and just just freestyle itand just you know bringing other friendsjust want to have really cool rhythmsand just jam out to itbecause I love the diversity ofdifferent types of music as long as ithas like consistent beat that people areinto what's your favorite style of musicactually so what I listen to I listen tothe top 40 music oh you do okay I doalright and I think some of that comesbecause you know when I start to singkaraoke oh yeah that those are the songsI go okay those are kind of popular nowbut there's certain songs I go I reallylike that type of song yeah it's itdoesn't have to be all male singers tolike there there there there are TaylorSwift songs there's Halsey songs thatI'm into that I go okay that really hasa really cool melody and a beat I'mgonna sing the guy version of it okayyou know and a different key yeah but Ilisten top 40 but then you know when Iwhen I break and so forth I mean and Ican't listen to just the remixes and yesI'm a you know great funk and R&B thatjust is out there when when when anybodyasks me that question I always have ahard time answering it because I I canliterally find a song in any genre thatI like you know and so I mean maybe theanswer to the question is like whichJohn are do I find the most songs butthere's some John Rose I just haven'tyou know dug so deep into but I just Ijust love music like you know all hereI'll hear something weird that I'venever heard before and I'll go like okayI don't quite understand this yet butlet me give it a try and I you knowsometimes I'll get into it I'll go likeoh okay I see what they're trying to dobecause it's not it's not always justabout a lot I mean a lot of time there'sthey're trying todo something different musically andit's maybe just not understood at thattime because it's so different and Imean it's just it's fun to like breakdown what they were creatively doing intheir music yeah so and that that's whatI think is so fun about music and why somany different styles of music likeresonate with me and so yeah I like tolisten to some of the weird likeexperimental stuff that like doesn'teven have like a you know a steady beator anything because even that stuff yougood like you you want to break downlike what the heck is going on and it'slike it's so cool like once you startfiguring it out yeah and I think gettingmore into music production has helped mekind of break down music a lot betterinto so but yeah I don't know I you knowwhen I was younger I was really intolike rock music alternative you knowlike Nirvana the Third Eye Blind guysmmmthings like that Rage Against theMachine I was really into and then lateron I started getting more into hip-hopthat got more into like soul music funkmusic and stuff namely from breakingjazz music got a little bit into likecountry music recently I've been intolike mumble rap actually okay yeah a lotof people have like a kind of weirddisdain for it which at first when Iwhen I first heard I was like oh what isthis stuff and I kind of gave it a tryfor a while and then I started realizingyou know mumble rap is like thisgeneration the this generations way ofbeing like counterculture you know I'vetalked to a lot of people about thisactually on this podcast but hip-hop hasalways been like a somewhatcounterculture thing they want to dothen something new that no one else hasdone and like I really feel like that'swhat the mumble rap scene was all aboutwas like let's make music but we're nottrying to copy what these guys didbefore us let's do something new youknow much like punk how punk music theywould scream and you know kind of have ainaudible like noise almost I feel likethat's what momis doing and I've always liked punkmusic and so when I when I realized thatconnection to counterculture and likethem doing something different I reallygained like a huge respect I guess forit and I don't know yeah I think hip-hopis is very much you know that outletit's that it's that counterculture it'sit's creating something you always sayfrom nothing but you know it's reallyyou know having having that creativenesswith what you have yeah you know and andI think it's just it's a really uniqueway of expression you know I look backas to the evolution of hip-hop becauseyou know hip-hop culture has beenchanging over the years and I think itchanges I think as we come to the newage is what's what people you know gothrough in their lives kind of reflectthe outcome of how they express himselfyou know I think a lot of times peoplehave hip-hop and the culture kind ofconfused in some sense especially ifyou're not really involved in thecommunity to see what it's all about youknow that was one of the topics ofdiscussion is you know what is hip-hopright and I think people always go wellyou know hip-hop is is rap music yeahit's a style of dance yeah and I thinkthere's some type of you know disconnectbetween what is what is authentichip-hop you know so people go what iship-hop and what every time I and Iexplain hip hop to others that may nothave been involved in the culture righttell them it's about it's aboutcommunity it's about respect and loveit's about bringing you know positivityto to the worldit's about belonging family and andthese are all the the items that kind ofform what we call hip-hop today and soyou know what we try to do over at juiceis to kind of keep those core valuesabout having respect for everyone youknow it doesn't matter your backgroundand your race your color your talentanything you know everybody is welcomein hip-hop yeah and you know that's oneof the things that you know we prideourselves just to make surethat you know we want to make sure thedoors open for everybodyyeah hip-hop to me is like a lifestyleit's a it's a culture it's a lifestyleand it's um it's not it transcends Ithink all of the the you know the fourelements the four typical elements wetalked I think it I think it's um it'sit's much more than that it's it's alifestyle it's a it's a whole cultureand it's ever-growing I wouldn't besurprised if later on we start sayingthat there's five elements of hip-hop orsix elements of hip-hop you know what Imean and I think it's just because thebubble is growing more and we're likeyou know as more people getting involvedwith it where we're actually figuringout more about like what this all whatthis all is and and so you know I thinkin the next couple years we're gonnaprobably see more and more peoplegetting involved with it namelyyou know breaking is now gonna be in theOlympics so I think it's gonna open alot of people's eyes to what we do andso I wouldn't be surprised if there's aninflux of new b-boys you know coming inand trying to learn what hip-hop is andso I think having a good definedcommunity for them to and welcomingcommunity ready for them is like reallythe best way to handle that because it'snot you know this is a welcomingcommunity and so we wanna we want tomake that apparent you know when whenthat happens I don't know I don't knowif you have anything to say about thatit's yeah I'm you know breaking breakingis always meant to evolve over time withwhatever's going on in the world orwhatever's happening in our community alot of people ask me you know what doyou think about breaking in the Olympicsyeah and you know I think it's part ofits course you know I think breaking isalways meant to evolve hmm I see a lotof great things with having breaking aspart of a larger community yeah andpeople being exposed to something that'sreally importantI think what's important is to make surethat the information about what hip-hopis and what the true culture is is alsoexplained yeah and that there's rightpeople that are able to be part of youknow getting that information out topeople that may not know a lot abouthip-hop a breaking I think that's areally important figure to make surethat you know whatever the OlympicCommittee decides to do is to make surethat there's they keep that authenticityof the culture yeah yeah I was talkingto my friend Serge yesterday actuallyabout all this and he's like he's veryadamant about portraying hip-hopcorrectly like he really wants people tounderstand there's like a lot of I guessa struggle that was you know kind ofbaked into hip-hop and that he does hewants when people come in he doesn'twant to shoo them away or anything hewants to welcome them but then also likeeducate them about what this is and thatthey're not just coming into it as youknow just for the good I guess but butunderstanding everything about it youknow the history of it and that maybethere was some bad parts of that youknow namely that there's maybe some kindof oh you know it's kind of built out ofyou know the ghetto it's built out ofpoverty it was built out of you know abasic struggle in life and to get towhere it is now and so coming into ityou got to respect that as well and sothat was that was one of the main thingshe was he he wants to portray as youknow the scene evolves so which I whichI respect I think that's a that's a goodthing to do you know to always respectlike your history but also welcome inthe evolution of it so well anywayswe're hitting about an hour right now soI think we could probably wrap this showup do you have any lessbest words anything else I know wedidn't really talk about like a crewaffiliation or anything do you have acrew affiliation so I don't I don't havea crew affiliation I guess I get niceyou know there is a juice crew out therehere but oh is that yeah you gonnabattle fit yeah I mean they're prettygood but uh okay yeah I you know I Ilook at you know the evolution of alsojuice and where it has been where it'scome to and you know part of what wewant to continue to do is is build thismodel that we have is free spaces foranybody to come through to be able toexpress themselves in all areas I mean Ithink if you ask me you know what iswhat do I see in the future of juice andI go gosh I could see juice in in everycitycross country across the seas having alocation all over just a place wherepeople can come to to express themselvesutilizing the hip-hop arts as a tool forsocial change empowerment mm-hmm youknow arts education and just changingpeople's lives yeahso we're our future and our hope is tocontinue to do what we're doing continueto grow continue to build new teammembers but also establish new locationsacross you know different areas and yeahthat's what we're trying to do is is isorganically grow you know we've beenworking with the city in the county ofLos Angeles we have different locationsthat we could possibly open up but Ithink what's holding us back right nowis just the ability to staff and alsofinance some of those locations becauseit is a free program so a lot of thingsthat we do you know it's all either bydonations or individuals that reallybelieve in what we do and so you know ifwe have one of those you know wonderfulfunders one day that says hey you knowhow do we really help you guys reallytake this thing offyeah thing that could really change whatwe do and I think you know as we gettowards you know more popularity withthe Olympics and just the media and soforth you know our hope is to be able toalso maybe even ride thata little bit and you know grow what wedo yeah I would imagine there's probablya lot of opportunity for grants outthere I mean there already is but Ithink maybe as there's more popularitythere's there's probably more willing ofthe you know of these organizations andthe government to you know give you guysgrants to do what you do especially ifyou have a well-defined message and planyou know to execute it so I think youknow my mother she's a in art she's anartist in it and a teacher and so shewas doing a lot of similar kind of workin Sacramento where she was gettinggrants to do these well it was like it'slike a it's like a program it's ahealing program through art is I guessthe best way to describe it it's whereshe was she had um women who were youknow subject to abuse or whatever andthey came in did artwork to kind of likeas a therapy and so she was the teacherand organizer the director I don't knowall that stuff so she was doing all thegrant writing and everything to put thisprogram on and so she did that for avery very long time now now she'sretired but okay she still kind ofteaches a little bit but um but yeah Iimagine I mean cuz there's a need for itand so it's it's I imagine that there'stons of grasses right now what we'redoing is collaborating with largerorganizations yeah so we're gonna beworking with LAUSD and after-schoolenrichment programs we're finishing upour contract with them and we have aschool that we're specifically gonna dofree braking programs yeah and thenwe're gonna work with anotherorganization in the location that we'rewith that's already you know a prettywell-known youth organization andincorporating something hip and coolinto their program for some of theiryouth mm-hmm and then you know one ofthe other ideas that we're doing rightnow that we're working towards isopening up another location for juice onSaturday at the same time that we haveour program and being able to teach kidsand families specifically new tobreaking oh cool and so we have alocation already determined for thatand once again it's about staffing andI'm probably gonna end up doing thatportion of just kind of going with itand just seeing where it leads us yeahlike everything you know we try thingsand sometimes we learn from them and weget better at it yeah yeah well I thinkthat you're doing some amazing work andyou know I'm glad to hear that it'sgrowing and that you have big plans forthe future so stay tuned and I'd love tohave you back if you ever have time tocome and talk to more stuff do somekaraoke yeah dope dude so do you haveany like social media to shout out orwhatever I don't know yeah so you canfollow us on a juice hip-hop I would saylike orange juice so juice and hip hopthat's our that's our or handle so comefollow us yeah we're over at MacArthurPark every Saturday from 12:00 to 4:00and then cell is our Park in East LA onFridays from 6 to 8 p.m. free foreverybody free for everybody even meyeah dope cool thank you for for comingon dude this has been a great time Ithink this was a great episode I'mreally happy that you were able to comeand thank you guys for listeningall you zero listeners though sorry theshow sucks[Music][Music]you[Music]
Khoa, a chemist by day and a bboy by night, discusses his approach to creativity and learning, and how hip hop has shaped his life. Follow @Instagram: noiseofthebrokeboysTwitter: BrokeBoysNoiseListen to the Audio on all Podcast platforms. All The Links Here: https://linktr.ee/NoiseOfTheBrokeBoysA broke degenerate hooligan documents conversations about being a Bboy, Breakin', Hip Hop, Dance, Art, Music, Creativity, Innovation, and the slow subtle crumble of society in audio form.----more----[Music]this episode of noise of the broke boysis brought to you by tardiness ring ringring hey is that your alarm are yousupposed to be somewhere right nowoh you're too cool to be on time becauseyou have a hundred followers on socialmedia okaysorry carry on those of you that do havesomewhere to be but decide to stillexercise tardiness despite not having alegitimate excuse I'm here to say headover to your local shopping departmentand head to the time telling devicesection of the wide selection of watchesand wall clocks choose a few of yourpreference to purchase head over to thecheckout counter to make your finalpurchase go ahead and grab a containerof extra strength adhesive while you areon your way take the items home and oncethere use the adhesive to glue thewatches to your arms and the wall clocksto your body and use the remainingadhesive to adhere your eyes open andyour lips closed have fun with yournewfound love of chronometer Xandadhesives the next time be moreconsiderate of other people's time andnow onto the show[Music]in today's episode I sit down with ab-boy I've known since high school weattended rival schools and met in acall-out battle between the b-boys ofour respective schoolshe is a UC Irvine alumni and currentlyworks as a chemist I love goofing aroundwith this guyand I'm excited to bring him on the showplease enjoy this episode with my goodfriend qua hello everybody welcome topatient zero of the online infection ofcorona virus yes you heard that rightthat's crow no virus not corona virusalthough this guy might have that aswell but chrono as in time he's got atardiness problem but anyways yet todayI have a special guest he is my friendqua the chemist or he used to go byquality but he was a biter so he changedhis name he is a b-boy he is a actualchemist and he's also a douchebag howare you doing my friend what's upnothing much again my apologies forbeing late today very very cleverimpromptu fake ad as well so what's updude you've been living out here for aminute right so we're out here in LAyou've been out here since college rightcuz you went to UC Irvine oh yeah that'sright you studied chemistry out here orsomething right mmm that's right so yeahI studied um first I studied biologythat I realized I hate memorizing shitso I decided to get into chemistrybecause I thought organic chemistry wasactually surprisingly interesting andkind of fun to do at that time which iscontradictory to what everybody aroundme was saying everyone used to say likeman fuck okay that shit sucks dickthat's the reason why I don't even wantto do chemistry anymoreso but then I was against the green Isuppose in this case so I wouldthat chemistry and then after Igraduated I found a job in the area andwas testing out food oh that's rightyeah you were like a food tester yeah ohman so it was you who is putting allthat freaking coronavirus in the food orwhatever they don't mean a thing I don'tknow I'm just making sure though oh no Iput it in the Modelo virus virus thatPBR viruswell dope dude so yeah so you are achemist and you are also a b-boy so youmoved out here and you've been a b-boysince high school right I think I metyou man what were you probably like afreshman or something so or maybe that'scorrect we met during high school Iofficially started back in middle schoolI I just saw my friend at the Buddhisttemplate I go to every Saturday and mmmhe was one of the I don't know you everheard of Turtle Wax crew back then andSacramento hurdle wax crew I don't knowyeah it's like they I mean that justsounds like someone's racing cars thatnight turtle wax is the stuff that makesyour car real shiny that's right yeah sothat was like his crew back then whatI'll call it rice rocket I went out hedrove a rice rocket back then chewedyeah and it was probably busted too itwas like one of those you know one ofthose messed up like CR X's with like anice body kit but it doesn't matcheverything else is like like the colorof the car is different than the colorof the eye of the body kit oh yeahthat's definitely player those back inthe back in those days did you have arice rocket oh no I couldn't even affordone okay all I had back then was just anice reliable Camrya silver cat we solid color all aroundso okay so okay soand so you've been breaking since middleschool in that I guess for reference youare how old you're almost thirty rightalmost 30 so I'm 29 right now so it's abit about living over 16 years since Istarted breaking it's a long time it'sit's it's so weird to me because likewe're like I mean maybe it's justgetting old I guess in this scenebecause like I remember being the youngperson in the scene and now I'm likelegitimately the old person in the sceneand I'm like oh crap dude what the heckit's kind of weird to just to look atthat cuz you go to like a an event orwhatever a breaking event and you seeyou know 12 year olds and stuff 13 14 1516 all the way up to like 20 year oldsand I'm like dang dude I'm 10 yearsolder than all of you guys so I guess itget it just goes to show you that thisis such a young a young dance a youngculture but you know as we're allgetting older and it's getting morepopular I think we're gonna see more oldpeople older people in the scene soanyways so like what got you intohip-hop cuz you you are from the samecity that I'm from which is Carmichaelmm-hmmin Sacramento which is not necessarilyknown for its hip-hop it's a richhip-hop culture it's not known for itsrich like urban scene it's not knownlike it's known for some cows some oldpeopleand that's probably it I don't know whatelse is it's got a good school districtI guess yeah we definitely do have someof that but yeah so what would what gotyou into to HIPAA I mean I guess yeahyou said you're in the Buddhist templeyou saw someone breaking but is thatwhat hooked you into and then how didyou go back home and then figure out howto do this oh yeah so after I saw myfriend doing like a couple of flares anddude even doing a 90 on concrete and Ishouldn't was hella cool so I want tolearn how to do that so the onlyresource I had back then was I went onto my 56k dial-up internet and I waslooking for b-boy tutorials onlinemm-hmmand I notice always talk to people whichis like kind of frowning apart likelooking at people looking at a b-boytutorials however I was like the onlyresource I had at the time so I justread into these message sports and whateveryone probably knew as b-boy got hardback in the days so that's how I firstgot started and I just startedpracticing flares and windmills in myliving room what some really shittycarpet where you get carpet burns andyou have a big living room so it's likeyou got some room for sure it'sdefinitely like enough space to I getsome breaking in I know your your housewas like freakin big at least that onebig entryway is like really big is thatwhere you did itum that's what I did in my later yearsbut in the beginning actually ya know Ithink by the living room was so prettybig yeah well cause like I'm justcomparing it to my parents living roomand like there wasn't much because itwas more long than it was like yours iswide in all directions my parents waslike shorter in one direction so theyhave the couch there and so I give youtried windmills you definitely kickedthe couch but I know yours I don't thinkyou would hit anythingyeah no you had big room yeah I don'tknow yeah there's definitely my plentyof space in the living room but when Iwas like a super newbie back then Iwould I wanted to try learnon a smooth floor so I had this reallysmall like tile section between theentryway door and the living room so Iwould say it's like maybe just a 5 feetby like I don't know 10 feet rectangleof tile saw we just tried to win thoselove that mmm so that's why I firststarted learning uh windows and that'swhat got me even more into it so it'slike I realized oh I can do this shitmaybe I could try learn some other movesokay and so then 16 years later you'restill into it you work in full time inyour chemistry thing or what what isactually your exact job title so I wentthrough a series of different careerchanges so I work over three years ithas a food chemist and then I realizedthis doesn't pay very well I need tolook for a new job okay but you knowbeing like 2425 a time I don't know whatto fucking do I don't have a strongpassion in this career to be a broke boyyes exactly I would be a broke boy if Ididn't work so all I care about wasalright how do I get more money and Ididn't know what to do at the time so Ijust went on a job board so that's Ilook for anything relevant to my skillsso I found this one small company Ilooked for a chemist it said chemiststhis much salary and assistant projectmanager I was like what the hell is aproject manager sounds pretty cool okayso you manage projects and I guess likein the industry what is the industryexactly because it's not food anymoreright so right now I I work for abiotech company diode that makes mediafor you to develop vaccines or they alsomake stuff to freeze your eggs or makeyour sperm swim faster so I work forthat kind of company right now and I domore of the project management stuff nowrather than the laboratory work wait sothat just made me think of a sperm bankthe is there do you have like a sectionof the building you are kidding that's asperm bank that's like you got dudescoming in they're like hey hey hey guesswhat I got you know that's a goodquestion I don't know we have like areservoir of like semen in thelaboratory or something to put them torun their tests I wouldn't doubt itthat's hella funny okay so you're overthere mix and freaking people's semenall day that's what's upb-boy so you're mixing semen by day anddoing windmills by night that's what'supthat's hella tight' but so okay so whatgot you into chemistry though so becauseyou you were into breaking first and allof a sudden you wanted to get intochemistry and I don't know was that wasthat something you were alwaysinterested in you know as much as I wantto provide like what do you what I calla LinkedIn response which is like a veryoptimistic professional soundingresponse about to be like very genuineand learn about it I have to say I justwanna look for something that will makeme money in the future and chemistryjust seemed like something about morefeasible where hey I can do this shit Ican't say I love it but it's interestingenough for me to keep going with it asat that time like I wasn't sure what toreally do because I grew up in a familywhere as we know like a lot of Asianfamilies especially with Vietnamesefamilies we have a kinda like a I guessa pre-arranged kind of life stage oflife stages where okay you're gonna goto school study biology you're gonnabecome either a pharmacist or a doctoror an ale person nail painter yeah whatis their timeOh nail salon specialist you know salonspecialist is that in your career pathat all I'm not I was like trying to findmy mom so I wouldn't consider it likeyou know no no I'm gonna get into thatyou go mixed semen instead now now Imanage key for the mixed semen no cakesand shit like that's the soap so you'relike hey all you Pezover here you mix my semen for me andthey're like oh yes siryes project manager especially is heylet's get this shit done on time ah I'mabout to get some corporate shaking frommy bossoh yeah he's gonna throw his semen atyou you're not doing your job o'clockhere's my semen now wipe it up and gogive it to your peons oh no I'm justtrying to do my job mandamn dude all right that's tight but Iguess kind of going back to like when Iwas like 18 or younger stages so I nevergot to exercise a lot of my owndecision-making back then so I was justrelying upon the whole okay I'm justgonna follow this preset life stagessystem because there's like guaranteesecurity and money and I realize when Iwas showering for a pharmacist so I it'skind of boring it's kind of a link Imean I'm not gonna knock on that kind ofjob because that makes hella money and Irespect people that go through the wholepharmacy school and go through all drugdealers oh yeah exactly yeah you don'twant to go the drug dealer path that'swhat's up um so the reason I was I'masking about chemistry and stuff andbreaking is because I know that you'veall you grew up in like a situationwhere there was like you were kind ofguided towards a certain path but Ithink breaking most people that get intobreaking are like kind of going againstthe grain usually so I'm curious ifthere was like if any like pushback fromyour parents to not break oh all thetime I remember like when I was in highschool I would try to session at home inthe living room and the living room dayyou saw before and I remember my stepdadwould always tell me to stop doing Jeffthe gymnastics as he would college[Laughter][Music]yeah just what this purpose I guess wecould just use that voice yeah and therewas your mom's voice like oh that'ssupervening me I can't even do thataccent ah she would just tell me likejust just focus on my studies enough badboy kick I give you spanking like thatno your mom's only nice I like her yeahbut um yeah I just never my parents justdidn't support it cuz um my stepdadwould hear me like flopping everyone youhear a lot of thud or he walks out ofhis office and he's just like tappingthe ground like dude you flop bro you'reonly ten but your abiders - yeah hewould basically be doing this so Ididn't really get like a whole lot ofsupport earlier on but I like doing itbecause I thought it was cool so I justkept on doing it and then eventually Iforgot how the story went but I guess myfault my mom finally recognized that heycarla has some dope shit and now insteadlike discouraging me she's not braggingto all her friends about me that's rightso she eventually turned around and Iwas like alright all this rolling on theground is is kind of cool but go be apharmacist but you can roll around onthe ground afterwardsI guess callaghan unspoken compromisebecause she saw that oh hey quadgraduated from college and he did prettywell he got a jobI mean he's still breaking so I guessshe saw some nitrous you can see thatthe breaking didn't really kill my Iguess career path from her eyes youwouldn't call her that yeah yeah and sheprobably also recognized that it's likesomething that you love doing and thatit you know it is a creative outlet toyou and that has a lot of benefitI mean that I think I'm comparing it toto my parents who my mom is an artist mydad is a general contractor and Mikecarpenter furniture makers well heactually made this table so they're bothlike creatives and so they were alwaysyou know looking at breaking as I meanthey would say oh don't break your neckdon't you know crash too hard orwhatever but they always looked at it aslike a good thing because it was like acreative outlet to me and my brother andso they were pretty supportive of itother than don't break your neck don'tdo them head spins but everything elsethey're like yeah that's cool so Iimagine maybe your mom started seeingthat as wellyou know because chemist chemistry andbreaking it seems like such differentthings to me and that's I think why it'sso fascinating to me that the this isthis is your reality is that you havethis very like technical skill set andthen this very creative skill set andI'm very curious about like how those tocoincide could collide with each otherdo you see any kind of overlap with itin terms of like maybe mentality oranything I mean I imagine there's a lotof creativity in the work that you dobut it's just not so apparent to someonewho's stupid like me you wouldn't see ityou know I don't know shit aboutchemistry I got an A in chemistry warmactually I set the curve in that classyeah that's really impressive and onlife you look for people below the curveyeah no I was like uh I'm a chemist dudeand then I'm like okay you gave everyoneI'll just smoke back there and the smokein there like oh dude he's gonna be sucha good chemist and then I'm like nahfuck this shit I'm gonna go study somemath or whatever I don't know mmm bangyou know actually that's a really goodquestion about tying in like I guess thechemistry background went breaking thinghonestly as of right now II kept them pretty separate in thisfight like some sort of unconsciousparallels that probably happen I justnever really gave that much thoughtabout it well here's here's somethingthat maybe you can consider is like forme uh you know I'm an engineer I studiedmath and structural engineering inschool and so I have a very like you'llhave like a very set process I mean it'svery math oriented and so when Iapproach breaking I have kind of like aprocess of doing it in a way you knowwe're not necessarily formulaic althoughit might look that way it's it's morelike so when when you get good at mathright you you're not just memorizinglike a bunch of formulas or somethingyou're understanding the process of howlike numbers work and how you know andvariables and stuff and so what you dois you know how to manipulate you know amathematical equation right or just amathematical statement you know how toalter it because you have all thesetools at your disposal and so I approachbreaking kind of in the same ways whereI like try to learn all these new toolsso that when I come into break I canpull pieces of it and kind of get me towherever I want which is the same thingas math really like if you're trying toget you're trying to turn an equationinto something that's usable so you'reapplying all these different tools soyou know whatever this formula youlearned back in the day or this otherlike substitution you can do these areall little tools you use to alter theequation which I know is somewhatsimilar in chemistry so I I don't knowactually no I now that you bring that upthat kind of like I guess woke upside of my brain that actually have somefeedback on this so I do agree I do seeone parallel at least where I think youcan relate to this square we had like acomplex problem and if we want to beable to figure it out we just break itdown to the simplest of basic form of itand I think that I you I definitely usethat a lot more recently with when Ineed to fix my foundation and breakinglike I realized fuck my footwork lookslike shit right nowand if I want to break it down I alwaysdid no no you're right it looked likeshit for a longest time and it wasn'tuntil like I don't know maybe roughly atleast over two years ago I started totry to fix it and the best way to fix itI guess supposed to break it down onestep at a time because like if I justlook at a six step my own six attackthen yeah I'm like man it looks likecrap yeah I just I just break it down tolike individual steps on how to make itlook crispy yeah yeah exactly and Ithink that's the same with math is likeyou have this equation here and you canmemorize thatbut what's probably more important is ifyou learned how that equation wasderived the process of which and so whenI compare that to a sixth step you havethe Move six steps sure and I you knowyou learned that but then if your sixthstep looks like shit what you should bedoing is looking at each of those sixsteps and figuring out how to make eachof those six steps look better and in away now you have six moves rather thanone move right and so now instead ofdoing a six step you're doing just stepsand you can alter the steps as you asyou want and I think it gives you somuch more depth to your dancing and ifyou apply that to like literally everystep you have I think at least for me Ifound that footwork you're no longerthinking about it in terms of six step 7step 8 step twine whatever all thesestupid steps I don't think of it likethat anymore I just think of it as likea certain movement like I'll move my hipthis way inmy foot that way or whatever on my legor I'll have my head up higher have itlower have my arm reaching out more soit's you know in you combining thosemoves together and then yeah that lookslike a six step but I can also alter itnow it becomes like a you know a twinestep or whatever and so yeah that's thethat's the correlation I have with thetechnical background and in the creativebackground no you're absolutely rightabout that like it was until recentlywhen I've realized the importance oflike committing for example the hook inyour sixth step okay I just thought likeoh it's just a part of the six step butI realized now you gotta make that hooklook really good for that stick stuff tobe really good yeah yes well it it'slike every every piece of the move hasthe ability to make a statement so ifyou want to make the statement at thepart where you're hooking your legaround you want to make sure that thathook looks perfect or at least the wayyou want it so cuz that's gonna be thisthat's gonna be the exclamation point onyour on your sentence right or you knowlike like if you're stepping forwardlike one of the one one of the ways theydo it is like I think it'll be it's likeit's basically a step out but you kindof stick your butt up in the airmm-hmm from a sixth step all you'redoing is just accentuating that one stepyou're still sticking your hips uphigher so you can see it but that sothat now that's the exclamation in thein the sentence so I don't know I thinkhaving a good a good balance ofexclamation points and subtle movementis what really makes it's so interestingthe dancing so interesting I agree Ijust feel like it I guess if you want tocompare it to like if you want to reachup to a broader audience overcharged alla nice pretty picture but we can't drawthis pretty picture without having anice knowing how to draw a nice squarenice triangle a nice nice circle or elseyou have like all these bluff tight-asscircleugly-ass warehouse guys look like shityeah it looks like dope so like okay soin terms of creativity like whatcreatively inspires you in this dancehmm you know honestly the whole createevery part was the one I struggle thehardest with like for the longest timeit wasn't until maybe again like roughlytwo years ago at the same time when Istarted fixing my foundation am Ibreaking that's when my creativityfinally started like flourishing back inthe days hate to admit that I most of mycreativity was I really creativity wasjust watching my friends Freddy's ideaswere just basically biting Oh always beboth to be while fighting shit he's abiter so that was like me back in thedays and then it wasn't until like whenI saw like fixing my foundation when Ican finally learn how to creatively addon stuff so I guess the more of thestory being that it's really importantto really build the basic b-boyfoundation first because that's how tocreate these creativity starts flowingas cliche as that sounds but that shitis true and I wish I learned that likemany years back and I think that wouldhave like expend my growth a lot fasterearly on but moving forward going backto the creativity part and I'll say allof it is just like just starts withworking with my friends whoever Isession with and then anytime someonehas a cool idea we just try to build offof that yeah yeah it's definitelyhelpful to have like a bunch of a groupof people to kind of bounce ideas off ofa lot of times when I train with mybrother well me and him are like reallygood at this cuz we just will dosomething and it's like a you know ashitty movinglike say he does a shitty move and I'llbe like oh can you do this after it andthen he'll try it but he'll do it shittyor whatever and then it wasn't quitewhat I had in my mind but then what hedid actually looks better than what Ihad in my mind or whatever and so thenwe were just like oh that was tight justlike clean that up or whatever and samething for me I'll do a move and I'll belike yo what should I do after this orwhatever and so we just bounce ideas andI think the the part that makes itreally interesting is kind of the Lostin Translation thing because he mighthave an idea for what I'm trying to doand he'll try to say it and I won'tquite understand it but I'll go I thinkI understand let me try it and it'scompletely the diff the wrong thing butit's like he'll see it and go oh thatwas tight actually shit try to do thator whatever so I don't know yeah I justplay it's just playing around reallyit's playing around and and not caring Ithink is the two most important thingsfor me at least I'll actually no I agreejust I guess being in a relaxed state ofmind really does it really is importantfor the creativity part especially Idon't know you have I'm sure you hadthese kind of moments where and eitheryou're in a shower or you're taking youryour your work shits and all of a suddenwhile you're taking a shit you're likeoh I have a dumb idea like it doesrelaxed State oh yeah yeah yeah yeah nouh definitely like you have some weirdideas in the weirdest times yeah cuz Imean it I think what's what's reallyimportant for creativity is to likefully immerse yourself into the momentinto it I mean they call it like a flowstate where like ideas are just flowingand so it's like you're hyper focused inthe moment of you know trying to dosomething and and so I think the timeswhen I'm most creative is when I getthat flow state and I'm hyper focused onjust music and you know just caught upin my own head trying to dosomething in but also not being afraidto just go with the flow you know ifyou've if your body is saying do thisjust try itI mean don't get injured or anything butlike see what happens yeah and thenmaybe maybe it's still maybe it's wackI don't know but actually I was gonnaask you about the whole flow State thingso that's like one of the topics I'vebeen trying to explore a lot morerecently and I've experienced that flowstate where things just likeeverything's you should have just turnsinto going that moment like I guess whatI'm trying to figure out and ask fromyou is how do you obtain this flow statea lot more consistently becausesometimes like you I'll be at practiceI'm like trying to take deep breaths andtry to calm myself but I can't alwaysobtain that flow state consistently so Ijust want to ask you from what's on yourend uh well so yeah I've actually beenreally interested in this topic as welland so I've been listening to a fewpodcasts that have experts in the fieldthat have you know they're like what arethe scientists that study the brainpsychology as AI neurology they're allyes something like that but basicallythey're studying what the brain lookslike in that state so they'll get liketest subjects to like get into thatstate and then they're looking at what'sgoing on in their brain and likefiguring out what was the best way toget them there and I mean I think ithasn't been conclusive of what it is butthey have a few things that help and Imight get this wrong but I guess maybeit's better if I just speak fromexperience what I find is that yeah it'skind of like a meditative exercise in away is like you gotta calm yourself andbecome high like again hyper focused ina certain moment which you know is is ameditative state you're you're notthinking about what anyone else is doingif anyone's looking I mean it's almostlike you're in a room by yourself rightand you're there you're on the ground orwhatever and you're not thinking aboutanyother than music for instance for me forme it's it's the easiest one you know Ihave this music going and it you knowit's like my favorite music or whateverand it's an empty room it's just me Ifind myself getting into that state alot easier because they're there I'm notthere's no one around me to like youknow to give me some kind ofsubconscious stretch distraction yeahyeah I'm not trying to like perform forthem or whatever so not that you can'tdo that with other people around I meanI do that all the time too but you justit's a little bit harder because youhave this thing in the back of your mindthat oh there's these people here orwhatever you can't be crashing all overthe place oh but yeah so like I thinkyeah if you I think the things thatapply to meditation also apply to like aflow State for creativityI don't know I'll have to send you someof the podcasts I've listened to aboutit because it's it's a very interestingsubject and it's not fully understoodbut there are a lot of methods thatpeople have figured out and it's notjust and it's not um it's not only foryou know typical arts things like youcan get into like a float a creativeflow State for really anything andthat's I think that's how a lot of themost the coolest accomplishments havehappened is when people get hyperfocused on something and they date youknow they'll come up with cool ways todo it I mean I have a I have a theorythat Elon Musk is like really good atthis because that guy just has somewild-ass ideas all the time and thenhe's also good at executing them so youknow I feel like he just gets into thiscrazy State of Mind where he's coming upwith all these ideas and then he goesokaylet me reach into my deep bass pocketwith all this money and now let's makeit happen you know and then got a rocketthat's going all over the place andstuff so well yeah kind of continuingoff of that how it's just kind ofcuriouskind of a side question did you startdrinkingmatcha recently because of thel-theanine properties it has the whatElvis theanine l-theanine I have no ideawhat that isI drink it cuz it's good that's goodyeah yeah I don't know yeah it cuz ittastes good and it's I mean like I likecoffee a lot but sometimes coffee giveyou like a headache and stuff and likematcha has some caffeine in it and Idon't know it's I guess it's not soharsh in terms of like caffeine spikeyeah the caffeine spike so I'll drinkmatcha like more often now but I don'tknow I don't know what what isl-theanine with l-theanine it's acomponent in commonly found in matchatea and I've read this recently whereBuddhist monks in Japan which workmatcha tea for the healthy earningbecause l-theanine is supposed to belike this meditative component thathelps your brain relax a lot more soit's supposed to help them with theirmeditation sessions and I started Iguess reading about how to like calm mybreaking down a lot better because I goI go to jams and so you know consciouslyI know that I feel hella nervous and I'mtrying to like take deep breaths andcalm myself and I've been trying to doresearch on how to like optimize thewhole relaxation process you know Istarted buying like the l-theanine selfamazed to see that kind of helps and Iwould say it made my sessions a bitbetter in recent days and be more so Ijust thought that maybe you starteddrinking matcha green chief what else doyou need no but maybe that maybe that'smaybe that's what's been helping me Imean I didn't watch it pretty often soand I drink a lot of tea too so ifthere's any of that l-theanine and likeregular ass tea to you know just regulargood green tea then maybe that helps meI don't know I'll have to look into thatcuz I've never heard of thatI mean shit if it helps then that's dopeI don't know for me I think for me I'vealways just not cared so much about whatother people think soI think that helps me a lot when I go tolike an event I mean obviously that'snot a hundred percent true because I docare I don't want to crash I don't wantto look like shit but I also recognizethe fact that if any of that does happenit's not the end of the world so thatlike helps me a lot and also theexperience you know I've been doing thisfor so long it's kind of like I knowwhat to expectso I've been in this situation you knowI've been dancing in front of people forlike most of my life so it's you knowjust remembering that this isn't I'm nota newcomer to this so I can just jump inand make it happen I think that helpscall me the most you know so do you likeconsciously perform these kind of mentalexercises you want to call it that uh Iguess so ya know I mean there's momentswhen like say you're in a crazy battleand you're just getting blown the fuckup that I think that's when somethingreally sparks up in me because you knowlike back when I used to do martial artss like when you're against someone who'sreally good who's just lighting you upyou know they're like kicking and shitand you're like oh dude this guy's gonnaknock me out or whatever um you get thislike fear in your body and like once youhave a fear you're like I'm definitelygonna lose I'm gonna get fucked up andyou have to like turn something on totell yourself you know no you're notgonna get fucked up you can do this youcan handle it you know what I meanbecause you don't you don't want to getyourself in the defeat state of mindwhen you haven't been defeated yet Imean even if you get knocked out youhaven't really been defeated you want toget back up you know and train getbetter come back at itpercent later on you know yeah so it'sit's it's always been a thing for me todo to to not be defeated by anything andso yeah I think something maybe switcheson in my mind to go itI guess I've kind of trained this iswhere what I like what triggers in mymind is like it is kind of like afeeling of this guy is trying to takesomething from me this guy's trying tolike you know I don't know kidnap myfamily or whatever take some shit fromme you know like I turned some kind oflike thing on in my mind where it's likein a way life or death which then makesme go okay all this scared this is goingaway all this fear is going away cuz Idon't have I have no time for that rightnowyou know I can go back and reflect onthis later but at this moment there's notime for this and so training that Ithink has helped me a lot not that I I'mlike super good at it or anything but Ithink I've gotten a lot better at itjust because it's I'm more conscious ofit so that you like start training yourmental state a lot more recently uhmaybe not super recently I mean withinthe last probably like six or sevenyears it's I think what I've mostlytrained myself in thinking is like whenthat happens and you start having like afear or a doubt in your mind toautomatically go no that's not gonnahappenin fact I'm better than this I got thisI've been in the situation many timesand you know let's just handle this youknow I you know and again yeah this guyis trying to take something away from mewhich then triggers like I don't know ifit's some like primal thing inside likehumans where you know like a maybe it'slike a fight-or-flight kind of feelingso then you get this adrenaline spotso that now you you're more equipped tohandle that situation but yeah I thinkjust training yourself to think aboutthat at that moment that it like thattrigger so when you hit that fear levelautomatically there's a trigger to go nowait that's not gonna happen I mean itdoesn't happen all the time but I I'vegotten better at making that happenprobably in the last six or seven yearsI sounds like you're just challengingthese I guess irrational fears areirrational yes or oral or I don't knowit's I think because I think as humanspeople we all have these instincts inourselves and we just need to know howto trigger them and like you know in inthe situation of a dance battle I thinkmaybe we're all like it maybe doesn'tget naturally triggered all the time foreverybody because you're not really indanger you just freakin somebody spin iton their head or with some shit andyou're like oh I'm just getting blown upor whatever you know but but if you canI guess trigger that to fightfight-or-flight kind of mentality ormaybe not flight fight you're triggeringthe fight in you you get that adrenalinespike I can handle this I'm not gonnarun from it yeah I don't know that's apretty interesting point I think I mightstart taking notes on this yeah I youknow one of the things one of the thingsthat always crossed my mind when I dothis is and I think it helps a lot is isI imagine my grandpa who was in theJapanese internment camps I imagine howhe probably felt as soon as that startedhappening because he was probably likeyou know oh shit everything's gettingtaken from me fuck this you know it's ayeah it's like a firefight mentality atthat moment so I try to think of thatand that gets me better intostate of mind like okay someone's tryingto take something from me let's let'sfight for this you know so I don't knowthat helps me a little bit yeah actuallythat's that's actually a reallyinteresting point I guess try to makethat conscious continual decision yeahthe fight rather than just caving intothe oh fuck I'm getting roasted I'mgetting smoked kind of moment yeah it'sit's hard to though because I also don'ttake myself too seriously so likesometimes if I'm getting blown up I'mlike oh shit that was a tight ass movethough and so I'll like be cheering andthen I'm like oh dude wait what is thefuck are you doing you got it you gottalike battle this guy's so yeah I don'tknow yeah I guess fighting thatlaid-back nough Stu is a little bitchallenging too so I don't know but Idon't have a huge issue with thelaid-back nice just because you knowdancing should be fun so if you're agood if you're laid-back and it's fun Ithink you're doing it right if you'renot having fun then I think you're notdoing it all rightoh no I totally see that if you'rehaving fun and that shit's likecontagious with everybody in the roomyeah uh so um other than breaking do youhave any other creative hobbies mmmother than breaking I would say I don'tknow if cooking counts it's like acreative hobby yeah I think so nice atleast my cooking I don't know how tocook so I'm like oh I want this to tasteuh you know acceptable so let's throwsome soy sauce in it cuz it soy sauce isgood it's a sugar or something all righthopefully this shit tastes good actuallyyou're right though I guess if you learnsome some basic foundations of cookinglike what happens if your food is toosalty use that a little bit of sugar tolike balance it out so I guess in a wayyou're kind of making creative decisionsoptimize your cooking for that momentyeah I mean I've like never learned howto cook properlybut the way I always do it is I justlike taste it and then I go okay this islike a little bland I should add thisand like I'm familiar with flavors ofyou know different spices and stuff so Igo okay this probably would taste goodif I threw a little bit of this on itand then I just freaking do it and if ittastes like shit then whatever I'llstill eat it yeah I of a freestyle justcook okay Cole probably be like this isnasty so you got to eat it okayI mean I've eaten worse I mean what yeahone of my favorite foods is freakinKraft macaroni and cheese with tuna init so you know oh that's the standard iskind of low so I never had thatcombination before I used to eat it allthe time because my grandma would alwayscook it for us cuz it's like I don'tknow the cheapest freakin meal that youcan make for like a bunch of kids youknow it's like at that time probablyKraft macaroni and cheese was like 50cents and tuna can was like 50 cents orwhatever so it's like a dollar and youmake the whole thing and you can feedlike three kids or four kids or whateverdo you know you're right crap is hellacheap I used to live off of that duringmy college days dude I still eat itand it's because I legitimately like itand it's probably because I ate it as akid and it probably tastes disgusting toeverybody else but I like it but ya knowso yeah anyways my standard of cookingis very low and so if I messed up somefood I'll probably still eat it just Imean unless it's just burnt to shit orsomething which which that's happenedbefore you know genic toast dude nothat's some ghetto shit I mean yeah it'ssome ghetto shit just like this podcastbut ya know I think cooking has a lot ofcreativity in it I mean if you thinkabout all the stuff you can do with foodand how people learn how to do thatI don't know I don't know any other waythey could have figured it out otherthan just playing around with shit youknow what I mean like who knew how tomake what caramel what do you do likeyou cook butter and sugar and like yougot to cook it a certain way and itbecomes that you know and it tasteddelicious who knew that that wouldhappen and when you cook it that way Idon't know they probably just threw itall in a pan and started doing it youknow or whatever I don't know yeah Idon't know how like some people come upwith some of them most wild things likewho knew that people would come up withlike haggis for example yeah I'mstuffing some sheeps stomach with randomstuff or like I guess I don't know howpeople would pick open a durian from atree and just break it nope just spikyfruit and break it open and start eatingit like there's a spiky ass heavy fruitthis looks dangerous it's not likesomething that would kill me if it fallson my head and it smells like throw-uplet's eat it yeah no oh man this isactually a really funny thought becauseI was always like there's so manyfreaking poisonous things in the worldlike how the hell did we figure out notto eat you know that one specificmushroom without trial and error bro youknow some cavemen are just like yo goeat that shit real quick and then likethe dude dies and they're like oh Iguess we can't eat that one like howelse do you figure that out you knowthere's some poisonous ass shit you knowfor sure and there's some foods where ifyou don't cook it the right way thenit's poisonous to you which that's evenwilder to me because then that was likeyo go eat that mushroom real quick oh hedied hey let's try it again but let'scook it hey bro eat this cooked mushroomoh you're alive don't we can eat it ifwe cook it seriously what the hell Idon't know how that happened but that'sit if I had a time machine I'd love tolike go back inside and just see thatmoment when the caveman was like you eatthat much quicknah that's crazy I don't know how peopleeven come up with just even like thisokay like I don't know if you ever usefish sauce during cooking yeah and itdoesn't smell too great it's notsomething that you would drink out ofbut it make it gives that amazing mommyin your food when you add it into yourcooking and I don't know how people comeup with like oh no drying a bunch ofanchovies or I get a big-ass barrelright like that's how they cook it orthey make it it's like a bunch of fishjust in a barrel with what like vinegaror something I don't know like hellasalt so I'm Sonia and I don't just clickall the drippings and that just becomesyour fish sauce and yeah it's crazy howsomething with such a strong pungentsmell can make your food like wow andactually some of it is made with likesquid or something right or some kind oflike non fish oh I'm pretty sure some ofthem put like a squid or something youknow I wouldn't be surprised yeah Idon't know that's crazy how people thinkof this stuff back dead yeah I mean fishsauce in general I'm like I wonder ifwhat they did was they just like triedto pickle the fish and they fucked upand they're like yo we're not gonna eatthis fish but this sauce smells kind ofgood let's throw it in our food let'sthrow it in our bland ass food to makeit taste better or you know what maybethey did pickle the fish and the fishwas good but they ran out of the fishand then they're like oh we still need ayou know we need to eat all we have isrice let's pour this fucking sauce on itso it tastes better I mean but that'screativity right they're like dude youknow we fucked up pickling let's try tosee what happensso that's dope so uh how have you takenany like cooking classes or you justkind of figure it out on you on your ownI know Vince is kind of like a he cookshe cooks a lot and I don't he I don'tthink he take took any classes but hewatches a lot of YouTube videos andlearns how to cook from YouTube no Ijust only took like one semester cookingclassduring high school just to get startedand I just learned from my mom growingup so it's all just like informallearning here and there and I justbasically copy off for YouTube videosnowadays just yeah I can't like kind offigure out like this sort of patternbetween like a lot of those videos sothat's how I got startedyeah that's tight so have you ever likecooked a big meal like a Thanksgivingmeal or something for a bunch of peopleit was just kind of a hobby I guess uhbiggest call people I made food for wasyes for my R&D department in my currentcompany and every Ally doing a potluckso I just made like hella Vietnamesespring rolls and as a prettylabor-intensive because you have to likeyou got to cook the pork you got to cookthe shrimp now you got to cut thevegetables now you have to roll everyindividual roll and I probably roll likeI think maybe 40 rows 40 doesn't soundlike much no it takes hella long yeah soI'll show you when you fuck one up andyou're like oh can't make can't give himthis one you gotta keep going if I didthat you know what I would have done isI would have had all the ingredients andthen I would have just had the littlerolls and be like yo just take that dipit in the water and then you roll ityourself you motherfucker I doing thisfor youhey I've made all this food for youthere's a little picked up grabinstruction how to roll your own food doyou not want even do that I would justgo like yeah watch me real quick Booproll all right you're on your own dudeI'm out peace I'm gonna go eat somethingelse oh yeah that's a good way to goabout it have have people figure it outyeah have them figure it out becausesomebody had to figure it out okay socook so cooking um do you have any otherhobbies um that's not a hobby which is Idon't actively practice it I do likedrawing or paintingI took one dose it was a group on takingclasses so are those paint Knights ohyeah yeah like where you drink you getdrunk or whatever in paint yeah exactlyexcept the one I had didn't really havedrink spa I mean usually salon does winein Cape nights and9 - wine bye anyways because I've alwaysdone pain during high school I was likewhy am i first creative outlets - so Iwould say yeah I'm in - I'm not gonnasay I'm takasi or anything but that'sthat's not a creative outlet that I hadin the pastthat's Heights oh so have you done anypaintings recently I would say likeabout two weeks ago okaydid went to like one of those paidnights okay that's pretty dope to justreally explore the something that I'vedone in the past yeah yeah yeah I usedto paint all the time my mom she'sreally into acrylic painting she and sheused to be into like oil painting nowshe does a lot of watercolors too butyou know from a young age she taught mehow to paint and so uh I used to paintall the time so I did this probably 10years ago I made this one I don't knowthis was recent because I started thispodcast and I was like oh I need africkin logo I think I got drunk andpainted this and then that one I don'tremember when I painted that that wasmaybe like a year ago I don't know Idon't really paint too often thoughthose ones over there damn those propthose are oldest fuck actually those areprobably ten years old - and then I havea lot of even older stuff at my parentshouseall right I like painting but I justdon't have a lot of time to do it it'skind of messy - and like back in the daywho I used to do is I would throw acanvas on my bed and I would paint on itcuz I didn't have like a you know aplace to like paint mm-hmm so just usemy bed dad like she has like think sothere's like I have these old sheets andstuff they have like paint all over thembecause I would paint on my beddank cuz I didn't give up here do thissome real bro yeah I live this life dudeI still have those sheets by the way andI actually use themso that's some real broke bullshit butyes I used to paint all the time andyeah I would actually do it a lot moreoften if I had more time more recentlyI've been into mic music production andit's mainly because it's a skill setI've never had before other than I kindof knew how to play piano a little bitbut I'm not good at or anything um soI've been getting more into that butpainting has been a part of my lifesince I was a kiddrawing too and I used to do uh ceramicsas well but I haven't done that in avery very long time actually you've beenexposed to art for like your most ofyour life dead there's a lot ofcreatives in my family I mean my momagain is an art an artist and she's aart teacher and then my dad you knowhe's you know he makes a lot offurniture and so in a way it's he's anartist with wood my grandpa on my mom'sside he's kind of the same way he's acarpenter he made a lot of friends hereand stuff so uh you know and he he's avery creative person because he wouldyou know he could you know he he has thebroke boy mentality to you I mean but Imean he he because he lit he came fromlike war times and stuff he's from fromGermany he was an immigrant in Americahe came here with like not much moneyand stuff so he had to make shit happenso in lieu of not having money to dosomething it was like he had to figureout a way to do it you know and so yougot to have some creativity creativityto make that happen so I've just beensurrounded by that a lot in my life so Idon't know I think that's probably whyI'm so interested in so many creativeoutlets and maybe see the creativity inother things that aren't traditionallylabeled as creative endeavors but youfeel like a lot of those past creativediverse kind of help shape your I guessyour minds framework and when youapproach to breaking because I rememberyou would tell me you bepracticing in your living room just onthe floor just figure out how to go frompoint A to point B differently ya knowit definitely does because I meanthere's an argument to be made thatcreativity is itself just a skill youknow not just in this specific topic orwhatever it's a skill because in a wayyou have to turn a piece of your mind onin a certain way and apply that toanything just like you would have to dowith with like any kind of skill interms of you know building somethingwith your hands you need to you need tohave certain skills to do that rightsame thing I think with creativity isyou need to have you need to have skillsto turn on this piece of your brain todo it and I think if you can do it wellin one thing say breaking I think youcan also probably do it well in otherthings and that's why I think it's beeneasy for me to pick up a lot of things Imean mainly I mean because I started asan artist a painter and I then I gotinto breaking and I think a lot of thoseskills transferred into breaking sobreaking I mean not that it was easy tolearn because it takes a lot of skill tolike pick up on the the the athletics ofit but once I got to that point and theAthletics became easy I think everythingjust started making everything startedclicking more together because now Icould apply this creative creativitythat I've always you know been a it'salways been a part of my life into thisnew thing and the same thing with musicproduction and you know not that I'mgood at it or anything but like ilearning more about music theory andstuff it's just giving me more tools toplay with and then that part of my brainthat lets me play which is creativityboom it just happens i think and so soyou feel like a lot of those actuallyit's kind of started making yourcreativity muscles like get buffer andbufferyeah I guess yeah it's uh yeah I don'tknow it it's is such a weird thing to mebecause cuz yeah people will ask me likewhat how how the hell did you do thisand it's always just it's creativity tome is a broke boy mentality it's likealright here you have these tools nowwhat can you do with it and a lot ofpeople would be like oh I need moretools to do something but I feel like abroke boy would be like well I need todo this so alright all I have is thismicrophone this empty thing of coffeeand this piece of paper let's make afucking podcast bruh you know what Imean so it's like just make it hat thatit's just like make make it happen youknow and then as you refine your toolsmaybe get more tools you come back makeit better make it better make it betterI don't know I guess it kind of fallsAnette on the whole problem solving kindof mindset yeah holla dad it is aproblem-solving mindset for sure it itvery much is because um you know I thinkif you looked at any art endeavor let'ssay a painting you have this picture inyour mind let's see what let's see whatI can do a lot of times you startdrawing or painting or whatever and itcomes out a little differently than whatis in your mind but then you go ohactually I like this let's play aroundwith this a little bit more boom let'skeep playing around and so you're it'sit's like a process of playing and doingat the same time in a way you know Idon't know creativity is a veryinteresting subject to me and that'swhat that's that's why I like talking toother creatives and that's why I madethis podcast to talk to other creativesto kind of more understand that processyou know I'm not like an expert on it oranything I mean I would say I'm not aexpert at allI just know my own process and I thinkthat other people's processes can helpme better refine my own process andhopefully help other people to ifthey're listening so anyways I thinkthat's a good discussion we're hittingthe one hour mark at this point so wecan probably close the show up prettysoon um let's see I got a bunch ofquestions here uh is there anything elseyou want to say before we close out theshow no I'm pretty much good to goactually um well thank you guys forlistening let me set this show up so wecan turn it off because it's a littlebit bad you two bronies hit the jackpot[Laughter]thank you guys for listening um this hasbeen noise of the broke boys with myfriend clawis there any way what's your Instagramand everything where do people where canpeople find you so people can find me atmy Instagram called a quality sesh sothat's KH o al ity SE sh t seshwhat a sesh it's just a short version ofthe word session so that if scream wasintended just to capture all my practiceclips or my breaking clips thoughbecause I it just become kind ofcumbersome of the switch back andforward to my own Instagram accountI decided users that's my primaryInstagram account so I'm pretty surepeople are just clicking around clickingon following my old account and I justnever really likedcheck or update it so you want to followme pleasebut a quality sesh follow him qualitysesh alright thanks for having forshowing up man thank you for having meand fuck you for being late alrightthanks for watching thanks for listeningsorry the show sucks peace[Music][Music]you[Music]
In episode 12 of the Fuel Your Vision podcast, I bring on Emil Ekvardt who is another ex professional poker player who is partnered with my previous guest, Erik Bergman in the start up company and charity, Great.com.Emil built his wealth from playing over 400 hands an hour of online poker! He is the co founder of Great.com which he and Erik call the "most controversial charity project" due to generating substantial profits through online monetization activities and donating earnings to various causes and charities.Emil is also a life coach, entrepreneur, and co host of the "Becoming Great podcast" sharing personal growth and challenges of the start up and business life.WhatI love most about Emil is his sense of calmness and life wisdom.In this episode we discuss:-How and why Emil got into online poker in the first place-How he was managing swings of up to $30k in one single day-The 3 factors that made him leave online poker-How he met Erik (my last guest on the show)-His view with Great.com-------To WATCH the full episode visit my YouTube channel here.To Connect With Emil:INSTAGRAMYOUTUBEFACEBOOKGREAT.comMENTORSHIPTo Connect More With Alex:INSTAGRAMFACEBOOKPlease drop a comment and a review of the episode :)#FuelYourVisionPodcast#VisionWall
BBoy Ace, a west coast pioneer in Hip Hop, sits down to discuss his origins, work ethic, and thoughts on the culture of hip hop and breakin'. Follow @Instagram: noiseofthebrokeboysTwitter: BrokeBoysNoiseListen to the Audio on all Podcast platforms. All The Links Here: https://linktr.ee/NoiseOfTheBrokeBoysA broke degenerate hooligan documents conversations about being a Bboy, Breakin', Hip Hop, Dance, Art, Music, Creativity, Innovation, and the slow subtle crumble of society in audio form.----more----[Music]this episode of noise of the broke boysis brought to you by outside have youdeveloped a fear of the Sun because youstay inside all day commenting onYouTube videos or maybe you've developedan addiction to posting about howawesome your life is on social mediabetween your day job as an overpricedthrift store clothes model and sidehustle selling your new rap mixtape talkto your doctor to see if outside isright for you five out of five peoplethat have tried going outside have seenpositive results ranging from but notlimited to talking to actual peoplefeeling Sun on their skin moving theirbodies and not caring about the latestcelebrity gossip happiness is justaround the corner and through a doortalk to your doctor about going outsidesome participants going outsidesufferance of your injuries and evendeath from but not limited to hit by buscoronavirus being eaten by wolvesthe Californio them from tencel arekilling and kidnapped by terrace and nowonto the show[Music]in today's episode I talked to the WestCoast pioneer innovator and franklylegendary b-boy and hip-hop figure myfriend and influence b-boy ace pleaseenjoy the episode hello everybodywelcome to the show today I have the manthe myth the legend the teacher thepioneer the father the fiance futurehusband and b-boy he's been dancingsince the beginning of time so very longtime 91 yeah how long since 1991 1991well man you know what's interesting isthat I was talking to someone recentlywas that breaking kind of started aroundlike mid 70s right is that about whatyou think yeah that's that's at leastwhat I've heard so you've been breakingfor probably more than half of thelifetime of hip-hop that's like reallycrazy to even think of that it's such ayoung dance such a young culture that ina hundred years when it's still aroundpeople are gonna look back and go likewhat was happening in the beginningbecause it was like there's so muchfluctuation in and that this era righthere is like really what helped kind ofdefine it to be whatever it ends upbecoming well the thing that'sinteresting to me now is because there'sbeen absent flows to where it starts topstarts stops but from 91 on it's beenconsistent mhm it's been going there'sthere's been no stop yeah so it's gainedas MoMA as much momentum as there's everbeen and it's been a consistent thing sosince this time that that I began youknow and there were some started youknow who it was going a littlebefore I started but it's you know manyhave stopped but the whole thing is keptgoing so that that's a beautiful part ofpop that yeah yeah yeahfor me you know I got started I had nointerest in dance I didn't startoriginally as a b-boy interesting Ioriginally started as a house dancerWest Coast Oh a West Coast house yeahwhich is different from the house thathouse now yeah yeah that that is knownit's like a mixture of New Jack with alot more yeah upper body movement I seeso you know there was there was New Jackand like that was fun mm-hmmbut for me I didn't really have aninterest in doing that my brother was areally good at New Jack he was littleyeah and he tried to show me and Icouldn't do it like a lot like you knowlike I struggled even with somethingthat was less complicated okay but Ididn't have an interest in it so I waslike I'm cool on it yeah no big dealI want no part of it then the person whoended up being my teacher I and crazilyyou know it's crazy to say but to thisday one of the greatest dancers I'veever seenAaron L Coloma Oh from Palm Springs okayhe was a house dancer yeah he used topop when he was little and he went intoNew Jack and then he went into house andsuper talented and he saw my brother whowas really good at New Jack and hewanted to teach little kids to be to begreat house dancers yeah yeah yeah sohis intent was to teach my brother andso that's how I met him and I broughthim to my house to teach my brother yeahand while he was waiting for my brotherhe was just moving and that was thecraziest thing I ever saw yeah life likeit was literally like poetry in motionhmm I was tripping how old are you atthat time oka hot 16 some along thoselines I believe I was a sophomore inhigh school okay second half and I sawhim move and I just couldn't believethat somebody can move like that yeahlike I had never really seen anythinglike that and seeing it in person is acompletely different experience hmmso I was bugged out and I just kind ofknew that that's what I wanted to dothat's cool yeah it was it was harassedhim I literally harassed him for acouple weeks thank you to teach meWow and he wouldn't because he told mehe said do you understand like you can'tdo new jackand that's like basic arithmetic yeahhouse is far more complicated so it'skind of like doing pre-algebra yeah yeahhe's like you want to jump steps youwant to go straight to precalculus yeahalgebra whatever it is without evenknowing basic arrhythmia don't even knowhow a plus sign yeah you can't even justmake your lower body coordinate muchless upper body and lower bodysynchronized beautiful movements okaybut I was undeterred okay it was I sawit and from there like I just knew I hadto have it okay and so I just kept afterit yep I kept bugging him and finallyone day all right all rightI'm gonna teach you one step you'regonna learn that step and then you cometo me with that step and I'm gonna teachyou another step and I was like dealokay deal that's a good deal yeahbut I had to work for that one step yeahyeah and but he but he realized I wasnot going to stop mm-hm andfrom there it was a rap I I was 24/7with itwake up move act is practicing try andtrying to coordinate this uncoordinatedbody of mine yeahdirt at school during nutrition duringlunch after school at practice at hishouse before bed it was crazy I was amaniacyeah I was a maniac but I wanted to be Iwanted to move like he moved and I knewI was far off I was I was not you know Iwas realistic about where I was at himwhere he was at but I wanted to getthereyes quick as possible so I was 24/7 withit soothing yeah to the point where heliterally had to pull me aside at somepoint and tell me that you know yourmother your mother misses you yeah yeahyeah yeah love that love yourdetermination but you gotta sleepsometimes the guys are getting a littlea little annoyed that you'd never stopyeah and I was hurt I was hurt yeah likeI literally avoided didn't see him for awhile taking different routes to classreally yeah yeah yeah and literally wasthat like after a week we cross pathsand he kind of cut me off and was like aman like where you been like and he'slike don't take it that way you knowlike we're not saying stop you know theguys you know just just take a couplebreathe you know like breathe for ya youknow but yeah it's so that began my longjourney at the beginning I was gettingpretty good at house you know after agood little whileand then we went up to an event calledFilipino weekend up in Delano just pastBakersfieldyeah and that's you know the the groupwe were with was boys and style bis andso we were going up there and you knowwe were going to meet with the rest ofthe group and we're under the assumptionthat a group the soul brothers which isfamous house moved from LA we're gonnabe there and you know wanted to battlethem yeah yeah and they end up never endup showing up our cuz one of the crewmembers cousins from San Jose a groupcalled dangerous image came down andlike they were gonna be with us yeah andthey were a choreography group okaythat also braked because San Jose wasbig into braking amount of time and weall got bored and somehow it ended upbeing a battle between dangerous imageoh and you guys and B is okay except forthey braked him we didn't so you knowthey were they were really good yeah andthat the main guy from their group was awalks guy mm-hmmthis guy Alan hmm and he did walks evenhe was really good he notmerry-go-rounds and all that but he hadreally good walks yeah yeah hence theinspiration yeah when we started thevery next day we stopped Houston and webe started breaking is that quick it wasan instant like - it was like watchingmagic you know like really that thepower precision grace of you knowhigh-level break-in yeah it was like wowlike okay that that that is you know itwas inspiringso yeah we you knowwe started break-in Aaron L was breakingbut he was popping uh and you know andhe used to do that back in the days andsince he was such a good dancer and socoordinated he picked up like oh he wasan amazing popper like amazing but yeahthat that became our road and since ourmain inspiration from the opposition wasa walks guy mmm bis became a walks yeahwe we did spins we did you know all thespins but we care deeply about walksyeah that's that's kind of crazy becauselike definitely you guys like it it'slike walks and for people who don't knowwalks it's like the float how do youexplain yeah well that that you're onyour hands you're walking on your handslegs are off the ground and you're kindof going in let's ignore loading yeahit's like a pocket of air is underneathyour body and you're just walking aroundon your hands and there's so manyvariations of it but yeah yeah and youguys innovated those moves which iscrazy that like I guess before you evenbreak you saw someone else like kind ofwell I mean there were guys in the pastyou know like we didn't really know himtoo much except for when we startedbreak-in since there were no examples ofbreaking like we saw it in personmm-hmm and then when we wanted to startlearning we're you know just a fewbreak-in yeah you know beat Street likethose were our only examples of breakinbecause there was no YouTube there wasno footage it was what you saw in personother than those couple movies that wereon some VHS tapes you know and of coursethere were guys you know in B Street andbreak-in that that did you know somehigh-level walks you know there's buckfor of course oh you know here is hisTurtles he's super fast you know amazingbut not not a lot of and then of coursein break-inthere's handyman you know amazing youknow his amazing walks but that thoseare only a couple variations that wereshown on tape not the rest we were justgoing and figuring it out yeah and youknow hearing from some of the oh geezfor master movements you know giving usideas on things that they had done orseen or heard about you know so theywere kind of just giving us some inputtry this oh there's a walk like this allthere's you know but they couldn't do itthey were already done but that leasewere given us the ideas and kind of aframework of what you know just somethings to try and work on uh-huh andfrom there we were just working at ityou know like determined to get good atthat no yeah you know and then of courseit ended up leading you know afterseveral years to higher level walks I meand my brother were teaching the guysfrom 101 up in Pasadena and you knowthose were guys like brick Rand dabstones which at the time his name wasthere because you know they used to tagso okay and did you ever do it I wasnever in attacking oak I just straightinto Jane into dancing yeah I wentstraight from like sports into danceyeah you know but yeah you know so thoseguys you know we we taught those guysand then had the scene was just you knowgetting a little yeah so what inspired Iguess your creativity within that danceI mean I guess obviously going fromhousing to to breaking and I mean Iimagine a lot of a lot of that hadinfluenced your style I mean becausehousingor at least the housing from back thenwas very kind of kind of jumpy and rightwell yes I believe LOI well very flowybut you know and there was differentstyles in in house you know it was notsame movements there were guys that hada very rigid hard-hitting style therewas others they had flowing there therewas a lot of popping elements oh yeah init so so even in in the West Coast housethere there was a lot of different looksyeah you know that that kind ofdifferentiated each you know dancers ownparticular persona yeah you know and theway they moved so you know when westarted moving into break-in we were itwas mainly power based mm-hm we did somestyle but from what we had seen becauseour experience was very little and therewas no footage there was not a lot ofdifferentiation in style so I kind of wekind of did it just to say we had stylejust to kind of check that box but it itwasn't at least for myself I was nothighly inspired to do style because Ifelt like it was in a box from what Iwhat I had seen the experience it wasn'tuntil the tapes of storm and them thatkind of made their way over here thatlike the realization that oh you can doso much with it it's it really is justlike house yeah like it really is youknow style is really as far as your mindyour creativity your persona yeah yeahlike yeah levels personality silly sillythingsyeah that end up looking dope you knowlike there was just that thatrealization that oh like there's nolimits there's no like yeah like it'sdance just at different levels and yeaha different way but it's still dancejust just like house so from their styleit you know I was all about that youknow like it it became a very fun and anever-ending puzzle that to this day Iwork on yeah yeah it is a puzzle I meanwhat drove me to breaking actually issomething similar is that it there wasno limit you can come come into it andjust kind of have fun with it dowhatever you want make it work you knowreally like if you had a dumb idea tosee to try to make something work justroll around on the ground see make tryto make it work you know some of themost amazing steps that happen are byaccident definitely you know just fromthe attempt of something new you youprovide yourself with an opportunity todo something that you know maybe itworks and that's amazingor it doesn't work out but it turns outto be a better step yeah because it wassomething that your body justautomatically had that on a DNA levelyeah that you were not aware of you knowwith your own consciousness but on amore subatomic level yeah your bodyalready had it yeah in tow and was justready for you just for you to give itthe opportunity yeah I'm completelyconvinced that every move in braking wasfrom someone just falling down and goingoh let me try to control that and do thesame thing though but you know and justmake it look cool you know well wellyeah I mean it it you know it's aconstant thing to where you're trying tolike expand or go into neutral unchartedterritory yeah you know when we firststarted like you know for me the thingthat keeps me coming back is I know I'llnever have this bad boy figure it outyou know but it's so fun just becauseI'm I'm always searching for things likesomeNo you know like like as if I was abrand-new b-boy who it was firststepping onto the floor for the firsttime and I have that same thoughtprocess and what I love is the guys youknow Rob and Cujo and all the other guysyou know that that run in our circlehave a similar mind frame yeah of playmm-hmm you know like what we do is veryserious but we play like children youknow like it's it's something thatbrings joy that's something that we youknow approached like the first timewe're not afraid to give each otherinput or to to move in a weird positionyou know just because yeah there'ssomething exhilarating about about thatjust playing around and just planningyou know something pull one actuallytold me is that the reason he likes theword b-boy rather than somethingdifferent like be men or the adult orwhatever is that really you have yourown adult responsibilities but when youcome to break you are letting your innerchild to come out to play and that's whythe word b-boy or b-girl is moreappropriate than something like a B manor B woman just because you're lettingyour child come out and have fun and I Ithink anybody who is I don't want to saydoing it properly because not to demeananyone else but at least for myself tome that's doing it right yeah it isallowing yourself to be freeand I think when you you knowparticularly associate with childrenthere's a freedom that they have that asadults we lose many at least many loseon various levels they they lose theirfreedom they lose their they have thesepreconceived notions that oh well I'm anadult now yeah and so I need to respondthis way or I need to give thisI need to do you know and that's not thecase that you know you could absolutelybe a responsible person a caringindividual that handles all the variousresponsibilities of your day-to-day butstill be that child to still carry yourinner child in various parts of yourlife I mean I still I still watch animeand cartoons oh yeahto this day yeah yeah you know it's it'sa you know it's funny I had this thingwith my yeah I'd said the other day wewere watching something it had to dowith you know fairy tales type stuff inand for a second she seemeddisinterested I said okay you know let'sturn this off I'll watch this later andshe's like oh no don't be like thatshe's like it's just you know I'm not achild I didn't want I said well why doyou you know like why why do you have tolose your imagination just because we'rea certain age why why do you have togive up your imagination why do you haveto give these things up like we handleall the things we need to handle youknow like they're not hurting you thatthere is there is nothing wrong withhaving an imagination and creativity andholding on to that that childlike partyyourself and and I think it helps usconnect and you know even with our ownchildren you know why like I think ourchildren are more connected to us andlove us all the more because weunderstand them just you know on somelevel just a little bit different thanmaybe a Parenthood isn't holding on to apart there yeah their inner child yeahthis is like a subject that's prettydear to me because you know my mothershe's an artist and she's you know shewas working with a lot of people thatwere you know under they had a lot ofproblems drug abuse all sorts of stufflike that so she was running thisprogram where she would teach them artkind of as a therapy and they werefinding that when these people reallyhadn'tdone anything creative in their life fora long time and once they started doingthat creative these creative things itstarted like sparking up a change intheir life for the better so that theywere more willing to get their lifetogether and so it was like somethingthat they were just lacking as a humanin their life and so it made me reallythink that or believe that creativity isjust like this fundamental thing thatthat humans need and I mean and I thinkit's deeply connected with like play youknow this is our way we play well I meanlike of course people and is one thingyou know being able to play laughtermm-hmmyou know of course the scientificstudies you know yeah yeah how laughterand being able to tap into things thatbring us joy mm-hmm you know life ishard before you know particularly foradults a lot of responsibilities to beable to take a moment for yourself to beable to put all of that on pause and tobe able to let go of everything in tapinto something that is that fulfills youthat brings you fulfillment brings you ajoy you know and different people findit in different ways you know andcertainly you know dance does that forusbut yeah it's a it's an important thingto be able to find things that bring youmeaning that bring you joy that thatallow you to play and create you know inone form or fashion mm you know whenpeople talk about me and dance and youknow like I guess I still look fairlyyoung you know I'm 45 now but you knowmost that speak with me think I'm muchyounger and it's just because I thinkit's because I allow myself I make somefor myself you know there there's adifferent side different purpose whetherit be taking care of myself you knowdance has done a lot for me you know theway I take care of myself the way I eatsleep the way I you know take time forexercise stretching and and that's allfor my dance yeah you know so for medance has been you know a true blessingjust because I would have to find themotivations you know to somehow pull anddo those things on my own but you know Iwould have to generate it somewhere elsebecause for me my motivation for doingall of those things has to do with myperformance as a dancer and you knowit's funny I was talking about storm asyou know motivation one of the things Iliked is I'd seen him on many occasionsbut never spoke with them because he wasalways surrounded by so many people somany other dancers they had admirationfor him yeah because of course it'sdeserved but I never wanted to meet himin that way because even though I haveall the admiration in the world for howhe influenced me I don't think any oneis better than me I don't think I'mbetter than anyone else but I don'tthink anyone else is better than memm-hmmyou know we're humans yeah you know thatinspire each other but I didn't want himto see me that wayto where everyone's like tugging at hiscoattails yeah so so even though I hadopportunities I never spoke with him andthen one of the times at one of the freesaw sessions I had seen him with theguys from soul control with which arelike my little brothers Charles and Cujoand they were sitting and just talkingwith them and I was like amazing yeahbecause those are my guys and I couldjust sit down and talk uh-huh you knowand I got they introduced me to him andI had the opportunity tobe able to let him know that I reallyappreciated what he had done for mehelping me I inspired me and helped meto understand yeah that that it reallywas like dance you know and made stylefun about a week later he was up northfor an event up that way and Charles wasgoing up there to hang out with them andand kind of take care of him show himaround drives him and had invited me tocome I went up there and so from there Igot to be around him more and just talkyou know and with and humanized walkedwell yeah yeah not not just about dancejust about whatever oh yeah and you knowlike I think one of the things heappreciates is when people just treathim like a normal personyeah yeah like you know he understandsthat that he's had impact but he heknows he's a normal guy too you know andwants to have stimulating conversationwith people who who treat him just likeany other person and we had that youknow and to this day we do I was talkingwith him the other day and we'rechopping up over some other stuff youknow but we were able to build on thatand then when we finally danced togetherlike we we hadn't you know we just hungout and talked hmm philosophies onwhether it be life b-boying to dance theway we saw it and we saw things verymuch the same and then it wasn't untilthe very end of the weekend that we wereover at mega man's house and it was Ithink his lady's birthday and we were inall in the living room big wood flooryou know okay and we started off lockingand we were having fun that way and thenI said oh now I feel like breakingand we we started breaking he went outthe guys were going out he went out andthen there was a time I was gonna go Iwas gonna go out and I went out and Ithink he like he just wasn't he didn'tthink that I could I guess dance on thelevel I was dancing huhso I got up and he was about to go outand he kind of had like a uh like andthen he pushed somebody else out andthey went out instead and then it's likeand then he ran something through hismind and then of course right after thatperson finished she went out anddestroyed it yeah but me and him musthave went like 20-something around ohwowyeah like we were just having funYelp plane and and I didn't know it atthe time you know cuz I was just havingfun exchanging and it ended up becominga thing where a lot of the guys werewatching and meet me and storm wereexchanging to you know just playingand I remember Gerald rest in peace youknow one of our other Gerald caster lowhe had come in and said yo Charles wantsto go like like you know we're waitingon you guys and I was like oh storm wegot to go and storm had told generallike yo tell Charles we'll be out in alittle while and then he looked at mesaid yo ace let's keep goingand then we just kept going for or awhile longer and when we left you knowhe was like really happy you know I meanI knew I was happy but he was havinghe's like yo ace like I haven't dancedlike that in like I can't even tell youhow long you know and I was like get outof here bro like you know like you're ina different country like every week youknow surrounded by amazing dancersuh-huhno no no you know it's different youknow like people either are in likelooking like look at me like too high orthey're trying too hard to impress meyou know like instead like just six hesaid me and you we were just kind ofhaving a conversation you know and andthat's the whole thing about dance danceis a conversation you know like likehe's like you were doing somethingthat's giving me ideas and I was goingout and doing something then you weregetting ideas and he like he said youknow that that I haven't had that in areally long time yeah you know wheresomebody just had a conversation with meyou know and he said like for me thatthat just blew my mind and like I saidyou know we well we're kind of I don'tknow to me kind of like kindred spiritslike you know like we see things a lot alot the same way and you know I feelblessed that I have people like Robynpuja you know like we're all kind of inthat you know like I try to surroundmyself with people that are like-mindedyou know that you have thatopen-mindedness and and if they don't Itry to cultivate it yeah yeah you knowand help them to understand that becauseat least for myself that's where I foundthe real joy in dance is in the exchangein the conversation in being open-mindedto new ways of moving and takingsomething and flipping it yeah you knowon its side on its back on its headwhatever it might be you know cuzthere's no one way of looking at thisthing like you know and the beautifulpart is we will never have this thingfigured out and it's what keeps mecoming back yeah because when I come outto a dance floor when I go to a practicethere's an exhilaration that I have noidea what's gonna happen today yeah yeahand that's amazing uh-huh you know Ilike I gave up the preconceived notionoh this is what I'm gonna do this I havea few ideas like oh I want to try thistoday on that I just give it up becauseI found that when I go out withpreconceived notions that oh I'm gonnado this this this and this you think toomuchthat's what it becomes well I mean inthe end like we talked about thatsubatomic level how you go in and you'regonna do this move and it doesn't workout and sometimes it works out betteryeah because your body on a subatomiclevel new nope we're doing this yeahwhen you try to work against your bodywhen you work you know like your body'sgonna win and you could just come outall kinds of ugly you like you know likeat some level you have to give in towherever your body's at on that day likeoh I'm will work on this if it if yourbody says nope we're doing this insteadyou got you like you're best offtrusting because in the end your yourDNA knows better yeah for me like whatI've always done is and what I've beentrying to do a lot more is like when Itrain I'll train you know differentsequences of movements that I think workwell together but when I actually danceyou know perform or battle or whatever Itry to just not think of anything I justtry to focus on music try to focus onwhoever I'm battling or whatever I'mperforming at just focus on the momentand just let my body do whatever it'sgonna do because I've spent all the timein practice working through differentcombinations that I think makes sensethat I trust that my body's gonna knowwhen to do that or when not to do thatso if I just focus more on music andjust let let it happen it just feelsmore natural to me it probably looksmore natural to and then hopefully thosecombinations I have been practicing maketheir way out in some form and you knowI'm happy with that too so it soundslike that's maybe like what you do aswell yeah I mean I have ideas you knowlike I think it's it's it's at least formyself good to go out like okay I wantthese things to come out at some pointin time you know yeah like anda lot of the muscle memory will kick inyeah it is moving yeah you know ifyou've put together certain combinationsand certain movements you know they'regonna come together at some pointthey're gonna execute just becauseyou've done these different things butof course there's a spontaneity to ourdance and you know working in with musicand all that you know and of course Ifeel that music is important I feel likeI think there's some people that thatplay too hard to the music to where theystart to kind of lose themselves thatand when you hit him you know and and toeach their ownyeah every single beat you knowsometimes when people work every singlebeat then they they kind of lose I guessa certain moment like for me like I'm inthe flow of the music the way I dance Istay in the flow in the pocket of themusic and then I accent different partsthat I want really to stick out or standout and being in that wave the rest justgoing and flowing through the rest ofthe music you know and there are somepeople who are amazing hidden everyevery single beat for me I I see a lotof hit or miss with that though toosometimes it's a super amazing momentthat's etched in the history of timethat's enough well there's others thatit was like I kind of lost the messageoh yeah like they're trying too hard todo every single thing and it's like okayI don't they stay in the story you'reactually trying to portray now yeahbecause I mean at least for me I feellike when we're you know when I go outand the dancers that I seem to gravitatea little bit to a a little bit morethey're they're moving and they'retelling some sort of story you knowto make you know beginning a middle andan end you know and just for me the onesthat every single be every single timelike I said there there are somespectacular moments you know some roundsthat will always be remembered but thenthere's also some times that you areleft walking away soon I didn't reallyget what they were trying to tell me youknow just me you know that just the wayyou know I see it so so it's definitelya catch-22 and it's a difficult thing topull off and only a certain few arereally at least to me that that I'veseen that really pull that off and makeme say oh wow okay they're like thatthat they pull it off more times thannot yet they have a higher ratio youknow higher percentage of being able topull it off what what is one of the Iguess highlight moments that you've seenI guess in all your history of the dancewhat's something that stands out I meanobviously your story with battling stormis probably a highlight but what aboutother things maybe something that youmay be a battling with we were we weresharing you know yeah it was aconversation yeah of course that was ahot like you know like I've just had youknow with the moments there's there'sjust so many you know I mean just nojust sharin in the community seeing allthe different generations of dancers youknow come through and give their givetheir party inspire in their way andthen being able on our end to be able topartake in and share with them like asyou know whatever practice that I'm ator event if I see something that I feelcan be helpful to another dancer youknow I'll usually make my way over andjust kind of throw it out theresay you know like this is take it orleave it you know you don't youcertainly don't need to use this butthis is this is something that I seethat I think can help your dance but youknow like like I hope you don't takethat you know the wrong way yeahbecause we've always been a firmbeliever you know me and the guys havealways been firm believers in in helpingbring bring the next dancers or evenveterans like it doesn't matter likeI've had guys that have come to meyou know so many like you know and sayhey you know I know people look at uslike legends you know but like we wewant to grow to like you know what likedoesn't mean that that we don't want tolearn yeah you know and I knew what thatkind of meant like that they werelooking for help and for me like I'llhelp anybody who has a decent heart youknow so I my response has always beenlike well yeah of course like if we'renot learning and growing what are wedoing here you know like anyone whothinks they have this dance figured outyeah they're out of their mindyeah and they've stopped growing yeahyou know that that that's two things cuzthe moment you think you have anythingfigured out growth is done like there isno more growth the moment you think youhave it figured out you're wrong youdon't have it figured yeah because it'san endless thing but if for those whoare you know lucid or out of their mindenough to think that they do havefigured out and oh I'm on this level sothe growth is done like it you stop soso anyone who who has ever like a like Isaid I offer it up you know to to anyonejust really I'll walk over you know andoffer it up so if somebody were to askme you know in many who are consideredlegends of coursemany you know they've been my studentsyou know and others that have made theirlegend status on their own but just arestill on the path of growth if they'veever had a question or wanted to learnsomething I'm all for it you knowbecause yeah like we don'tlet's keep growing let's keep doing ityou know feel free to ask me anytimelike I love it you know it'sever-changing thing I mean hip-hop Iguess if you look at it throughout itshistory every couple years it's adifferent thing and so if you're not Iguess you know evolving with it you'realso you know you're losing yourself alittle bit you know kinda you know asfar as ever evolving it on some levelit's fads - oh yeah you know on somelevel things come and go so you knowit's cool to pay attention and to keepgrowing but if it's something that thatcalls to you - cuz in the end you stillhave to be true to who you are as anartist yeah so there's a lot of thingsthat I see that like look great but Idon't feel they're for meso I continue to grow in the ways thatmove me you know because if we'reconstantly worrying about what somebodyelse is doing and what's in right nowthen we're never really gonna findourselves you know like we're nevergonna find who we are as a dancer and tocontinue to build us like to buildyourself as an artist so but if so youknow it's good to pay attention becauseif you see something that says wow likeyes I want to use that and incorporatethat into my dance because I think thatthat will take what I want to do and youknow change you know take my art where Iwant it to goyou know like we talked about at one ofthe last practices a vision a vision foryour dance you know you may not be ableto do everything that you want to do butI think any any great artists has hadsome sort of vision for what they wantto do like some grand scheme like Ohlike that's kind of crazy you know andyou may not be able to do it now but ifyou have when you have that vision youknow you kind of start doing differentmovements and different exercises andstretches and whatever else whateverelse it might be to kind of work towardsthat goal you know to work towards thatvision you know and then of coursethere's a whole lot of play that comesalong that that will change your visionaround but but I feel like you know allthe great artists have to have some somesort of vision you know even if itchanges along the way you know to have avision and to work towards a vision youknow and not be to be cognizant ofwhat's around you but not consumed towhere you have to do what they do toknow like okay you know that's dope andI recognize that's dope but that's notyou know I'm gonna continue to do what Ido and take the parts that I really wantthat I feel will take me towards myvision yeah yeah the thing that me andVince do a lot is we'll see what otherpeople are doing you know what the fadreally is and rather than try to do thatwe'll go okay if someone does thatagainst me in a battle like what am Igonna do well ya know I mean I know youcan respond to it well especially ifyou're looking for battles you know theresponses to to questions you know oryeah to be able to respond and kind ofyou know in a battle you knowthis is what is generally out there yeahthis is gonna come and you have aresponse you know those are just goodbattle tactics to be able to have aresponse within what you did well yeahwhat I do yeah you know but but youalready have answers to the questionexactly you know so yeah those are thoseare things that are very important andthen of course like you said you knowand then things like battles and stufflike that that's a that's a wholedifferent you know it's its own elementand conversation and being able to Imean of course you have to do what youdo but be able to like even the way wepackage what we do you know ourmovements and and the packaging anddelivery of what we do can be the energyin which we do what we do it's verydifferent yeah you know like yeah youknow it but I think one of the importantthings is that it comes from a genuineplace you see a lot of actors you knowin the scene to where yeah it's that'snot really who they are it's not agenuine part of their dance actor I'venever heard someone say that but that'swhat it is yeah it's acting you know andthe ones who like are best at what theydo I think more times than not things docome from a genuine place yeah that'swhy it receives more credit like thennot because people can fill somethinggenuine behind their movements and atleast for the ones to me that that standout and over time like they still likenot just when in a jam and not just whenin an event but being admired being ableto be understood as a pioneer of whatthey do and to be like to drawinspiration from otherto where because they just see somethingthat is more genuine in in in theirmovements than the typical person whoexecutes things and wins that Jamthere's a lot of people who win gemsthat are not maybe and never really beremembered you know I'm sure there's somany people you know when you look backyou're like who won this gem who on thatJam and not remember them whereasthere's people like Rob Silla or a Cujoyeah that have lost more gems than theother one and you remember there but butthey will when when their name is talkedabout people know and are like wow likethat guy is amazing I'm glad you broughtthat up because I have the same thoughtabout it is because there's so manybattles I remember vividly because youknow either I was there I saw footageand I was like this is a crazy amazingbattle and I can't remember who won youknow that battle or who won the jam oranything about it other than the battleand who was in it I could tell youexactly what each person is wearing orwhatever in the battle but I'm like Ihave no idea if they even won the gym Idon't even know where the jam was youknow what I mean yeah and I could careless to be honest but that battle therewas crazy and it's cemented in my brainas like one of the coolest things I'veever seen you know and so it just goesto show you that the jam is not thedefining thing it's and the win andwinning a jam is not the defining thingit's it's like the moments that you'recreating the moments that you create theway you inspire and an hour inspire byothers and the way you inspire otherswith dancing from a genuine place youknow just yeah though though manydancers have come to me over the yearsand said oh what do you think I shouldwork on and what would you recommend forthis you know Ana's like okay you knowwe'll onewhat is your end goal are you looking towin a jam or are you looking to beremembered mmmyou know because those are twocompletely different things yeah yeahyou know and then I usually bring up theanalogy of things like Cujo and Rob andstuff like that you know and that thatwhen people bring up their name they'realways like people now automaticallyknow who they are yeah you know andthey're inspired and think like wow likeyeah he dances like nobody's businesslike I don't even know how he came upwith that you know whereas there's manyothers that that are amazingthey you know they are they execute youknow mm-hmm well maybe they just haven'tfound their Oh something that makes thatstands out but solely yeah it's wherethis belongs to this person like nonobody dances like this guy you knowwhen somebody tells me like Oh ace youknow like I don't know I don't think Idance like okay I suppose maybe becauseI don't think too much about my owndance I just enjoy the process always inprocess and you know and I just there'sa just a genuine joy in dance but whensomebody comes to me and says oh manlike yeah like when you dance like Iknow it's you like nobody dances likeyou I mean like you bring that brings mea joy and satisfaction because that's myend goal I don't know if I'm if I'mdoing it you know and on to what levelyou know but for me I want the freedomof being me I want you know when I danceI'm trying to just find me all the timeyeah you know and and it's a continualthing because we're ever-changing we'reever-growing you know like the me ofninety-one should not be the me of nowmm-hmmyou know I should be a different me soeven even when I go out and dance todayI'm searching for my truth today who ami today you know and just being open toif that'sdifferent you know I think for the mostpart it's going to there's gonna be afeel of who you are but but new aspectsof yourself yeah you know and I don'tknow for me that that's what II thought about creativity as an artistit's not to just hold on to you know tofind yourself but doesn't mean you haveto be the you of three years ago or lastweek or you know like that person wasamazing at that time love it cherish itand move on move on because you can'tever recreate those moments thosemoments were wonderful at that time butif you're stuck there you know it'snever gonna be the same you know you cando the same combination it's never gonnabe exactly the way it was at that momentin time on that day and you know andyeah I had to learn that a long time agotoo you know I had this some differentamazing moments you know that that justcame about and I tried to recreate themand worse worse sessions ever justbecause that moment had passed you knowand the moment I came to the realizationthat you gotta let go you know andunderstand that that was a beautifulmoment at that time but that is overyeah and and trust like we talked abouton a DNA level that whatever your bodyis telling you and wherever you're at atthat point in timetrust it go with it as long as you feelyou're notimitating or copying somebody else youyou're kind of finding your way andfinding your truth for that day that'swhere the beauty lies kind of embracingthe view of right now and moving with itof course because I know buddy's justgonna change and being a completelydifferent person but you can finddefinitely new elements of yourself youknow if you're open to it and for methat that's what makes you knowbeing an artist so much fun it isfinding these new parts of yourself likeevery single day yeah yeah so if youwere to go back in time to the 91version of you and tell that version ofyou I guess some advice what would youdo what would that be oh god you know II'm not really sure about what I wouldtell myself back then because I'veenjoyed the process the whole way youannounced observe you know like you meanobserve myself of old or observe you nowgoing back in time to see the 91 versionof you would you say anything or no oryou just observe or just well you knowit that's a double-edged sword toobecause yeah it might change well youknow like for me I've enjoyed thejourney yeah the journey is fun it's allabout you know like it's all about thejourney like you know the beauty oftoday like I've had so many amazingmoments throughout my life but I thinkit's because I understand that I'm onlygiven today I don't like iived at thispoint just because I woke up everysingle morning and said well I stilllove it so I'm gonna do it like that'sitI've never in my wildest dreams wouldhave imagined that going on near 30years that I'm still you know 45 yearsold still busting still still breakingyou know stay still dance in period at45 you know when I was a teenager youknow 16 year old you know a 16 year oldkid started we thought somebody who youknow busted for nine years was like whoaat that he's so gee like that's coollike nine years yeah like in here yeahmore than tripled that yeah you know and[Music]yeah like that's it's just crazy to eventhink that that we would still be denserand andlevel like you know that that's you knowone of the things that me and storm weretalking about the other daywas the the joy of dancing still at highlevel having high expectations forourselves and saying I never ever wantold man props like I'm sorry I dancebecause when I dance you know like I dothe things I do I take pride in my dancelike I love the process but make nomistake about it when I'm on a dancefloor with other dancers I want them tounderstand that I'm a bad man yeah thatthat when I do things that I do thingsthat that they can't do even youngeryeah like you know doing walks clotheslike you know certain Power Movecombinations that I can do it 45 that itthat some of the younger cats can docats don't do walks like me and Cujoyeah yeah yeah they just don't it's it'snot the same the the west coastmerry-go-rounds Deadman's all thedifferent high level sky turtlescarousels whatever you want to call themlike all the different variations wewalk around that we glide around a roomwith our body fully extended we're nothopping in one place you know and I knowa lot of people they don't know theydon't understand you know and on somelevel yeah it's weird and arrogant butthe walks that are out there are on anelementary level in comparison to theway that me and Cujo dueled is like ohit's a lost art I think I mean a lot ofit absolutely it absolutely is andpeople will never understand it untiluntil they try it when they when theystart down the journey of doing it theway me and Cujo do it they understandthere they have a what that hell momentlife you knowone of the homies gastro fromGuadalajara he was down here in LosAngeles dude is so strong super superstrong has amazing walks the wayeveryone else does him mmmhoppy well you know no problem knock itout the box I started taking him undermy wingyou know Cujo was trying to show himselfand then he started showing up andwanting to practice with me in Seoul Itook him under my wing and started toteach him the way me and Cujo did do andlike I said can do it the way everyoneelse does it like nobody's business andhis can hold his body straight out likenobody's business very strong butlearning how to do it the right way theway we do it West Coast walks hestruggled struggled struggled struggledand he was like I'm so tired brothank god this is so hard bro like youknow like month you know good monthworking with him regularly strugglingyeah and finally he started to get it atthe end but this was like like a regularthing that I was working with himimparting my knowledge telling him don'tput your hand here and get your hipsover here faster do this you know alongwith all of his already previousknowledge and he struggled with it andhe's starting to finally get it at theend but then he had to go back toGuadalajara and I told him practicepractice practicebecause high level walks is not likeregular moves yeah like if I were toassociate it regular like most movesthat you get it it's like once you getit you get it it's kind of like aone-night stand with high-level walksthat's a marriage you're in a long-termcommitment you better keep at it becauseshe will get up and walk and leaveshe will leave you and I told him thisabout six months you know to a year likebetween there went to vacation you knowwhen on vacation in Mexico was downthere and got a lotta met up with himand his crew and he told me I'm so sorrybroI lost him like I didn't I didn't listento you I didn't practice them andthey're gone and so I told him okay youknow I'm gonna teach you again like youknow and we'll work at it this timestick with it I have to see his accountto see where he's at but it just showsit just it's an example of how just howdifficult high-level walks are the wayCujo and I do them really are and I takea lot of pride in that and I can stillmean Cujo both can do all of our walksyou know different combinations thatwe've done from the past we can still dothem at a high level in our 40s yeah andfor me I take a lot of you know like themoment I I can't dance the way I want todancethen maybe maybe I'm gonna stop I don'tknow like I haven't gotten at that pointyet yeah you know but but I don't wantold man props you know I don't wantsomebody to say oh man you should haveseen ace back in the days like oh likeyou can't you can't tell can't see youcan't see it now you know but he used tobe really good yeah you know the thingthat brings me most joy is when a dancerwho doesn't even know me comes over tome and says hey yeah like hey what'syour name like where are you from likedude you're really good and then when Itell them who I am and a little bit ofmy history for them to have that youknow more like like I love that you knowbecause those props from a really gooddancer you mean more oh I mean you knowmore times than not it's a really gooddancer you know somebody I say all thatguy's pretty good you know and then theymake their way over and reciprocate thatsame love and admiration saying hey whoare you like you know when you walk overto somebody that you just don't evenknow and say I kind of have to know whoyou are like I think highly enough ofyour dance that I want to know who youare and then you know then to find thehistory later you know like and then ofcourse the admiration is much deeperonce they find out like well you're thisperson you're a kudos teacher you'rethis person's teacher you're four howold are you yeah all 45 what you knowlike like for me that is yeah there's asatisfaction and enjoy because just asan artist I want whoever it is it givesme respect or respects what I do I wantit to be from a genuine place like ifit's not there I don't want it becausethen that will feed by motivation towork harder to get back to where I needto be yeah like you know and there's youknow like I understand there's good playpeople come from good places whenthey're being nice but there's alsosomething that handicaps the otherperson whether it be kids or girls orwhatever it might bemm-hmm the reason why we've got into thepeople who have gotten good it's becausethere's there's a need of wanting to beappreciated to be recognized to bevalidated by others that they admire youknow there's a hunger you know not tosay people don't fulfill their own cupby like you know being an artist butthey're I firmly believe that you knowand I think that that we all want to berecognized by others we admire you knowwe want to be validated and for thatperson say that dude is good you knowlike III really you know like what thatfor the person I admire admires what Ido yeah Wow like okay that's you knowand that feeds our hunger that feeds ourflame you know so whatever it is Ialways want it to come from a genuineplace you know and like I say meansstorm we're laughing about that likedude like I call it quits you know likeif I can't do what I do and and feelgood about my dance when I step on adance floor like I don't want anyonegiving me pity props I don't wantsomebody saying oh that was you knowpretty good good job don't do it walkawayyeah like oh you still got it yeah likeit's not that you still got it it's likeit never left it was always here and itgot better so that's that's what you'regoing foralways I'm looking to grow I'm lookingto be a factor I'm looking to inspireyou know myself and others you know likeand I think a lot of really greatartists have this about themselves tothat they are their own biggest criticyeah you know like yeah I know I like wetalked about having a vision you knowlike I know what I want to do and I youknow it's something that that's been adouble-edged sword because I've alwaysbeen hard on myself to I could dosomething incredible and it didn't workout the way I wanted to and I kind ofwalked away like walked out of thecircle like it wasn't amazing you knowwe're where others are like you knoweven pump you spoke about popo used totell me to he had to kind of help mewith that too yeah where he's like dudewhat are you doing like you didsomething amazing and you walked awaywith your head down like he's like don'tthat like you know play you know whetherwhat it would like nobody else knew thatyou messed up like in your own head youmight have messed up yeah but nobodyelse knew that I was like I'll tell youthat right now nobody else knew that theonly way they knew it is you walked awaywith youso that was you know that was somethingthat I'm good you break very preciselyto and so like I can imagine where youmeant to put your foot exactly in thisspot but you missed it by an inch andyou're like oh I messed up but literallyno one can tell that you didn't put itan inch backwards where it was supposedto be and you missed it so you'd get upand go like oh crap I messed that up andthen they're like I don't know that wascrazy disappointed and that's you knowthat that's kind of been my you know myblessing and my curse because becauseI'm always out there searching for myown perfection it it pushes me I striveyou know I've worked I've always been aworker like I said I had two left feetyou know people will see me they're likewhat what do you mean you know but thatwas terrible mm-hmm I was terrible Iworked for everything that I had I'veI've had to break down use trained usemy mind you know more than the averagedancer because I had to like I've alwayshad to break down yeah an understandingof a step a combination of power movebody positioning like where I should beat a certain point in time so when I'mable to t like one I could a teacherit's helped me to really be a goodteacher to others because I myself couldnot do without having a full grasp orunderstanding you understand theintricacies of making them move yeah andI you know I think you can make moveswork but I think for me where it's beena blessing too is you know I've beenable to continue to grow and find moreefficient ways of doing things because Ijust because I can do something doesn'tmean I feel like that's the only way andthat there's not a better way I'm alwayssearching to see if there's a better wayI'm always questioning myself like yeahI feel it this way but I'm open to thepossibilities that I can do it better orthat there is a better way you knowbecause where I where I did something atthat point in time yeah it was effectiveyou know but yeah there's more you knowand we found a bunch of new ways whetherit be power moves or style of saying youknow what if you put your foot downfaster here you put this knee down youknow like and then we tried we're likeyeah that does work like dope and thenjust a whole new range of possibilitiescome in constantly you know so yeah it'samazing man I love it well I think withthat being said we could probably inthis show we've been going for an hourand 15 minutes already kind of timeflies by right yeah well yeah man Iappreciate you having me on you knowlike just being able to speak about allthe possibilities and the culture andour artistry mm-hmm you know cuz cuzthat's what we are you know I I alwaysappreciate the opportunities for to justconversate ya know it's important tokind of spread the ideas that we allhave and just put it out into the worldand see what other people have to sayabout it and just you know I guess theZulu nation each one teach one is it'simportant it's important in hip-hop todo that well yeah it's it's going to youknow like we're only a moment in time weare just a piece of of all of this so ifwe keep it to ourselves where does allthat knowledge go after after we're doneafter we leave you know like like I saidwe're only promised today so even withsomebody who has good intentions ohmaybe later I'll get around to it youknow like they're not promised that timeso you know yeah being able to sharewith each other is a vital part of anysociety yeah and as we said this dancehip hop is still in its infancy in a wayand that it you know there's so muchhistory that's you know beyond us soit's good to get these ideas out now andjust because you know we don't knowwhere the scenes gonna go from here andI mean it's it's it's exciting to seewhat is in store for the future anddefinitely yeah so well thank you forcoming on do you have any last-minuteshoutouts or anything you want to say orany plugs or anything which oh well justyou know the guys you know my brotherswhether it be master movements soulcontrol you know my my variousinspirations around the world you knowmy teacher airnow Coloma you know likeforgiving me just an opportunity youknow and even when he sees me now youknow he says and you were like the lastperson I ever would have thought wouldhave made hey you know yeah an impactbut look II look at you after all theseyears you know but but nobody canmeasure your heart your desire your playyour you know and many of the greatdancers I see around the world startedwith similar themes to where it was hardfor them at the beginning but nobody canmeasure their heart so you know if youhave a want for something do it for youyou know in the end always do it for youand have fun doing it the whole waythrough don't let anyone tell you whatyou can ordo I had that from the very beginningand many others have also we can dowhatever we put our mind to and I won'thave fun along the way here to herealright thanks you guys for listening[Music][Music]you
One of a Thai's Sousanh Chanthalangsy-Bornilla talks us through her burgeoning powerlifting career, plus the NWT Housing Corporation's boss explains how Whati's new housing plan is intended to help the community.
Hello Beautiful Human!! Welcome to Episode One of the Be Real Podcast! This episode is an intro to me, your host, Shay, a Real Girl being vulnerable and exploring ways to thrive. I am a wife of 14 years to my hubby Dean, and the mumma of three beautiful kiddies, Everly 6, Vinnie 2, and Mo 6 months. I am however, more than these titles. I would totally describe myself as a dreamer of big things and definitely a woman on a mission to empower humans to dream big and to bring hope to the world. I just want to acknowledge that this podcast it isn’t about me, the stories that I share are mine and the experiences are mine but the lessons that I bring to these episodes after all this for all of us. I'm sharing my stories here today to create space for all humans to think about their own stories, your stories, your thoughts, your empowerment, and your own confidence. WhatI mean by that is I'm holding space here for you for your growth and your ability to feel deeply connected to your own life. To feel present to find that feeling of excitement, that thing that lights you up and sets Your Soul On Fire. Listen in to hear the full episode. You can find me on instagram @theearthymumma or Facebook I would love to hear your thoughts and takeaways from this episode so please reach out or share this episode on your socials! Enjoy! Be Real, Shay xx
The president of Fortune Minerals discusses what he sees as a big step on the road to launching the company's Nico mine outside Whati, while the legislature works on introducing a family room for staff and politicians.
Political leaders and residents talk to Alice Twa about the impact of connecting Whati to the wider world as construction on an all-season road begins. Plus, a California family brings a rocket to the Dark Sky Festival.
"Think Carefully" by Pete Sanga #28Tagline: "How cancer and thoughts can change your world for the better"It is almost like we wait for something bad to happen to wake us up. For us to really take life serious and realise each day we lose, we will never gain again. Each second we spend not being grateful, happy or fulfilled is a second wasted. Yet when something bad happens, we can sometimes have a realisation that life is important, precious and beautiful.Pete Sanga shares his story of how cancer and controlling his thoughts has massively changed his life and future. He speaks of tangible tips we can all use and incorporate to live a life of happiness, gratitude and fulfilment without having to go through cancer like he did.A truly remarkable individual who gave off a beautiful energy and had an infectious aura about him. Someone much wiser than me with experience I was grateful to have received.Some key discussion points:Cancer being a giftThe importance of your thoughts.How to change your thoughts.Practical positive daily routines.Understanding that we control more of our life than we think.Age is nothing but a number.I urge you to listen to this all the way through and implement some practical steps and tips that you can do for FREE in 10 minutes or less a day to really help you move forward in your life. These tips and tricks aren't just for cancer survivors, or people who have overcome adversity. They can and should be important practices we all take on in our life to truly make the most of this short amount of time we have on this earth.Let's all start to find our voice today and write our own stories.Let's leave our mark on this earth before it's too late.Remember tomorrow never comes.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to Pete Sanga:Amazon business Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sanga-Aromatherapy-oils-2383077878401459/Amazon businesss link: https://amzn.to/2xkLdXEFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/pete.sanga YouTube transcript[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren Deu a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren Deu what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of fine your voice myname is Aaron and as always I am thehost of the show so sitting herethinking before I released this podcastwhy is it that we always need somethingbad to happen in our lives for us toappreciate the good things or even thesmaller things the more beautiful thingsthat we often take for granted and maybethis is just a human trait but it'ssomething that I'm trying to get throughin this movement I find your voice isthat I want you guys to start livingright now and I want you to findsomething that fulfills you I want youto be happy I want to live in gratitudeyou see I put these stories out here foryou guys to listen to not to make youfeel miserable or to feel sad or startto cry I put these stories out there toshow you how lucky you are you see weare all very blessed and we're all verylucky if we choose to see it that wayyou see living in a moment of gratitudeis fantastic but living a day a week amonth a year in fact your whole life ingratitude that's just so much better andwhat I want you guys to do is to startto take on these tips that we'vementioned in this episode coming forwardbut then go back and listen to thepeople on this show who have sharedtheir story so bravely and so openly andhonestly and think about how your lifeis maybe better than their life in termsof you haven't had to suffer with canceryou haven't had to suffer with blindnessyou haven't had to be homeless forexample and then really start to look inyour own life and start to live withgratitude because that is the key yousee we're all chasing happinesshappiness is a numberone goal and it should be the number onegoal for all of us and through that wechase fulfilment as well and if you canget those two in line then you're gonnahave a fantastic life but what I don'twant you to do is to wait untilsomething bad happens I don't want youto have to experience cancer like ourguest today shares his experience and itwas actually cancer that actually gavehim his life back in almost now youcould see it he's loving his life and heopenly admits it as wellin this episode that it was cancer thatreally made him start to live again butI don't want none of us listening tothis show to have to go through cancerin order to start living because we cando it right now we can all go out thereand find our voice and really try andstart to write our own story sohopefully you guys enjoyed this episodeit was fantastic for me because it didexceed my expectations and if you do geta chance please do hit us up on socialmedia as well we are quite active anddon't forget if you get a chance as wellplease do share it with somebody else aswellto maybe inspire and motivate them to goout there and find their voice sowithout further ado let's get thisinterview on the way I'd like to startthis show by welcoming Pete to the showand I want to thank Pete for taking timeout of his day today to come and sharehis story so Pete thank you for comingon to the show you know I'll come takeyou things like him and you're verywelcome and really appreciate it I thinkit's going to be useful for theiraudience to get to know a bit aboutyourselfso if you wouldn't mind if you can kindof give us like a summary take as longas you need in relation to the life ofPete for example tell us some of yourups tell us some of your dance and thenbasically what brings you here todayperfect no problem and hi audienceI'm glad you listen it is and well whyyou sort of story is I'm not amulti-millionaire or anything like thatfar from it but I live a verycomfortable life and it hasn't alwaysbeen like thatI mean I'm 53 years old so you canimagine when my upbringing from myparents how that was in a very strictupbringing we was always sort ofmonitored by our pens back in game dayswith the early days of very few Asiancommunity in the UK and they had to sortof build their reputation so we resortedvery close communitywe have been declawed close communityparents always took hold of what you hadto do days basically sort of had yourlife for yourselves in mahjong days andI was kind of rebellious with my dadbecause always always one that wanted todo my own thing the way I want to butcourse you have to have respect for yourparents and sort of listen to them aswellso I as I said Oh print being invadeit's a tight community Asian communityand as a site to sort of get older andgoing to school into sort of sixteenseventeen this is where I sort ofstarted to understand that you know Idon't want to follow the footsteps of myparents and Adorno follow the footstepsof my brothers and sisters and GauravUniversity or anything like that Ididn't want to be stuck behind a deskwhen that's what my parents wanted to beI was more inclined to sort of lookingto I used to see it market and I thinkwow I want to do that I don't want to dothat and you know that's how my thoughtswere and so as I got to about 16 17 Istarted kind of rebelled against what myparents wanted and but again same thingyou know you have to have some elementof respect for your pen so I stillfollowed them and I'll put till the agessort of 21 ish when I got married andand we then brought her family businessand and again we started working in thefamily business but it's not somethingthat I wanted it wasn't for me so eventhough I worked in there and putting thehours as long with my with my brothersand it's not something that I wanted todo and what really changed my mindor changed me was when I became ill whenit was about round about 25 and at thattime I had two children and one of themhere and well two boys and I had contactand sort of that's where that's whatreally changed my perspective about lifeand because when you fall into I mean ohno people about cancer and they've curedand they've come every but the initialshock of that was like wow you know Imean I remember sitting on the stagewith my wife and I'm telling my wife andI'm sitting there crying my eyes outthinking and your whole life goes byhere and especially when things likethat I mean nowadays you know they somany curious for so many diseases butwhen you're looking when you're goingback 20 odd years there was there wasn'tas many curious so you know you havethis flashback of your life and youthink wow I'm not gonna be here what'smy kids gonna do and all these thoughtsstart to run through your head and youknow and I remember sitting under stairsand said crying I like that and what dadcame in and he looked at this and hewent there what's the matter what youcrying for and at all my dad okay my hogand even though and he was sort ofstrong I could see sense that he it wasone of them things like wow you knowthis is happening to my son and sayingyou ever went through a treatment andchemotherapy and he was in and out ofhospital I lost a lot of weight and Iyou know sort of kind of lost confidenceas well because I was what I would saywas a greatly confident person but I wasquite confident in myself and I've lostall my confidence as well and my sistershe gave me a book which was there yourguardian angels and as a while I was inhospital I started to read this guide inangels thinking what's this about youknow guardian angels and you justtotally changed my life in the sense ofwe've just read good just reading thebook I thought wow this is there suchthing as this guardian angel is theresuch thing as a spiritual world andthat's why where my spirituality cameout and from there you should have sortof started to progress and as I cameonce I was out of hospital and had donemy chemotherapy and fetal healthy I knewthat I had to do my own thing my own wayand I wanted to be and how I canprogress it wasn't always easy becauseyou always you have this and how prettyyou have this education or you have thisyour your upbringing embedded into youyou see so then they're deep into yoursubconscious mind so they alwaysflop back out and you start to thinkwell should I should I or shouldn't Ibut I know I wanted to move away fromthe family and do my own thing and whichis sort of what I started to do gonnajust pause for a bit or we can jump inthere so there are a couple of things inrelation to that so you always knew froma very young age you mentioned like from1617 you were you're probably differentto your siblings yeah you want to dosomething different and I kind of Icould resonate with that myself so I wasforced in inverted commas to kind of gothrough the academic route because I wasvery I could pick up things very quicklyyeah I didn't want to do any of thatit was never my interest I always wantto kind of go against the grain I wantto be a boxer I wanted to do you cry Iwant to do all the stuff I said ontelevision but he has different stuffand there was an element that I supposesomewhere along the line I kind ofresented the decisions and I was havingto like make my parents happy rathermake myself happy fortunately for me Ididn't have to experience kind sir inorder to really be like okay now I needto just do what's done for me and itkind of seems like cancer was your kindof wake-up call a mass of thingdo you know what I have to look aftermyself yeah and put myself first and itwas it's quite emotional for me justthinking about that moment when you'resitting on the stairs and you and you'retelling your family is stuff I justthought this is just giving you a bookabout the guardian angel and stuff Ithink that's come probably a good timebecause I absolutely did you agree thatif that come it should give you thatbook yeah we'll probably thought once itchanges your perception of do you knowchange started to change the way I'llthink and I need all honesty when Istart to read the book and I started tosort of understand each chapter one at atime I thought wow you know this isamazing can this really be possiblecould you elaborate on something fromthat or something that you maybe do nowyeah of course yeah and so what I'velearnt from that book was of course itstarted to open other doors and otheravenues in Lord of Attraction as aspeople know it I don't know there's alot of it back now whereas when we wasyounger it was it wasn't it wasn't aboutwhat he's still about but we wasn'taware of him but he's a lot more aboutof it often now so and then you know Idon't know thousands if not millions ofpeople's heard of the secret and so thenthatbook came into my hands and it was itjust happened to be that I went onto acourse and which is an angel course andhis spiritual core so as I went thereand this is the lady that was conductingit her name was Angela so and she toldus about this secret and the secretwebsite so I wrote it downsuza go home was sort of jumped on thewebsite got the thing he got the DVDbecause there's gotta be somethingindecent what's what's so good aboutthis or anyway are played it and thenwhat made my two boys what it sat therewatching me and I was totally sort ofenclosed in this secret because thatwhat they were saying is your thoughtsbecome your reality this was for me itwas like a turning point because Ithought wow if that was the case and wowI can create anything the one was withthe kids they were still young therewasn't sort of so much interested in itand so that's where he progressed fromso now you know I have a special routinein the morning and a follow every dayand it's all due to this I guess I cancall it positive thing times Olivia andit's all due to these positive thinkingand you know when you start to think ina certain way certain doors will startto open for youbut you have to trust in your way ofthinking and you have to trust inyourself even though all throughout lifeand even in today's day and age and howfast forward we have become even todayyou still have their thoughts you stillhave to battle with your own mindbelieve it or not and with your negativethought you know you're constantlyfighting against them and like I said toyou know before we started you know youhave a thought you sort of you sort ofhave a negative thought if you like andbefore you know it your negativethoughts your your conscious mindstarting tell you something and beforeyou know you're not that's spiraled intoyour hair before blonde conversationswith yourself you know you're sitting inyour car and you're home or whatever andyou're talking to yourself and you'rehaving this complex it's conversationwith yourself and you're sort offighting with yourself you know onevoice against another and I don't knowif that makes sense you know you sort offighting with yourself and you reallyhave to start to understand your thoughtand that's one of the thingslearn to do is understand my thoughtsand when I'm having a thought like thatI instantly think to myself okay this isthis is the right thought no it's notand I'll stop put a stop to the Thorntonright away because you are in control ofyour own thinking nobody else controlsit for you so you know what you arethinking so if you start to realize thatyou was thinking something that's hasn'teven happened you can stop that thoughtright away when you stop it do youreplace it with something or replace ityeah you have to replace it withsomething positive say for example ifyou're having an emotional thought let'sjust say something bad happened you knowyou you're on your way you've got aparking ticket or you or something likethat you don that's a negative thing andthe first thing you do when you get aparking tickets in your effing andblinding station and and you know andyou know then that you know be from thatanger anything of blinding thinking thatyou know it starts to escalate so if youright away realize all and this is thisis not right it you know what's whatcould be good about there having aparking ticket and then think ofsomething that these positive factorsare negative so when you start to thinkof something positive I'm an 18 it couldwell be this you might have had aparking ticket you might have grabbed aparking ticket God to speak todayconductor or whatever I'm bumped intosomebody who you spontaneously you knowbumped into somebody who is we put yourright you know you and you might haveyou know anything could have happenedwith those gratitude in having a carabsolutely yeah yeah anything you knowanything but as long as you sort ofrealize that you're having this negativethought and without letting this spunout of control with hundreds of otherthoughts stop it right away stop it andchange you to find a positive in thatnegative like I said it could be thatyou've got you could be grateful to youyou've got him you come to meet make ameeting absolutely if that you know hewas worried about your parking ticketthen you might not have gone on to thatmeeting and gain somethingokay knowledge or whatever it is youknow so if there's always a positive ina negative and that's what you have tosort of learn to do it's not the easiestthing in the world who is there but withpractice it becomes perfect that'sinteresting because this is justmeanness or cancers effectivemy family is taking members of my familyaways it's affecting my family some ofthem now so a very negative connotationtowards cancer I sometimes put myself ina position and think if I was to everget cancer or something but a particularpoint I just can't help but think that Iwill feel sorry for myself at some stagehave you ever felt that yeah you do as Isaid that you know it's it's it's notyour normal yeah absolute normal youknow you can't control your thoughts toa degree well you can you can't becausewhen something as severe as cancer orother illness hit you you can't see anyway out so of course it's not so foranybody to think you know how would Ifeelbut as I said earlier on you know you weare you are in control of your thoughtsas long as you don't put emotion intosomething it can never happen it's onlyemotion that creates your reality whenyou paint a picture of what you want andhow you want your life to be yourconscious and your subconscious minddoesn't know the difference betweenright and wrongit just doesn't know the difference itonly responds to what your want pictureyou're painting it so when you're youngas I said you know your pet your parentshave painted how your picture is goingto be so your subconscious mind thenwhen your conscious mind then has tobuild your life around your parentspicture or the picture that you'vecreated or they're created not just yourparent it's society its schooleverything and anything after the sortof ages 10 when you develop fullydevelop your conscious mind after theage of 10 anything after that is whatyour picture has been built on based onyour school your parenting or andsociety itself you know you have to sortof try to understand your thoughts youthink there's a lot and as long as youcan control or though what you'rethinking you can always change it thehardest part of changing something isthat you have to change all your softconscious if people understand what thatmeans if they don't then I went tohighly recommendlooking into that because it's a veryvery powerful part of us it's a part ofour mind and can create reality for youso if you don't understand whatsubconscious is then I so stronglysuggest that you go out and listen to oreven you know we books on that if youdon't like reading like me listen toaudiobooks I love listening yeahmotivation you see and you can learn alot from it so that's what you reallyhave to do you have to sort of thinkabout what you're thinking about thinkabout what you're thinking about all thetime and then stop when you start itwhen you start having it sort of anegative thoughts stop that and thenthink of a positive what could be thepositive thing what is it that you wantin life to change the picture that yourparents have built or society is builtfor you changing that jigsaw yourconscious mind doesn't want to change ajigsaw because you imagine you've made agreat massive jigsaw puzzle here andyou're trying to take the middle of thatjigsaw puzzle add and change it and howhard would it be to change that jigsawpuzzle so that's why your conscious mindis constantly fighting with you to stopyou doing that any fight with you bysending yeah but what if this happensthis is gonna happen this is gonnahappen and reality is just all you'redoing it fighting with you know elseisn't it yeah yeah so that's how yousort of change you know reality that'sbrilliant that's that's powerfulthat's something actually that's foranyone that is this and there's a bookcalled the chip paradox and he actuallyexplains it so it's quadratures paradoxof what he says is you have the chimpwhich is your like your subconsciousthrough then you have a computer whichis kind of the logical side of you butwhat he says is the chimp is morepowerful yeah and it's unless we controlthis chimp whether it's through changingour thought processes and the thingsthat we were taught to believeabsolutely absolutely then the chainsgoing to take over runs on it and that'sexactly what happens we do 95 90 95percent of our societyand yeah yeah you like absolutely yourchip will always try to control what itwants you to do but deep down if youstart to understand it anything ispossible but even having said that it'snot just his thoughts it's it's agratitude you have to put into thingyou know I mean I once all grateful forI mean I can explain sort of you knowwhat my routine isn't when I get a bunchof virtually the next thing so yeah yeahthe routine yeah so for myself what I dowhen I get up in the morning my generalroutine I mean on the early riser somore put three o'clock in the morningand one of the things I've learned andI'll never ever do is put the snoozebutton on now that I ever put snoozebutton or people do that but that's nota really a positive thing to do you knowyou as soon as oh yeah my alarm goes offI'm out of bed my feet hit the floor andthe first thing I do is I put my headtogether and then I go thank you so muchfor another day ahead of me and he'sfeeling that gratitude of another daywhether that day is gonna be the same asyesterday or not matters not it'sanother day I listen to a lot ofaffirmations in the morning as well sowhen you get up in the morning what Ilearned is that your subconscious mindyour conscious mind hasn't quite kickedin so you're still in your subconsciousand state so when you start to feed yoursubconscious state with positiveaffirmations your day will flowperfectly so first thing I'll do is ofgovernment phone I'll put my headphoneson I'll get dressed and I start to playaffirmations positive affirmations oreven relaxing music just to calm I'mlike that and so while I'm goingtesticle have a yeah you know I meanI'll have a shower in the night in caseyou think I think I've had a shower inthe night and so while I'm brushing myteeth I'll still got this headset on soI'll put 20 minutes or so I've got thisheadset on listening to affirmations andwhile I'm having breakfast on listen toaffirmations and I Drive to worklistening to an audiobook and um howyour mind works there's some great booksout there no doubt you've heard of manyof them I love listening to if you don'tmind the answer yeah actually you knowsomeone a box I mean I love listening toThink and Grow Rich by Napoleon HaydenI'm sure millions of poverty read a bookand the other book I think is fantasticand people should really haven'tis the science of getting rich by whatis what'll again it's it's it's heexplained it's a science of game richand it's a great book to if you I meanyou can buy it but if you don't want tobuy it you can get on YouTube and inlisten to it so for forty minutes fromall the way to work on listening to D soI'm always trying to feed my mind withpositive affirmations positive vibes allthe way to work and obviously onceyou've done your work come back home onmy way back home I'm genuinely back onfor about seven in the morning so I'mone ear out at the house for a few hoursand when I'm back home I take the dogfor a walkanother relaxing way to do that and thenI get when I'm when I'm home obviously aboo gone to work by then and then I domy meditation and we solved for the nexthour and so I sit there and I focus whatI want out of life and how I want mylife to be and so I do a meditation thenlisten to some great meditation musicagain you can get on YouTube if youdon't I use one called calm on iTunes itis one that you have to pay for whatyeah it's absolutely fantastic I sawmany on there it's great but as I saidthere's lots of free ones you know youjust have to find one that resonateswith you so once of a sort of listenedand once I've done my own meditation Igenerally fall asleep for an hour songtwo hours and so it's in a sort of fallasleep for about a couple of hours andthen back up to ten o'clock I've startedto do exercises now when I hadn't beforeeven though when I was younger I spent alot of time exercising but when I gothere I sort of lost confidence inxdesign so i starting to sort of carryback into exercising nothing bank am buti have so for ten o'clock consider do 20minutes of sort of general exercise andand and ice get on go about Monday I'llstart work about two o'clock again tohave two and once again I'll start Ionly listen or try to listen toaudiobooks you know any kind of audioBob Proctor is another fantastic I meanhe's amazing you know I know he's on thesecret but he's so he's been doing thisfor 50 years and he's somebody knowswhat they're talking abouthe is a man that knows what he's talkingabout and so I listen to a lot and a lotof his and audio books I listen to a lotof time Roberts and again and does agreat motivator so I'm always listeningto these books and that awesomewhilst I'm at work I generally come homearound 1:00 to finished up getting homefor seven have a meal I try to relax bywatching not so much TV programs butmore very old-fashioned God programs ifyou like and and the reason of watchthem is because it's it's it explains toyou that what we have now has alwaysbeen there but we just we just didn'trealize it so it's in resonates back toyou how you can move forward with whatwe have well I've always had and thegenerally don't got a bed and again onceagain I've always got to sleep at nightand before I go to sleep I just bethankful for my whole day you know Ithink about all the the thing I've donetoday even though my day routine isgenerally the same and I might have metsomebody new there so I always sort ofgratitude to everything I have even mymeals or sit down and I'm you know youwhen I say gratitude because he'sgratitude is part of development so ifyou're not grateful for something thenhow can you be grateful for what youwant to something so you really have tobe grateful for and I know there's lotsof people there's a wall I can't begrateful until I get this box if that'sthe way you're thinking as we spokeearlier on you're only gonna get more ofwhat you're putting out so if you'rethinking I'm not grateful for somethingyour only your your subconscious mindonly sees that you're not grateful forsomething and you know you're feelingsad about something so he thinks ah okayoh yeah it's not about this I'll giveyou more of that so that's how yourcontent works and fall asleep againlistening to youmusic until the next day I don't knowfalling asleep so in the middle of thenight when this thing he's office stillgot my head said oh we should take offpretty so and then you know so that's mydaily routine every day yes it's almostlike the curse of cancer that came intoyour life has always made your lifebetter totally think shame because itthat's it for me it took for me to getill to get where I am I mean you know Ihad a business which and was almost gonealmost bankrupt me because I reallystruggled but had it not been for whatI'd learned over the years I think thatI would have really got into itdepression but because of what I learnedover the years when I did have mybusiness and that didn't work as well asI expected it to and it's just one ofthem things and yes I worried a lotabout it and opera and Laura's worryingin the family put up trying to keep itaway from them as well because I didn'twant them to feel under pressure to helpand there was absolutely fantastic youknow hats off to my family then theystepped in and they sort of we workedtogether and you know and it's anotherthing that I think I should point out isthat when you have when you when you'reworried about something and even worriedabout not telling your parents ortelling your family it's a wrong thingto do because if your family is alwaysthere to understand and support you andjust it's surprising how much taken justjust by taking or talking to somebodyhow much of a burden you can take offyour shoulders and that's what I did yousee but just boy even though they didn'tsort of okay here we'll do this withthis but just talking to them took awayso much of my worries and but as I saidif it wasn't for what I've learned overthe previous year is about beingpositive I wouldn't have come out ofthat business feeling better for myselfand you know going on six or seven yearsnow more than that now here 10 years orso moving forward 10 years you know I'vecreated another great business you knowII'm really happy within them andprogress it's always because you have toprove you have to think of yourself andyour family and move forward with themabsolutely so a couple of good pointsday is born obviously it's easier saidthan done but we shouldn't have to waitfor a cancer or death or something youknow like these are simple things thatevery single one of us on a daily basisand so I ask this question can start todo it's not gonna take us long to justsit there for best part of two threeminutes and just think of all the thingswe're grateful for every single morningand it slowly become easier thenobviously throughout the day we'llnotice more and more things yeah andthen listening to positive stuff sohopefully people listening to this canjust take on this now yeah rather thanhave to wait for something bad in partand then just live in this on what it'salmost like a bliss because you justappreciate every single momentabsolutely right sometimes we will gothrough life and six months tormentsurpassed and you've never really livedin the moment because you've won binanxious about the past and to you I sawyou anxious about the future untilyou've been depressed about the past soit's a dangerous place to be absolutelyit's almost like living in today youalso said talking to people so this issomething that I actually mentioned on aprevious podcast so I struggled withanxiety struggled a lot with overwhelmand similar to yourself I'm trying ityou look after my family I'm trying tocomfort my wife and my siblings and Idon't want to put the burden on them mymom suffered in depression so she'sloved a best friend by the same time Idon't want to have any stress there aswell but then sometimes if it's too muchand I do speak to her yeah she doesn'tsolve the problem but I felt so muchbetter which she feels better that Icould buy dinner yeah same with myfriends or my wife whoever I speak to ittalking is so powerful it's a massivemassive thing but as humans what I meanconnection speaking is it's part of usand because the song takes a turn thatfollows 24 so absolutely we will lose aconnectionabsolutely I think you know that's againlike you said you know is you when youtalk into somebody somebody when youhold it in yourself you're creatingnothing but bad feelings for yourselfbut when you're let that energy outyou've it's almost as if you've left letout and a massive ball of negativeenergy you know that's how you gotacidity is a and you know and it's hardsometimes understand you know certain 16certain things in such a situation yousometimes find it hard totalk to somebody but the best wayforward and I've always found is thatyou know if you can't talk to yourfamily then talk to somebody who'sconfused you're close with you know justtake that off your chest and it makesyou feel so much better and your mindwill always fight you against it becausethey want you to hold and I know itsounds bad do you thinking to yourselfwell why wouldn't my mind want to dothat for me and it's always one see italways sort of and give you a picture ofoh yeah but if you if you told decentI'm gonna do this ad singly and you knowyou but you're creating something hasn'teven happened creating scenario you knowwe're going back again you know creatinga picture of what you want if you wantif you want to if you finally difficultto talk to somebody then imagine it inyour head and I know those who have readand Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hillof one of the things he used to do washe used to have a board meeting and withsome of the richest people in the worldin his head not physically with in yourhead and I mean he could if you canimagine something like that so and it'seasy to imagine thing you know you couldyou can imagine something like like justlike that if I said to you now think ofa pink elephant instantly you'll bethinking of a pink elephant if you'resaying stick your face in the kitchenyou'll be thinking of that so you cancreate emotion to that yeah absolutelyabsolutely without emotion there's lotsof elements that you have to puttogether for the law of attraction towork emotion is one of them gratitude isanother one the positive thinking isanother one and individually you knowimage in your head and what you wantyour life to be is another one when youstart to combine these things togetherthat's when your life starts to changeof people using this Lord of Attractionhas changed in life totally change yourlife around within 12 months just by Imean it takes 30 days to create thething is with life itself which we'vecreated habits and hobbies can bechanged it takes time to change habitsbut habits can be changedI love that and the final point I justwant to add to that is you mentioned abusiness that you've just started thatyou're very happy with we have anotherbusiness because we've got the productson there it's probably packed in one ofthese boxes now because we're movinghouse not okayjoining just share that briefly justwith the ordinance a lot when I firstheard about it I was like that's quitean innovative is quite interesting okaystraight away can you just starting fromscratch sure yeah yeah and others heredo I do my full time I guess it's a jobbut it's not job because he's stillself-employed and do my parcel businessbut always wanted to be sort of anonline trader so what I started to dowas I looked at ways I can make moneyonline Amazon was a biggest platform soI was learned how to sort of startedlooking more into how Amazon works andso I learned how to through theirlearning program and he can learn Lee toAmazon sort of learned how to sellproducts on Amazon and that's what I'mmoving forward with and I've got aproduct on there now which and which isaromatherapy oils but he's one of themthings that sort of well it's a bit of arisk to take but again if you wantsomething to happen you have to have apositive outcome of it and so I startedto understand and learn a lot aboutAmazon and how they were what what to doand learnt the coursethey've had to promote the product howwhere to find a product had to getproduct once I understood all that I'mstill learning from it's not somethingthat yeah fully understood I'm stilllearning from them I started as I said Iimported my first product and it's beengreat you know really has my wife usesit I think that's actually okay yeah itis a great product done yeah just onthat as well so soft and you hear peoplethinking they can't do nothing we haveall these limiting beliefs and they seewhat we can do in life and yeah you justthought okay I wanted to start abusiness and you probably wouldn't youprobably just figured it out along theway yeah you are not selling a productunless that's a lesson to anyone like ifthis is something you want with theright mindset and then obviously theaction nothing impossible without actionyou know you it's no good having theoldest mindset yeah positive thinkingwhen you take no action you you know youhave to take action if it's somethingthere's somelooking to do you know sell online itdoesn't have to be Amazon there's lotsof other platforms on thereI chose Amazon because I was on is deepBiggie's platform to sell and I choseAmazon because I found it you can I canI don't have to store the product at allI'll send it to their warehouseeverything they deal with a moment yeahabsolutely and their fulfillment centerthat deal with the customers they dealwith the returns of course anything thatis returned luckily for me I finally hadone product returned in all the onesthat have sold and then they theycontact you so you have nothing you knowthat this is the biggest fear withpeople they think well how can I startoh I'm Christie what about customerseries what about this but this withAmazon they deal with all that with youyeah of course they target fee which isunderstandable but you have to find aproduct then you can now incorporate allthat and you can make and still make aprofit out of it you know you you knowyou could there's lots of people onAmazon that making great massive massivemonthly incomes and it's it is possibleand you just have to trust in yourselfto do it and that's the hardest thingtrusting yourselfif it's something that you know it's forthe listeners if something that you'repassionate about then use that productuse that as a product absolutely I wantyou to put that in there because I'veseen you use the product as well yeah soit's not like a shameless plug or anyyeah yeah it's inspiring because if Iask someone say for instance my dad ormy own course or something do that thefirst thing that says all are configuredI don't know about the internet and wehave a lot of people in the audience wejust automatically have exclusivestraightaway absolute is always it'sjust refreshing to hear somebody justsay you know what what it actually showsthat everything you're putting inpractice in your daily routines like theaffirmation is opposed to thinking yeahyou put it into practice any practice oryou foods I think that's the thing withall the community because I mean I'm 53and if I can make changes at 53 peopleat that age if not youngerI mean exactly majority to preparepeople you know once they get past fortyforty five to think that's it I thinkthe life is overyou can't progress you can't learn youthe game started yeah it's just startingand I just gain started don't letthings top of you because when you'reyoung you have a whole you could you gotyour whole life in front of you whenyou're 40 your passport you're gettingclose to 50 you think that you've onlygot a few years but just in a few yearsif you with the right mindset it justwithin a few years you can change thewhole life around if that's what youwant being all free absolutely peopleare living longer now resolve of courseyeah yeah definitely Brit okay thank youfor that so we spoke about diversityquite a bit and we spoke obviously thebusiness stuff we spoke about thepersonal health problems as well if youcould just choose one of your biggestlessons that you've learned from thatexperience so I'm going that you had themindset of something but if you can justsay to somebody maybe who's experiencedin it now or going through term orwhether it's cancer or any other illnessif you can just give them one lessonthat you've taken from that situation Iwould say that you know just as hardwhen giving that situation but just tryto see things as I say just try and lookat the light at the end of the tunnelyou know just try to focus on yougetting better you moving forward youwanting the thing that you want insteadof focusing on something and Iunderstand that it's hard because I'vebeen there and but just try to listenand the best way did it one of the otherthings I absolutely love doing is I lovelistening to music that I love becausehe just makes you feel so much betterso if you are going through a tough timelisten to your favorite song don't losesight of you joy yeah something that youenjoy listening to listen to a rock soyou know not so much a rock song in thesense of rock song I mean something thathas a fantastic you know I always findthat that helps me to feel better so andyeah you know just just try to staypositive really you know it's a toughsituation to be more you just have tolearn to stay positiveyeah that's brilliant thank you for thatI'm in this particular moment right thissecond what is your biggest fear andfear is another to say this now becausefear is just a thought it's just thoughtthat can be told controlled when youhave a fear you can always change yourfeeling too and onso I try to avoid having a fear becauseI'm not saying don't not worried aboutanything I'm always worried about thefuture and have I done enough too butwhen I pass how I done enough on thisearth for those were living here now forwhen I pass that means my biggestconcern blooded and I fear because Ithink when you use the word fear I don'tknow a lot of people do but I from whatI've learned one of the things Iunderstand these learn to understandthese fear it's just a word it's a wordthat's used by everybodyso when somebody uses the word fear youinstantly think the worst of somethingso no no that's not what you wanted tohear but I think that they when you usethe word fear you sort of think of theworst but to me don't think of the wayfear and it's hard not to but don'tthink of me think of something think ofit as a unless fear forward if you likebut yeah well my biggest concern is howabout done enough on earth and for thosecoming okay that's one of my biggestinterested and has that purpose of yoursthat why without motivation to leave theworld given as much as usually has thatonly stemmed since again that I don'twant to keep touching on it but theyHansard incident absolutely yeah yeahyeah and that's interesting because alot of people I find that go throughadversity in life or have been throughhardship they almost become selfless andthey just want it almost in that momentwhen they're so great for this stuffthey want to give back more yeah yeah Ithink before that we kind of do live aselfish life yeah absolutely because I Iwas kind of selfish I only reallythought about myself I didn't eventhough I've respected what my pen said Iwould kind of well my life I could dowhat I like or no and even you knowgoing back down I remember my fathersitting me down once and he went and hesaid you know you're going down thewrong path because I started gettinginvolved with the wrong people he saidyou're gonna shame us and he was likethat backing when I was growing up hesaid you're gonna put shame on us andyou're gonna end up in prison because hethought I was gonna end up in prison andbut I you know I was not but I wanted todo what I want to docare about that I just want to do what Iwant to do for what I dye my hair with adime appears like yeah you can't stop meeven though respecting him when I didn'tdo a pop it was one of the thoughts ofhim that was going through her head andso ya can say for me cancer was thebiggest biggest thing that changed andmaybe that's what I neededyou know things they were say the thingscome for a reason maybe that is what Ineededthat's a wake-up call this is why Iactually love like I love dis as part ofmy job because I get to meet people atyou and without having to go through thepain and that you've been through yeahit inspires me so much like this isinspiring but I have sometimes will betalking and I'll be like episode 4so-and-so said this how dare I feelsorry for myselfyeah I'm it doesn't get me through theday and I'll always think I'm blessedbecause when I'm gonna have him speak tosomebody I always get to meet a newfriend and a new person that I form arelationship and then it just changed myperspective because I'm like I'm so muchmore grateful even now just for likehealth see you perfectly because he'sjust pointed it out you know you washaving there we're gonna use the wordnegative again we're having dailythought about something and yet youinstantly realized you was and thenchange it into something positive bysaying about somebody such as 50 centsor how dare Iand it's absolutely like you know thisthere's so many people in this worldthat are worse off than you yeah youknow you other than those who arehomeless and you know this is one of thethings I want to do and as I get betterand better and you know be able to do itis to help the homeless because unlessyou're homeless and God not you if along as you go roof of your hand yesit's always tough if you haven't got ajob and I know it's a big thing and abig concern but yeah if you got a roofover you should be gratefulalways be playing with without gratitudeabsolutely can't move forward and Ithink I think that's that's a brilliantpoint I think it's something though wedo have to do every day because againadversity everything he goes foreveryone's life and I've had momentswhen but death happens all of a suddenfor that month but you're you you'regrateful for everything and you knowlife's too short please share everythingbut then you get very quickly back intotheir old habits happy so that's why Ialways readit should be like a day absolutely youtouch on the homeless thing so I'm I'mvery fortunate my parents are very likeloving people so we foster children andit's laughs okay well you're my sisterthen we adopted and my mom tried toadopt every single kid that coming tothe house and laughs there's no room inthe house so I've got like three whitesiblings and we've got Asian sister aswell was adopted and seeing them andseeing like their issues in terms oflike disabilities there weremalnutrition when they first came thereTestament disorders it made me sograteful like it changed my whole lifeso I gave good-paying jobs to becomelike a social worker to effectivelychange the world and it changed but thenwhat happened was when I got married andI moved into my house here we're sittingtoday yeahdon't my siblings I think about themevery single day but I don't live withthem every day to end that feeling ofgratitude every single day okaywhereas before I never had to remindmyself please job like this a nice thingpoor Kyle he might never be able todrive a car he'll never be able to dothis yeah and he used to make me feelgrateful yeah so it is something I thinklike anything like if you don't lookafter your health every single day it'sgonna deteriorate absolutely I think weshould always try and I think that's thebiggest issue and you get to a certainstage and when you're happy with yourlife you tend to start to forget aboutthat is you know just another quickpoint is you know it's not a religiousthing or I don't want to win anybodyhere but when when something bad younever think about God you go about yourday to day business but when somethingbad happens you straight away you'regoing and pray to God you know God isthere every single day yet you forgetand I know most people don't but themajority do you know they forget thathe's there every day and I even thoughI'm not a I'm a spiritual person and youknow it doesn't matter what you are deepdown with all the same so when you haveto pray to somebody then pray to themevery day if you want to if you feelthat God is your way forward and thenpray to God every day be thankful to himthat you got me walk every day not justa day that you're feeling down or youfind a bad day or you've lost your catyou lost your dog or anything else youknow every single day should be a daywhere you grateful with gratitude 100%you alcohol I think that's beautifulmessage I think it's something that I'mprobably cure you have I remember as akid man if I thought was gonna get introuble bug my parentslike God please get me through this daynever do it again I'm sure we've allkind of done yeah I thought okaybrilliant so we're actually at the funpart of the show is what I called it soit's again quickfire round of 60 to 90seconds depending when I apply you outbasically I just random questions okayare we all ready yeah okay we're gonnago in three two oneif you could abolish one thing in theworld what would it be oh yeah yourfavorite beer butter oh yeah yourbiggest role model Oh baby what wouldyou like to be remembered for the good Idid your biggest goal this year to besuccessful and help us your worstmistake not doing Eternia if you couldrelive one day again what day would itbe the very first day I was bornthe ability to fly or be invisibleinvisible the number one thing thatannoys you but habits and when your fameneither your proudest moment my childrenyour favorite foodgot a visual icing chicken would yourather speak or languages or speak toanimals what's your favorite song at theclub by the Drifters and if you had anextra hour a day how would you spend itmeditating Netflix or YouTube Netflixand the final question is the number onepiece of advice you would give to yourchildren just be yourself okay brilliantso we're approaching towards the end ofthe show now and just two more questionsthat I always like to ask my guest thenext one's about reflection I saw thisis in hindsight obviously we learn wayswhere we can get to places quicker withless heartache or by saving money forexample so if you could go back knowingeverything that you know now and allyour words of wisdom and everything thatwe've spoken about in the show to ayounger time when maybe you wereconfused or going through a time whereyou had no clarity in your life yeah andyou can just whisper something in theyounger piece yeah yeah did you say goneback if I had and I think that this mayyou know I was thinking these yes noweven though I would tell myself that thefuture is what you create the Tippie soif you want your future to be betterpaint that picture in your head andthat's what I would whisper to myselfpaint the picture of how you want yourlife to be and it will create itthat's Brittany I think the more watersthe develop my dream and stuff as wellthat's more what I try and do is I likevision board and stuff and I think Ithink maybe as children as well we dothat but there's somewhere betweenchildhood when you've got that innocenceto growing up yeah we tend to lose it Ithink the vision boards are fantasticand I think that a great thing to havebecause it gives you a idea of how youwant your life to be but the whole timeto that to that is when somebody makes avision board they forget that they canchange that vision board and once you'velooked at it a few times it's just theresitting on the wall of what I tend to dois I've read my goals every morning I'llhave a book written in there what I wantmy average day to be like and I read thebook everything is pretty detailed ofhow I would like to be and I sit downand read it and if there's something alot I don't like in it I always draw itout and change it and I think withthings like vision boards and eventhough I did a great thing like I saidbut vision boards is a massive pictureof you know I feel Bree wants to bemulti millionaire and they know we'renear there it's it's an image where youthink well I'm not gonna get there butif you take small steps because visionboards can be expanded it can be changedbut I think people when who make visionboards are I'm not sure about yourselfof people who make vision boards tendnot to change it so then look at it onceor twiceliterally for a month or so after that -forget the vision boards he's there butyou know going forward it's not it's nota bad thing I'm not saying would yourecommend them having a two year goalit's about building confidence so ifyou're gonna like your goal down foryourself or goals down for yourself andyou've written a goal to say let's justsay for argument's say you're gonna havea million pound in a year and people dolike gods like now because the thing -what if I could create anything oragreat that create that I'm not sayingit can't be created but if y'all haven'tbut if you're not if you're not in linewith your positive thinking creatingthat video path is going to be difficultbut if you say to yourself I want tocreate a slightly similar goal so say afew sectors up I want to10,000 pounds a month 10,000 pound amonth is far achievable easilyachievable because your work hard racketabsolutely once you achieve your 10,000pounds a month you've put it and have abooster then draw your goal pika make ittwenty thousand their next month and youknow no no there's lots of people outthere don't think well I want to be amillionaire and I want to beat in a yearand but you didn't learn to speak andyou didn't know how long did it take youto learn to walk how long did it takeyou to do things now you know justgenerally to do things it takes 12 yearsfor you to go through school and learnall the things in school you're notgoing to become successful in a yearwell I'm not so don't get me wrong sorryI apologize for that it's not you're notgoing to be your mindset isn't brightguitar pitch there won't be a nomineesthat will obviously do it for the vastmajority of us we have to develop one asphere is changing one our mindset one Ihelp everything needs a line is haveyeah and we need to increase theconfidence and our skill set in all ofthose yeah and one of the things that II suppose I've suffered with I saw Idon't do vision boards myself is that nopeople do is when I used to have thesebig goalssomewhere along their journey if you'retrying to be like an entrepreneur tryingto find your way life yeah when yourealize how far you are from you goesyou become very dissatisfied to me andtrying to think of the right words forit be they the lack of motivation yeahbecause you think I'm just so far awayfrom it and even though you might havecome so far the J yank yeah you forgethow far you've come because you'relooking to have my uni heroso this is what I'm saying about visionboards you see becausevision boards are a great thing but ifyou're making a vision board and yourjourney is to be you know a supersuccessful entrepreneur but you're onlyhere you're not seeing absolutely howyou come you you're looking at that andyou you kind of can't get demotivatedbecause you know with anything it can'tbe change but if you're making a goalthat stopped being absolute but you'rehere so that's why that's my adviceno I think that's great advice is so ifwe use the analogy that IowaI can relate to very quickly is healthand fitness so everyone wants a six-packin just absolutely the number onequestion I always get a song that'sabsolutely fine we can get you asix-pack we can help you but it startswith one rep in the gymyeah starts with you going to the gymthat one day yeah and you can't ever getthere any quicker no matter how much youwould have to do that ripyeah then unfortunately you have to do alot of them reps and yeah you can't justdo one on one day you can't just sithere for 24 hours or let's do sit-upsanother city like the world it's aprocess and it's about understandingthat so yeah I think that's it it's apretty answer good answer and thatcertainly actually brings us to the lastquestion and the last question is if in150 years science fails to save us andnone of us are here and it's justhopefully my podcasts by then all thatremains is a book and this book is aboutyou everything in your life or the goodthings you've done or the wonderfulthings and all the people's lives you'vetouched and everything yeah what wouldthe back of the book tell us to makesomebody want to pick it up about youand also what would the title be well Ithink if I was who write a book thetitle of my book would have to be a caryou say Think and Grow Rich butsomething along the lines you knowthoughts I would say I would say it'shard to sort of define them an actualname for the Papa I would say somethingalong the lines of use your thoughtswell think carefully and think aboutwhat you want you know it's hard todefine a name think carefully that'sthat's quite interesting yeah it's sortof something along them lines and withthe back of the book create the lifethat you want by thinking history youknow think about how you painted apicture painting an image on your lifecreate an image of how you want what youlike to be it's hard to sort of it'sfine to be honest I think everythingthat you've said in this episode haskind of told us about the nerve of ityeah and I think the probably the mostimportant thing like you said it's thinkcarefully yeah because you realizedthrough your trials in tribulations isthat if your thought processes thatmanifesto LSU and make your existenceand everything but yeah I think that'sthe biggest thing really you know whenyou're somebody's gonna pick somethingup they're gonna think about what theyare doing what about you as a person howwould you how would you want to beremembered I would like to be rememberedas somebody who diddividing therefore everybody you knowdid the right thing for those who areless fortunate or try to do the wrongthing I think yeah that's brilliantthank you I think that's a great answerand I'm just a final note so we aregonna put your Amazon link in for yourvisit I think you definitely shoulddefinitely if people are interested inthemso it's it's an oil it's a variation allRoma therapy oils basically they're thenatural products there there's noartificial cooling or the fieldadditives in it and they can be used foryour health purposes there's cárdenas aswell and he tells you what you can whatthe purpose of these are and so each oilcan be used for various things I mean Iuse the head of tose so there's a andthere's an oil in there kiddo and Ithink it is that same as witch witchhazel if you're cruising if thought itactually takes your pain away but Idon't have anything okay so and againI'll use the oils to put in the SteamMop just a few tops fantastic you coulduse them in diffuser so there's manyuses for them yeah I got my wife as wellyeah and alongside that are you onsocial media as well is there a way orwould you be open to banners connectingwith yourself and yeah I mean if anybodyyou know wants any answers or questionsalways take on anything then yeah coolso I I am on social media on FacebookI'm not a big these further Facebook youknow yeah I think it's just a good pointof call because there could be somebodywho behind closed doors may haveresonated a certain part of your storymay be struggling with it may be goingfor the exact same thing yeah and thisis another thing the whole point of thispodcast is to let people know they'renot alone yeah so the story that you'regoing through I'm gonna be going throughabout a million other people who yeahthis is what it's about and it's alwaysnice when you can get somebody on theshow he's in a much better place thenyeah yeah and that's the point is artistso in that function enough when we'regoing through all the emotions and stuffand we think there is no light at theend of the tour like I thought you knowactually all of my guests havedemonstrated there is like it is herethat's what it's aboutfantastic so brilliant so we're I justwanted this moment once again just tothank you for your time today andsharing your story into the listeners athome I gotta listenit's for that play to be here andremember this podcast is absolutely freeso all we asked in return is for you toshare this with a friend and drop us afive star review over on iTuneshave an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
"How Society affects teenagers today" by Balraj Purewal #26Tagline: "These are the broken pieces of the puzzle that you still end up piecing together.."Life has moved on so quickly and within the space of a generation our world is now seen through a phone, almost 24/7. In fact I can't recall the last time I went out myself and didn't snap, Instagram or Facebook a status update.But for the youth of today they experience larger problems and issues, such as seeking external validation, comparison amongst peers and so often finding themselves missing the beauty of the presence.It is with this I decided to interview a teenager to show us, and give us a first insight into the life of a teen today. He explains very eloquently the struggles, the good the bad and the types of challenges he is presented with daily, amongst other teens.He is a poet at a heart, currently studying at my favourite university (no bias), whilst trying to figure out where he fits in the world amongst figuring out the intent of other people.We speak about many things in this episode that I really enjoyed recording such as:IntentImportance of internal validationBeing true to yourselfFinding your voiceWorking hardUsing social media for what it is todayA guy who is wise beyond his years and someone I believe will go on and achieve his dreams in the world today, I urge you all to show him some support and follow his journey below:P.s. remember any new reviews on iTunes, just send me a screenshot either on twitter, instagram or to my email and ill send you the diet and gym plan as promised. It will likely be a 7-day window due to the volume of listeners.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_b.purewal/ (Personal)Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/word___art/ (Poetry)Snapchat: B.purewalHave an awesome day & #JustDeuIt #FindYourVoiceYouTube Transcription:[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of this show so today I'm gonna bebringing you our youngest ever guest onthe show now I was a little bitskeptical if I'm completely honest ofhaving somebody so young coming out to ashow like find your voice because findyour voice generally speaking it'speople who have gone through adversitygone through obstacles and problems andthen all of a sudden I sat back and Ithought hold on a second this is theexact kind of person we need on thisshow because I'm sitting here and almostmaking this judgment which is againshowing something that I need to beaware of and learn from that peoplegoing through their teenagers and goinginto transition into adulthoodhaven't got a voice and that's not whatI wanted the show to be about so anywayI'm gonna be completely honest he overdelivered in fact he was the star ofthis show and I'm very grateful that heshared his experience because there's somany things he mentioned in this episodethat made me kind of think back to howeasy I suppose my life was growingthrough that transition and many of uslistening to this because I checked thedemographics are a lot older thanbarrages and we never had to go throughthe social media constraints and theproblems and that external validationthat these children and teenagers aregoing through today so it's a very verygood episode in terms of one for anyonewho's going through this transition areyou the teenagers who are hopefullytrying to get to listen to this show toinspire and motivatebut more importantly it's just asimportant for us slightly older peoplewho maybe forgot what it was like growno to hear somebody's perspective or howdifferent life is so we talked a lotabout intent we talked about the typesof people that you come across in lifebut we also talk about some stuff thatjust really blew my mind that I wastalking to a teenager especially when Ithink back to what I was like growing upbecause I was not this emotionally awaythat I was just figuring it out and itgained that last bit there figuring itout is something that we go on to talkabout quite a bit in this episodebecause irrespective of where you are inthis journey in this wonderful thingcalled life we're always just trying tofigure it out so hopefully you find thisuseful especially towards the end of theshow because his last two answers wereincredible and they were very poetic andthen I happen to realize that he has apoetry account on Instagram which kindof made sense so a kid with a hugefuture ahead of him I'm very gratefulthat I've managed to tap into theyounger demographics as well I'm verygrateful for Barrett this time and Ihope you all really enjoy this episodeso without further ado let's jump intoit okay people I just like to start thisshow by welcoming bowrage to the showand thanking all the listeners fortuning in today how you doing today myfriend yeah I'm not too bad not too badOh better runs well thanks I let me comeon the show oh you're very welcome myfriend so I think to start this show Ithink it's really important that thelisteners get to know you a little bitso if you would have mind if you canjust kind of give us a briefintroduction into the life of Berridgeplease yeah well so obviously I went toaround four primary schools alreadyremember too much about it if I'm honestI mean I'm the whole guys created forone but then as I went along we movedhouse quite a bit went to one schoolthat was pretty racist I was like whatlike the third brown person there so itwas like I was getting called like the Pword most of the time and I was likewhat the hell's going on so being quiteyoung in primary school didn't reallyenjoy primary school too much becausealways like an outsider don't know if itwas because I was moving so much ormaybe I just wasn't people's kind ofguided which is not a problem and then Idon't know what just literally got intohigh school and then I was like well Idon't want that happening again it's notsomething one happening teenage hormonesare last like kicking in you know thatwas ragingdifferent kind of world with high schoolyou thinking what's going on here I'velearnedreally from lucky s7 I mean if if I'mhonest when I was in the s7 array I wasbit of know a kid or what Liars used toend up in isolation call hi a lot I'mnot sure well I am sure why but I feellike the school was quite strict as wellso any little minor thing I did wouldbasically be picked up on which is not abad thing I guess it took me to maturemuch quicker and this just kind oflasted to around year 10 I was like wellit ain't about who's got the biggest thebiggest this the biggest bat who can dothis who can do that because the realitydoesn't make any difference at all it'sjust you can crack on with themselvesand look after themselves and then whenI got to about year 11it just kind of semi just came out of myshell bit more because you know kind ofa person that it loves to talk to peopleI'm not sure why always been my thingyou knoweven now this like being on the podcastI read messaging you know I just lovetalking to peoplestead of me being stuck to my fault I'mwell I just beat somebody okay I canintake this knowledge from you how can Iapply this to my life oh you can do itlike this so like Erin you may say to meI'll do it this way and I may not evensing this other perspective because Imaybe so maybe I don't know deleted withmy own which is better for me to realizeobviously social media you know thephones are great but sometimes a lot ofpeople just end up stuck to it evenmyself at times well of course yeah butit was weird because in s7 like good onwords high school wise I always thoughtto myself I am I'm not fitting in itdoesn't make any sense why can I not dowhat they're doing why can I not do whatthe older people I did not realize and Ishould have enjoyed it more in themoment so I was okay cool that's not aproblem and then as soon as I started tocome up my shell but yeah 11 time youknow starts being two more people it waslike a lot more people were coming to mecame to six form where it was prettymuch the biggest change definitely fullycame out my child say I'm you know notin a cocky way oh I'd say I'm quitetalkative bubbly loving and caringperson mm-hmm so I guess it's kind ofcame with some baggage as well because Icouldn't even realize with somebody thatwas trying to maybe mess me around infront of my faceI want to realize because I think theyhave the same heart as me hmm so Iwouldn't even realize anything like thatand then obviously you know that youlive and learn obviously as you growingup and I think for teenagers now it'shard because everybody's trying tosorry for the language but fuck eachother over unless they're really genuinebecause they're like oh I have this ormy dad's got this my mom's got this whatdoes yours has what does your has yourshave I've got this PlayStation you don'thave it oh you don't have it why not oryou know just the little - things whichis you know it's no part of generalgoing on but I guess you don't realizethat until you actually do start to growup and like me going up into a man nobit of an awkward age at the moment 19kind of in the middle teenager turnedinto a young actual man now if you knowme like 18 years the normal designatedage anyways for when they say you were ayoung adult voice you're still in thatin between mm-hm if you know what I meanand then yeah like obviously then I wentto uni as well so just finished my firstyear basically thought I'd stay outfirst year get a bit more independenceand you know again actual experience oflike the halls or whatever like you knowhow everybody hyped up or whatever andit was great experience met some amazingpeople really amazing people some peoplewith some really good hearts but youmeet some give me some weird ones aswell it's really weird people you knowsome people may just want to use andabuse some people actually may want tohang around with you or some people justwant to distract you so you've just gotto make sure that you stay true toyourself and keep with a good heart atall timesso it seems that until at leastUniversity you were trying to one figureout who you are but to also figure outhow people are and I suppose especiallywith the last one it doesn't reallychange I mean I'm a little bit olderthan you but I still go through thatsituation where I'm still trying tofigure out why people are the way theyare or why certain people don't act theways for instance that I act so I willalways go in with good intentions andthen all of a sudden you'll realise thatother people's intent isn't necessarilythe same as yourself so I suppose apiece of advice having gone through thatprobably a little bit more than yourselfis just try and at least be wary ofpeople's intent because some peoplemight come across as almost like thegreatest people that you've ever seenbut then you will find later on oncethey get what they need to extract fromyou as a person you'll find they'll kindof disappear so that's just kind of likea piece of advice but you touched onsome prevalent things that I candefinitelythink about when I was a kid soespecially in the Punjabi culture thewhole drinking and how much can youdrink it's a purely ego thing 100% Ifell into that I fell into almostdamaging my health at the fact of I needto keep up with people when I drinkwhere is now I'd like to think of myselfas slightly more matured if I don'tfancy a drink I would just say that'senough for me and I'll kind of walk awayfrom it but again it's a learning lessona few points I've just made not of aswell that I want to just touch on so youwere always a naughty kid and you'realways I mean you've got yourselfexcluded for trying to bite somebody'snose but then all of a sudden thingsstarted to change and you said somethingwhich I thought was quite important andit was you opened up and the moment youstarted to open up you felt people startto gravitate towards you more I justwant this in relation to that then wasthat a sort of force thing or was thatjust you thinking okay there's no pointme just being this shy person when Ihave so much more to show to the worldobviously I was looking at other peoplethinking how are they doing this why somany people coming to them I'm just youknow I'm worrying too much about otherpeople now you know I actually need tolisten unlike for me and I've alwaysbeen quite open anyways quite if I wantsomething or if I want a fun one andknow something or I want to saysomethingI will say because I just get that offmy parents as well because if they wantto say something they'll just say theydon't they don't be around the bush Idon't see the point either because thenyou're just passing around make it morefuss than need to be so then literally Ijust try to be myself and I was likeokay this about in the year 11 more insix form was around a lot of people arecoming to me and I was like okay this isa bit weird I don't really know how tohandle this and what I found was it justcame with a lot of baggage as wellbecause a lot of people were coming tome but I was like even me me being adumb ass at times I want to realize thatsome people are just there to use me forpopularity or whatever it was and it'sokay though because like I learned fromit like it made me learn that somepeople like you you don't need to hangaround with these people all the timeyou don't need to hang around with apopular crowd it just doesn't make adifference we should be working towardsbetter in the world absolutely I thinkthat's a valid point and just on thatbasis you just reminded me of somethingthat you said earlier as well so yousaid initially obviously you find itdifficult to fit in and then you saidwhich isa problem like literally straight afterand I thought I was that was quite aclever point that you made plus it alsoshows your intelligence that you'rethinking a lot differently because atthat age it is all about fitting in itis all about being the coolest kid onthe block getting the most likes onInstagram and being that that kind ofperson what I want to ask you is whenyou start to be yourself and things weremore positive and obviously you know isthis and you've just explained it do youknow why you wasn't yourself prior tothat I just think are always quite sincesince being young I've always been quiteobservant a bit more like bit or notalways been an awful thinker I'm notsure why I just I've always thought thatI need to be doing more than I need thenI am or I need to be doing pair but youcan't be because like that's that'swhere I got to university now and I'veonly just realized now that you can't beperfect in everything you do and mebeing like a lot of perfectionist when Iwas in school you know I was about toget the best grades etc you know GCSEwas okay you know six form I did quitewell and I just thought you could beperfect but as a human you just can't beperfect so then I started to realizejust be myself I'm always gonna have myflaws as everybody else will have thefloors it just depends who wants to staywith you and still accept your flaws andaccept you you want 100 percent I thinkyou just hit the nail on the head thereas humans you can't be perfect there isno such thing as perfect and this is oneof the things that I suppose even when Istarted this podcast it was to showpeople look I'm just a shy person I'm ananxious person even in this conversationwith yourself on making mistakes um forgetting my words and stuff as well andsometimes it's about embracing yourvulnerabilities your weaknesses and thennext time just trying to be a little bitbetter so I think that's a very goodlesson for anyone in your situation andjust I'm gonna finish it actually onanother thing that you mentioned as wellwhich was when you said in relation tohow people may not have the same intentas you is that it's okay you learn fromit and it sounds easier in hindsight butI think if we can all take ourexperiences your life not not as apersonal attack but more as a sort oflearning experience I think it helpsyour mental sanity a lot more so I'vehad people for example where a similarsituation to yourself where I'm thinkingwhy hasn't that worked out or why is theperson acting in this way that you knowa normal person wouldn't think isethicalor the right way and rather thandwelling on that and then thinking I'mnot worthy of receiving a good person inmy life what I do is I take that as alesson and I think okay fair enough thatperson's got what they wanted out ofthis relationship but next time I'llhave more experience and I'll be wiserfrom it and if a similar type of personcomes along I will know to move on awayfrom that situation if that makes senseyeah like even what I said like it'slike even whoever is it can only be alesson a blessing or like you know likethey're there for life whether it's afriend or a family memberabsolutely absolutely so we've touchedon University and how you've developedin terms of one trying to find outexactly who you are you feel a lot morecomfortable now in the way that you areyou've slid into my DMS you happilyspeak into other people I think that's agreat way that we should be in the worldespecially coming from a very shy personI wish I had the confidence just to kindof put my hand out or just smile atpeople openly in the world because eventhrough my very short experience on thispodcast I've met some incredible peopleand I realize that I'm at my happiestwhen I'm connecting with people and whenI'm getting on with people so I thinkit's fantastic that you're doing that atsuch a young age what have you donesince University or what are you lookingto now achieve moving forward in lifemoving forward obviously on your firstyear Aston University doing businessmanagement great unique kind of thetypical thing probably I'd be void yes Iwant IT typical thing but all in allfrom young always like I'm just alwayswanting to be self-employed it's notthat like okay it's decent working forpeople if they give you decent benefitsbut what I find is that if you cancontrol your own destiny and you canbuild what you want to build him it maynot be something that you know now likeeven me I'm still like what do I dodo I go this way do I go that way it'sstill not no but I guess there's stilltime to figure it out it's not like lifeis short but it's also long as well andyou know there is some days but you'llbe lazy and there's some days where youjust don't have a clue what you do butit's like pretty much everybody's fakingit until they can make it basically intheir own ways which is not a bad thinghow can everybody know what's going onreally because then really trying tofigure themselves out figure where theirfoundations are in the world for me Iwant to build my sample the best I canbemy parents have allowed me to have a lotof freedom and it's right like evenpeople come up to mewhyyou moment that's all like cool withyou what like that my dad is my dadhe'll know when to tell me like straightto the pointbut he'll even have a conversation withme like we're like best friends wish Ilook and the same thing I can do with mymama's also you know I'm glad that hadparents like that got two lovely sistersas well you know they're growing up nowyou don't even realize how much they'regrowing up until you actually see themyou thinking that how did you get tallerit's all a crazy one even myself I lookin the mirror I think where did thisbeard come from I always wanted to be atthis person's got a beard why can I haveone but they just comes in your own timeas everything does absolutely unlike formyself you know I think for the Barrettbarrage I am today like I would say formyself I'm a loving caring humble butmore selective person based on theexperience that I've already had becauselife is already hard as it is life'salready the responsibility is gonnastart ended up piling up anyways sothere's no point it would be negativeyou could have just got to try be aspositive as possible absolutely I thinkthat's really well said and thisactually helped me massively my mindsetand hopefully can help the listeners aswell is the moment I realize that everysingle person is just figuring it outand regardless of their externalappearance or how they seem to have itall together and realize it actuallythey don't and just like you just likeme just like the person listen to thiswe're all just figuring it outnobody's give us the perfect blueprintfor life I don't believe that one existsyeah I think it's brilliant that youknow that on 19 because at 19 I was Ithink I was starting you need do myfirst qualification and I had no ideawhat I was doing I didn't know what Iwanted to become the kind of person Iwant you to be remembered forI was not aligning anything with myvalues on my ethics and this issomething that obviously you're nowgoing through that journey and everyonearound your age is gonna actually gothrough but I think if you can all justtake one lesson away and just know thatyou don't have to have it all figuredout in fact I'm now under a little bitolder where I'm still trying to figureout what am I going to be doing in thenext five years in ten years and whathappens is as we start to grow as peoplethrough our own personal development ourawarenessbe more selective which I thought was abrilliant thing that you pointed out aswell then you're automatically findyourself moving towards things that youlove andyour passion projects hence my podcasthere so I said brilliant and today likeI said you're a lot wiser than I was atyour age hopefully thank you hopefullyyou continue so I was going to ask youabout your routine but I'm prettycertain I know how most uni studentslive their life at uni so here's andthere's nothing wrong with that becauseit's all it's all part and parcel of thejourney I mean my university meeting wasliterally vodka kabobs hangover andwhatever whatever I could find on TV soexactly so I'm not gonna embarrass youabout that but I want to move on tosomething that might be able to givesomebody again some value from thisinterview is about adversity so if youcan think of maybe like a time and Iknow you're still young yet but I stillbelieve that we become the kind ofpeople we are because of the lessons ofthe journeys that we go through so ifyou could think of a lesson of adversityor a problem that you face and then moreimportantly once you've shared that ifyou could just tell us what you learnedfrom it can i this question if I - okaybecause I think what I found has givenme the biggest shock this year isholding on to people okay you knowhaving expectations of people because ittold me a lot this year because you knowyou know how it is lobbying a young ladyou think these are my boys man theseare doing it all I'm gonna do it as wellyou know and it will work in the samecycle and don't get me wrong it's allgood to have your friends your boyswhatever you want to call them but youhave to realize when your energy is notbeing valued or serving you and somebodyif they're not going to value it becausea lot of people are just there to prettymuch just take the mick and they'dalready care what's going on your lifethey just won't know because if youaren't doing better than them thinkingwhy can't I do that myself as well thatyou know again not in an arrogant wayare all like you know I'm friends withgirls I don't see them like anydifferent 2ml you know we're human atthe end of the day and a fun you knowsometimes you know it may sound bad tosay as well you know more for genderequality and stuff but sometimes girlsare just a bit more sensible with theirthinking you're a feeso whereas lads will just be like wellwe'll be looking at each other what doyou want to do your should we have adrink shall we do this mainly it justdepends on the crowd that you surroundyourself with so once you find thatright crowd that's when it will be allgood and well but it's just fine in thatright crowd and finding who you to stayaway from here to stay with you know Iseek quite a lot of validation fromothers as wellwell all in all I don't need to worryabout if it's good for myself and when Ilook back at it now it was good it wasgreat every single timeand if I didn't look at other people allthe time then you know I would havestarted to appreciate myself a lotearlier but now I'm glad that I'm snowyoung and still learning now learningnow that I only need to worry about ifit looks good for me and not anybodyelse because you're the only one thatyou have in this world you know you haveyour family that you keep close friendsyou you know friends are the family thatyou choose and you know y'all needed tocare what you think of yourself as awhole and a fair for you that you canreally trust and that's the bottom linereally for me absolutely Matt I thinkthat's a brilliant point that you justmade there and I think some of the stuffthat you're explaining now isn't stuffthat I believed that we had to gothrough especially my generation or thegenerations older than myself becausethe whole getting validation from yourpeers or getting validation from socialmedia it's become a massive massiveproblem in societyand you also touched on a very goodpoint as well in relation to women beingmore sensitive and more I suppose opento talking about their feelings and thisis something that I really want to tryand work on in the future is getting mento open up about their vulnerabilitiesand talk about their weaknesses and allthings that they struggle with becausemale suicide is far too high for what itshould be in fact it should never bemental health is obviously poor as wellwith males as well and I just think wehave such a bravado and this kind of wehave to show strength all the time thatwe're almost too afraid to kind of speakand it causes problems so I think it'sgreat that maybe it's you as anindividual hopefully it's morewidespread across your community thatyou guys are at least acknowledging thatthere is this lead here in your societyso I think that's brilliant I think it'salso important that anyone in your agerange or anyone going through whatyou're going through doesn't seekvalidation externally it's all aboutreceiving internal validation firstyou've got to love yourself beforeanyone else out they can love youbecause irrespective of what they saywhen it comes down to it you sit in yourown mind on a daily basis on your bottomyour mind can be your best friend or itcan actually be your enemy so you reallyneed to work on that so it's reassuringfor me listening to you to know thatyou're in a much better place understandI mean I think like even how you sayingthey're sorry to cut you off is no noyou can with mental health and you knowthat even as you said the suicide goal Ididn'tthat myself that male suicide is goingup but with mental health like I find itsuch a big cuz even myself like I won'tsit here and I say I haven't been for itmyself I have because I always thinklike you know I've been there in my bedfeeling low as how old you know feelingfeeling rock but I'm thinking you knowand people will say to me what do youhave to stress about you're only 18 19and that's okay that's so cool that'sthere like we used to get on with itback in the day but it's just it's notthe same because we've got all thisaccess to social media nowadays we'vegot people trying to make themselveslook better put like different like youknow brightnesses on their pictures orincrease the brightness of their face ontheir pictures and you know you may meetsome people they don't like this day andthen they're not actually like whatwe've been trying to portray they areand social media and that's what F's itall up because you can't betray yourselfto be something on social media and whenyou meet the person you like well thisperson just the whole different spectrumand with mental health advice it'salways like you can you can do betterthan the other person who you can F overthe other person who can keep on goinguntil some like it's like a it's like arat race like a wolf kind of like a wolfpack sort of thing who can be the thewolf that climbs at the my own first andand all the other ones are trying tolike basically just drag him down andit's hard because you know even withPunjabi community once again they'realways like well if you say to them thatyou have a mental health problem wellthey'll just be like okay no problemjust deal with it yeah I mean it can'tbe that way because I'll getting worsenow and there's only more awarenessabout it now because of social mediawhich the benefits of social media aswell and all this kind of stuff I thinkthat's a that's a great point and againfor the listeners that it's a lot harderand I kind of do sympathise with youguys coming up in this generation wheresocial media has this good parts but ithas this kind of evil tail to it as wellwhere I never had to deal with that sogrowing up for me when I was going touniversity and we were drinking andpartying his sirwe were never worried about taking snapsor or having a whole night out lookingthrough the lens of our phone it wasjust kind of being there in the momentin experience in it and then ourself-worth wasn't pretty much like thatoh absolutely and at the same time ourself-worth wasn't predicated on the factof when we go home at the end of thatnight who got the most likes on that forthe most engagement for example so I'mvery grateful for that and I think it'simportant that you mentioned that but Ijust want to say something else that youmentioned as well because you've said ita few times now and it's probably moreso because of youris that you seen everyone F each otherover because of like you're almostseeing it like a rat race and I thinkthe rat race thing is an important thingand I've tweeted something this morningit was taken from Wayne died and it's avery good quote which i think is quiteuseful for where we are right now inthis show and what he says is we're inpartnership with all other human beingsit's not a contest to be judged betterthan some and worse than others and Ithink if we all sin ourselves a sort ofpartnering up with humans and trying tohelp each other move forward in thislife because at the end of the day we'reall figuring it out as we've touched onearlier I think the world will be insuch a better place but we have thisscarcity mindset where we think in orderfor me to move forward I have to standon somebody else or put somebody elseaside as opposed to saying yeah why do Ihold your hand and we'll move togetherand you're always quicker and strongertogether so I think it's reassuring tohear that you're you've got that mindsetand I think if you remain selective likeyou mentioned earlier I think you'll getthe right network around you toobviously help yourself move forward Ithink what it is as I it's always thatyou've got you right it's always at alland everything as well it's like that'sif you want to create a business rightit's always a trial and everything wherehumans are like you may trust one andthen they may break your trust and youmerge that listen with your whole heartand that's not bad that's not thatshouldn't people shouldn't beatthemselves up if that happens becauseit's a learning lesson that means thatperson wasn't meant to be in your lifeand that means that there's better tocome because even even anyways thatyou've got to have some good days tohave some bad days you've got to havesome bad days to have some good daysit's just as simple as that and you justgotta take the positives that are veryfrom that you can't absolutely meabsolutely yes sir very wise words for a19 year old so appreciate I'll get at meso you're now in your first yearUniversity you've made massive strideswith your talent and your emotionalintelligence is really really high whichis nice to hear what saves you very goodquestioncurrently in my life at the moment whatscares me is not being able to provide acomfortable life for our potentialfuture wife and kids you know not beenough hub I'm a family now my mom dadmy sisters you know they're gonna wantto get married and well yeah I thinkthey're gonna need help with fine likefinance is not the be end and end allbut it does make life with more freedommore comfort so you know if there'ssomething that Idude help them make their life easierand maybe I don't know let's say I hadanother source of income I could give itto them I'd be happy to do that but it'sjust you've got a we're card for thesethings my mom you know she's a teacherherself so you know I always see yesshe's always stressed out so she'salways coming you know she'll be withwork all day she'll be coming back inthe market papers you know tour about9:00 10:00 at night I don't know shedoes it and then repeat the day mybiggest fear is not making their lifeeasier and my biggest fear is not beingable to provide a comfortable life formyself and the family around meI think you've almost answered the nextquestion as well which I was going toask about the motivation so it seemsthat your motivation right now is to beable to successfully graduate and thenprovide different streams of income tofacilitate one obviously your sister'sgetting married helping your parents athome and then obviously giving yourselfthe kind of life that you want as wellyeah because like even for me as welland working under people just kind ofget under my skin a bit to be honest butyou're gonna have to do the minute youagree for a couple years of your lifebecause that's the way it is when you'reyoung as well you know people have toldme that that's the way and you justgotta work hard you've got to keep yourchin up which is not a problemso like currently now I'm working atNando's which is not a problem I'm happyI'm happy for the free Nando's I can'tcomplain but it's a good job for me nowbut could I see myself doing that whenI'm what thirty years old I wouldn'tlike to think so often - because youknow even though it's a good job youknow dealing with customers thatstraight rude or having so much pressureput on you and you know running back andforth running back and forth it's allgood while I'm young but maybe when Iget older maybe I may not just have thatenergy that's interesting firstly I'mhoping I get a free round after thispodcast session is on oh yeah that'sjust as good the weird thing is thereason I'm touching on does is oneeveryone knows I absolutely love Danlosbut tea when I was at university it justopened on Birmingham Broad Street and Iremember sitting there oh I workedliterally all the way through Universityso I went to the same uni as youAston uni and I always had a job noWayans yeah yes I had a job on theweekends and my aim I remember whenNando's opened after trying it I waslike man I really wish I had a job atNano so it's funny how the world worksbut there was a point in time wherehaving a job at Nando's was literally mydream job at least for that period inone yeah time so appreciate where youareappreciate or the good thingbe grateful for everything that's comingyour way now it's taught me like youknow it's told me that hard to grit myteeth who went there a lot of rudecustomers come in so you have to lookafter it like it's like it sounds a bitweird like it's like your own family youhave to keep it clean the place becausethat's where people are going to come inlike you know if you come into the storyyou want to make sure everything isclean you want to make sure the food'son point cannot attend not 9 out of 10because it's not if it's not 10 out of10 then you know you're not going to behappy with the service at all you knowhave a smile on your face and just keepon going like keep your chin up evenwhen it gets hard like even for mesometimes I'll be like I'm just touchingmy forehead thinking flirty arm and Ineed a break but you just got to keep ongoing absolutely me absolutely we'reactually at the fun part the show nowthere is no right or wrong answer butjust try and say the first thing thatcomes in your head we're gonna go inthree two oneif you could abolish one thing in theworld what would it be judgmental peoplepeanut butter and Nutella peanut butteryour biggest role model biggest rolemore mom what would you like to beremembered for being Who I am yourbiggest goal this year to just keep onworking hard no matter how hard it getsyour worst mistake is listening to otherpeople about a certain person if youcould relive one day again what daywould it be 26 of May two years ago whyit was just everybody was therefamily friends you know we was at myhouse and it was just you just wantedmost be of things you know honestly Iread I really loved that day I loved itthe ability to fly or be invisibleinvisible when your fame that's a hardon max I'm thinking well with things youcan get money but then what I say moneyyour favorite food the mix grown andokay speak our languages will be able tospeak to animals animals what song bestdescribes your life Dizzee Rascalbonkers would you rather know how youwould die or when you would die andfinally if you could sit with one personin the world for an hour who would it beprobably my baby my grandma I love thatso the next question it's aboutreflection and I'm a firm believer thathindsight is a wonderful thing and itteaches us ways to get there quickereasier and we're less heartachebut I'm also an avid believer that thejourney teaches us so much as well interms of his lessons so what I want toknow is if you could go back in time toone particular moment knowing everythingthat you know right now and whispersomething to a younger barrage whatwould you say I just said to myself I'dsay barrage do you not worry it will allcome to you in the end you will not endup failing you are not a quitteryou are not inclined to please otherpeople put yourself first say no if youdon't want to do it it's as simple asthatenjoy the present moment more don't looktoo much into the future ruining yourfull process already and don't look backwith pain in your heart these are thebroken pieces of the puzzle which yousaw might end up still piecing togetherhave fun and live life enjoy your youthdon't look too much into girlsalcohol or any other distractions justtry and discipline yourself more keepyourself closed off but keep yourselfliving and humble always may I love thatI want you to do me a favor after thispodcast and actually send me thatwritten form and that was almost likepoetic you mentioned something therethese are the broken pieces and thepuzzle that's still in the piecingtogether but I want to do it just thisso if you can send me that at yourtranscript or what I'll do is I'mactually gonna bring them out separatelyno problem I mean I even I even do havea separate poetry account as well that Ido must like check it out if you haveany time yeah it's on my new profile butit's on its good word under school andschool oh okay check that as wellbrilliant so suddenly that actuallybrings us to the last question and thelast question that I always ask my guessis if in a 150 years time science failsto save us and all that exists is a bookand this book is about you andeverything that you've achieved in yourlife all your weird and wonderful dreamshave been accomplished what I want toknow is firstly what would the title ofthe book say and secondly what would theblurb at the back tell us about you Iwrote yesterday I said you know he waslike I know other he persevered like noother he had himself he was elegantclean hearted charming and crazy hewould always go the extra mile for thosewho were close to his heart at times endup hereall in all he always tried to see thebright side of life the world is alreadytoo cold and entangled in its ownpleasures to not be positiveof that as powerful have you got a titlefor that the title the life of aninquisitive man brilliant me if youwouldn't mind could you give us the bestsources via social media where we cancontact you Instagram I love being oninstagram my instagram is under schoolbeat up for a while its be PU or e w alquite active on snapchat as well is beatup for a while again be pu r e w althey're the main ones I'm active on tobe honest ok no problem so what I'll dois for everyone listening today I'mgonna make sure I put all of the linksso you can contact barrage directly verysocial media as you've probably seenfrom some of these answers today's verypoetic so I'll be following them on hisInstagram poetry handle as well myselfstraight after thisI want to thank Mirage for being openabout his story and sharing it andhopefully this influences and inspiresmany others and I want to thank everyoneat home for listening thank you thankyou and remember this podcast isabsolutely free so all we ask in returnis for you to share this with a friendand drop us a five star review over oniTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 23 "She's just a normal girl" by Kelli Doorne #23Tagline: "Even when times are tough, she still believed that kindness was her super power and that's what got her through... " - Kelli DoorneKelli Doorne, has finally found her voice, and I am the first to say YES!Kelli bravely, opens up and shares her story of how she left home in her teenage years and became homeless. Realising that she was opting to run away when things got bad during her young years, Kellis fight of flight response never saw her stand up take account and fight.But things have moved on so much because, even as a struggling teenager who couldn't find her way in life she always relied upon her Kindness and believed deep down that this would supersede all her problems and see her through. In agreement with her thoughts, we both emphasise what a better place the world would be if we could all just be kind to one another and help each other more often, because it's the right thing to do.On a final note, knowing how much courage this took from Kelli to openly come onto the podcast and share her story I want to acknowledge her for her bravery, for the work she does in Milton Keynes and wish her all the best in the future.I also would urge you all to follow her journey but just don't tag her into anything that is related to Octopus!Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelli.doorne Have an awesome day & #JustDeuit & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the host Arenof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so firstly I just wantto begin once again by saying thank youto every single one of you who havetaken time out of your day to try andlisten to our episodes I hope you findthem inspiring and motivating and I hopethey at least add some level ofinformation or tangible actions andsteps that you can incorporate in yourlife now moving on to today's episodeagain this is somebody who I think isperfect for this show it's somebodywho's struggled to almost find her voiceand somebody who has suffered with somelevel of adversity but also in terms ofjust sharing her story up until todayshe's found her voice and alongside thatshe's also in a position now where shewants to have a positive impact onpeople who are perhaps going throughsimilar situations so this is afantastic story with Kelly who sufferedwith homelessness and quite a few otherups and downs as well in her life butmore importantly what I really lovedabout this story was how it kind ofsegwayed into human qualities and weended up speaking a lot about kindnessnow I'm not sure about you guyslistening but I personally thinkkindness is one of the number-oneattributes that we should all what weshouldn't be born with really but Isuppose some of us can perhaps learn tobe more kind but I think if you all hadthat in the back of our heads in all ourday-to-day actions I think the worldwould just be a better place so withoutfurther ado let's get this episode onits way so firstly I just want towelcome Kelly to the show today and Iwant to thank the listeners for tuninginso Kelly how are you doing today yeahgood Erin thanks thanks so muchhave me you're very welcome you're verywelcome so Kelly I'm myself actually weboth had a couple of drinks over theweekend I had in mind 48 hours beforeand you can probably still hear it in myvoice but Kelly obviously sounds muchbetter than myself so it's great to haveyou finally herewe have had to rearrange a few times allmy fault that's all right well I'm justglad that you're here today because Ithink your story is going to be veryinspiring for a lot of people and Ithink to get it started basically whatwe can do is if you wouldn't mind isjust give the listeners a little bitabout yourself a little bit about yourjourney your story and what basicallybrings you on the show find your voicetoday all right okay well first of allit's absolutely terrifies mebut the reason I'm on here today is I amusing my story of when I was homelesswhen I found myself homeless at 16 toraise awareness and money to support alocal charity that goes a long way tohelping the poverty and homelessnesssituation in Milton Kings I'm quite aprivate person really but sometimes youjust have to use what you've got inorder to get resultsso I guess my my journey starts reallyin Nigeria which is where I was born Iwas born is there be no quite a lovingfamily and but my dad was an alcoholicand we went through some some troublingtimes but the most of what I remember asa as a youngster really was my mum andher strength not not too much about mymy real dad and we I have another sisterand a brother who's disabled mum had alot on a plate and we spent a lot oftime why spend a lot of time kind ofbeing ferried about between my Nan'shouse and my mum's house and kind ofhaving two homes I guess mm-hmm so heyeah eventually mum kicked dad out forthere for the final time and we we movedquitefew miles away to be moved up to NewportPagnell which is just on the outskirtsof Milton Keynes that stage of my lifewas where it is interesting I feltreally ostracized out of place anddifferent from everybody I'd grown up inin London my mother in North London andI felt a bit rough I felt like so rougharound the edges and all my new friendshad pretty long blonde hair and therewas me with like brown spiky hair and ifelt quite different but nevertheless wekind of made it you know we made it wemade it through really my mum my sisterand I um just by keeping quite tight andbut then but then things started tochange and I don't know you know whatyour experience offers being a teenagerbut actually with the hormones andchanges and friend groups and you knowexpectations and all different stuffcomes into your life and at that point Ikind of started to break away from myfamily and my sister had moved out andshe was she was my rock my mum had a newboyfriendand soon to be married they had a newbaby and everything kind of changed forme and instead of dealing with it I at13 I found raves and I started going outraving instead right so that was reallythe point in my life where you know Istart to pay a bit too hard and a bittoo young and it was at a point when Ithink it's like 19 3 maybe a little nonot 93 sorry a little bit later when mymy sister was a couple of years old thenincident happened where I thought Ithought that I might have have reallyhurt my little sister and I and Ifreaked outand instead of once again dealing withit and talking to my familyI just ran away and I ran away from homenobody knew where I was I didn't know Ididn't quite understand it myselfand by just yeah I had to escape so Iended up sleeping in hostels under abridge one night and it was a is prettyterrifying it's pretty terrifyingWow but I don't even know to start withthat there's so many things that I wantto pull out from your story there if wejust quickly go on that a last bit thatyou mentioned so you were sleeping inhostels you were sleeping under bridgeshow long did this period lasts for wellit's our monastery no don't I can'tquite remember and it's gonna be like acouple of weeks where I was I hadliterally nothing no home no nothing Iwas surviving by as I go into the hostelthey give me a cup of tea and a biscuitin the evening I remember then I had togo and sleep in these dormitories andthey have like plastic sheets from thebed and you know I was sixteen years oldonly 16 years old and I was actually runaway from home for about six months wentback tried living at home and then ranaway again because but obviouslyostracized myself at that point quitedrastically but the period of actuallylike being entirely homeless wasprobably a few weeks my first stepsgoing to the church eating lunch is islonely so lonely Wow I mean I can onlyimagine I've heard I've heard storiesand we have been very fortunate to havehad somebody who suffered withhomelessness on this show earlier whenwe first started and it's even the wayyou described it now it almost soundshorrific I mean even at home in my owncomfort of my own home when when theheating's low you feel that straightaway so to imagine as a very youngteenager 16 year old having to cope withthat but one of the things that I foundprevalent from your story and a coupleof times you mentioned it was wheneversomething was going wrong you werealmost running away as opposed to kindof facing your fear yeah and theI want to point that out just for theaudience as well because obviously we'vespoken offline as well and you coming onthis show has has taken the immensecourage so I fully appreciate and I'mvery grateful you're sharing this storybecause I know what it's like to haveanxiety to have shyness to kind of findyour voice if we use the cliche and I'mvery grateful that you're in a positionnow obviously wiser from the experienceand everything that you've been throughto now use your voice to do the greatthings like you mentioned the localcharity that you're now working with inMilton Keynes which is fantastic becauseI'm sure that's gonna help people whomay be in a similar situation toyourselfon that note though are you finding iffor instance you went through someadversity today are you still doing thewhole fight-or-flight thing and are youable to kind of stay there and fight oryou still seeing yourself fleeing fromthe situation my my natural stay is isto walk away absolutely it is to walkaway and I sometimes that's a that's astrength sometimes you know not fightingis M is always a good thing not to fightbut at the same time sometimes whenyou're going through situations you youand especially if when you're young youneed somebody to help you face thoseproblems and I don't think I had thesupport structure around me at that timeto help me do that and learn thoseskills potentially think that though thepoint of why I want to share my storyand it's that what knife wasn't awfulfor me it really wasn't you know I wasprobably a grumpy teenager hopefully alittle bit jealous that this new fellowhad moved into my house and there was ababy and you know not the attentionwasn't on me and it sounds really daftbut you know I was a normal child Ididn't get into too much trouble or popfrom going right in I didn't get intotoo much trouble but this still happenedit was I was still on the streets and itcan happen to anyone any point in theirlife and I think it's important foreverybody to recognize that homelessnessdoesn't just happen to drug addicts youknow it doesn't happen to people thatyouyou think it happens - it happens toanybody absolutely I think you just yousaid a very important point there sowe're always one decision away frombeing the situation that you were thereso I would never see someone homelesswhether they drinking or whateverthey're doing as somebody who is adruggie or somebody who's got an alcoholproblem I would just see somebody who'sprobably just made that one bad choiceand then as a spiral has seen themselvesin that in that predicament or in thesituation so I think that's that's areally really useful point and you alsoobviously you've got the self-awarenessnow and that probably comes through lifeand experience that you're a confusedteenager you've sinned in an alcoholicfather and and all the impact thatalcohol can have on families especiallyup to that extent you've then finallymoved away from that situation only forthen your sister to leave you and thenall of a sudden your mom's found a newfellow like you said got a new baby thenall of a sudden you're kind of feelingalmost lost and like you said jealousand I think yes that's probablysomething that we'd all be lying if wesaid we never fallacy at some stage youknow Aren absolutely absolutely I meanI had my younger brother was probablynine years young again probably don'tremember the exact days but I'm surethere were moments when he's probablygetting all the attention and I'mjumping around thinking hey what aboutme what about me over here and thenagain it comes down to your circle sothe one thing I say I was very fortunatewith is my parents sent me to grammarschool not my choice but it's very rareat least growing up for myself to havegrammar school students who were goingto do crazy things on the night I I meanthe most exciting thing we ever did wasrevised for her exams or yeah absolutelyor do a bit of extra studying so Isuppose although at that time I hated itit's probably kept me from doing crazythings because I was very easilyinfluenced as a kid so I'm very veryfortunate for that but I just think it'snice of you now to be in this positionwe're obviously you've learnt a lot andyou said something else I thought wasbrilliant it was sometimes it's astrength to obviously walk away and justto counter that as well sometimes youhave to fight as well and sometimes wehave to also realize that any adversitywe get through life if we can just holdon and maybe persevere through that itbecomes a brilliant gift and it becomessomething that will make you so muchmore resilient to life because whetheryou admit it now or not is it just thosefew yearsyou've lived on the streets and theexperiences that you've overcame itmakes you such a stronger person I thinkwhen you when you look at things Ibusiness it yeah they sayfail fast so sometimes walking away isthe is the best thing you can do butsometimes you just need to stick out forthat one minute more to get the resultsthat you want and that happens in bothlife and business I'm saying I couldhave stayed at home at that point when Ithought I'd hurt my sister and faced itand I could have just stayed eat livingin a you know in a loving environment Idon't know what my life would have beenlike if I'd done that you know insteadof wandering around the streets notknowing this back in 1996 our and Ididn't know what the time was even andso yes it's been walking around thestreets at that point in my life this issilly at the same time from a selfishperspective if you had stayed in thatloving environment and not going intothis homeless world you wouldn't be onnational today to share your story andalso to kind of inspire other peoplebecause like you said there's so manyother people out there making probablythe same decisions as yourself and if wecan just make them maybe think twice ormaybe understand why they're doing itbecause as a teenager sometimes we justwe don't even know why we do the thingsthat we do so I think that's reallyimportant okay fantastic so you'vetouched on business towards the end ofthat and you said obviously this timeswhere we need to just try that one moretime or there are times where we need tomove away what's a day like for you nowobviously you know I'm hoping it's notunder bridges and it's not insurance sowhat's a day my life like I've Kelly Icould say that I'm in a lovely warmloving home again now and I have twochildren so they're both teenagers and14 and very soon to be 16 and and I'mwith my fiance and we're getting marriednext year but congratulations thanksvery much and routine for me freaks meoutI read the word routine like okay thishas me somuch as I probably do have one I try notto think about it too much I don't evenlike the fact that my diary tells mewhat to do quite stubborn that'sinteresting yeah and but I'm quitecreative I like I like making stuff up Ilike doing what I need to do at the timeand going with my feeling and so yeahthe word routine freaks me outdoes it bring out your rebellious sidefor you think no I just don't want to doit yeah I just say I don't want to dothat right now I want to do somethingelse and but I'm sure I have one I meanI always cup of coffee into first thingin the morning okay after that it's whatI need to get done rather than what Ishould know what I don't set routine formyself understood and what what do youdo for work and business now and so I doI am a marketing coach so I coach newbusinesses on marketing but I work for acouple of law firms as well on theirbrand and marketing fantastic they'll beuseful for the audience as welllistening okay brilliant so we'veobviously touched on probably yourbiggest adversity now in life in termsof confused teenager finding herselfharmless in a place where we wouldn'tprobably wish anyone to be in thatactual moment sleeping rough and notknowing where your next meal is comingfrom well not knowing what the time wasas you said what's the biggest lessonsthat you've learned in that experiencethat you can share with the audience askfor help yeah I think there's some ofthe things I didn't do I didn't know howto ask for helpI remember one days that were going intotheir hostel and I the person he wasthere the night support person turnedout to be my month Mike one of my schoolfriends mums Wow and I mean I would havethought that I would have been soembarrassed like cripplingly embarrassedbut you know whatit wasn't embarrassed I was gratefuljust to see a face that I recognized andI think if I look back on my time Icould have just said to her I need helpyou know get me back my family I need Ineed something to help meand I didn't and so at that point thenalthough you were running away from youstill wanted to come home it wasn't akind of a matter of you wanted to getaway from that situation you just he wasalmost like a cry for help would you sayyeahyeah definitely I was just I was soterrified that I'd hurt my sister atthis point of my life I didn't know forsure whether she was hurt or not itturns out that she wasn't turns out thatwhat I had going on in my head wascompletely made-up and she wasabsolutely fine but I was just so scaredthat I've done something wrong and I hadto that's why I ran away Wow and that initself is a lesson I think for everyoneand something that I've probablyexperienced more times than most is thatwe sometimes overthink things and wethink this person is thinking this othersoar this person's going through thiswhen really all we need to do isliterally ask them the question iseverything all righthaven't done something wrong and alsoowning it and I think this is somethingthat I've really kind of got to grips onduring my adult life I mean I'm nearly40 now and so just owning your problemsyes you make a mistake that's okay weall make mistakes it's like hey you knowsome mistakes are worse than others butyou've got to own it you've got to takeresponsibility for it and then you haveto either you know resolve it or moveforward you can't let your mistakes keepyou in the in the past I think that's abrilliant point yeah absolutely takeaccountability for what you have and Ithink the more accountability you cantake for your mistakes providing thatyou learn from and you don't keeprepeating the same ones it actuallygives you a sense of power and I supposepeople will look at you in a differentway you'll look at yourself in adifferent way because otherwise you'reeffectively you just passing the powerover to someone else and you're almostafraid to take that so I think that'sthat's a brilliant yes exactlythank you for sharing that okay sothings are going well for you now whichis lovely to hear you've done you've gota suit to be 16 year old and a 14-yardand you get married next year so greatnews for them and I hope everything'sokay yeah absolutely I hope everything Iwas amazing for that but I want to askyou what's your biggest fear then rightnowoctopus is right okay not expecting thatyeah really I can't look I can't standup this is I think they're way tooclever and and I think they're aliensbut if you put them aside I think it'smy children and if when my children growup I don't want them to reflect on itand say you could have done better forus and I just want to make sure thatthey're happy secure and that they areinspired that they are grounded you knowand above all I think kind kindness thatthey take kindness in through their lifeand I think that's that's my biggestfear and my biggest challenge I'm sureyou do a wonderful job on that and Ithink kindness is it's probably thenumber one thing my mom ever taught meand I'm very very grateful for that andI think I'm sure you're doing theexactly same so there's probably nothingto worry aboutbut the thing we probably should worryabout is octopus's thinking thinkingahead now you haven't booked a honeymoonhave you anywhere close to like theocean or anything no we are the weddingis going to take place right in up inthe top of the outs so we're quite niceand safe from any octopi fantastic okayI was not expecting to answer I've neverheard anyone say that have you actuallyseen octopuses on land that isn't that agood thing because I'm they can help youout in the kitchen no point taken for ittaken well at least you're in themyou said the Alps did you yeah I don'tKelly well well I was sure the best fornext year is are with that and lookingforward to follow you in your journey soyou're doing marketing now and youdefinitely sound like you're in a muchbetter place in terms of your mindsetand your ability to reflect oneverything that's going on in your lifewhat's your biggest sense of motivationand inspiration on a day to day basisother than your kids because I knowyou're gonna probably say your kids asyour first answer so let's choose adifferent answer actually I wasn't okaywhen an my name has been one of thebiggest most their biggest and mostinspiring figures in my lifeshe's not with us anymore sorry Taylorand she passed away five years agoin June by still hear her every dayevery choice I make every signs havewent up thinking about that but she wasso inspiring and the way that shehandled herself for the people hertenacity setting up businesseseverything about her was it was amazingwithout trying to put her on a pedestalshe was simply the best person I've everknownso she inspires me and motivates meevery single day that's brilliant I loveit um I was gonna say I'm very sorry tohear that brace it's a lovely messagethat you said how you still here and youtake that and I'm sure she's probablylooking down whatever you believe in interms of God spirituality or somethingbut I'm sure she's looking down as she'svery very proud eating at me going in myhead I think if she approves that thenI'm happy if I think she wouldn't not somuch it's probably a brilliant way toalmost act out your days because you'realmost thinking you would never want tolet her down and obviously you want hername to be remembered in a nice way soyour actions and everything that you doin the world I mean I know we're all ourown people but I think you're almostliving for her as well if that makessenseso yeah I think that I think that's abeautiful message okay brilliant Kellyso we are actually moving along veryquickly today and we're actually at thefun part of the show so this is the bitwhere I think you were a little bitanxious about because I'm gonna beasking you all sorts of very very easyquestions but I suppose when when thetime is on it can get a little bitoverwhelming but I'm sure you're gonnabe fine indecisive right okay so I takethat back then we might have a bit of astruggle here but let's see how we getonwe're gonna do probably 60 to 90 secondsof just very well I was gonna say easybut let's see how it goes are you readyyeah brilliant okay we're gonna go inthreeone okay what did you eat for breakfastI haven't eaten today if you couldrelive one day again what day would itbe Oh crikey that's a hard one and AH Ihave two children that's really tough Ithink the first time I ever helped my mybaby in my arms I would relive that dayagain the first time I ever helped mybaby and I loved itthe ability to fly or be invisibleinvisable is sneaky but I think like butI think I'd like the feeling of flyingsome swaying who do you admire most inthe world it's still mine own money orfame and money your proudest moment Idon't know I don't know I can I pass Ijust don't know if we can do a few yeahokay your favorite food my favorite foodis cheese choice okayspeak or languages or be able to speakto animals how can you choose likelanguages I guess languages if you couldabolish one thing in the world whatwould it be and Trump good answer okaywhat song best describes your lifewhat song surprised me hey hi oh I don'tknow titlesI could probably hum it you're welcometo sing it if you want I can't think ofone more pass if you had an extra hour aday how would you spend it on the sofawith my fellow Netflix or YouTubeNetflix your favorite TV show everfriends there's a pretty consistent Iwas gonna say yeah I think that's themost popular answer I've had okay wouldyou rather not how you will die or whenyou were die how your worst fear is achild probably octopuses they still keepcoming back okay what is your biggestaddiction your favorite place in theworld I would I would say at home withmy family but I also have a particularfondness for Byron Bay in Australia Ilove it that place was amazingokay read minds or predict the futureread minds your favorite superherosecond oh my god this is named Owen mannamed Ironman for sure good choice andfinally your biggest strength kindnesslove it love it see that was it too hardactually bless you actually you're thefirst person to have a pass on an answerthough but yeah don't worry thebeautiful thing with podcasting is Ican't edit it out by a flight flightyeah absolutely you walked away it'sfineokay brilliant so Kelly the next thing Iwant to ask you actually then is it'sabout reflection so as we've spokenabout briefly the beginning of thisepisode I saw some wonderful thing andit can teach us a lot it can teach ushow to get to places quicker easier orwith less heartache but I'm a firm firmbeliever that the journey also teachesus a lot and sometimes we have to gothrough these circumstances and thetrials and tribulationsso knowing exactly what you know nowwith all of your knowledge andexperience if you could go back andwe're going to take you back now to yourteenage years which i think is relevantto this story knowing exactly what youknow now what would you whisper in theears of a young Kelly I think be braveand be brave and be brave and posturewhich was I'm looking for tackle yourproblems like deal yeah deal with yourproblems don't run away from them I lovethat that's fine is that a kind of amessage as well that you'd always tryand teach or your kids as well yeah Idon't know how successful I am in doingthat okay thank you parenting is anexperiment in parenting so firstlywhatever works and secondly I've got noidea how they're going to turn out sowhen they're about 25 ask me thatquestion again and we'll see if it worksokay fantastic we'll get you back on theshow brilliant okay so suddenly thatactually brings us to the last questionof the day and the last question arealways ask my guest it's about legacy soif in a 150 years time science fails tosave us all and all that exists is abook and this book is aboutKelly and it tells us all the weird andwonderful things that you've done inlife all the things you've achieved andall your ups and downs firstly whatwould the title of the book be andsecondly what would the blurb at theback tell us about Kelly so it's a hardone I've been thinking about this but atthe same time I remember having aconversation with my best friend a fewyears ago and about this particulartopic and I think that my book would becalled she's just a normal girl becauseeven though I've gone through quite alot in my time when I the stories that Icould tell you about being homelesswould be would be quite shocking and thepeople that I've met and on the way thethe trouble that I could have got intothe trouble I did get into all of thatbut I'm just just a normal girl likethere is no different to me than anyoneelse so I think that would be the titleshe's just a normal girl and withregards to the blurb on the back um Iwould hope the people that read my storyand would say that even though even whentimes are tough she still believed thatkindness was her superpower and that'swhat got her through I love that I loveit I think spreading kindness isprobably probably the best thing we canall teach each other and we could alllearn from absolutely I mean just bejust being kind I actually wrote a postfunnily enough about three hours ago onFacebook and it was it was one of myfirst few things I wrote in therebecause it costs nothing to be kind andthere's actually a few influences nowthere who actually using the wholekindness thing as a sort of as like abuzz word but really shouldn't just besomething that's installed in all of asudden Wow from day one yeah I wish I'dwritten my LinkedIn profile buyeractually goes through all of my corevalues so independents adventurecuriosity connection strength and growthand and then at the end of it it sayswell what about kindness and the waythat I address is is it should just comeas standard absolutely it shouldn't haveto be someone's core value it shouldactually just be live that's what weshould do we shouldn't have to learn ityes it's funny but I don't know Isuppose we're also in a society wherewe're almost firefighting on a dailybasis and where there's people competingwith each other there's a lot ofjealousy there's a lot of scarcitymindset that I tend to find as wellespecially when I started my lotentrepreneurial journeys and went intodifferent fields and it's only recentlynow started to get myself a very goodnetwork of people who just want the bestfor you and when you start living inabundance and realizing that the morepeople you can connect with the morepeople you can help and more people youcan be kind to you just you just spreadsomething that's infectious and andbeing now wanting it back I think theodds of doing without receiving is youknow people need to learn that a lotmore give without wanting to receiveabsolutely without expectationshopefully agree it's funny you just saidthat as well because I I was meeting adevelop and I'm going off on a bit of atangent here but we were speaking aboutthis and I was saying that's kind of myphilosophy is the way again I say againmy mom's always taught me just give butnever expect nothing back because oneyou probably be disappointed but to youknow give if you're giving someonesomething you're giving it them becausemaybe they're not in a position tonecessarily help you back so it's almostsilly to expect them to be able to helpyou back if that makes senseso when you give something and you tryand be kind you try and lift somebody upjust do that and just just be nice aboutit but don't expect them to help youwhen they can barely help themselves ifthat kind of makes sense and I've alwaysjust seen it that way so I've been veryfortunate people now start to help me upin my business and at the same time I'dalways try and reciprocate that withother people as well so I think I thinkKelly that's a beautiful message and onthat actually I'd love it if you couldnot only share your LinkedIn profile forthe guests but also where else you'dfeel comfortable with people reachingout to you if you wouldn't mind maybeafter this show because I think you'remore than just a normal person how youdescribed yourself on the front of thebook it's it's been a lovelyconversation with you I'm glad you'realmost finding your voice and I know wespoke about this previously on Facebookvery briefly and it's got a lot to teachpeople you've got a lot that they canlearn from you and I just think you thishas been a lovely chat so I reallyappreciate you for that and I'd love topour all your reachable social mediaoutlets onto my show notes if that'swhatyeah that'd be fine these if isn'tbusiness the one place that I would likepeople to go to is a Facebook group okayso it's called one-man brand but thepoint of it is and isn't just about youknow having my group it's about having ahive mind so it's about bringing yourskills and your expertise and helpingother people within the group so ifyou're an accountant what whatinformation can you give to other peoplethat was going to help them and showthat you're an expert in your field aswell so that's that's what I'm trying toachieve so anyone in that relation cango there fantastic I think that'sbrilliant I think that's something thatliterally every single person listeningto can probably join on to because wehave to acknowledge it but we allprobably Excel in certain areas morethan others and I think it's aboutrecognizing that so I think that'sbrilliant the hive mind thing are youhappy with people contacting you onFacebook or should we just keep it tothe Facebook group for now yeah I'm openI network and speak to anyone that wantsto anyone that wants to speak back yeahbrilliantagain I'll run and just thank you onemore time for coming on for overcomingyour fears it's been fantastic to hearabout your stories been very inspiringas well and also I want to thank thelisteners at home thanks for listeningthanks and remember this podcast isabsolutely free so all we ask in returnis for you to share this with a friendand drop us a five star review over oniTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 21 "Using exercise to help your Mental Health" Michael Hayes #22Tagline: "What's for you, won't pass you" - Michael HayesMichael Hayes, is one of the most positive, infectious people I have been fortunate enough to have connected with during my time as a Podcaster. A genuine individual who focuses in his own time on promoting positive links between mental health and exercise and whilst spreading authentic, honest and tangible messages through his social media platforms.Michael does not do this for any monetary reasons, but since seeing those close to him suffer with mental health he made a choice to use his expertise in health and fitness and promote a positive link of enhancing not just your physical well-being through exercise but also improving your overall mental health.Our first Irish/Aussie on the show who proves that real messages and honest advice is the same across the world and if you want to ensure you get genuine advice his story is definitely worth following. Michael also admits to having suffered little adversity in his life although when you finish this episode you would probably agree that even if he was, or had, he would not have seen it as a burden or adversity and likely just smiled his way through it.All the links to follow Michael's journey are below and a final note before you go check that out, which I think is worth mentioning and came from his mother is: "What's for you, won't pass you".I urge you all to follow his journey and support him on making a positive difference in the world of fitness and mental health.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mentalhealthfitnesscoach/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentalhealthfitnesscoach/ RU Okay: https://instagram.com/ruokday?igshid=r9o8sro81bv3Have an awesome day & #JustDeuit & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so I am delighted to beable to bring to you today Michael Hayesotherwise known as the mental healthfitness coach now Michael is irish-bornbut now living over in Australia andwhat he has done is he's taken a passionof his ie personal training but he'slinked it very very closely to somethingthat we can all relate to mental healthnow the way he links mental health andfitness is fantastic and it's probablynot what you're gonna expect especiallyfrom somebody who now operates onInstagram not quite the influencer thathe will be one day but Michael'smessages are incredible and I certainlyurge you after this episode to engagewith Michael and follow him on hisjourney because alongside he's workedwith mental health and exercise Michaelis also just a very very positive personin fact he's probably the most positiveperson I've had on the show and I saythat after interviewing so manyincredible guess he's infectious he'sgot a great aura about him and all he'strying to do is make you guys feelbetter both physically and mentally so Ithink without further ado let's jumpstraight into this interview okayfirstly I'd like to start by welcomingMichael Hayes to today's show and I wantto thank Michael for taking time out ofhis day to come on and share his storyand secondly Michael I just want to knowhow are you doing today my friend yesreally good yeah just back from work sosettling in for the night now how aboutyou how's your day been yeah my day hasbeen good so it's early more I say earlymorning is 10 o'clock here so my day iskind of startingfor anyone listening you can probablytell from Michaels voice straight awaythat he's not got this amazing Brummieaccent that I have he's actually fromAustralia so it's our first Australianguest on the show so again I'm verygrateful for thatI think to get this started Michael ifyou wouldn't mind if you can just kindof tell our audience a little bit aboutyourself a little bit about your storybecause hopefully that way you'll givethem an insight in relation to yourselfand also give them an understanding asto why I reached out to get you onto ashow yeah absolutely and I'll just startoff by saying that I'm actually Irish soI've I've been in Australia for the lastseven years so I'm after getting a bitof a twang since I moved here so I likeit I get some serious grief up everyonefrom home when when they hear just whatanyway yesyeah I've been living in Australia thelast 7 years so I guess I run a anInstagram page and a Facebook campaigntype thing called mental health fitnesscoach so I'm pretty much peachy turnedinto just someone that's trying to getpeople to exercise for for all the rightreasons I guess so for your your mentalhealth is sleep for your mood to reducestress and to not look at it from youknow I want to get a six-pack or I wantto you know the quickest way to lookgood on the beach or things like thatjust getting people to take a step backand say you know this is more there'smore to exercise and to and to fitnessand just how you look or you know thematerial things it's there's a lot moreto it a lot more deeper things thatpeople should be focusing on thatunfortunately in this day and age theydon't tend to be so that's where where Iam and that all came about for me I wastrue my work I was doing this 30 days ofexercise and for 30 minutes for 30 daysof exercise for your improved mentalhealth and through that process I wasdoing just my own Instagram post andputting things up this was before thetime of mental health fitness coach so Iwas just posting things off about my own30 minutes of exercise each day andputting little snippets up about thebenefits of exercise your mental healthand putting some bits up also aboutencouraging conversations around mentalhealth and through that 30 days I gotlots of feedback frommy own friends and some really closefriends as well as my family and some ofmy immediate family about strugglesthey've had with mental health and thiswas things that I had never known so itwas a big wake-up call and surprise tome at the time when you know I wasputting these things I would thinking ohyeah you know it's it's great for peopleto exercise remember heads but meantimeI was going on not realizing that a lotof people close to me had suffered orwere suffering with their with theirmental health so that was at thebeginning of it all for me you know itwas a real big eye-opener and from thereI just kind of thought at the time I wasa PT and looking after a gym and kind ofI look I'm in a good position here wheresome people look to me for that fitnessadvice and I'm sorry my former top looksat me for that fitness advice and thisis a time where you know I'm a personthat yeah that people look to and I'lljust put that positive message out so Istarted to mental health fitness coachand it was all about just exercising forthe right reasons and it's about threeyears ago now and you know back then thethe fifties and all those things wereyou know at the big thing now it's bootybends and all that and you know it'sjust it's just not the reason thatpeople need to be exercising like youknow it just just do it for it foryourself and for your mood and yourrelationships that's that's the bigmessage that I try to just send out topeople and I've been doing that now forthe last yeah coming on three years nowa mental health fitness coach and it'snot really anything that I'm doing for agood monetary sense it's just trying toget that that message out there and sofar I think of impacted quite a fewpeople just through my own post if I canhave a positive impact on a few peopleand that's great and if it means someonegoes out and does it hurt him in a walkevery day where they wouldn't have doneanything before and that that helpstheir their daily life then you knowthat's fantastic and that's kind of whatI'm hoping to achieve through all ofthis that's fantastic mate so we'refirst I just want to acknowledge you forthat as well because I think it's anincredible thing that you're doingyou're encouraging people to exercisefor the right reasons so I was a fellowPT I similar to yourself I share thesameviews that we shouldn't necessarilyexercise for that six-pack or how wethink we should look I the Instagrammodel life and it is again it's my kindof way of releasing my tensionsthroughout the day it helps with mentalhealth myself so I think I love thatmessage about it but I also love andwhat you touched on is that you'vemanaged to encourage conversationbetween your friends and family who havesuffered with this mental health intheir own personal lives and I thinkthat's that's a testament one toyourself that people can obviously comeout and speak to you and feel openlycomfortable about that but I think it'ssomething that as a society across theworld in Australia England wherever weareis that we need to encourage thatconversation about mental health and Ijust think that's a fantastic thing andthis is one of the actual reasons that Ireached out to you specifically I seenyour messages and I just thought thiswould be like a really good person tocome on and the fact that you don't dothis for the monetary sense it is togive back it is to get value I really dourge my listeners at the end of the showto jump on your Instagram page and seethe messages that you're having on thatno I just wanted to ask a bit of apersonal question if you wouldn't mindas well is Michael have you sufferedyourself from depression or are yousimply doing this because you see thevalue in helping other people around youyeah good question no I haven't and I'mone of the lucky people who yeah I'venever had any any issue really with anymental health whether it be depressionanxiety mood swingsanything at all so I've been I supposequite privileged in that sense andthat's where I'm a really reallypositive person and always have been andany because of that when I did this 30days of exercise for 30 minutes for 30days and I got all this feedback for myfriends and family that was when Ithought oh shit like you know I'm livingthis this great life thinking it's allgood and you know I've always reallyjust exercised for myself and in my ownmental health how I'm feeling but all ofa sudden I was like this is actually outthere it's real and you know people aresuffering cos I've gone through my lifethinking you know everything's great youknow everyone's happy yeah nobody's okayjust like uber positive almost at apoint where I was unable to see thatthis could behappening in other people because Isuppose my own positivity blinded me towhat might be happening to others andand I would always I would always lookto the well neither no they must be finethat they I'm sure they'll be okay andtell myself the good happy story but andyeah it's really just the last few yearssince I started this and moved toAustralia and I've really started tonotice this and you know thank God I'venoticed they could you know now I I'mmuch more conscious of my own mentalhealth so when I do go through any modesor anything like that I understandwhat's going on and yeah so no luckilyfor me I've never never been impacted byany mental health things fantastic andhopefully continues that way and youjust said yeah thank God that younoticed it and I think definitely thankGod or whatever you believe in that youhave noticed it because now you're in aposition where you're able to helppeople learn almost lift them out ofthis very dark space and I say very darkspace because my mom suffered withchronic depression for the best part ofthe last eight years and prior to thatagain probably similar tell you when youfirst started I didn't understand mentalhealth it was like what have you got tobe sad about got this to look forward toit was only recently over the last eightyears I've really kind of tried tounderstand men to help myself and it'sfunny that you're almost doing what Iwish I had the time to do which islinking one of my passions which isfitness and the other one which is Ihold very close to my heart mentalhealth because obviously it's affectingmy mom and you link in the two togetherso that's kind of why I resonate towardsyour story a lot because I'm like inanother life if I had a bit moreflexibility and a bit more time and mayif I could live in Australia as wellthat would be an added bonus I wouldliterally be doing the same kind ofthings as you so I want to ask just onsomething else that you touched on thereif you wouldn't mind yeah you've alwaysbeen this happy positive person nowbefore we've had this show we spoke forthe best part of a minute and within asecond of seeing your face on on skypeyou were you were smiling you were happyand I was like this is gonna be a goodinterview I knew straight away becauseyou were good vibes off almost instantlywhat are the careers and stuff have youdone throughout life or what do youthink is the reason that you've alwaysjust been happy or is it just literallyyour mindset has just been programmedthat way I reckon yeah it's just mysaid and it's yeah it's just the wayI've always been you know I hadextremely good parents and a reallygreat family there's five kids in ourfamily and you know I'm the youngest soI was always supported and you knowshowing Sean the right road and yeah Iguess it's just how I've always beenlike I don't know any other way than toput a smile on and have a chat to peoplethat I don't know and you know ifthere's a top conversation that's neededto be had with like say my staff orsomeone's going through a hard time likeI'm always happy to get in and and notthings I would people but yeah I thinkit's just the way I've always been itit's not any one particular thing thathappened that you know maybe thispositive person it's just yeah lucky forme I had a really good upbringing andit's just the way I've been that'sfantastic man and long may it continuebecause the world could definitelybenefit from more people like yourselfjust to kind of spread a bit of sunshineso yeah that's also to hear okay sowhat's a general day-to-day life likeover there in Australia for yourselfyeah and I'm the same as you I lovehabits and I think the biggest thing ofme is just trying to be consistentaround the good things that I do so andI suppose I might actually answer it ona week-to-weekthat's all right yeah absolutely themore relevant to what I do and so reallylike usually on a on a Sunday orSaturday our leader have a mental thinkabout what's going to happen in the weekafter and I've got a spreadsheet thatI've been working off now for the lastyear and a half where I scheduled mytraining for the next week and so I knowexactly what I'm gonna doMonday true to Sunday but one of thethings that I found really good formyself to keep myself consistent with myexercise and I'm a runner so I love torun and so one of the things that I didwanted a very very first thing that Idid was started pack run and I know youguys have Perricone you know the weeklyx 5 kilometer runs yeah so that was thatwas one of the first things that Istarted to do me My partner and fianceknow we started doing Park run and forme I know every Saturday at 8 a.m. onthat pack run and I'm running and that'sthat's what I'm doing I thinkthat's a tenner 11 over in the in the UKand I was like a little bit sleepincreate a in there but for me I know thatthat's what that day is so I've tried tobuild my my exercise and my runningaround just habit and consistency soSaturday is always packed on Tuesday Irun with a run Club in in part and W acalled frontrunner sports performanceand I do a Tuesday 6:00 a.m. everysingle week with those guys and then Ido what R is a fight in every singleweek with those guys so I kind of knowlike whatever happens in life unlesssomething goes completely pear-shapedTuesday Thursday Saturday I'm runningand that's what I'm going to do sothat's one of the things that has helpedme get that consistency for probably thelast almost going on a year and a halfnow probably but running in the lastyear with the front runner guys onTuesday and Thursday and and obviouslymassive improvement in my running fromthat and I'm not a person that you'dlook at that would say yeah he'd be okat running but because of the habit thatI have of doing it every week I've justgotten a little bit better every singlemonth throughout the last couple ofyears and now I'm a decent runnerwhereas people would look at me and gooh he he can't run that faster he can'tdo that or a lot of people always getthe question you know how have youimproved so much it's literally it'sconsistency like I started to go in oncea week to Peregrine's and that's whatprobably did that for three or fourmonths it was just once a week and thenthink I sure would choose to era winsthey ran them session in there and thenit became that the Tuesday Thursday andthey're just ingrained in my daily or myweekly routines now and so that's a bigthing for me as part of every week andthen the rest of the week from a monthat Friday I'm full-time job on my healthand fitness coordinator for localgovernments in parts so and that's whatmy general nine-to-five so I look afterthe gym and our group fitness programsin our community classes and I actuallylove that and one of the very very verylucky people that can say I actuallyenjoy money learning and getting up andgoing to work and there'syou know obviously everyone get sick atwork at time from time to time butthere's very occasions that I'm actuallynot happy to go to work or be at work soand that's my job and through the weekand the rest of the week is family myfiance and the dogs and that's that'sher yeah that's brilliant man I supposeyou've almost found what many of us aretrying to find and you know we alwayshear people getting sad on a Sundayevening and they got work in the morningand you've almost kind of found your wayso it's nice to see that you're havingthat and you also touched on somebrilliant points again which was it'sall about consistency and one of thethings I always say is obviously we ourresort of our habits so I think thatgoing back to your 30 minutes a daythere I mean it's a day in the grandscheme of things I thinking we'reexcited to like two percent a day if wecan just get people to do that as a sortof habit initially and then if it hasthe effects of improving your mentalhealth on a long-term scale I thinkwe're on to a winner so on that pointalone have you got access to a sort of30 day plan or is it's just somethingthat people would need to kind of goback into your Instagram and follow intomy Instagram and follow and you know Idon't have any 30-day plans or anywherethat I suppose that the main thing forme with people and I've had with the gymthat I work at I've had many manyinteractions with people about you knowwhat are they going to do to getthemselves fit and healthy and I wentthrough a period of weight gain where Ididn't realize I was gaining weight butI got up to like 115 or 16 kilos butover the last three or four years sinceI started running I'm back down to 90 soI've had a big weight loss and periodand a lot of people asking me about youknow what should they do and you knowwhat exercises should they do for forthis muscle and you know should I begoing how many times a week should I begoing to the gym and how many reps did Ido and how many said should I do thisexercise and I always say to people andeven when people come to a gym like doyou enjoy going to the gym and if theanswer is yes then it's like yeah yeahokay in you go it doesn't matter whatyou do pick exercises you like thick repranges you like it accept ranges youlike and do thatbecause you're only going to beconsistent at the things you like and ifsomeone comes into our gym and says ohyou know I actually quite like workingout in groups send them straight togroup fitness like if someone came intomy gym and said I hate gymsI hate group fitness classes I'd sendthem straight back out the door and tellthem do something else because there'sno point in them coming towards to dosomething that they're not going toenjoy and they're not going to sayconsistent that because you know youcan't sign up for a gym or an exerciseprogram or sports team if that's notsomething that you actually enjoy likeanyone who wants to get fish you need todo something that you enjoy and that youcan keep doing for me it's running andoccasionally lifting weights so I dolots of running and a fair amount ofweightlifting and that's what I lovedoing and so for for people like youknow if you're looking for a 30 day planor whatever it might be that are lookingfor they need to just look intothemselves and go what I like to andI'll you know we live done living inAustralia so there's lots of outdooractivities you can do so someone lovesstand-up paddleboarding or golfing orgardening or whatever it is you know sothat wasn't it that and see that and youknow make the most of that becausewhether or not it's 2 percent to yourday or however long of your day it isthat you're doing this exercise for youwant to be doing something that youenjoy and yeah it's there's too manypeople and this especially with gyms andgroup fitness classes and things likethatthey do it because other people do itnot because it's something that theywant to do they see someone else gettingresults doing that exercise or they godforbid they go on Instagram and they seethe top six exercises to get awesome adsand they do those exercises and realizethat they haven't been it's really abouthaving a thing to yourself of what do Ienjoy doing and if you don't know whatthat is just go and try a few things goto the gym go to an outdoor class join asports team join a join a running clubyou know try things out and whicheverone it is that you you think you enjoythat's what you'll be consistent at sogo do that Michael I love that answer sotwo things I want to point out firstlythis is why I want people to follow yourpage twolearn from yourself and all these littlenuggets that you just thrown in therebut another reason that actually lovethe answer is because you're confirmingeverything I've been preaching myselffor the last time right so mainlybecause you agree with me because I havefour pillars that I always say are mysword when I work with my clients Iwould say if we can add a to these fourpillars and they are enjoymentsustainability consistency and hard workand I think as long as you have amixture of all of those so the enjoymentside which is literally exactly what youexplained so I think that's a reallyreally important point you said theirconsistency we've already touched onsustainability again if your enjoymentand consistency are on point it's goingto be sustainable if they're gonna keepit goingand obviously I think there is anelement that people think they don'thave to work hard and you touched ontheir this the ABS exercises get abs inthree weeks by doing this it doesn'treally work like that because there's abit more science that goes behind it butgreat answer mate and again I'mconsistently plugging your channelbecause it would be nice to get theaudience to see it from a differentperspective somebody on the other sideof the world almost doing the exact samething and making such a positiveinfluence so I appreciate that answer methank you yesokay so the next question is are yougonna be quite an interesting onebecause a very happy positive person butwhat I want to touch on is adversity andI use adversity in all of my episodesbecause I want people to look at thingsor change the perception of things andjust know that whatever situation you'regoing through however difficult you mayfeel it is in that particular time isthere's always a way out of it if you'rewilling to persevere through it so I'mhoping you've been through someadversity and I mean that in the kindestway possible me because I'm not smilingnow on the other side of it but couldyou maybe take us back to a time wherethings were going as well as you maybehoped or you went through some adversityand how you overcame that and thenfinally the lessons that you learnedfrom that if you wouldn't mind yeahabsolutely and yeah I haven't gonethrough a massive amount of adversity inmy life would that's it I you know I'vehad plenty of tougher harder times thatI've had to go it was the one for methatso tis so obviously I'm living inAustralia I'm came here from lard and soabout three years into when I was here Iwas am working in a job and this job wasgoing to sponsor me to stay in thecountry and just before my sponsorshipwent through I reckon two weeks beforemy sponsorship was all gonna go true andeverything was going to be sweet orCenter closed down and yes so thesponsorship went out the window prettyquick unfortunately was not sure anyfault of the employer that's the waythings went down so and yeah just justwhen I thought I was yeah I'm said I'mgonna be in Australia nothing to worryaboutgot my sponsorship that'll get me my PRwe're good to goeverything kind of just set out out ofnowhere literally out of noise but Ihonestly don't look back now on thattime as a time of adversity or a timewhere I was under massive stress becausefor me at the time I was just alrightwell this has happened no matter what Ido I can't really change the outcome ofwhat's happened to and to the centerit's that's just the way it is so thethe first thing that I was doing waslooking for I would I need a job so Iwent and saw myself some work and I wentback to construction work and that wasfine and and then it was just playingthe waiting game to see when when thisCenter was going to get back opened upsee if that sponsorship was still on thecarriage and and I've had a think Ithink I had four months until I had togo home legally the contrary so yeah andI it was it was going to be a little bitmore time until they got the centre openand they had some roof issues that theyhad to sort out so there was a lot ofconstruction to go on and like just buttrue luck that whole period I just kindof kept on to them and said you knowwhen can I get back in is it going tohappen isn't it going to happen andthere for a while there wasn't a wholelot of talk backwards and forwards so Ijust kept doing my construction stuffaway and and eventually I got back intowork and I got this I got sponsored bushI suppose the big thing for me throughthat wholetime was well look if I get sent home Iget sent home and that's just the wayit's gonna be in and I always had in theback of my mind that it's going to sortitself out one way or another whetherit's through work or whether somethingelse comes up or you know whether I getit I think there was the option of apartner a partner visa with my partnerat the time so you know there there wasoptions there and I kinda just didn'tlet myself get too stressed to thecensus you know I was worrying about itall the time and just kind of got onwith things as best I could and andluckily it all worked out and yeah I'mjust I'm still here now but it was yeahI just kind of keep it that positiveattitude towards this and then yeah itworked out in the end but uh I think agood a good quote and I'm gonna call mymom of all people in the world yeah forthis was a sudden my mom sold me heapsof times Trudy years Witter is going fora job or it's going to interviews oranything that I'm racing or whatever Iwas doing she'd always say what's foryou won't pass you so you know if atthat time if it if it was for me to stayin Oz and you know to go on to be whereI am now then that's what it was goingto be if that's not what how it was timeto work out then something else will popup that would be you know just as goodor betterso really it's you know anytime we do ajob interview or anything like that orespecially if I don't get a jobI always think well that clearly wasn'tfor me so if it was I would have got itkind of yeah on to the next thingthat's fantastic me then it's funny yousaid that quote and I resonated withthis straightaway because my nan so shedoesn't speak English but she speaksPunjabi but these direct words that yourmom says she says the same quote soshe's a very religious person and she'salways had that philosophy sure butactually she's starting to remind me alittle bit of yourself and I mean thatwith utmost respect because she's alwayssmiling she's always happy and she'sbeen through a hell of a lot ofadversity in life but she's alwayssaying you know whatever's meant to beis meant to be if you meant to havesomething come in your life will happenif you're not you're not so I thinkthat's a brilliant way and it's probablywhatkept her going so long so very wisewords from my cause mom so appreciatethat me do you have that do you havethat quote in your grandma's words Iyou're testing my Punjabi haha yeah yeahmaybe one for our line may I try and getyou a translation I don't wannaembarrass myself live online yeah yeahhuge you won't be too happy with mypronunciation but yeah if it is exactlythe same but I think that's brilliant Ithink it's a testament to the way thatyou think always got that positiveoutlet you're always looking at thingsas in just the way that I wisheverybody's in it rather then me if I'mcompletely honest five years ago wouldhave seen that as oh my god the wholeworld's falling down I'm so close to getmy sponsorship it's almost falling theirminds I would go through the rephraseyou're just kind of got that in the backof your head so consciously you'rethinking it's all gonna work out and I'mreally glad it has so in this currentsituation now things are going well foryou what scares you in life do you haveany fears and do I have any serious it'sa good question and I don't think I dolike you know I if anything I'll worryabout other people more than I worryabout myself so I'd you know I kind ofwant to make sure that I was good withwith my close mates and my fiance and myfamily and you know some of my sistersare pregnant at the moment so you knowit's the only things I worry about herare all those guys and you know checkingin and then to make sure everything'sgoing okay but now personally for myselfI don't really uh kind of hold strongsimilansmums advice of you know if it's for youwon't pass you and kind of keep keeppushing forward and yeah if that's agood answerno not absolutely my absolutelydefinitely so are you telling me you'renot scared of all the again I'm speakingas a Brit here we hear all the storiesof the snakes and the spiders inAustraliadoes anything like that ever scare youor ever hear of a red back a red backspider not very little that littlespiders with a red back they're prettyfierce looking they're they're smallsmall little things we get lots ofaround my house we get tons of them sothere's lots of and he has brain sprayred backs around here but no of my hairfunny the way my brother-in-law was isscared and worried about coming overhere and sitting on a toilet boner andwater being underneath it when he catchyou for the yeah look lovely that's themit's pretty unlikely and I've never comeacross too many snakes any more a rod Iguess if I was to say one thing Isuppose on on fear and it's not reallyfear for me but it's just for again forother people it's the current age ofsocial media and the influence thatsocial media influencers have you knowso many people are drawn in by theseinfluencers and you know they take whatthey're saying for fur gospel almost andyou know they they you have peoplebuying these fit tees and you havepeople buying to these 30 day programsand all these detoxes and you knowthere's lots of people that are preyingon people's fears and emotions andgetting to sign up to these programs andto be honest it's a real big issue andit's what is one of the main reasons asI said in my page was just to have analternative option of the the quickfixes and things like this becausethere's so many people that andespecially at our gym and and you knowfriends of mine and I see other peopleputting things up like everyone thinksthat these things work and that there'syou know there's something to it pushesyou know a quick quick thing gonna soferrets it's it's a worry the thecurrent state of the fitness industryonline you know that I think the fitnessindustry in Australia on the groundlevel is really good and really positiveand there's lots of people doing greatthings but the the online influence ofpeople who have no experience in healthand fitness is yeah extremely worryinghopefully with people like you andthings that I'm doing you know it yeahthe common sense approach will will winout in the endabsolutely may I think you just hitsomething that again I resonate with isfind it so annoying that theseinfluences are in a position where theyhave so much impact and they're justbeen unethical and they're not beingauthentic in their message and they'reselling these cookie cut programs orthey're saying you can look like me ifyou do this in six months and I'mlooking at him and I'm like you'reobviously on something that's notnatural for example you've been doingthis for 15 years and you're just tryingto almost manipulate people and tobelieve in it and it's not just thefitness industry to be honest so I'minvolved as a property investor as afull-time occupation and even withinthat there is a massive massive marketof people and the shame is is that theyhave so much influence who prey onpeople who are in an almost like adesperation phase and when you'redesperate you're almost clinging on toanything and it's just reassuring toknow that there are people likeyourselves out there who have thisamazing energy about you and you justhonest and authentic and this is areason I do my show it's to give peoplea voice who aren't influences who Igenuinely believe can make a positiveimpact on the world because I genuinelybelieve if my audience however smalleris or however big it grows follows youthey're gonna get authentic informationinformation that and I don't mean thisbecause I say similar stuff I mean it isbecause we understand the basics behindit and it's nice that you're trying tomake an impressive but it's funny isn'tit because on one end we're looking atthese influences and thinking that theway Instagram and Facebook and stuff isit's it's almost damaging to people'sself-esteem Ament to half but at thesame time we also need it to preach ourmessage and to get our voice heard totry and help people absolutely so yeahyeah it's a funny one so what is yourmotivation then moving forward for yourbusiness is it to enhance your voice toget out there to impact more lives or doyou have another underlying motivationbehind the word that you do yeah look Ijust want to keep doing what I'm doingyou know every one person that I thoughtI impact positively is you know it's forme that's that's the ultimate goal isjust to have a small little impact onpeople's lives whether it's someonestarts doing it you know a tiny bit ofexercise that they've never done beforeor whether it's someone else has a chatthat I made about the mental health whothey think isn't doing so well you knowI just want to keep pushing the messageout there andas far as I'd like to get a little bitmore active on social media given yourfull time job and this is just somethingI do on the side I'm probably not asactive or putting out as good a contentas I'd like to at the moment but I justwant to keep keep growing the theaudience and make sure that the messageis reaching as many people as we can andyou know maybe one day start podcastingor doing something similar to whatyou're in here and chatting to peopleabout their own experience of mentalhealth and Howard are our onlyexperienced mental health exercises haspositively impacted that and which yeahfor now it's kind of keep going as we'regoing yeah absolutelyI think you'd be an amazing advocate forboth mental health and fitness so if youdo get the time and capacity later onabsolutely doing if I can help in anyway in terms of like setting up apodcast or anything please do reach outand I'll try my best to help you buddynot a problem that a stress so we'reactually at the the fun part of the shownow this is the part where I'm gonna askMichael all sorts of weird and wonderfulquestions let me know when you're readyand we're gonna hit the time wrap thenwe're gonna get started it's not okaywe're gonna go in three two oneokay Michael what did you eat forbreakfast nothing if you could reallylive one day again what day would it beoh the day I met my partner the abilityto fly or be invisible invisible who doyou admire most in the world and oh godthat's good question I've no ideado I admire most in the world oh geez mymom I love it when your fame mmm moneyyour proudest momentdropping on one knee your favorite foodhates it speak or languages will be ableto speak to animals or speak to animals100% if you could abolish one thing inthe world what would it beoppression what some best describes yourlife there is a song that I can't thinkof it don't worry be happy whatever thatsong got made that is a hundred percentyouokay if you had an extra hour a day howwould you spend it with my partnerNetflix or YouTube Netflix yournumber-one goal this year have apositive impact if you could sit withone person in the world for an hour whowould it berock your worst fear as a child these asbeing too tall I'm 6 4 but I've beenthink forces I was around 6 Wow okaywhat is your biggest addiction Netflixand finally buddy read minds or predictthe future read - love it ok that's theend of the quickfire round so we got toknow especially when you've got like notime to think as well so I was justinterested yes it but yeah some goodchoices there everyone loves pizza and Ithink I haven't found anyone yet whodoesn't like the rock ok but it's allwe've got fine or 2 questions now we'recoming towards the kind of end of theshow and the next thing I like to alwaysask my guess is more about reflection soI am a firm believer that hindsight is awonderful thing in terms of it teachesus a lot he teaches us how we can get toplaces quicker easier or with lessheartache now knowing you now as aperson you're very positive and youhaven't been through I suppose that muchadversity but if you could perhaps goback to a younger michael hayes knowingeverything you know now and whispersomething in that may be uncertain youngversion of yourself what would you sayand mental health is real I'd like tohave known a lot more about mentalhealth and being able to make an impactearlier I think yeah absolutely I thinkthe world would have benefited so muchas well if you knew but I'm justgrateful I'm sure people listening tothis are as well that you're making animpact now and on that note we areactually on our last question of theshow and the last question again Ialways like to ask all of my guess it'sabout legacy and if science fails tosave us all and all that is left is abook and that book is about MichaelHayes and everything you've achieved inyour life and all the great weird andbefore things that you've accomplishedfirstly what would the title will sayand secondly what would the blurb at theback tell us about you and the titlewould say keep it simple stupid the backwould probably go along the lines of andthis bloke managed to convince everybodythat the simple things done consistentlyand with a little bit of hard work makeall the difference I love that I love itmate thank you thank you for sharingthat I think just that title alone woulddefinitely make me pick up the book justto kind of think about the lastfantastic okay Michael so just before weend the show I want to give again I'vebeen plugging it all the way throughthis episode I want to give the audiencea chance to follow you on your journey Ithink you're a very infectious positiveperson I've really enjoyed thisconversationyou've got me out of my seat I was a bitlethargic this morning had two cups ofcoffee but I'm thinking about the restof the day so if you could tell us whereour audience can find you and what I'lldo is I'll play all of that together andI'll put it into the show notes becauseI believe you're gonna do incrediblethings and you already are so far awaymate oh my cheers thanks for that andyeah so on Instagram it's at mentalhealth fitness coach and Facebook justsearched mental health fitness coach andI'll pop up on both of those I'mactually on YouTube as well as mentalhealth fitness coach and there's a fewinterviews that I did in the past andone of them was with the CEO of are youokay which is a company - an Australiancompany that's are encouragingconversations around mental health andthat's quite a good one to go and lookat and that's actually a really goodresource for anyone in the UK as welland who are you okay just the letter areyou and then okay and that's that's onethat yeah it's probably one of the bestones that we have in Australia so forstarting conversations and how I start aconversation with a friend and what tosayand it's a unbelievable resource so I'dgo check that as well be a bitmental health fitness coach everywhereelse is where you'll finally fantasticand we spoke I think earlier this weekyou've also got another podcast so Idon't normally plug another podcast intothis but I think it'd be really nice forpeople to get to know even more so whatI'll also do is I'll put that in theshow notes as well or are you okay inthere as well because again this issomething that I'll follow personallyMichael it's been an absolute pleasurethank you for your time today and foreveryone else at home thanks forlistening today thank you and rememberthis podcast is absolutely free so allwe ask in return is for you to sharethis with a friend and drop us a fivestar review over on iTunes have anawesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 20 "It's a curse to call yourself a true Entrepreneur, unless you really are" - Penny Power #20Tagline: "Love is the most powerful force in the world, the more you can live within that energy, be that energy and give that energy the better your life will be "Penny Power, OBE is an incredible woman who could complete a podcast series alone. Having labelled herself as an 'Accidental Entrepreneur' Penny formed the first social network for business owners exceeding 650,000 members. However, as many entrepreneurs can relate, she was then forced to handle many ups and downs along her journey and forced to really look deep within herself. Through a journey of self care and discovery Penny began to deal with depression and really find her true purpose and love for herself. A journey she may even consider tougher than the entrepreneurial one.More importantly than the above, Penny is an extremely proud mother to 3 and wife to her husband all of whom she considers the greatest gift she ever received. Penny now coaches people on a 1-2-1 basis transforming not only their lives but also living her true purpose.From depression, to business, to self care to coaching we discuss so many facets that many of you today can relate too and hopefully take nuggets of information to move your lives forward and find your voice!Please check the links below and follow Penny's journey as she is credible, honest and an overall lovely soul.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Website: https://www.pennypower.co.uk/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PennypowerOBE/Twitter: https://twitter.com/pennypowerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennyfpower/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennypower/Books: https://amzn.to/2DPEvfUHave an awesome day#JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so I'm extremelydelighted to bring to you todaypenny power now for anyone who knowspenny they might also know her as theaccidental entrepreneur and the reasonfor that is because penny created thisabsolutely monster of a social networkfor business people in 1998 whichactually had over 650,000 businessowners in it not knowing what she had atthat time penny was sadly disrupted bywhat we know today as linked in sothere's definitely a brilliant storythere and we do discuss that furtherinto this episode alongside this pennyhas also received an OBE in 2014 for thework that she's done and she's seen bymany as a winner and having spoken toher in some depth not just during thisepisode but prior to it she certainly isthat alongside being a mother to threechildren and a wife to her husband pennynow sees herself working with clients ona one-to-one basis and we're in asociety today where a lot of coaches arealmost spawning overnight I mean we'reseeing people with one or two years ofexperience becoming a coach and thenselling their services and being a bitskeptical apart a lot of these coachespenny is somebody I'm certainly notskeptical about because if I was ever torecommend anyone as a coach it wouldcertainly be penny because penny has theexperience and you can tell from the wayshe speaks in this interview she knowsthis stuff so I think without furtherado we're gonna jump straight into thisone it's extremely exciting for me tobring somebody like penny onto mypodcastand I'm extremely grateful for that andI hope you all enjoy this episode thanksfor tuning inok so firstly I just want to thankeveryone for tuning in to today'sepisode today and I've just had afantastic discussion with penny prior tothis actually going live so I've got toknow her a lot there but I think it'svery important that you guys listeningtuning in today get to know the realpenny or Penny powers she is known tomany of us out there today so firstlyhow are you doing todayvery well I feel very well warmed uplovely conversation with you it was itcertainly was I could almost have anepisode out of that just in itself butI'm just for their sake of the listenerswho have just tuned in now and obviouslymay or may not have heard of you couldyou please just maybe give us an insightin relation to where you first started alittle bit about your journey andbasically what brings you here today andso I think you know and I think it'sbeen a journey of finding my voice whichis just perfect I'm gonna try and keepit little 16I went into the IT industry when I was19 I didn't go to university I went intosales and tele sales and joined it whenit was really booming and so it wasfairly relatively easy to excel and Iended up with in about by the age of 24I was sales marketing director of a 80million pound company with about 400staff that I was responsible for and an80 million pound sales line and we hadoffices around the country eight officesand but my first day there I just wentinto there and completely just out ofscarcity and needed to leave home and itwas a job and and I realized I was quitedifferent to everybody else in the roomyou know I wasn't really that focused onthe sale but I was focused on the impactof the sale that would have on whoeverwas buying the product and I actuallyresigned after seven months and I wasgoing to go to the University to do apsychology degree I had finally got myplace and my boss took me into a roomand said why are you leaving I said I'mjust not cut out for business it's notmy world I want to be have more impactin business and he said but you have noidea of the shift that youcreated in the culture of ourorganization and I was ripped shots as a19 year old to be told that and he saidjust be you stay and be you verypowerful when someone says that to youso I did and I built quite a nice careerI'd sort of left that company andactually went off to four othercompanies and then was invited back tobe their sales marketing director whenthey had grown quite substantially andthen at 28 I was blessed with my babyHannah and two more children and that isabsolutely that and my marriage is beingmy highest values my highest joy thething that I think is the most importantthing in my life I think you know thatfall saying charity begins at home Ithink if you put oxygen on your familythen you build a family that doesn'ttake from the world it can give to theworldi I've taken my role as a mum really asmy most important thing in my life andmy merit and my marriage because thatcompletes the family and but I am quitedriven I love I do love business andwhen I was 33 so I had Hannah was fiveand then I had Ross who was three and TJwas just not long born about six monthsold I came up with the idea of the factthat business seemed so lonely peopleworking on their own my husband beingone of them and sort of subject of nightnetworking in 1998 wasn't huge but therewas it was sort of going on but therewas no online networking for businessthere was Friends Reunited and MySpacebut nothing for business so I created acommunity for business online with aculture of reducing loneliness helpingpeople with their self-esteem and herself-worth and helping people to be whothey were rather than just what they didand it grew and it grew and it wasphenomenal but then we got massivelydisrupted we were growing up organicallyit was a subscription-based business tenpounds a month ten dollars ten eurosdepending where you were in the world wewere in 52 countries had 5000 offlineevents here and then LinkedIn took holdso retweet hoffman had actually visitedand used our site a little bit he thenraised three hundred and thirty milliondollars when in theokay we just couldn't raise any moneywe'd raised very small amount of seedinvestment but interestingly he justwent a different route and culture hewent to the business world with hisfantastic tool but it's said it's onlyabout what you are and actually then wesaw that was in 2002 so that was fouryears after we had grown then in 2004Facebook came into the student market2006 Peter came in and the mark I thinkwe all polarized you know this is Who Iam on Facebook this is what I am onLinkedIn an academy sat somewhere inbetween we needed to pivot the businessmodel by now we had lost our house inorder to keep the business going it wasvery challenging the trout childrentraveled around the world meeting ourmembers had little lapel badges withtheir names on them shaking hands atteach ethics or he first startednetworking and anyway in 2008 we went tothe bank and said look can we have aloan to pivot this business and theygave us a 5 year loan enabled us tostart looking at how we can offer freeand start basically doing what we didn'twant to do but in order to survive whichwas going to be sell your data so youyou know what we now upset about in theother markets so obviously that meant alot of our members that were happy topay we're unhappy but did get some newmembers joining who were happy that itwas free but it really challenged ourvalues and then three years into thatwith two years left around the bank loanthe banking crisis happenedwe got a 30 day notice to pay back therest of the two years and they broughtthe business down the bank after 14years so an incredibly painful definingmoments in 2012 and it has been anunbelievable climb to get back any senseof self-worth self belief a big journeyI which we can we can look into it waswonderful in 2014 out of the blue came abeautiful letter and offering me an OBEfor the contributorslovely feeling of validation andbut actually what I really learned isyou can get huge amounts of externalinvalidation in life but unless you canvalidate yourself and believe inyourself and feel your own sense ofself-worth these things are just a bitof gloss on your life and that's been ajourney which culminated in me writingmy book last yearfantastic and your book is called it'scalled business is personal well firstlywhat a journey I probably got more noteshere that again I could do probably apodcast on separately so I just want totouch on a few things throughout yourjourney so you ended with the validationstatement which I don't want to go intocuz I think that's so importantespecially in today's society yeah youwere 19 years old you had almost kind ofdisrupted and made a positive scene inthis industry where there was a fittingcomment and you said just stay and beyou yeah I loved that because I filmedmyself and in an industry where a lot ofmy business comes through social mediathere are people not just beingthemselves I feel that a lot of peoplehave a magic or they're saying thethings that they necessarily feel theyneed to say yeah what people want tohear and I think sometimes we all havesuch a unique gift or skillset that wemay not ever get to see if we're toobusy trying not to be ourselves if thatmakes senseI think I think that was beautiful andyou touched the game moving after thatabout your family and I just resonatedso much with your values in terms ofbreathing oxygen into your family andhow important your marriage is so wetouched obviously prior to this show alittle bit about one of your children Ilost a TJ and just the incredible personthat she is so again that's a testamentto your values and that kind of bringsme to where I am so I touched on theLinkedIn obviously disrupting and it'sand sadly for yourselves you had toalmost kind of pivot but you mentionedsomething which I just found fascinatingwhich was the values bit that reallykind of struck you so it's nice to hearand it's quite refreshing from yourselfthat yes you could have pivoted thebusiness and almost kind of taken on aLinkedIn approach but that's not whopenny is so using that and realizingthat in that moment getting the externalvalidation of OB what did you then do interms of your business I mean is thatstill going now that sort of business orhave you completely shifted it nowtowards really helping people trying tofind out about themselves as in terms offull of himself with yeah I mean Idefinitely has been a thank you for thatthat lovely reflection of what I said Ithink it's been a journey you knowsomething I say when I am coaching andmentoring and I run a mastermind groupnow I take two cohorts yeah so I Isupport people through a mastermindgroup which is beautiful experience wedo need in our values we do need to havea brand we need to know what we're herefor you know that lovely saying to bestdays of your life the day you're bornthe day you discover able all of thesethings are very very powerfulstart with why simon Sinek what it'screated it's created a massive panic ofpeople that don't feel they have it yetand you can't force it so you know wascoaching a lady yesterday it wasincredibly inspired by brainy Brown andher vulnerability statement and simonSinek and all these role models andshe's desperate to find her big messageand I just said just it will come but itabsolutely starts with the seed of whoyou are and you can't force it becauseyou want to market yourself better orwrite a better book or you've just got alot now having a coach or a mentor or aloved one help you coach that out of youis very powerful and I was with abrilliant guy called Sun hartleyyesterday and he's a performance coachand he said these three things you knowyourself be yourself accept yourselfI loved that thought I love that knowyourself be yourself accept yourself andI don't think that we can you know Iwent through a process last year withpsychologists and group therapy becauseI broke and I didn't break to the pointwhere I was you know I was shaking inthe corner but I had a really day ofdevastating experience that dangerousand scary experience on the 30th ofNovember 2017 that I went off to ahospital thinking I had had a stroke orsomething and they found no new logicalthings and and anyway through going tosee psychologists discovered that and Iwas now having some form of mentalhealth challenges and I actually spent alot of time reflecting and thinking andI think I started to break probably foryoubefore I had that incidence it's notsomething I was fat you know you couldstart off you could start off beingcompletely disabled with a bad legthrough or hip through eighth rightousit would start years before you know youget the so I think mental health issuesyou have to start becoming veryself-aware of how you're showing up inthe world before you really know you'vegot them and and you know I believe inmental fitness but there's anothersubject you know starting before itstarts like you do when you look afteryour physical health so the valuesfinding your voice knowing your valuesare very critical you can't force thesethings though and you know when I talkto CEOs of businesses or leaders ofbusinesses they've got pulled into avortex of ambition like this whirlwindof ambition that actually is fantasticif economies create that culture becausethey create to the fear and they createthe culture of you're lacking andtherefore scarcity and and fear and youlack and the market is a brilliance hasit online saying you could be moresuccessful you could be richer you couldbe more beautiful which immediately whenyou actually read that your subconscioushears I am lacking really wave love sobrilliant it's so clever but revoltingso we have to step away from things likesocial media and comparison andRoosevelt said comparison is the thiefof joy it's my favorite quote yeah it'sbrilliant isn't it love it yeahabsolutely and and it's it takes a hugeamount of reprogramming your mind tostop doing thatbut at least once you're aware you'redoing it you feel yourself doing it youcall yourself back into line becausewhen you look at the ingredients of whoyou are you know what makes you up thereis no single human being on this earththe same as you say mercury yourknowledge your skills your intentionsyour passions your experiences youradversities you've it's just absolutelynothing that could make someone the sameas you so therefore comparing yourselfis the first downward spiral really andone that people are so locked into andso you know anyone listening I'll justsay calm down listening to yourself justhave more self-awareness think of yourjoys think of what really sets you onfire all that's that which other peoplewill say but really do it not to makemoney from it to begin with I sawpowerful again I mean I can resonatewith this and I'm not sure if you'vefollowed it in my story or any of myprogression but I try and say a lot ofthis myself because again probablysimilar to yourself I found myself inthe state of comparison initiallyespecially when I started the propertyjourney and I have this habit now andI've kind of I don't do this in a way tooffend people or be rude but I'vestopped almost going on social media andliking people's posts and stuff becausewhat I effectively do now is I have amessage every morning or every eveningthat I want to share with the world andwhat I'll do is I'll write it out andI'll send it out and all of a sudden I'moff social media I'm not there to seehow many likes I get or how many sharesI get because if I fix ain't myself onthat metric in itself what's gonnahappen is if it's law one day the nextday I might be scared to share my truthagain and I think I think one of theimportant things you touched on again ispeople are almost in this panic of wedon't have it but they probably do andit's a patience game I suppose and whereI always say to people he's just speakyour truth speak whatever that comes toyou it's your own perspective it'llresonate with certain people and we'realmost in a society where people aretrying to almost say key and buzzwordsbecause they feel like that's what theyneed to almost same and I think you hitthe nail on the head and I think withyour experiences Ryan you just brieflymentioned the coaching aspect I thinkpeople listening to this show can gainso much value from that so I just wantedto touch on your mastermind that youmentioned is that what's something thatpeople would necessarily need to do inperson or is it something that you cando online from the comfort of your ownhome a really great question so I'vebeen on my own journey and I'm gonnacome back to that if that's not tooannoying so really so when I my - I callmyself an accidental entrepreneur foryears because I was when I came up withhe had a me I didn't know his tiger bythe tail but I had and then I started mysecond business after he had me calldigital use academy which it was highlyimpactful it was workingyoung people I created the digitalmarketing apprenticeship that is nowwidely used and I got investors to putmoney in we invested three hundred andfifty thousand pounds in an e-learningcent system and we distributed thatthrough further education colleges as anapprenticeship and over three years Iout two thousand unemployed very hard toreach young people into jobs giving themthe confidence that their digital skillshad value in the world and and hopingthat they would go into it with us thesort of culture that I believe in aroundsocial media so that was my second whatI call on two-player journey then Istarted my third which is called thebusiness cafe and it was that part ofthe journey that broke me because it wasanother push and what I feel is um theterm entrepreneur is really dangerous tome entrepreneurs are creating somethingfrom nothing and have massive ambitionand Luke Johnson in his book stopsstartup I think it's called saidambition is a curse and not everybodyhas it right to be a true entrepreneuryou have to be massively ambitious andyou have to know how much you're willingto sacrifice in terms of time money andgratification because being true you'rebuilding something as scales and hasimpact and this is the Silicon Valleyworld you know go out raise 300 milliondollars and there and reduce all your 1%and you know it's long busks and MarkZuckerberg the thing that a lot ofpeople your generation and two centsthat my generation came you know we wewitnessed from about 20 to 23 years agowhen ecommerce everything started so Iwould say that you know it's a curse tocall yourself an entrepreneur unless youtruly are so my own personal journey isand where I am finding so much joy nowgoing back to your original questionyeah is that I was employed had mychildren then became an entrepreneuraccident accidentally then they becamean entrepreneur a game with digitalyouth academy then tried to be anentrepreneur game with the business cafeand I still want to bring the businesscafe to market but when I broke my basicmy cup was full I was overflowing foreven a got out of bedmy resilience had gone and I wasexhausted and burnt and the way I'vecome back is by saying actually I'mgoing to be a small business much nicerof course yeaha small business is what is my value toone person and how can I exchange thatvalue for money and impact their livesdirectly so at the moment starting fromJanuary when I launched my mastermindand my mentoring coaching program thisyear I only need to work with about 34amazing people and I will fulfill notonly my emotional needs but my financialneeds and when I go into a room withsomebody I'm coaching I know that I getthat gratification I'm not only seeingthe impact I'm making on that one personbut also they're paying me yeah money isactually ultimately one of the ways weget our worth it is it's I know we don'tchase money but if we're broken and I'vebeen broken and if we can't financiallyafford to feed our children trying to bean entrepreneur is a very very dangerousjourney so going back to your questionam i delivering it online yes I've beenasked that a lotyeah if as soon as I do that I'mstepping away from my direct impacts interms of I'm putting a computer betweenme and and being able to love and holdand touch and care and look in the eyesof the people I'm wanting to impact andso this year that's what I'm doing thankyou for that answer so I want to playdevil's advocate just a little bit onthe the last night you said there so Ifully understand the whole direct beepthere directly impact them hold themlove them and touch these people thatyou weren't have been on a one-to-onebasis and I suppose when I first startedpersonal training I literally startedpersonal training because one I had losta lot of weight and done a qualificationwith a bit of spare change I had but Ithought it would pay for my way throughuni and then obviously doing that Ireally enjoyed it I loved transforminglives and seeing people lose weight gainconfidence which again I felt fantasticas being mothered journey and I got to apoint myself as I and I rememberI should take this online and almost dolike an online coaching for personaltraining where I will check in withclients online again losing that thatone-to-one communication thing but atthe same time getting back some of mytime so my yeah and perhaps potentiallymaking more money and I initially kindof was with yourself I was like I don'twant to do that it's got it's kind ofalmost dilute my power and my gift thatI have when I work with people but thenat the same time I had somebody questionme and again this is a question I wannaask you is do you not then feel becausein this very brief moment with yourselfthe reason I ask this is because I don'twant it to be that penny is based inthis part of the world or this part ofUK and we don't have access to pennyright now because I feel that if you areable to connect with more people yes themessage might be slightly diluted but Ithink your message is so powerful thatyou could affect so many more people sois it something that maybe your identitylater or I used sorry I'm gonna give youa really long answer to this Aren okayso at the moment I don't believe inmyself enough okay it's getting thereand this is the story I'm gonna tell youand it's absolutely true and it's themost up to date story I can tell youabout my life okay yeah please do I havealways wondered why people would spendmoney on an aspen all our mulberry orGucci handbag right so you're gonnathink where the hell she kept okay Inever needed itI never wanted even when Thomas and Ihad money you know and life was a biteasier didn't turn me on Thomas cameback from Dubai once on a speech hasbrought me back in a beautiful good shebox a handbag and it sat in the box forthree years I never used it didn't writeand but my daughter Hannah who we talkedabout a little bit and and hopefully youmight interview so absolutely would bean honor so when she was 20 and I wedidn't spoil our children they had towork from the age of from a young ageand at 16 they got jobs in supermarketsor Starbucks or whatever and age 20 shegot an internship at Barclays and I mether after work one day and we went offto Marburyjust off Oxford Street and she spent 900pounds in a bag I didn't judge her Ididn't judge at all is her money she'dworked hard for it and that was somesymbolism she wanted that bag and shehad this private relationship Reeves mybig my older sister who's 10 years oldand me because my elder sister he's 10years old of me loves designer handbagsand I used to watch quite jealously thisbut I think I want to join that Club I'mnot in certainly sign a handbag but Iwas quite jealous of these this banterthat I would hear and then looking ateach other's bags because ever sincethen Hannah's brought more bags anywaywhen I started this mastermind group wewere meeting at some Pancras stationit's beautiful meeting place and arestaurant there and that's where mymaster minds are going to be in aprivate room there and I had 12 separatemeetings because I have a four-hour oneto one with all the masterminds beforethey join and I would walk past anAspinall shop right eight and I walkpast it looked in sort of smug that allHannah would love that and walked upthese steps into this restaurant anywayone day I about the bath Inc was aboutthe ninth meeting I went into theAspinall shop took a photo of thislovely handbag and said to Hannahyou'd love this handbag Hannah and shesaid yeah is lovely the next time I wentback my 10th time I went in and I got itoff the shelf and I put it on myshoulder oh yes quite not put it back11th time went back went in looked at itand asked him how much it was and talkedto him about it last week was my 12thtime and I said to Hannah the nightbefore I was going back to London for my12th meeting Hannah I fallen in lovewith an astronaut bag yeah and she wentby it by it mom buy it buy it buy itreally and she said I am mom you reallydeserve it buy it so I said don't be nosomebody who works for Aspen orsomething I could get a 30% discountoh yeah I can look into overnight if youwant mum so we'll do that that'd belovely done it anyway next morning Iwoke up to get the train to London myjob meeting and I sent her a text andsaid Hannah I'm gonna buy it I don'twant it discounted I went in and Ibought it and we came home and wechampagne while I opened it at home andThomas said to me just said out of theblue how come you've decided to buyyourself back and I said Thomas I'mworth it and it was so poignant thateverybody cried because Hannah has saidto me mum why don't you believe inyourself you've gotten an OBE look whatyou've done look at the lives you'vechanged look everything you've done andI said I just didn't believe it insideme until I've got I do now so this isthe most up to date story I can tell youour an a my journey and it's been reallyinteresting I share it because I'mreally open with everyone if somebodywants to judge me for the the pain I'vebeen through and the losses I've beenthrough and judge me is a bad businessperson because I'm not achievable youknow I could have achieved I don't Ireally don't care about that I'm just meand um and I will share that that storywith the world because it's we've got tofind our own self worth deep deep deepdown now so in answer to your storywhich was bad to me to go online andexpect somebody to want to pay for anelectronic version of me I haven't gotto that point yet believing in myselfenoughthat's incredible thank you for sharingthat I'm grateful for you sharing thatbecause as you were saying that therewere so many parts of it maybe some ofthe listeners could probably resonatewith it where I'm on thisentrepreneurial journey where I'm kindof bootstrappingas and when I can and stuff like the bagif we use trainers for example where myyounger brother who's nine years youngerthan me we're going spend to endureparents on a pair of trainers where I'mlike I can't do that I can't possiblythink I'm doing that I mean you grew upin slightly different generations wherefinances were different and growing upbut I don't know something tempting justclick there and I thought maybe there isa is an element within myself where myself-worth needs to kind of at least bereflected on and maybe people listeningto this can reflect on that because itwas a beautiful moment I could almostpicture you coming homepopping up and that bottle of champagneand then having this moment where you'relike do you know what I am worth it soit's a beautiful story that you've justshared there and in relation to thediluting the messagething which is the question that I askedyou and you feel that you're notnecessarily worth it now can I just askis that kind of like an impostorsyndrome that's going through your heador do you I think it's partly that I'vewatched so many I don't want swear youcan sway tosses is the places I say sella dream online and manipulate and andcorrupt I don't want to be part of thatworld and I've seen people close to meyou know hire an expensive house rent afat Ferrari and stand outside and sayyou can be as rich as me if you do myprogram and and they are multimillionaires but I have seen so manylost souls back up their lives leavingthat story and so I've got to I've gotto get to a point where for me to jointhat world I've really got to feel safethat I am never going to do that toanyone penny I loved that about youthat's like for me it's kind of likeabout the Family Fortunes TV episodegoing through my head reach that topanswer and it's like kind of bleedingbecause for me it's one of the thingsthat I hold very close to my heart so II got taught off by my wife actuallylast night so this is a very currentstory and I was writing a post and Ikind of just write post from my heart orwhatever I think I don't spellcheck it Idon't think about it I just literallywrite it there and then and as I waswriting it I sinner peeping over it shewas kind of looking at it like why youkind of she's seen it as me being kindof argumentative or not I'm just tryingto think of the wrong bird a bit againstthe grain kind of thing because mymessage yesterday was very similar toyourself so I'm in the property spaceand in the property space there are allthese millionaires selling this poorthingdream and I absolutely hate it because Iwas fortunate that I had 12,000 poundsleft in my account which I spent on theeducation I still believe I would havebeen where I am now without thateducation because in hindsight it wasn'tas good as I've published sin so sincethen I have probablymove people away from the education andI've offered my free service I've givenmy course material that I've paidthousands for because I'm like listenyou can learn all this yourself youdon't need this shiny book or thiscourse that's gonna change your lifebecause I've done it I joined thiscourse thinking twelve months time I'mgonna be a multi-millionaire blah blahblah all of that so you've obviouslyseen these kind of and I put crooks Idon't call them houses but appearancesis probably a better word and it reallyreally it gets it gets to me because atthe same time I also feel I have valuein some of my skills that's where I cango out and coach an extensive amount ofpeople but then I almost getting thisimpostor syndrome myself thinking Idon't want to ever be seen like thesepeople out there exactly doing it thewrong way so I fully get there andobviously we're at different stages inlife you're a lot more advanced andexperienced than myself and I get thatand at the same time I'm like I'm seeingpeople with less experience than myselfwho have fabricated their results takinggood selfies on one Facebook and thenall of a sudden the selling weekendcourses for two thousand pounds and Iread a book recently on it and it wasabout neuro linguistic programming NRPcalled the dark psychology and there wasa brilliant quote in that and what itsaid was you can either manipulatepeople or persuade people basically andthe people there's a lot of people whosay I want to help you I want to do thisfor you and you need to be able toassess are they trying to manipulate youI looking at their own self gainirrespective of whether it's going toactually get you what they're promisedin you or are they're just trying topersuade you to abandon life and I'm I'mgrateful that I've managed to have thisinterview with you and lets you connectwith you because you're one of the goodpeople and it's nice to see somebodydoing it the right way and I do feelthat sometimes we may not get there asquick as other people and we may have toprobably face more obstacles but I justbelieve it's just so much easier to goto sleep at night doing things the rightway well it does it goes back to whatyou said at the beginning about yourcore values and and and whether you cansleep itself you know these CEOs thatSam you this someone was telling me theycoach it said the CEOs are in fear oflosing their jobs or their businessbecause all around them they have nola they've just lost everything we'velost their wives they live norelationship with their children intheir strife for success of whateverthey decided success would be when theywere young they have and now they sit infear in these big jobs because if theylost their job or they lost theirbusiness they have nothing else left andI think we have to think about what isit we want to surround ourselves withTomas and I have lost everything and westill had our marriage and our childrenand it's it's all that matters that's tome that's the possible and I thinkpeople need to go deep into their valuesbut they chase this ambition or thisdream or this comparison or whatever itis that's confusing them yeah absolutelyI think that's a fantastic message thankyou for sharing that penny I reallyappreciate itso now that you're you're definitely anentrepreneur I think I don't thinkanyone's gonna disagree that you're anentrepreneur whether it is by accidentor whatever I mean I feel I'm a bigbeliever that everything happens for areason and if we choose to we can findour own way and I'm grateful that youfound your own way but what I want toask is so for somebody who's beenthrough been through it all should I sayin terms of the journeys of ups anddowns what's your daily routine likebecause I'm a firm believer thatmotivation doesn't last forever and I amstrongly I'm strongly for sorry and thatwe should discipline ourselves incertain aspects hence your nutrition orthe thoughts you tell yourselfaffirmations being grateful all thatsort of stuff in order to get throughthe darker days and not everyone speaksabout the darker days but what's yourdaily routine like Monday to Sunday umso I am always been an early Waker evenas you know child when I was teenagerdid my revision early I always wake sodoes my husband around 5:00 o'clock andwe love that and we go down and get twocups of tea each one of us goes and getsfour cups of teaand we do have that television in thebedroom which we absolutely love so thismorning we watched we loved all thedramas we watched the final of motherfather son for example and we lie in bedtogether and we holehas and we have a cup of tea and wewatch that and then we do that from ournow this is I'm not rushing to Londonfor trade and then I share and then Ifor the last six years I have made avery lovely drinks which containsspinach kale berries chia seeds flaxseeds hue carrot and and then I startwork because I love work so either startwork in the office or I will go toLondon I do try to go to London after10:00 because hey the trains are so muchcheaper oh I go on the train I mean it'syou know how much that makes adifference to your monthly outgoings ifyou if you do have a discipline of doingthat and I just feel better if I do thatthen I get a good start in the morningand then my ideal day is to coach oneclient today about three times a week soin the afternoonsI'll meet at this lovely place and coachthem if it's better in the mornings Iwill do the morning because it's reallydown to where they when they get theirbest energy of course Alice and threetimes a week I'm really grimacing here Itry to go to the gym okay Red Mill anddo some weights but I'm not achievingthat very well moment and I do have ayoga routine that I try to do everymorning before I get dressed that's itfantastic do you do any sort of them Imean I know you've touched on yoga theredo you do any meditation or anygratitude journaling or writing yourgoals down is that so I do I am I have aattitude of blessings and gratitude allthrough the day and I do start my daywith that I definitely don't even haveto consciously do it I just comes intomy mind that I have not that I feel itnow it's I think it's incrediblypowerful that mindfulness meditationthat would completely elude me I justdon't have you do that but mindfulnessI'm trying to learn that my son who'sstudying psychology at University whoand there's quite a high performing butvery him puts a lot of pressure onhimself a lot of pressure on himselfhe's learnt mindfulness and he'sactually done a certificate in it nowand he has it's it's incredible how itstransformed him he said he can't livewithout it and so it is that's andiscipline I'm trying to bring into mylife like I've got itfantastic and just actually if we mayjust going back to something we touchedon earlier we touched on mental fitnessand I know we spoke about this before Iclick the record button yeah do you wantto just briefly elaborate on that aswell because I think that's going to bevery important for the lissa so I when Ihad this sort of breaking moment Iultimately took a while but in the endthe psychologist diagnosed me with PTSDwhich I always thought needed to be ahuge trauma you know something itdirectly happened to you but PTSD isbasically anything that everyday comesback into your mind and it is and itfills your cup before you because atwork Venus that started today and I had12 things that from the age of 3 throughto about 3 years ago that were still onpains that I hadn't accepted andreconciled and I wasn't a victim of thembut they were still front of mind and Ihad to go through a process called EMDRto work through them which was a hardexhausting painful process of acceptanceand letting it go and then when you doit goes into your you might back in yourmind the other thing that I gotdiagnosed with is a form of depressioncalled cursive strong which is a badbook by dr. tim cavanaugh onhe owned a Mazon he worked for thePriory and he found that people thatwere coming to him who were very dynamicvery hardworking high levels ofdiscipline were he'd ended up diagnosinghit them with this and what I gotdiagnosed with and it's basically a formof depression that means you will notself care and look after yourself rightif you just get up every day and youjust keep pushing until until you justyou just just exhausted and so when Iwas going through my psyche my grouptherapy and times with my psychologistwhich talked about in my bookthere was healing triggers and emotionalmental repair that I talked about in mybook that I feel is relevant to everyentrepreneur every human yeah I believearound your belief systems your valuesto thoughts your feelings yourpersonality type etc and what I thenthought was actually if I had no in thistwenty years ago before I became anentrepreneur or even younger I wouldhave focused on my mental fitness notmoment I'd not got to a point where Ihad mental health issues so now I'm anadvocate of mental fitness because Ithink that there are things that wecould learn about ourselves so to meresilience isn't about how hard thepunches are that you are willing to takeand bounce back from resilience is likea boxer you learn what to dodge you'vedone the things that your personalityand your who you are and what matters toyou that you do not want to beconfronted by and you dodge and thatwould enter Fitness to me fantasticactually the first time I've heard itexplained like that I think I think themessage is clear though and I'm quitefascinated now you've got me intriguedinto your own personal book so I know Idon't read books in terms of thehardcovers but I am an advocate ofaudible and listening to books is yourbook available as an audible version oris it strictly a hardcopyno it is I went into studio recorded itso it's on audio it's on Kindle and it'son poppy yeah okay fantastic so there'sno excuse for me not to buy that thenI'll definitely be checking that outthank you for that thank you okay so thenext thing I always ask my guests andagain this is something that willhopefully give the listeners maybelessons that they can take on or somesort of advice is about adversity nowyou've obviously been through a lot ofadversity some of it we probably haven'teven touched in this very short episodeso I know you mentioned briefly and youlost your house you mentioned I think itwas November you were having thesemental health challenges if you couldeither choose one of those or somethingelse in your life where you've beenthrough adversity and just tell us howyou've basically overcame that and thelessons that you've got from it just tokind of give the listeners maybe sometools that they could perhaps use yeahy'know happily so there have been Imentioned that there were I think Imentioned there were twelve things on mylist when I went to the psychologistthat bothered me that was still throwfront of mind went back to his childhoodnot that I was abused or anything butthere was something you know things thatbothered me and all the way up to adultsso I think one of the greatest learningswas that the second business that Istarted digital youth academy I got someinvestors involved I didn't do any truediligence on them but because I hadknown of them and they certainly seemedto have my best interests in the passionof the business in their hearts whenthey invested but I think I was at apoint of scarcity when I went into thatrelationship which is always dangerouswhether you're taking on a client or asupplier or a marriage whatever you oweinto it in a scarcity fear mindset thenit's going to be very difficult and soultimately I had to work my way out ofthat relationship even though I lovedthat business very much we had to exitand sell that business and the issue wasthat because I was in scarcity andclearly was lacking in personalself-worth I enabled them to havecontrol over me and one of the thingsthat strapline of my book is how to leadthe life and business that you want andI was told by actually somebody whoworked for me in that business Russellwho now runs the Starbucksapprenticeship program across Europe hewas a brilliant guy he was ops directorworking with me and he said to me petone day penny I can tell and when Ifirst met you two who you are now thingsyou're not as happy as you used to beI said well that's a real shame and hesaid I watched a documentary last nightand they said there were three parts ofhappiness and they've done a big studyglobally and three parts were 50% ofhappiness is your Constitution are you ahappy person he said penny you alwayshappy and you are a happy person10% is the achievement of the things youwant and you know in this study we knowthat we all always want something elsesoon as we got something we always wantsomething else that's why us so much andinnovate and keep going you know we'renot happywhy we're not animals and that's why weare so progressive 40% of happiness ishow much control you have a have overyour own life and decisions you make andhe said clearly you're being controlledand I was now I had to then unwind thatand I talked about this in my book howsometimes you have to positivelysurrender to a situation and I realizedthat I wasn't going to change a patternthat we had created between us as arelationship where they were assertiveand I was passive where they were theadult and effectively they were treatingme as a child and it was my own doingbecause I went into this relationshipalready in a bad place yeah and so partof the learning I had to go through isI've got to a point in my life whereanybody who was assertive with me I hadwas labeling them in my head as a bullyso I was catastrophizing anybody whoseemed to want to have control over meanybody that had an opinion that wasstrong I saw as bullying and I had tolearn as a naturally not assertiveperson anyway I had to learn to be moreassertive and realized that beingassertive is actually a very adultcommunication style it doesn't have tobe angry that's one one lesson I canpass on absolutely I think that's alesson that I've had to learn myself aswell because when I first I property Iwas very probably a similar situation toyourself as our kind of put people on apedestal yeah I think thinking that Iwasn't worthy or didn't have in muchknowledge yeah yeah in fact I probablydid in hindsight now the funny thing isI got ripped off I got builders runningaway taking advantage of me I hadpotential business partners see me asnaive and trying to make me do more workthan initially agreed to so I had allthese kind of problems and teeth andissues initially as well and I remembermy mom actually saying and you need toyou need to be stronger you need to stopbeing like a walk or a pushover and Iwas just like it's just who I am as inand I was always confident that if Ididn't become this again I assumed ithad to be a nasty dictation person and Iwas as long as I just be myselfsomewhere along the line I will get therightkind of people around me and and maybe Ihave developed some level ofassertiveness over the last few yearsbut I've certainly now got a team aroundme who I can trust and they know me frommy skills I know them for their skillsand it certainly helped but I think youhit the nail on the head there where yousaid it's a skill to learn and and in myhead it's always been if I come acrosstoo assertive are people gonna think I'ma bully or embossing axe or whatever itis so yeah that's really interesting Ithink I think people can definitelyresonate with that good yeah definitelyso penny what's your biggest fear umI suppose my biggest fear is currentlyis long-term sustainable income becausewe you know when you lose everything andI'm it's amazing some people I'mattracting now as co2 coach them is alot of people in their 50s that havehuge skills and but they haven't reallybeen able to manage their business lifethe way they needed to and and createthat sustainable income so I loveworking so I'm going to be very happyworking well into my 70s and Beyond ifpeople still have me but creating somesense of security into my old age is isprobably what what I suppose drives mebut also drives me negatively because itis also a fear okay that's interestingso a bit of a shameless plug here haveyou thought about property investing asI sort of yes I've not anywhere nearthat place to be able to even considerthat well if you ever ask them please doreach out yeah I will I appreciate thatand I will and I think we'll definitelydo that much thank you so much whatwe're gonna do now is actually we'regoing to completely mix it up now we'regoing to go into what I call the funpart of the show so at this stage of theshow all I'm gonna do is literally askyou the most random questions that I canthink of from my list in front of meyou've got no idea what I'm gonna askyou we're gonna do the buzzer for about60 to 90 seconds so there are no rightor wrong answers so literally just saythe first thought that comes into yourhead oh gosh that's very good god yes nono you'll be absolutely fine okay we'regonna start in three two onewhat did you eat for breakfast my shakethe ability to fly or be invisible liewhat is the best thing about being anentrepreneur Breeden if you couldeliminate one thing from your dailyroutine what would it beexercise what is the best gift anyonehas ever given to you my children wouldyou rather have a rewind button or apause button on life pause don't saywhere your fame o'moneyyour proudest moment my childrengraduating your favorite food choiceokay Netflix our YouTube Netflix yournumber-one goal this year to help 34people achieve their dreams yourfavorite TV show ever pride andprejudicewould you rather know how you would dieor when you were dying how if you couldsit with one person in the world for anhour who would it be my husband speakall languages or be able to speak toanimals all speak to animals and finallyif you could abolish one thing in theworld what would it bereligion okay fantastic so that's theend of the fun part of the show itwasn't that hard was itno that's very good okay brilliant sowe're almost at the end of the show nowI just got the last final few questionsI just want to ask you penny and now thenext question is about reflection soobviously hindsight's a wonderful thingwhere we can always think of ways to getourselves somewhere quicker easier orwith less heartache but I guess thejourney also teaches us a lot as well sowhat I want to know is if knowingexactly what you know now you could goback to a younger penny and maybewhisper something in their ears toinspire her for the journey that liesaheadwhat would you say it'll all be okay Ithink I've probably just give her thatcomfort really just that reassuranceit's just the reassurance yeah and thatactually suddenly brings us to the lastquestion then what for the show andagain this is something asked for all ofmy guests and it's about legacy so if in150 years time science fails to save usall and all that's left is this book andthis book is about penny and her lifeand everything she's accomplished andall of the great wonderful thingsfirstly what would the title of the booktell us and secondly what would theblurb at the back read to us cost I offthe cuff yeah well the first the title Ithought was love okay and it would justsay that that love is the most powerfulforce in the world and the more that youcan live within that energy and be thatenergy and give that energy the betteryour life will be thank you for sharingokay brilliant so that brings us toliterally the end of the show and justbefore I leave penny what I want to dois give you a chance to connect with theaudience so if you wouldn't mind couldyou please tell everyone listening howthey could reach you and maybe if youhave time and the capacity for them tomaybe engage with you that's very kindthank you so I'm on Twitter so at pennypower I'm on LinkedIn so I'll be easilyfound as penny power I'm on Facebook butunfortunately I think I've just aboutreached that five thousand limits andI'm absolutely rubbish and got to put mypage right but I don't have a page I'vegot a lovely community on Facebookcalled the business cafe global andthat's a very caring very honest andreal community of small businesses I'mon Instagram as penny F power and then Ihave a website which is penny power UKand on there there's different contactforms that's fantastic and what I willdo is I will put all of those details inthe show notes thank you that's verykindno no you're very welcome I'll also puta link to the book as well because I'mlooking forward to reading that myselfand I just want to say once again pennythank you so much for your time todayit's actually been a fascinating talkeven the stuff we spoke about before theepisode and I just wanna thank you foryour time I want to thank everyone athome as wellthanks for listening wonderful andremember this podcast is absolutely freeso all we ask in return is for you toshare this with a friend and drop us afive star review over on iTunes have anawesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 18- "On the other side of adversity" - Tiana Barnwell #18Tagline: "I don't want my story to be about my struggle...I want it to be Tiana Barnwell helped people, she came back, she gave back, she did it."Tiana Barnwell is a shining example of what determination and focus can bring you. With a vision at 7 years old to go to Spelman College she achieved graduation via a few years in foster care (kinship) disrupting her life but never stopping her achieving her dreams. As stated in the subtitle, less than 3% of foster care children graduate from a 4-year college degree so its a shining example to all those out there, anything is possible. With such a wise head on her shoulders and a why that far exceeds her own personal goals Tiana is destined for stardom in helping people through her real estate dreams. Now graduating with job offers from Goldman Sachs she pursues her next adventure and continues to grow and shine a light on the world.I urge you all to follow this incredible story and women who will be a household name sooner rather than later.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Twitter: https://twitter.com/_tkvnggInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/_tianakv_/?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=xsp7wlt6vctqHave an awesome day#JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the showso today's story is one that is veryclose to my heart and I'm sure a lot ofyou will resonate with this story yousee I was on Twitter a few weeks ago andI read this devastate in fact that only3% of children who go into foster careactually come out with a degree now Iwas very very excited and actuallyremember jumping up in bed when Ireached out to this individual and I gotan instant response because Icongratulated Tiana having read that shewas one of those three percents whoactually graduated and so she'seffectively gone from foster care toGoldman Sachs which is the company whohave actually taken her on and I was soproud of heryeah at this time I had no idea who shewas I knew nothing about it personallynow the reason it touched my heart isbecause four of my siblings have comefrom the foster care system and it'ssomething where I try and be an advocatefor him maybe through this show maybe inpersonal life as well where I want themto know that there are no limits and noboundaries on what you can achieve inlife and Tiana is a shining example ofthat and I hope you genuinely enjoy thisepisode because you see a girl here withso much passion and enthusiasm forwanting to change the world she's alsofrom New York so it was always great toget somebody from overseas on here andalso to give them a platform wherehopefully this can help her in terms ofraising her profile inspiring otherchildren but I urge you to stay towardsthe end of the show because she sayssomething that's really really importantand it really made me think afterreleasing this show because obviouslytiles are important and getting you guysto listen to the stories and engage isimportant and she says something at theend that really made me think about howshe wants to be remembered so hopefullyyou enjoy it without further ado we'regoing to jump straight into it and justlet me know your thoughts in relation toher final words thank you okay welcometo the show and today I am very gratefulto have Tiana on the show today somebodywho actually reached out to veryrecently haven't seen her stories sofirstly I just want to welcome Tiana tothe show Turner welcome and how are youdoing today I'm doing well blessed andhighly favored thank you are you doingtoday I'm very well thank you as wellthank you no Tiana is actually from NewYork I believe is that correct yes I'mfrom New York but I currently go tocollege in Atlanta Georgia okayfantastic so I think it's reallyimportant obviously for the listeners ofthis show to hear a little bit aboutyourself a little bit about your storybecause for me personally I've got asoft spot for your story but I thinklet's tell the audience a little bitabout yourselfso I'm Tiana I was born and raised inNew York and I currently attend collegestomache College in Atlanta Georgia so Ididn't really get here the easiertraditional way I was actually placed inthe foster care when I was in highschool my freshman year of high schooland with that came a lot of baggagethere were court dates there weretherapy deeds there was just there's somuch baggage that came along with beingplaced in the foster care and it kind ofdiscouraged me a little bit fromapplying to my top choice which wasfilming I kind of just wanted to stay inNew York just relax just just get outand and kind of just just be me andinitially I before I was placed in thefoster care I had not really toldanybody what was going on in my life Iwas just kind of just going to schoolgoing home occasionally staying with myaunt sometimes and finally I decided tospeak up and speak out about what wasgoing on and that led to me being placedin foster care and I wasn't in fostercare and what it's not a typical storywhere I was placed in foster care at theage of twoor something like that was placed infoster care about 14 and I the main goalwas to return the parent so what I hadto do is I just got a therapy with mymom go to therapy alone as well and justwork through the issues that were goingon and fortunately I was able to returnthe parent and my mom and I have such agreat relationship right now so have yougot any siblingsyes I do have two sisters okay in thehouse with my mom and I and my fatheralso has children so I have about tenSidley okay and in terms of going intokinship ie foster care was thatsomething that was only yourself or wasit also the same with your siblings aswellI'm just I was placed into foster careactually okay well I think the positivething is what you touched on at the endis that you've got a great relationshipwith your birth mother how was your stayand experience with in foster care so myexperience was it was good becausebecause it was kinship care I was ableto stay with my art I did have to meetwith a social worker every week and Idid have to do certain things like go totherapy speak with a life coach and thefoster care agency I was actually reallyamazing there the New York foundling Imean they provide they providedeverything I could ever need so I had atherapist I had a doctor who I couldalways go to who was actually located inthe same facility as my therapist andthen I had amazing social workers whowould come check on me and not onlycheck on me but make sure thateverything with my well-being was okaymake sure that was meant to be okay andeven just take me out and and just talkto me and also they provided a lifecoach it was so amazing because I wasable to talk about different goals thatI had and being able to to just try andgrow as a person so I think for anyonelistening now Tiana you probably don'tknow this yourself I was actually asocial worker for a very short amount oftime as well oh yeah so I mean thereason I reached out to you is obviouslyI explained earlier for my siblings comefrom the care system so I gave upmy initial job as a project manager tobecome a social worker to kind of Isuppose change the world and try andhelp children in your situation or inworse situations I mean I'm sure you'veheard the horror stories so I have a lotof admiration for social workers sadly Ithink especially in this country they'rethey're put under a hell of a lot ofstress and it's a very very difficultjob so I'm just glad that you managed toget some good social workers who wereable to obviously help you help youdevelop as you explained earlier so if Imay I mean that's giving me a little bitabout yourself what would you likegrowing up because for me I thinkthere's got to be personality traitswithin you that have brought out somelevel of determination dedication interms of going on in and achieving adegree because I've done a degree andit's no easy feat so I think firstlycongratulations on that but thank youwhat was life like growing up was it wasit difficult or was it just this badspell around when you turned 14 prettymuch an average life I moved around alot so I was able to make friends thebad spell did just happen when I turned14 and that's when things kind of gotdifferent but as a child I was alwaysdeterminedI always knew what I wanted like Iwanted to go to Spelman since I wasabout seven and I knew that I had goalsthat that were bigger than them being anastronaut or being being something ofthe such I knew I wanted to do somethingthat that was gonna make a difference inthe world and like like I currently havemy goals and everything and then when Iturned 14 that's when I kind of just wasunsure myself and I was well I don'tknow what to do I don't know if I'mgonna do what I actually want to do Idon't know if I'm gonna go to the schoolI actually want to go to so that's whenI all of the kind of negative thoughtsset in and crept in and I was able totalk them out like through therapy andeverything and kind of just say wellthis is hard for you and this is whatI'm going through you know I had so muchI had so many goals I wanted toaccomplish I had so much in me that Ijust wanted to get out and spread andfrom between the ages of like 14 to 17it was really hard for melashing out and just not being thequestion that I was destined to be okaywell that's interestingfirstly I think you've got a very wisehead for a 21 year old to be writingdown your goals and having such bigaspirations I know when I was 21 thelast thing I was thinking about was mygoals it was more about where's the nextpie or what we do tonight so it's niceto know that obviously you yes you'vebeen through adversity during the periodof 14 to 17 but I think it's importantthat we stress especially for thelisteners here that the importance ofgoal-setting and this is something Isuppose I do now as a slightly older manis writing down your goals because Ithink there's a power when you writedown your goals and especially yourselfyou knew that you wanted to spreadsomething else you knew you had thesegoals where you really wanted to make adifference in the world similar to whatI'm trying to do here in this podcastcould you share any of those goals ifyou wouldn't mind yes so my main goal isto actually open a chain of hotelsinternationally I'm starting in Trinidadand I want to do hotels because hotelsare not going anywhereeven with disruptors like Airbnb VRBOand things of that naturehotels are always gonna be around andthey can always adapt to fit ontoplatforms such as Airbnb and hotels orsomething that is that is gonna bring ina lot of money and I and I need requiresfinancial stability because once thehotel is thriving I'm gonna be able toput some of that revenue back into thecommunity that the hotel is located inabout four to five percent of my revenuefrom that hotel and then I also want totake about six to eight percent of therevenue and bring it back to communitieslike the one I'm doing in New York orsome of the communities that I seearound Atlanta so that way I can createeconomic stimulation in environmentswhere people don't really have all ofthe resources they need so I want toopen up job centers recreation centersand park so that everyone in a communitycan benefit from this hotel that I haverather than whether they're young or oldor unemployed or employ and just havea backbone unity in the community thetype of community that I grew up in nowthat's really my goal so that way so sothat way the community that I'm buildingin is benefiting and in the communitywhere I came from is benefitting so thatthere's no one left out that's soinspiringthat's incredible I'm sitting heresmiling I mean I know you can't see yetthen really I'll just say there's oneticket she caught me 21 just here and Imean actually giving me goosebumpsbecause there's a couple of thingsactually I want to touch on that sofirstly your awareness to themarketplace so I'm a property investoras well full-time so I also deal anddouble in air B&B and book it calm sothe fact that you're aware of theirpotential threats to the competition Isay as a hotel is fantastic I assumeyou're going back to Trinidad becausethat's where your roots are initiallyI've had some friends from there and wego at least once a year and visit and Ijust heard such amazing things and Iknow that the hotel industry is boomingover there especially with things likecarnival okay that's really interestingand then the fact that you still want tobring that back to where your currentcommunity is right now and that's in NewYork I believe yes communities that thatmean mmm I love that I love it it's it'sfunny you said that actually because Iwrote I was doing when I'm a Instagrampost this morning now I always try andsay like inspirational motivationalstuff and a lot of the reasons I do thatit's kind of like must me talking tomyself if that makes sense so I'll throwsomething out into the atmosphere andit's kind of just me basically trying tomotivate myself in that moment if thatmakes sense and one of the things I saidtoday was like I think it's an old quoteis be the change that you want to see inthe world and I just get that from youthat what you're trying to do is tryingto create this almost like a ripplebutterfly effect within your communityand I just think that's really reallyinspiring and I'm sure people listeningto your story and watching you do theseamazing things which Tom I'm confidentyou're gonna do I think it'd just be bewonderful to see thank you thank you somuch absolutely so I'm quite eager tofind out aboutpeople in terms of their routine and thereason I'm very sort of focused onroutine is because I believe motivationwears very thin in life and I thinkdiscipline is very very importantespecially if you want to achievesubstantial goals a bit like yourself socould you just kind of give us a day inthe life of tiana and the kind of thingsthat you do maybe that younger peoplelistening to you now who maybe want tofollow your footsteps or takeinspiration from your story can perhapsimplement well so my daily routine I'maway at school right now so I don'treally have to say anything day-to-daybut I do start my day the same way everyday and what I do is as soon as I openmy eyes I checked the time and once thesame prayer I say you know good morningDonald thank you for putting life intomy body for breathing air into my lungsfor putting a beat into my heart andthen from that from there I go on I talkto God about different things I want toaccomplish throughout the day I talk toGod about my friends about my familyonly just different things just so thatI can maintaining and continue tostrengthen my relationship with God soafter that I get a find my clothes Ilived with my best friend on campus sotypically after I like get up andstretch and everything I walk into herroom she thanks God for open your eyessister chat we talk it doesn't matterabout what we just talk and we get likeenergy flowing happiness flowing goingand some marriages do my daily routineto get ready and everything and then Igo outside and I I'm gonna mount us sotypically it's sunny I got outside and Isit in the side for as long as I canjust so that I have energy from the Sunjust so that I'm happy because you knowit's like instant happinessabsolutely absolutely really so I makesure I'm saying the Sun and I stand inthe specific spot on campus directly infront of the stomach college mouse in itand I talked to my friends they'll comejoin me or something like that and thenI just go about my day and stay hydrateddoing random word when the financethroughout the day I'm in my senior yearcurrently so a lot of my a lot of myrandom data bank finance are things justkind of the last-minute things I need tograduate like different surveys I haveto do different checklists I have tolook at things like thatand I always make time to spend myfriend starts and then throughout theday make sure I'm begging God throughoutthe day and focusing on my goals likewhenever I lose sight of why I'm doingsomething just say you know Tiana it'sbigger than this it's more than this socourse you know I just keep going justkeep going I love that I love it that'sso powerful I mean obviously your day today is gonna change once you fullygraduate and then you're going toemployment but I think there's certaincharacteristics you've said there suchas your gratitude and your goals andobviously that's probably through yourconnection with God way sort of portraythose I think that's really reallyimportant it's something that I'vestarted doing recently myself I wake upevery morning and I write three thingsthat I'm grateful for and then I willlook at my goals and I just thinkespecially in life when life doesn'talways go the way we planned just havingthat rooted at the start of the day it'sonly helps move us forward so I thinkthat's really really powerful that youdo that so when things are going badthen if we just go back to that in thatperiod say for instance where you were14 to 17 you were feeling lost slightlyoff track I suppose in your life wasthis gratitude element of your lifesomething that you kind of sidelined orwas she just very difficult with all thetoil more that was going on honestly itwasn't there okay it wasn't there I wasjust wake up go to schooljab court no drug therapy okay what Ihave to do today is like I wanting itfor example a sophomore year and the endof freshman year I played sports so Iwas like can I even go to practice todayor do I have to do something else ohgreat I have to do something elseperfect let me just tell coach I can'tmake it again and there was just kind oflike frustration like you know I can dothis I have to do that alright I'm justready to go to bed I just want to go tosleep juice like the only place I reallywant it to be one school and there wouldbe points where I couldn't go to schoolbecause I had to go to court orsomething it's a I've to go to court ormaybe the doctor to get checked out orsomething like that and all I wanted todo was go to school I have a good timewith my friends and see my friends andmy favorite teachers okay okay that'sinteresting so again something I justwant to pick out there the thing thatkeeps you rooted now and so focused interms of achieving your goals wasmissing during those four years yeah andthis is an important thing so I alwayswhen I work with people I try and getthem to have some sort of good routineie through discipline so for exampleworking out staying hydrated beinggrateful and I think these thingsalthough they might seem tedious atfirst if you let them slip by thewayside life can kind of become a bitchaotic and I know myself especiallywhen I'm up in the morning I try and getthese small wins in first thing in themorning and that certainly helps meI suppose tackle the day and I thinkyou've probably noticed that Nabal withyourself as well yeah okay so just goingback to the whole 14 to 17 year oldcommon I graduated looking at where youare now what would you tell a child whomay feel different who may recognizethat they're from or they've had to gointo kinship or foster care maybestruggling through that level ofadversity would you give them any sortof advice or is there anything that youthink you could perhaps recommend tothem so they don't really lose focus andgo down the path I suppose 97% of theother people do where they kind of fallback into the system again yes Idefinitely have advice when you when youstart to feel yourself like becomingsomebody who you know you're not that'swhen you got to step in and you got tosay you know what this isme this is not who I am this is not howI act and you have to really just catchyourself you have to you have to be ableto take notice when you're changing andfrom that point that's when you need tostart talking to yourself that's whatyou need to start writing your goalsthat's when you need to start planningthings and once you start planning andonce you start talking to yourself andonce you start talking to other peopleas well that's when things are gonnachange you're gonna want to set goalsyou're gonna want to have hope you'regonna want to think long term one thingthat really helped me was thinking longterm I knew that I wanted to get toSpelman and for for a few years I didn'tlose sight of stomach but once Irealized Spelman is where I want to beand I know Stormin is right where I wantto be that's when I was able to get thehelp I needed us and I was able to talkto people and do exactly what I neededto do to get this film and despite likebig years I've struggled in the yearsthat I didn't really have what it whatit took to get me to spell it I mean youalso gotta just be prepared because it'svery difficult it's difficult because itseems like you're all alone it seemslike you're not you don't have anyone inyour corner you don't know what's goingon you don't know what's coming next butyou always have to have hope and youhave to have faith you have to doesn'tmatter which God and pray to you have tohave faith in you have to try toestablish a relationship one thing thatI can say is I didn't really have arelationship with God that day I reallydidn't get such a strong relationshipwith God until I got to college that'samazing that's erm that's really usefulthank you for sharing that so there's acouple of things I've just taken fromthat is the first one is obviouslyhaving hope or faith and I think you hitthe nail on the head there it doesn'tmatter what God you believe in I thinkjust having faith in a better future ina better circumstance or not an outcomesomewhere in the distant future is goingto keep you inspired and I think youtouched on it earlier as I when you saidTiana this is bigger than you and Ithink when you have a purpose that'smaybe slightly bigger than yourself thatcan keep you going as well definitelythat's really really important butanother thing you touched on there and Isuppose I can relate to it to somedegree is when you saidfeeling of being alone and I can relateto children in the care systemespecially within the UK because I feelthat do you feel that they're alonesometimes and there might notnecessarily have that support networkand I assumed you obviously had a verygood network around you I know you saidyou had good social workers you had alife coach how was your friends or yourextended family within that time as ohdid you have a good community there aswell who served as my foster mom throughkinship care I had a great relationshipwith her and with my grandmother and Imaintain the relationship my sister ummy extended family they didn't reallyknow too much about what was going on soI did rely on my relationship with thefamily that I had in New York and I relyon the relationship with my therapist aswell you're probably fortunate that youhad that relationship there because yournetwork can determine your situation somuch if you've got a bad Network thenobviously you're almost destined forfailure I suppose yes yes okay so whereyou are right now things are obviouslygoing the way that you wanted to you hadthis dream from a seven-year-old thatyou want to go to Spelman you had alittle bit of a wobble in between butwhere you are right now you've pickedyourself back up you're now focused youfound God you find this new sense ofbelief what in this current moment nowscares you I'm graduating in 33 days andwhat scares me is that I won't be readyI'm not prepared to go into this worldand live as an adult and handleeverything that comes along with beingan adult that's that's one of my biggestfears right now I'm kind of I've been onthis campus for four years I'm kind ofscared of course no man has prepared mefor everything and they've given me thelessons that I need to go anywhere butI'm still afraid of what's waiting forme outside of these gates beyond filmingand ex-kgb cable of course I plan forthis is my I'm trying to get out of hereI gotta graduate but there's next yearif something that's so unknown I've beenin school my entire lifeand I'm leaving and starting somewherenew I'm sorry fries I'm just I'm cuttingthat that's my favorite I'm gonna failI've been waiting so long to get hereand I'm gonna leave the gates yeahthat's so interesting that you say thatbecause here you are having this dreamas a seven year old you know literallyon the cusp of you've achieved it you'vedone it now all of a sudden you've gotthis new sense of fear and I suppose onethat shows your vulnerability which ithink is it's nice that you're you'redisplaying that because I think whatevertransition you go through in life it'san element of growth and you can neverreally be ready for growth so it isdaunting whether it's getting marriedwhether it's having a child or whateverthat particular circumstances but fromthis very very short encounter withyourself let me tell you something youare a hell of a lot more intelligentthan I am I seem to do okay after Igraduated I went to university twice soI went back to study my Social Workmasters again at transitions so youremotional intelligence is fantastic Ithink also you have an advantage and youshould always remember this is that thelife lessons that you've been througheven during that short period of timefrom 14 to 17 to 21 it's built a levelof resilience in you that you may notknow that you have yet but I amconfident that if you continue yourfaith in God and your spirituality andyou keep having these goals to producethese incredible hotels in Trinidad youwill be absolutely fine you've gotnothing to be afraid of you're very veryintelligent thank you so much that meansso much hopefully in about six monthstime I want to get a message from youwhether it's on Twitter or Instagram andjust tell me how easy is because I'msure you're gonna fly wherever you goabsolutely I'm looking forward tohopefully we maybe get you back on aswell just to kind of see the word thatyou're doing as well so that would befantastic as well absolutely so Isuppose we kind of touched on this nextpart a little bit I'm always fascinatedby the way people think and one of thethings with myself is I have this crazything where I motivate myself bythinking about the worst things that canever happenso I call it morbid nightmares and Iwill wake up in the morning and I wouldthink of likethe worst thing that could possiblyhappen and what that does is it kind ofshifts my ass into gear to go out thereand seize the day and really try andmake a difference try and help as manypeople as I possibly can and really tryand leave nothing to chanceso that's just my kind of thing thatkeeps me motivated what kind of thingsin this current moment right now keepyou motivated to go out there and buildthese hotels and then change the worldI'm not gonna get employment aftercollege so maybe I should get up so Ikind of use days where I'm kind ofslacking I don't know I gotta go to thisclass because if you don't go to thisclass then you're going to fail and ifyou fail then you can't graduate if youdon't graduate you're letting your oldfamily down if you let your family knowyou're still gonna be at Spelman foranother semester and somebody has to payfor Spelman for another semester whichis not gonna it's not gonna fly withanybody so I'm not yelling me didn't getout of bed her name is MIA okay andshe's actually so when I was in kinshipcare she was in the house as well she'smy daughter okay um and she's reallysomeone that keeps me going becauseshe's she looks up to me and she's oneof my favorite people in the world Imean and I'm I'm really excited cuz sheactually let me want to spell me but Isee you know this shot is so bright andI know that she looks up to me I knowthis child is so destined for great newsmy under sisters she's eight yeah it'snot setting you of course Ohbut my younger cousin is 17 and I got Iwant to be there for her and I want herto continue to look up to me I want herto see me and say you know what that'sFiamma this is my family I wanted to gobeyond what I'm doing I want her to bebetter than me stronger than me and andI just love her so much I just love thatso I've got three points I want to touchon just from your answer there so thefirst one is it's nice to know I'm notthe only person thinking of morbidnightmares in the morning so there's youand me there so that was fantasticbecause it does really help I mean Isuppose some people have afight-or-flight response and knowingyour personality is probably similar tomine that we have all these kind ofmorbid nightmares or thoughts and thenall of a sudden we fight it as opposedto running away from it so I thinkdepending on your personality I choosewhich way to go the second thing is I'msure Mia is so proud of you and I'm sureyou're a great great role model to herso you should be very proud of yourselfthat you have someone who looks up toyou and I'm sure you're doing anincredible job with that the last thingthat I really love that you said isthere's a brilliant quote and the quotesays they want you to do good but neveras good as them right and I I get thatbecause I see it so often within likethe industry and I suppose when you gointo corporate world or whatever you doin life you're gonna you're gonna seepeople who will help you up and in themoment they might see you surpassingthem they will automatically eitherswitch off or their will their won'thelp you as much if that makes sense andit's beautiful thing that you want Mirto be stronger than you to be betterthan you because that's exactly how I amwith my siblings so my siblings are allyounger than me and my dream in life isfor them to have it all figured out bythe time they hit my age today and Iwanted more to be financially moresecure I wanted to be physically bettermentally better so it's just lovely tohear somebody say that and hopefully ifMia hears this back as well I sure knowhow important she is to you as well yeahabsolutely yeah just don't start cryingI can imagine you getting emotionalabout that's lovelywhat we actually do now is we go into alittle bit of a fun part of this show soif you're ready I'm gonna literally jumpstraight into that we're gonna start inthree two onewhat did you eat for breakfast water isthat it okay sorry doc the ability tofly or be invisible your favoritesubject at school money your fame playyour proudest moment your favorite foodprayer words Netflix or YouTube Netflixyour number-one goal this yearfavorite TV show ever would you ratherknow how you would die or when you weredying how your favorite hobby love ormoney love books or movies if you couldsit with one person in the world for anhour who would it be your worst fear asa child being forgotten words what isyour biggest addiction my phone yourfavorite place in the world that'soutside speak or languages will be ableto speak to animals if you could abolishone thing in the world what would it beand finally your favorite song ever umit's called it's supposed to be afavorite song okay okay I've not heardthat one but I've just written it downso I check it out afterwards alrightI'll check it out anyway okay brilliantso back to the interview part we've gottwo more questions I would really wantto ask you so knowing exactly what youknow now Tiana with all the knowledgeand all the wisdom that you've acquiredin your short 21 years on this earth ifyou could go back to a time let's use 14as an example where things had juststarted to take a turn probably for theworst knowing what you know now and youcould whisper something to a youngerTiana at 14 years old what would you sayI would tell her to keep fighting keepfighting keep trying and I gave up for aperiod of time so I would stress don'tgive up just keep going you know asas instead of finding Nemo just keepswimming just keep swimming and I wouldI would tell me that I'll say it's allworth it it all works out and you justhave to keep going and keep pushing keepstriving I love it just keeps him inNemo style I love it okay brilliantsuddenly that actually brings us to thelast question and the last question I'llagain always ask my guess is if in 150years time science fails to save us alland all that is left is a book and thisbook is about Tiana and it's about yourlife and everything that you've achievedall the wonderful hotels and everythingamazing that you've done in the worldfirstly what would the title of the booksay and then secondly if the person wasto turn over to the back what would ittell us about you I think the titlewould be on the other side of adversityor life not according to plan and theblurb on the bag would kind of theywould talk about it would talk about mygreatness as opposed to like everythingthat I've been through my struggle wouldbe such a small portion maybe twosentences but I really want my story tofocus on not what what I was able toaccomplish and who I was able to helpand how my plan my businesses were ableto give back and create something invarious communities and multiplecommunities across America I don't wantit to be this girl was in foster careand she made it out and now this is whatshe did I wanted to be Tiana bond willhelp people Tiana bar wolf came that shecame back she gave back and she was shewas there hmm I don't want my story andfoster care to be the main focus in mylife I just love that I think that's soso powerful and I think so many kidsfrom foster care or people that havebeen through so much adversity probablywant the same thing so thank you forsharing that actually because that'swhat I think the world should have moreof but I think we're also in a societywhere if you say TR and Obama came fromfoster care and achieve this it kind ofsells more papers it gets more retweetsit gets more teachingwell I think is brilliant because justthinking about this episode that we'vejust recorded now it's been a very happyinspiring episode and I'm very gratefulfor you taking that approach as well andsteering the episode that way as opposedto we could sit here we could cry aboutthe year of what it was like going intokinship care for example but insteadwhat you said is this was a wobble in mylife you reflected on it you realizedthis was the person that you wanted tobecome the person that Tiana was meantto become is kind of strive and do somany more amazing things and you managedto change that you change your habitsyou went to university you're nowgraduating and I just think I stand hereand I mean to be honest we're completestrangers but I'm just very very proudof how far you've come and once again Ithink you're gonna do amazing thingsthank you for sharing your story thankyou thank you so much for reaching outthank you for giving me the opportunityto come on podcasting and talk and youknow potentially touch so many peoplewho are in a place where I wasabsolutely I think we should allactually take one great lesson from whatyou've just said is that we shouldn'tjust look at people for theircircumstances or how they're positionedin a family we should rather look attheir greatness that they already havewithin them and I and I've tried to dothis with my siblings as well becausethey all have their own unique skillsand like talents and I think you'veshared a very very valuable lesson thereso before I close the show Tiana what Iwant to do is give people an opportunityto maybe interact with you who havefollowed this story who resonate withyour story to maybe follow you onInstagram Twitter or whatever othersocial media platforms that you use soif you wouldn't mind could you pleaseshare some of your platforms yes so myInstagram is underscore CIA and a K Vunderscore and my my Twitter underscoreTK V in Gigi okay fantastic what I willdo is actually take the exact addressesand I'll put them into the show notes aswell so people can literally from theepisode click it and then follow you andhopefully engagevia that I think also if you wouldn'tmind as well let's keep in touch becauseif it's anything to do with real estateI'm always interested in perhapsinvesting or being a part of it andagain if there's any sort of socialenterprises or anything you want to dosocially I'd always try and find time totry and make an impact on that as wellso certainly please do you keep in touchI will I will definitely keep in touchwith you an amazing yeah yeah I thoughtI always like to try and mix it up buthonestly I just want to say once againthank you to you I want to also thankthe listeners at home thanks forlistening thank you and remember thispodcast is absolutely free so all we askin return is for you to share this witha friend and drop us a five star reviewover on iTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 17- "Wonderfulness of Life" - Louise Blyth #17 Part 2Tagline: "Be the captain of your fate and master of your soul"Louise Blyth, is an incredible lady who has experienced losing the love of her life, George Blyth tragically from cancer. With cancer now affecting 1 in 2 families it is a common occurrence so many of us face in our day to day life. But unlike any other story Louise world took a massive turn upon the sad death of her spouse and soul mate.Experiencing a supernatural event during his last few days Louise beliefs, perceptions, outlook and whole world had been turned around where she found herself finding, what she describes as "the greatest love all of us could ever know"A 2 part special episode, this incredible story does not lean on an emotional tale which will have you in tears of sadness, despite its tragic theme. Instead, tears of happiness seeing someone recover from grief and finding a bigger purpose and understanding of her being in the world takes over the story's narrative and leaves you feeling rather refreshingly happy that in such a sad circumstance someone can continue their life in a positive, fulfilling way.Now a widow of 2 children, Louise has created The Wonderfulness of Life which focuses on, Happiness being a choice and a state of mind.I am sure you will all agree this story truly warranted two episodes and if anyone can take anything positive away from this, it is to cherish all the moments we have with our loves ones and find blessings in whatever cards we are dealt in life.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Website: https://www.thewonderfulnessoflife.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-blyth-207a7a49Instagram: https://instagram.com/wonderfulness_of_lifeFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/louise.Blyth83Have an awesome day#JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice Iam the host of the show so this isactually the second part of a two-partepisode so if anyone has accidentallystumbled across this episode firstplease do go back and listen to part onewhich was literally I a couple ofminutes ago now this episode isincredible and I want to keep those whohave literally followed it from Part onestraight to this part keeping it in flowso I'm gonna stop talking on the jumpstraight back into it so Louise endedthe last episode by talking about howshe was in the presence of something shedescribed is almost supernatural so whatwhat happened at the point of his deathis I went from not believing in God tobelieving in gods in the space of a weekand that has changed my life as much asGeorge's death has changed my life whichhas in turn changed my daily practicesif that makes sense and my day is nowrooted in some practices around faithbecause of that because I've never beenmore certain that God exists say couldyou elaborate on that I mean I've got noproblem missing out some of my pointlessquestions because this is this is moreprevalent if you wouldn't mind so whatwhat would you like me to elaborate onthe which part of the story just to putcontext into one interested in thislittle bit in particularly I am anatheist and the reason I say I'm anatheist now is because I grew up as aSikh and I was very I say somewhatreligious and when I heard I had it in aspace of 18 months I lost seven people66 family members and what and onefriend and I had a very similar outburstinprivate which have never cheat on Normawhere I had the kind of it was like itwas like when you shake about sorryapologies I said when you shake a bottleof coke and then all of a sudden tellyou you know whenever you talk about Godyou always get interrupted that's sofunny that your favorite so good youcould touch a rafter with us so weird aswell because that's never happened in apodcast previously yeah whenever youtalk about God you always getinterrupted Wowfor me my logic is just simple it'sstick to science and it's if there was agod then kids wouldn't suffer kidswouldn't just be killed there wouldn'tbe all this horrible stuff happening inthem and I've kind of justified it thatway but I just want to bring thisstraight back to you yeah so like I saidyou know I was an atheist I didn'tbelieve in God I didn't think God wasreal I thought that you know so I'veobviously grown up in the UK where I'vebeen to school where I've learnt Biblestories so I knew some of the Biblestories I knew about Jesus but I didn'tthink Jesus was the son of God I thoughtJesus was a good guy from you know twothousand years ago he'd done some greatthings and maybe over time his his hisachievements have maybe kind of beenexaggerated is how I it's genuinely howI looked at you know the gospel in theNew Testament and you know religionwasn't something that featured in mylife at all so the very fact that I feltI felt like I had nowhere else to turnwas and the fact that I tend to God Imean I can't still explain what it waslogically that made me do that becauseat that point in time I wasn't my brainwasn't working in a logical way it wasall based on heart not on head if thatmakes sense in terms of the actions thatI was that was undertaking but what whatthen led me to believe that God was realwas incredibly powerful so essentiallyand I'm really mindful now that I'm notgoing to do this survey at this storyit's justice which is why I'm writingthe story down because essentially whathappened was I was introduced tosomebody who I didn't know through areally really good family friends whoasked if they could pray for Joewhich you kind of go okay that's notthat weird that's that's that's not thatodd but what happened was and what andwhat I've realized since I picked it isthat that introduction came after I'dmade this cry so after I'd made this crythis family friend got in touch with meand said look I've met this girl and sheseems to be like a really devoutChristian and she didn't she's shethinks that maybe there's some level ofof healing prayers that we can do forGeorge now what I didn't know at thatpoint in time was their healing is youknow central to all of the stories ofwhat what Jesus did in the New Testamentso obviously Jesus did a huge amount ofmiraculous things which I always talkabout to get my head around like thishow can this person be doing all thesethings okay but there's a lots ofstories in the New Testament where Jesusheals people who have paraplegic who areblind who have bled for 12 years allthese different things so healing isessential to Jesus and the way in whichJesus can work and again I knew non ofthis and this girl had offered to prayfor isn't and offered prayers of healingand at this point in time I'm literallylike I'll take anything I'll take anyone course to give us anything we wereso desperate and again to cut a reallyreally long story short we ended up in asituation when George was quiteliterally on his deathbed and it was itwas hideous our and like he was hedeclined incredibly quickly so again Idon't want to sort of put fear intopeople's heart because this is a storyof beauty but you have to understand thepain that he was in to be able tounderstand the beauty and the miraculousof what happened because he was in an inan inordinate amount of pain so hebasically after that day when I went outand told me he wasn't gonna die anytimesoona few days later was admitted tohospital and just went downhill dayafter day after day and it was it wasdisgusting to have to watch him I meanhe he was in he couldn't eat he couldn'tdrink because his liver was so enlargedit was basically pushing against hisesophagus and his stomach and pushingkind of bile out of his mouth 24 hours aday which I'm really mindful that thisis kind of like quite Gorian quitebrutal but it was awful I mean this thiswas a man that was that was broken infront of me you know the guy that hadeight weeks beforego to Paris and I and I was kinda likewhereas my husband like whom is he likehe looked he looked like death like hischeeks will concave he was so weak hewas crying the whole time he his mum setwith him in the hospital because he wasabsolutely terrified to be left alone itwas it was every parts again you know ifyou think of sort of movies and storiesit was all of what you've seen on TV andin a film around what you think it'sgonna be and worse I literally just feltnumb sitting on watching him and Iwanted to this is gonna sound reallyawful as well I wanted to put him downso I I remember I had never been abeliever in euthanasia and actually I'mnot now because of my spiritual beliefsI'm not a believer in euthanasia but atthat point in time he was so ill but Iremember just being in the hospitalthinking this is horrendous there mustbe something that someone can do how isthis okay yeah human can sit here inthis much mental and physical pain thatthis is not alright of course so andthat and that also led me to keeplooking into other things and I waslooking at like I actually looked atcould I even like get him in my car anddrive him to Switzerland where there's aeuthanasia clinic oh yeah I even lookedat that one point it was so desperate soin amongst all of this absolutedesperation this kind of narrative withGod continued and this girl who I didn'tknow who had met a friend basicallyoffered to come and pray with us inNottingham so she came all the way fromLondon on the train for the day ask fornothingand I met her in the in the canteen ofthe hospital and I remember so nervousmeeting her as I thought oh my god isshe gonna be at one of these reallyweird religious fanatics like is shegonna kind of try and brainwashers isshe is she a bit odd she can ask me formoney these are all of the thoughts thatI had in my head and I remember I satwith her and I said to have reallyreally once believed in the healing andsort of stories and and powers thatyou're speaking of I just I've got to behonest with you like I don't reallybelieve in God I just don't think thatGod's be all like her just think it canbe and she she had a Bible out and sheshe held my hand and she just said to melook you knowI've got enough face for his face likedon't you don't need to worry about thatlike just relax like I can carry youlike I can believe for you and I canbelieve for George is what she said tome which literally felt like someone hadlifted this way because I felt like Iwas lying a little bit as well kind ofthing I can try to pretend that Ibelieve in this thing I don't knowanything it might in case it might workyou know so that day we prayed in Georgeis really in which again I probablydon't have the time to tell you all ofthe detail of what happened but thisgirl who came and prayed is now a reallyreally good friend is something called aprophetic Christian and that means thatbasically they can hear God in a waythat not maybe everyday person can andthey can hear really really clear thingsfrom God sometimes absolutelycrystal-clear messages like what yourbank account number might be just a sortof prove a point you know and it is atthe time I remember they're thinkingthis is odd this is like psychicmediumship I'm not really sure how Ifeel about this so we did these reallyreally beautiful prayers with her andthen during the prayers basically sheshe said look I've got a word for youand at this point in time I was like howdo you know where it is like you knowwhat's word so I've got a letter for youfrom God and I remember wanting to laughout loud and it was this black comedymoment because my husband sat on a beddying and I'm there with this girl I'venever met before who's praying andtelling me that I've got a word which isbasically a letter that she's written tome from God and I was sat there thinkingyou know this girl's off her rocker youknow this is absolutely mental buthonestly Orin what was written in theseletters so she'd written a letter to meand she'd written a letter for Georgeand what was written in these letters orwas just so us it was someone the newour hearts it wasn't it wasn't someonethat had looked me up on Facebook orInstagram and gone oh you Louise andyou've lived in Windsor and you've livedin France and you you've worked here andyou've got two kids it was things aboutme small details that I thoughtinconsequential that God knew it was myheart he spoke to my heart that day so Iwas amazed the word that was written forGeorge was equally as amazing and thenthere was sort of several things thathappened after that maiming so we walkedof that room and after that moment whenshe came and prayed in the roomthe-the-the sort of atmosphere in theroom tangibly changed and it wasn't itwas the it was the sort of spiritualatmosphere if that makes sense it kindof went from feeling dark and heavy tofull of life of an openness and I I wasjust on my knees literally exhausted andI remember saying to carrying that Ijust love what you've done I don't knowhow you've done it but you have boughtsome peace and it was it was tangiblethe creep the peace that she brought onthat day because it was the first timethat I'd seen George sort of soothed ifthat makes sense in all of themedication and everything that you'vebeen given so I just kind of said to herlike we maybe need to do a bit more ofthis she said to me but you can pray youcan learn how to pray like they're goingI can't pray I don't even think Ibelieve in God I don't know how you praylike what do I do with my hands how do Istandwhat do I say like I don't know how todo this you're gonna have to find mesomeone else that knows what they'redoingand basically what then happened was thenext day I went into the hospital afterthat night when I went home and put mykids to bed and done all the other livethings I still had to carry on doing Itried to pray for the first time and I'dreally struggled and I couldn't do it Iwas like this just feels like I'm acomplete fraud I'd tried to kneel downin my bathroom I remember like kneelingdown in my bedroom and putting my handstogether and I'm thinking what do I sayI can't do this this is already odd andthen the next morning I got up went tothe hospital at all walked into thehospital and that morning when I went inGeorge was laid on his bed and the Sunwas beaming into the room like onto hisface and he's laying with his arms openand he looked at me and he smiled and hesaid to me no he's what they're givingme I feel amazingI just feel amazing and I just startedto cry but I knew in that moment that hehadn't been given anything and I wentand spoke to the nurse and the nurselooked at all of his you know detailsand said he's not had anything he hadsome morphine at 1:00 a.m. it was nowlike 11:00 in the morning and she waslike it was enough morphine to maybelast him a couple of hours he'sdefinitely not had anything so I wentback to his room and I didn't say to himyou haven't hadbecause I kind of thought I don't wanthim to know that he hasn't had anythingif he thinks that the effort that he'shad is making people better I justdidn't want to sort of distract him fromthe absolute peace that he'dmiraculously found and he literally laidon the bed that day and just said to meit's all gone the pain is gonethe fear is gone we'd had theseheartbreaking conversations the daybefore before this this girl had arrivedto complain with us about what we didwith the kids like to be bringing thekids in to come and see him to saygoodbye and it was probably this soundsreally awful it was less than the kidsbut it was more for him because we knewthat our children was so little thatthey wouldn't remember it and he and hewas really emotional about that becausehe just didn't think he had the strengthto say goodbye and he didn't think hecould do it and he said to me I just Idon't he said that everybody is here nowwith me you know and honestly he wasn'tthe kind of person that spoken this theyalready he was not a spiritual guy likehe layed on this bed so at peace andsaid to me everything now is in my heartthe boys are here my love for you ishere my love all of my family is hereand it's like a bright burning ball ofenergy that's never gonna go and I wasjust I was absolutely overwhelmedbecause I remember thinking who is thisperson that's laid here because this ismy husband but it's not my husband and Ireally liked what he was saying to mewas completely the tree so I knew thathe believed it you could see itphysically in his body and that thatthen propelled me to go okay there'ssomething in what we've done here thisprayer whatever this prayer thing isit's worked there's something in it thatwe've got to do more of it maybe thiscan help him and that triggered me thento start writing letters to God so I'dalready been writing letters to Georgebecause I've mentioned earlier I wasseeing a psychologist and she'd said tome look like how do you communicate Isaid look I like to ride she said whyshe can write write write about thetrauma journal about it and I'd beenwriting letters to George every day inhospital all the things that were on myheart that I wanted to tell him that hedidn't have the energy to hear becausehe was so sick but I needed to kind oflet bubble out of my system so that thatthat night I went home and I wrote myfirst prayer to God and then what whatensued was every time I prayed and wrotea letter the girl in London who I didn'treally know who that well at the exactmoment that I would finish praying wouldwrite a response so she'd write back andit would be like it would be a responseto the prayers that I wrote and shedidn't know that I was writing them itwas just the most unbelievably beautifulstory so we had this you know we hadGeorge laying on his death bed in thisstate of peace in this state of perfectbliss and he was quoting scripture okayso George never read the Bible oranything and he was talking to me aboutperfect love which is alone for John inthe gospel and so we had that going onso we had the sort of miraculous bodilyvisible you know George George has gonefrom being in pain to being at peace Ihad this girl that I didn't know who wassomehow supernaturally connected and insync with me responding to my prayersevery time I it was like that old TomHanks movie you've got mail I write Iwrite I write on my iPhone I ordered mr.for my notes on my iPhone and every timeI literally press turn on the top of mytop right while I faint screen I'd get atext it would be just like you knowscripture responses words that gottapush you is used to frame as this iswhat God's put on my heart so thathappened and then there was just thisunbelievablepresence in the room that everybody wasdrawn to sit everybody at the hospitalwas drawn to George's room which I nowknow was the sort of you know what wouldcall in Christianity the Holy Spirit itwas the Holy Spirit was there it justwas pulsating through the room and whatwhat I find interesting now is that Iknow that we all actually recognize thatif that makes sense but we don't realizethat we recognize it because it is in uswe just don't know it and and everyonewho was there you know some people werereligious some people weren't buteverybody knew there was something goingon if that makes sense that the onlyuniversal recognition was that there'ssomething bigger at play here at thehospital you know they said to me afterGeorge died like we wish everyone coulddie in this way like wewe could document it and process it soeveryone could have this des nurses werecoming in on their days off to sit withhim and just be with him becauseincredible presents were so calming itled to a great friendship that I've madewith a with a pastor of a church and notsomething that we now go to every weekas he he was basically the person thatthen came and prayed with us every daybecause I had sort of said to this girlin London you're gonna have to find mesomeone to pray with because I knew myfriends I wasn't a person he wasreligious and so yeah it was just theway I frame it to people is I lost thelove of my life but I've gained thegreatest love all of us can ever knowand it was just so incredibly beautifuland I'm still trying to pick the storytwo years later and question you knowhow why you know what does this mean allof those are the things but ultimatelyall I know is that God is real and Godis good and you know Jesus is real tooyou know all of the stories that happenin the Bible now I have now I've gotthis understanding of the supernaturalthat I saw in that hospital room I canread those stories with the lens ofacceptance that I never had before and Iunderstand them and get that they didhappen and but I think we just I thinkin the society that we live in now wewant everything to be like Amazon Primetimelines you know and actually whatI've also very knows is that the timingsof the supernatural and the holy spiritare just not linked to earthly timing soyou know I can never answer questionslike you know why did you need sevenpeople in a row why did I lose myhusband and then three months later hismother died she dropped dead andsimultaneously to my husband dying mydad was diagnosed with stage four canceryou know says we it wasn't like life wasbeautiful on any show yeah it reallywasn't but what I did what I do youthink I'm what I do maintain is thereyou know cancer is not god-given and ifyou look for God he's always there evenin the bad situations but the badsituations are not always given by Godyou know like it's man's got three willright and someand the way in which we behave in in theworld that we now live in is driven byall three well it's not driven by Godbecause he made us that way so yeah Wowgot goosebumps yeah just a remarkablestory this gonna be in your novel yeahthis is gonna be in my novel and whatwould be amazing so I'm actually doingsome edits at the moment so I'm hopingto get the book out this year that's thelast thing so it would be it would bereally cool to like speak again mightwants the books available so I can sayto people yeah because there's sothere's such steps is the story on saveme levels and I also I'm hugely mindfulthere you know like I I like they say Ican't believe what's happened to mebecause I kind of look at it and go whatwhy like why was all of this way it wentfor us but it was and it is and I justnow feel really strongly about the factthat I have to do something with thistale and with this story you need toraise awareness of cancer to raiseawareness of what it is to live withcancer that it isn't the end of yourlife to raise awareness of the fact thatdeath is it's gonna be something thathappens to all of us and could be themost unbelievably beautiful experienceyou ever ever imagined and they're alsoyou need death is at the end and thatGod's God is real and God is here foryou and and loves you but I alsorecognize that just because I say thatdoesn't mean that I can impart thatbelief into life yeah I mean your yourtruth is your truth and everyone's gottheir own kind of truth I'm always opento anything really I mean you've saidsome certain things there that makeobviously make me think because from aspiritual perspective I have sinned andI have tail as many of them of stuffsimilar oh yeah I'm absolutely incheering my spiritual stuff and evenlike in terms of psychics and mediumsand I'm going to find a tangent here butI do believe in that supernatural powerI suppose or just the whole the fairytale story of this person just oneperson they're kind of I don't knowmaybe I've just got the wrong image ofof God when I said it you knew what theywere and I think that that's the caselike I think go back to the point thatyou made earlier about we have thisvision of our life should all be verytomkostik and we meet the dream partner andwe get the dream house and we get thedream kids and we do things by certainages and I think we're all for whateverreason book to believe that God is aperson on the cloud somewhere and I meanI'm no theological expert you know I'mtwo years into my journey of faith andI'm still understanding the Bible andgetting my head around there and whatthat means to me and how I live my lifebut equally I kind of go it's not theway that I ever thought it was if thatmeans I should be passionate aboutbecause I kind of have now reflected onmy life because of everything that'shappened and gone well I mean what Godwas actually there the whole timeI just didn't know him I didn't know noI didn't know how he worked I didn'tknow how he communicated I mean I if I'mhonest as a feminist have a huge beefwith the fact that he's always referredto as a man I mean I'm not I'm notdisputing that Jesus Jesus was a manokay but but God you know God is what heis and that's what it says in the Biblelike he is not man he's not woman he heis what he is and but he is called a hebecause of the time in which the Biblewas written which is when you know menruled the world not in the way that notthat the hopefully not yeah there's acertain but you said that you lost thegreatest love of your life or you didthen find the greatest love that wecould all will ever know and I just yeahI was so powerful food for thought forme absolutely because there are that Ithink I think we could know how youmentioned in that room and I was kind ofimagining like almost like watching afilm you know when you see him you Jobsand then the sun's beaming and thenwe've all probably had that feeling ofeuphoria with this dis just isn't normallife let's something else is here yeahand I get that and if anything is weirdbecause although I sometimes say okay Idon't believe in God anymoreI believe in every other thing like allthese miraculous character things soit's kind of okay maybe again is just mylanguage that I use language because Ifind that so fascinating and I couldtalk to you for hours just on that andsome of this stuff I've seen people dolike how you mentioned he was speakingScripture and stuff I've seen peoplespeak a different language that they'venever heard of yeah yeah yeah whatyeah yeah yeah is amazing Wow I'm justI'm just so happy that it's such anunfortunate circumstance that you'vemanaged to find some level of happinessyeah life life can be found in therelike it really really and I I feel likeI've been given a second chance at lifethrough my husband's death which is sodesperately sad and you know my greatestwish is that I could have thisperspective with him by my side but forwhatever reason it wasn't meant to bethat way and I'll only ever know thatreason when I am living and having withhim you know so and until then I have tolive the best life I can and thehappiest life I can for me and mychildren because that's all he wantedfor us and that's what God wants for ustoo so I just kind of go you know whatit's my choice you know I can choose forthis to be miserable and this can breakme or I can choose for it to make me andI know how to do this let it make youand let it also inspire you to shareyour story with as many people aspossible yeah with the perspective youhave so yeah yeah that's fantastic Wowokay fantastic this is actually gonna bemy first ever tea pot podcast because Iit was almost too good for me to kind ofquit off so I'm gonna actually make it atwo part show okay I think we could fiteverything in two parts as well and yesit's fantastic so you're actually thefirst ever two-part show and it's beenworth it honestly yeah could justresonate with so many things I'm surethey listen as well as well yeah soadversity I think we've definitely hitthat yeah I'll on the head there amillion times over and I'm done like Isaid early I'm just so happy that you'rein a much better place now what now thennow that you've found God and you'veyou've almost found this new perspectiveI suppose what scares you now my biggestfear is not being able to live a faithfilled life so I I fear that I won'tthat something may happen that imbalanceis this faith because actually I feellike with my faith I can and nothingscares medoes that make sense my biggest fearwould be to not for whatever reason tonot believe in God anymore absolutelybecause of what you believe God hasgiven you yeah and God has for ISM forall of us so I kind of feel like withGod by my side I don't fear anythingfeel invincible I'm not so not to saythat it wouldn't be difficult andincredibly painful and all of those arethe things but I know that God would bewith me but if for whatever reason Ilost God or I lost my connection withGod that that's my greatest fear now tonot not have that okay I understand thatokay and in terms of so your motivationI suppose we kind of touched on itearlier in terms of persevering andgoing forward is that now to kind ofshare your message further and try andenlighten other people yes and why Isuppose my purpose now is to is to sharemy story so I always say to people Idon't wish the circumstances that I havefound myself in upon anyone it's beenhell to live through but what I do wishis the perspective if it's given me andI realize that I've always been likethis fast track version of life yeah sobecause I've had something so bad happento me it's maybe meant that it'sexploded in a way that's been so gooddoes that make sense yeah yeah maybethink about the situation logically andwhat I'm hugely mindful of and I knowI've said this already is I don't expectthat other people I mean you're gonnacome to faith with the same power andpassion that I have but for me if peoplelistening to my story and hearing metalk about what I've lived through canmake them maybe think about how theybehave with people that they know withcancer differently or lean in and helpthem better or think about what they cando to build their resilience muscle orultimately think about is there morelike what what isn't this life like whyam I here are you I mean ultimately youknow if I'm talking in corporatelanguage you know like my ultimateoptimum success would be that peoplefind God nutri through hearing my storyand then it kind of sparking a journeyof interest in themselves and kind ofwanting to to sort of know more andunderstand more but I think there'sloads of other stuff that it could sparkfor them as well so for me it's kind ofwanting to share the sadness of what'shappened to me to make people realizethey're you know there's so much life tobe lived and you've got so much more inyour tank than you ever know that you'vegot until you have to be in a situationwhere you're forced to use it soyeah that's fascinating that's why youwere saying that Episode five AshleyNixon I think you're really really resinL not I'm not trying to give you moneyFelicity yeah he was a boxer yeah and hefound God yeah look I've shared it withall of my it's incredible because thatone yeah okay like I said I mean I'mhere saying I don't necessarily believein God but that episode was so powerfulthat I remember I mean I didn't put itin the actual episode where I wasactually like screaming kind of like Iget it I get where you're kind of sayingyou know how you see put in the churchand they're all like yeah yeah yeah yeahI'm kind of getting that now withyourself and I'm just thinking they'reencouraging I think not be a greatconnection as well because I know he'sdoing fantastic things I think he mightbe up north now he's working yeah he'snot really on social media which buthe's just such a beautiful soul yeahanything yeah what we're gonna do nowwe're actually gonna just completelyflip the scriptokay go into a segment of the show thatI just put in here just for a little bitof fun and this is people obviously knowyou now in terms of your story andeverything but I know there's also youknow just a little fashion stuff thatthey could probably play from justknowing so you ready yeah I'm ready okaywe're gonna go in three two oneokay what did you eat for breakfastshreddies and granola the ability to flyor be invisible be invisible money orfame fame so I could impact people'sthoughts your proudest moment can I haveto both both of my boys face am iachieve all those face of my boys yourfavorite foodOh chocolate Netflix our YouTube netlegs okay your number one goal this yearto publish my book to your coffee teayour favorite sport oh gosh I don't havea favorite sport to watch I'd probablysay tenants okay so you participate inoh I don't really do sport I do I likelike sirJim can we call that a sports boys'llwhy not there's no rules here fantasticokay if you can sit with one person inthe world for an hour who would it beJesus your worst fear is a child Ohprobably something to do with snakes Ireally don't like snakes they scare meyour favorite place in the world lake inNew Zealand South Island of New Zealandsounds amazing speak our languages we'llbe able to speak to animals speak allthe languages if you could have punishedone thing in the world what would it bepoverty would you rather than on how youwould die or when you were they how orwhen I probably say when because I thinkthe power of being able to say goodbyeis unbelievable and it's interestingactually because I remember someoneasked me this question before Georgedied and I always just said I wouldn'twant to know I just want to be shot andactually what I would say to people nowis it's just so unbelievably powerfuland to have the opportunity to saygoodbye and even though it's sad it's soso healing to be able to do it say thatI think you know when you're gonna dieso you can prepare for it emotionallyfinancially is a huge blessing yeahabsolutely I think we're gonna leave itthere and I think that's it that's agreat that you said because I think withdeath it's more the uncertainty and thanthe shock of it that really just throwspeople into a whole whirlwind yeah yeahwe're almost at the end of the show nosadly just got two more things I want toask you and I think this would be aninteresting answer from yourself becauseit's about reflection and I'm not usedto turn it easier how you wish you hadyour perspective when George was aroundso my my view is always the samehindsight you know it's a wonderfulthing we can obviously learn ways wherewe can get to places quicker easier withless heartache but like yourself whichI'm sure you'll agree it teaches us somany lessons yeah access to people thatwe are so knowing exactly what you knownow if you could go back and takeyourself back to a younger Louise youcan choose whatever age you wish whatwould you what would you whisper in youryounger selves is I'd whisper in my earyou're lovedGod is real he's for you he has a planfor you he's with you and he wants youto surrender to him in a way that onlyis right for you I love that I thinkobviously because your experience withGod knows if you were able to have thatthen yeah yeah absolutely yeahsuddenly were actually at the lastquestion now and again this is aquestion ask all of my guests I'm alwaysinterested to kind of know how peoplewant to be remembered and I'm alwayseager to get as many people to sharetheir stories as possible because at theend of the day I truly believe nobodyreally wants to be forgotten and I thinkwe've all got a story out there so if wesay in 150 years time science fails tosave us and all that is left is a bookand this book is by yourself and it's onthe table and you've got a I supposekind of make people want to pick it upso what firstly would the title say andsecondly the blurb at the back of itwhat would it tell us about yourselfwell this is easy re because I'm rightlooking I want to write more than onebook so the series the series of my bookwould be called the wonderfulness oflife and which is actually a name that'staken a lot of letter it's a name that'staken from a letter that George wroteand before he died reflecting on thewonderfulness of life the first bookwould be called he heard my cry andthat's the story that I've sort of toldin part today so if we take that firstbook which is the book I'm hoping toit's obviously kind of published thisyear and that story is a true storyabout love's exploding into my life amoment when I was least expecting it andyou would maybe say that I was likeBridget Jones meeting God tragic aboutthat backdrops and it's the tale of howI was gifted a front-row seat to areal-life miracle the tale of how I lostthe love of my life that gained thegreatest love we can all ever know andit's a tale that I hope and wish willimpact the thinking of a generation wowI love thata real-life miracle yeah it's abrilliant tagline just in relation toyour book and I'll keep jumping back tothis are you gonna be releasing anaudible version I haven't even got thatfar that's a good ideaI'd like to yeah like I'm just beingselfish here because if I read pagesfrom a book I'm asleep within threeseconds so I listen to a lot of my stuffi podcast and I would take that as asign are you amazing please do that Ithink you're being credible and justbefore you leave then I'd like to put inthe show notes obviously for people tobe able to contact you and then yeahhopefully by them contacting you canobviously keep them up to date with therelease of the novel but then I'd loveto get you back as wellcloser to that release or after you'vereleased it as well because I just youknow this is an incredible inspiringremarkable story I think you'refascinating the way you've you justfound this bliss and I can hear it fromyour voice all the way through because Iwas expecting and I'm quite an emotionalperson to get choked up during thisinterview mm-hmm if anything you'remaking me just I've just been smilingjust hearing it although there's a sadelement to the story it's just almost Ijust feel I just feel happy for that soif you caught my husband used to alwayssay say be sad but she was happy yeah healways she's happy I love that yeah yeahso if you could just give us where thelisteners can find yourself yeah I saythe best the best place to find me isprobably on Instagram so I'm onInstagram as wonderful nurse underscoreof underscore life so it's wonderfulnessof life the two underscores I have got awebsite that it's being built at themoment and and yeah I'm also on Facebookas Louise Bligh is but I post onFacebook cause wonderfulness of life andthat's kind of my reflections on life Isuppose and the wonderfulness that wefind in in every day in everyday joy youknow so it's me talking about how I youknow I think it's an invitation to comeand see life through my eyes almostcertainly I didn't knew this afternoonas well when I get back from my nextmeeting I'll add that all in the showknows and onceor website is sell and please do let meknow because what I can do is go backinto the show notes and edit it becausethese episodes they get listened to allsorts of weird and wonderful it's justnot it is www.hs wonderful nurse of lifecalm I think computer I think that's itmy it's there there's a holding pagethere and there's a picture of me it'slinked to my Instagram but it's not gotall the content on it at the moment butif you put that on it is it will take itwill take you somewhere to me and youcan send me a message that I'll get onthat as well so fantastic ok so this hasactually been our first ever two-partepisode thank you thank you thank youhonestly thank you so much for sharingyour story I'm sure it's gonna resonatewith so many people it's been anabsolute pleasure for the listeners aswell thanks for listening oh you're sowelcomeand remember this podcast is absolutelyfree so all we ask in return is for youto share this with a friend and drop usa five star review over on iTunes havean awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 17- "Wonderfulness of Life" - Louise Blyth #17 Part 1Tagline: "Be the captain of your fate and master of your soul"Louise Blyth, is an incredible lady who has experienced losing the love of her life, George Blyth tragically from cancer. With cancer now affecting 1 in 2 families it is a common occurrence so many of us face in our day to day life. But unlike any other story Louise world took a massive turn upon the sad death of her spouse and soul mate.Experiencing a supernatural event during his last few days Louise beliefs, perceptions, outlook and whole world had been turned around where she found herself finding, what she describes as "the greatest love all of us could ever know"A 2 part special episode, this incredible story does not lean on an emotional tale which will have you in tears of sadness, despite its tragic theme. Instead, tears of happiness seeing someone recover from grief and finding a bigger purpose and understanding of her being in the world takes over the story's narrative and leaves you feeling rather refreshingly happy that in such a sad circumstance someone can continue their life in a positive, fulfilling way.Now a widow of 2 children, Louise has created The Wonderfulness of Life which focuses on, Happiness being a choice and a state of mind.I am sure you will all agree this story truly warranted two episodes and if anyone can take anything positive away from this, it is to cherish all the moments we have with our loves ones and find blessings in whatever cards we are dealt in life.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Website: https://www.thewonderfulnessoflife.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-blyth-207a7a49Instagram: https://instagram.com/wonderfulness_of_lifeFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/louise.Blyth83Have an awesome day#JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so before I begin thisannouncement I just want to say amassive massive massive thank you toevery single one of you who havelistened to this show I also want to saya massive thank you to anyone who haspreviously listened to his show and lefta review because it's your reviews thatI've helped us get into the news and notworthy on iTunes now this is no smallfeat this is actually an incredibleachievement and the more I research itthey're more proud I actually feel butmore importantly I'm so proud of myguests and I'm so grateful that theywere able to share their journey but I'malso so happy to have such loyallisteners like yourselves to reallysupport this movement and that's exactlywhat it is it's a movement it's abouttrying to inspire people try and put apositive beacon of light into the worldand really try and get everyone to livetheir best life combat their excuses andreally change their perception andmindset so without rambling on too muchwe have a really really excitingtwo-part episode coming up for you nownow this is actually our first evertwo-part episode and conscious of yourtime which is obviously our biggest andmost important commodity I'm gonna jumpstraight into this one okay so I justwant to start by thanking Louise for hertime and coming onto the show today toshare her story which I'm sure you'reall gonna find absolutely inspirationalso Louise how are you doing todayI'm good thank you I'm good fantasticfantastic so I just want to say thankyou I appreciate you and I'm reallylooking forward to this one so this wasactually a recommendation from somebodyelse you may haveone heard previously on a podcast it'sepisode number fourteen and it's my betdaily Rylan it's something that I urgeall of you to check out because it wasactually within the first four hours itgot the most number of listenstraightaway so it's a great hit and I'drecommend you all going back to thathowever moving on now we have anotherfantastic guest in Lewis so Louise Ithink it's really important for thelisteners to understand your story andunderstand a little bit about yourselfas well if you if you wouldn't mind ifyou could just kind of give us aninsight into yourself a little bit aboutyour journey and what basically bringsyou here today yeah no worries so and ifI'm completely honest I never thoughtthree even four years ago that I wouldbe someone that would be sat beinginterviewed on a podcast talking aboutthe subject that I'm going to bring tothe table today which is lossbereavement and life after livingthrough sort of that kind of trauma soso my story is from nottingham fromrobin hood that's where i kind of growup grew up and spent my childhood had afantastic childhood my parents reallysort of put myself over the first I waskind of one of those people at schoolthat was not really super cool but alsoI hope not too much of a mega geek andyou know you did did the normal stuffkind of growing up going into nightclubsprobably too young being carried out ofnightclubs after having drink too muchso my friends before say probably tooyoung and went away to university at 18where I studied French and actuallylived abroad for a year when I was 19which was quite young and that was Isuppose my first experience if I'm beingbrutally honest of life if that makessense so in terms of really realizingthings around loneliness relationshipsbeing able to kind of go it alone and dothings for yourself because essentiallywhen you're on your own in a foreigncountry you have no one else to rely onother than yourself and I and so thatwas that was really really kind of bigexperience in my life and graduated inin 2006 probably like many so you reallyexpect it about what life had to offerme and had one of these huge plansaround what I thought I was gonna be andwhat car is thought I was gonna driveand what house I wanted to have hadn'tmet kind of anyone special at that pointthere's been a few a few boys but no onewho'd kind of really made me sort of situp and take notice and in 2006 I wasaccepted on to a training scheme agraduate training scheme and that waskind of a supposed to start of where mylife really really started to change soI I started there in September and on myfirst day in fact before my my first dayon the induction day I met George who Iwould fall in love with and marry so wewere part of a group of about 30 peoplehe will join together and we had a greattime it was like being at university youknow me we were there training togetherliving together all became really reallygreat friends but he was the guy thatkind of more than anyone else you knowwas not never first I on any level I youknow I remember thinking oh my gosh thisguy's so confident you know he's reallysort of sure of himself but we justbecame really great friends and we usedto would talk all the time and then itwas that that Christmas so this is theSeptember when we started our job and itwas that Christmas when we actually kindof had our first kiss so he'd he'dreally really raison he said when hefirst were in the business oh well I'mgonna be I'm gonna be in Edinburgh soI'm gonna have a hub burn a party andwe're all gonna come to Edinburgh andhave this holiday party and I rememberthinking oh my god who is this guy likethey're so confidentso anyway true to his words you knowfour months later there we all were sortof twenty or so others at his flat in inEdinburgh and that's kind of whereGeorge and I had our first kissNew Year's 2006 2007 and after that youknow my life my life changed in aninstant I know for people that arelistening that of maybe you know you'vemet someone that they know that theywon't spend the rest of their life withwhen you meet that special person youknow really it is everything that you'veever hoped for it is kind of like themovies and the songsand it's it's truly beautiful it's areally amazing experience and we knew weknew from the outset that we hadsomething special I think that often youdo you know it was more than just afriendship it was a kind of deeprespectful sort of love it was it was itwas powerful you know and so we kind ofwent on living our lives together youknow as what happens when you meet theperson that you want to spend your lifewith you know you stop being you stopbeing as our lives became more and moreintertwined so we we lived apart welived togetherwe vented together we bought a housetogether his kind of his career wentfrom kind of great amazing as he kind ofcharged through the ranks from corporateperspective we were engaged in 2010 wewere married in 2011I felt pregnant we had off this babyquite quickly which was just a hugeblessing and we it gave birth to of thisson in 2013 so for all intents andpurposes we were the couple that thathad it all we were probably the peopleand I hugely recognize this that peoplelook to in kind of discipline oh howthey got this you know like they'vethey've met young they've both got goodjobs they're doing really well hopefullythey thought we were nice people youknow we had we had a nice house we drovenice cars we had a you know we had wedecided we wanted to have a baby and itjust was easy we got pregnant and I hadno problems with my pregnancy so youknow we were on to a good thing life waslife was really really great and then wedecided to have another baby and I gotpregnant very easily again and shortlyafter office and was born we moved houseso we relocated back to Nottingham surebecause by this point we're living downsouth because that's like the street sirI paid gold and then whilst I waspregnant with our second son George justhad this overwhelming feeling which Ican come back to and talk about somemore and as we kept kind of maybe deeperinto the interview there that we had tomove that we had to move back to myhometown andum so we we bought a house when I wassix months pregnant and moved after ourson was just born to me with an 8 weekold baby at that time that's when Georgestarted to be presenting with symptomsthat just weren't you know wasn't welland we couldn't get to the bottom of ithe was wrong he constantly had a cold hewas always tiredhe was really rundown he had low reallyreally low energy levels and because ofthe stage and the circumstance of ourlife in that we had two incredibly youngchildren Zoey at this point you know wehad a three-month-old baby and atwo-year-old son and you know justNewhouseGeorge was commuting to London from ourhouse and Notting Michelle it is a bigcommute you know said not you know notfor the faint-heartedwe just continually put it down to thefact that this is what life is in yourseason and you know you try and haveyeah we're rundown you know this ishaving kids everyone whinges about thetiredness and the exhaustion which is ayou know it's part of the territory ofyou know you don't live with yourchildren but it just didn't sort of seemto get better and there was thiscontinual niggle that was there andessentially basically we pursued it andto cut a long story short of how weactually came to this conclusion wedecided to send George for a colonoscopywhich is a process where you basicallyhave a camera put up your bottom it'snot that unpleasant so he went off andhad this procedure and I mean this iswhat our life was like at this point intime our and so he decided to have thisprocedure in London because he rememberhim saying to meyou know I'm so busy at work what I cando is I can go to work and then I can dothis after work and I can come back andI can still behave at that time wegenuinely didn't think that there was abig you know big big reason to beconcerned all of the health careprofessionals had said to us there's nota reason to be worried he's so younghe's 33 it's definitely not gonna bebowel cancer and basically that day thatyou had the colonoscopy which was thethe 9th of December 2015he called me I was at home literallykind of quite literally walking aroundthe Christmas tree and my little boyanswer and with a little Senate nurse weputting all my fairy lights out thinkingwow you know life's amazing this is grayand he called me and that phone call wasthe moment that just shattered my lifebecause having your husband ringing andsay the words I've got cancer ah it wasjust it felt like a time-space continuumand I yeah it was just hideous and Iremember saying to him oh my god shecan't know this already how do you knowlike it can't be which was actually theroute that I went domine when he told uswas exactly the route that all of ourfriends went down afterwards when weactually had to then tell them the newswhich was just as difficult as himhaving to tell me and I know now thatthat's the kind of psychologicalresponse in terms of you know plausibledenial you want to commercialise withwhat you're hearing and you want somehowto be like this isn't true this thiscan't be the case this isn't us you knowdo you not know who we are today and Iremember you know being on the phonewith George and crying and him saying tome it's fine like he'd managed to havethe force I mean this is the kind ofincredible guy he was he'd had theforesight to call my parents tell myparents what happened before he ran meso he could say to me after he told meI've got cancer your mum and dad are onthe wayyour mum doubt of coming over andthey're gonna be here any minute andthey're gonna be they're gonna be herethey're gonna scoop you up and I'm on myway back from London it was just so soso kind and so thoughtful which was justwho he was to his coreso that was December 2015 and our livesin that instant you know I often jokedwith people and say I sing the song fromFresh Prince of bel-air oh it's probablyshows the kind of generation that I amit was you know this Oriole upside downbecause in that instant it was my lifewas flipped turned upside down and yeahit was just everything that we knewabout our life was thrown thrown on thefloor but then that you know that wasn'tthe end that was the beginning of a newlife and a new existence which went onfor 11 monthsso we then lived in a season of stagefour bowel cancer so when George wasdiagnosed he had metastatic bowel cancerwhich is basewe can circle of lingo for the fact thatthe cancers bad and it spreads todifferent parts of your body and inGeorge's case it spread to his liverwhich is not good news obviously it'sone of our major organs that you need tofunction so George then lived through Ithink it was eight rounds ofchemotherapy followed by six weeks ofreally intense radiotherapy followed bya season of kind of watch wait let's seewhere this where these horrible cellskind of come back then he did a hugehuge surgery in the summer which issomething called the liver resectionwhich is essentially where you getchopped open and all of your liverthere's got cancer and chopped out whichis kind of just the most epic surgeryyou can imagine before he did that hecycled around London and raised a lot ofmoney for bowel cancer UK and then hesaid I remember him saying to hisoncologist you know just before he hadthis liver surgery I'm gonna I'm gonnado more bike riding and then this sortof all looking at him like he wascompletely mental eight weeks to the dayafter he'd had his liver resection hecycled from London to Paris releasedmore funds for Bar Council UK and thenshortly after returning home from thatboat ride he started complaining againfeeling unwell and we you know wegenuinely thought that we were on thesort of positive track with this diseaseand literally eight weeks the day afterhe'd stood in front of the eiffel toweryou know holding his bike you know inthis kind of really momentous epicphotograph that I've got of him he wasdead so he he went downhill incrediblyquickly and peacefully passed away onthe 18th of November 2016 so I was 33and I had a three year old and a tenyear olds and yes it was incrediblyincredibly hard yet was incrediblybeautiful and a moment of glory that Inever expected at the moment of hispassing so I suppose that was a realgame-changing moment when he died whichwas just absolutely beautiful andthere's no other word to describe itwhich is I suppose why my story's a bitdifferent because I think probably mostpeople are going to be expecting me tosay and then it was himyes and then it was all for and I lovethis season of grief and and it has beenand it was all of those things but itwas equally really beautiful because oftheir the way in which George died andwhat happened to all of this at themoment of his death which I'm sort ofreally excited to talk some more withyou about say and just stunned that lastbit and which we will touch on just in afew moments time I can tell that youwere going to have that response justfrom the way you were explaining yourjourney and everything that you've beenthrough so but when I think of concernwhat it's done to my family it becomes amore of an emotional thing and it'squite like even when you talk about itlike demeanor and everything changeswhen you say you can see that you'veactually found the silver lining in thisin this journey that you've had to takeand I just find that incredible so I'mlooking forward to hearing just a bitmore about that have balls and knowabout how it was one not only incrediblyhard but also incredibly beautiful Imean I'm taking notes here because Idon't want to miss anything and I'm surelisteners I probably think ask her thisask her this because it's so fascinatingbecause what you've literally describedis a fairy tale story and it's kind of astory that I suppose when we grow upthere's there's a thing and I was I wasdoing a speech recently and I was sayinghow you know how we go to school andyeah you get your results and then yougo to secondary school then you have theI love is then you go to university thenyou get married and you have kids andthen you retire at 65 it's almost likesomewhere in a in our subconscious Isuppose we reprogram to believe we'rejust going to lift or 65 wheneverything's just gonna fall in placeand then what happens it comes in boomit hits you how is he so hard yeahthat's why people struggle and I justthink yeah it's a I'm grateful thatyou're sharing this story because itwould just wake people up yeah I'm veryfortunate that nothing like that hashappened to my wife or myself at thismoment but I do try and live as if thatcould happen tomorrow oh yeah it wouldthat the nightmares that couldpotentially happen so oh you mentionedthat you've been travelling for a yearas well not obviously generate so wheredid you travel so I didn't travel so Ilived I mean sorry you lived you liveyeah yeah yeah and I said friendshipUniversity and I lived in fret in FranceI actually lived I need to be honest I'dlove to go back now as a 35 year old anddo I did then I lived in the noirWeinbergwhich at the time as a 19 year old hebasically like drinking wkt blue it wascompletely lost of me as like a kind ofcultural experience but it was part itwas part of my my studies in terms ofwhat I had to do to kind of learn thelanguage but yeah that was that wasinteresting and it's been reallyfascinating actually as I've taken sometime particularly this last year becauseI've been taking some time out of workto actually I'm writing a novel actuallyso I'm writing the story of what whathappened to is in that in detail becauseI'm really mindful that to try and relayit in you know an hour even in two hoursit doesn't do it justice which is whyI'm writing the story of exactly youknow all of the twists and turns and thebeauty of what unfolded but essentiallyyou know I've really realized that thatexperience that I had in France wasreally formative and actually wasequipping me with skills that I wouldneed kind of in the moment of George'sdeath and it was also interesting inthat some of the corporate experiencesthat I'd had as well so often you knowpeople always saying it's very clicheisn't it you know when you're having adifficult time people often say stuff toyou like you know this all happens for areason or you know it's in difficultywhere you learn and you know what Ihugely believe in both of those pointsbut actually when you're in thathardship and you're in that season ofstruggle and people say that to you ifI'm being brutally honest sometimes itfeels like a slap in the face becauseyou just you just feel kind of like wellyou don't know what is to be in thesituation I'm in and how do you knowthat I've been positioned for such atime as this but I think you have to Ithink you have to come to thatconclusion yourself I don't think otherpeople can kind of impart that wisdominto you and it's taken me to livethrough the experience of my husband'scancer and his death to wake up to lifedoes that make senseand I now look at all of theseexperiences that I've had the good andthe bad and go wow like I was being liketrained I was being because I waspositioned into that set ofcircumstances the reason why thathappened was to serve me later and whenyou start to reflect that in that wayyou often see that you've done that youdid do some really great learning in meseasons of struggle and they and theyhave served to make you a more full kindof person that can then cope and be moreresilient in times that will be eventougher may be that you face in thefuture say yeah this interesting I justlove that I just love your perspectiveon things and I think because I believeeveryone gets these potential lessonsand I call it potential lessons becauseyeah it's what they take from it reallyand yes that you mentioned resilience aswell and yeah I I've hadI mean I'm day two you know and I feellike I've had some ups and downs as wellin my life which I'm sure every singleperson has yeah the grass is nevergreener on the other side yeahabsolutely yeah I mean that's one of thereasons for this podcast but I'mgrateful now especially in hindsight ofall the adversity and everything thatI've been through because now whensomething trivial happens say forinstance in my day job or you got a flattire or something that would normally Isuppose dress me out five six years agoyeah yeah it just doesn't faze mebecause in the grand scheme of things doyou know what I mean you you snotabsolutely 100% yeah I'm interested inthis novel Azure which i think is gonnabe fantastic because like you said wecan't touch on everything within thisshort amount of time but I think justfrom listening to the opening 15-20minutes people are going to be veryinterested in hearing more about thismyself included and I think you're notalone in what you've experienced but I'msure that you're very unique in terms ofhow you've change your perspective and Ithink if you can hopefully help otherpeople who have maybe been through asimilar situation to maybe look at it inthe way that you said so I want to goback to that bit where you mentioned howincredibly hard it was oh but then alsoincredibly beautiful if you yeah yeah solet's talk about the hardship and thestruggle first I think you have you seethat fully fully understand that thenunderstand the beauty if that makessense you have to source it in thedarkness to feel to feel the light whichsounds quite cheesy but I think it's youknow that's kind of essentially the theheart of this story and you know thatmoment that if we go back to the momentthat I described to you earlier when youknow George was diagnosed with cancer itwas hideousand I often say to people actually thatis when my life changed and that is whenI started to grievebecause that was the moment that ourlives changed forever at that point wewere obviously still hoping there Georgewas gonna live to tell the talebut even if he had lived to tell thetale he would have been living to tellthe tale with the with the scar ofcancer and I think this is the part ofcancer that is so widely misunderstoodpeople want to treat it like a diseasethere is a heart problem or anorthopedic problem which is you know yougo to the hospital you have somemedicine and you get better and yourlife's all okay again and actually thereality of cancer at any stage that youget it is that it alters the check thatyour mindset and the course of your lifeforever because it fundamentally makesyou realize your own mortality in a waythat you've never had to realize itbefore and it also therefore because ofthat makes you live your life verydifferently it makes you live your lifein fear it also makes you live your lifewith joy because you appreciate and havesuch a broader perspective for theamazing and wonderful variety of whatyou see in everyday life because it isyou know that is where you live and inin the everyday not in the holiday thatyou've got planning for six months timeor the night out that you're reallylooking forward to a couple of weeks andand cancer really has a way of sort ofshifting your perspective and I think Ithink this shift of perspective isuniversal but obviously I think from myown experience is not fertile for anyoneelse he's impacted by this disease butwhat's interesting is you know once youkind of take some time to let the newssettle which you have to do and you getnews that big you know I remember forGeorge and I we had the classicfight-or-flight response and we actuallychose flight so we ran away essentiallyto the yorkshire dales which was whereGeorge's mother lived and basicallyspent sort of two or three days almostin hiding trying to figure out what wewere gonna do so yeah we we ran away tothe oxidase and there we sort of liketried to look at the situationpragmatically so both of this had sortof a spaceman entrained in the corporateworld because of the circumstances inwhich wewhich was on this kind of managementtraining scheme unit we'd both beenthrough quite vigorous corporatetraining so we've done all of the youknow separate the people from theproblem how do you make a decision allof that kind of stuff and actually wekind of said you know what we've got tokind of implement some of these skillsthat we've been taught in terms offacing this this beast that is cancerand that and that's kind of what wechose to do so when we actually sort ofapproached it as if it was almost acorporate problem and and I and I feellike I'm I'm I'm even laughing as I saythis because it because essentially thisis what we had to do we had to look atit as not a black dark disease that wasgonna claim our life we had to look atit as a unwanted guest that maybe movedinto our house which is how it fell andthen it was kind of like what what we'regonna do in this and once a guesthow are we gonna how are we gonna makeyou feel part of the family and then wedon't really want them to be here butaccept the fact that they are gonnaprobably eat our table now for theforeseeable future and we can't makethem leave they're only gonna go whenthey want to you know so we we looked atyou know what we could do and one of thefirst things actually that we did wasand it was George's this is alldifferent by George not by me was hesort of said well I'm not having cancerand I remember saying to him what areyou talking about you know you've gotcancer like we can't we can't get rid ofit just like that and say no what I meanis I'm not I'm not calling it cancer I'mnot I'm not going to be named as havingcancer because there's a lot in the nameI mean there's even a you know there'sthe beautiful Shakespeare quote of youknow if Rose has anything else you knowI can't I can't remember it and thebaton but it's about you know if it wascaught if it was still called over butit was cannot call the rose but it stillsmells so sweet and that same that samethinking and that same mindset is sotrue cancer because the problem is isyou say cancer to people and peoplethink death because people are so scaredof death and actually the reality thesedays is one and two people will getcancer and also lots of people havecancer and go on to live reallybeautiful long lives also have cancerand live really successfully with cancerfor a good number of yearsbut we all have this fear you know it'sessentially the Millennial tuberculosisthat you get cancer and it's literallylike then the Grim Reaper is their dooryeah so George George said to me fromthe from the outset I don't want cancerI'm not gonna have cancer I'm gonna havea project name so we we we were sort oflike I was like okay so it was it waslike a awesome cheesy episode of TheApprentice we were driving north and hewe were there thinking of names andevery name I came up with which I can'tremember any of the names I actuallycame up with he he was beating ofdallying no that's awful that's that'shorrendous I kind of thought I can'thave this then he said out of nowhereInvictus what about Invictus andhonestly when he said that name it wasliterally like a thunderclap in the carit was amazing like it shot wavesthrough my heart and I was like that'samazing I was like why do we both knowthis name a week googled it and we'relike oh it's an aftershave and then wewould you know laughing joking whichagain is another you know like that is areal great way of building resilience soit sounds so awful and crude to say butto try and find the fun and the smilesand the everyday humor in amongst youknow this car crash that is your life isso important because you're stillyourself when you still find the samethings funny and you like eating thesame sweets and the same places eventhough you've got cancerI remember we're in fits of laughter bekind of like you know why on earth haveyou chosen an aftershave advert this isjust really cheesy but then when we wentfurther into it we found out thatactually the original naming conventionsare coming from this amazing poet and byErnest Hemingway which actually I nowhaving a frame on my wall at home andthe line the closeout line of the poemis this really sort of like thunderousclothes which basically says I'm thecaptain of my fate and I am the masterof my soul and those words we were justlike they were literally like boom toour hearts we were like yes okay this isit now we we are not having cancer sowe're having sort of project and victorsand that was the start of is Isuppose time to refrain what washappening to is but that also didn'tmean that what was happening to uswasn't horrible you know like there'slots of cancer there is hideous there isabsolute sleep deprivation becauseyou're so anxious about everything thatyou you go to bed and you can't sleepand you're wide awake you wide awakethere's there's an easier because ofthat because you're so exhausted you'reand you're trying to keep the show onthe roadyou can't remember sometimes the mostsimplest of things there's the the hugeimpact that it has on your daily life Imean essentially I was still onmaternity leave you know we had an eightmonth old baby so I was supposed to bethe one that was being looked afterbecause I was up at night you know stillwith a baby that didn't really know youknow day from night if I'm beingbrutally honest yeah and you know then Ihad to switch roles into this personthat wasn't just caring for atwo-year-old and a eight month old itwas also caring for a guy he was theretwo three who had cancer which for himwas just as difficult as it was for mebecause he was the the dad he was thefather figure of the family he wanted tobe able to provide and support his wifeat his children and the reality of thecancer treatment that he had was there Imean he had really really top-drawerchemo which was like I remember themsaying the hospital is it's pretty muchlike we're putting bleach in your veinsand he had it every 11 days so he didn'thave much downtime between treatment youknow he'd go on it he'd go on his go andhave his infusion and actually he thenhad to come home with a with a bottleattached to him which is a type ofchemotherapy that lots of bowel cancerpatients if anyone who's had bowelcancer is listening will be familiarwith and you then basically take thepump it's called a pump home with youfor three days so that was you know thatwas a man mindful in itself because wehad to explain to our kids what wasgoing on that they couldn't jump ondaddy and it wasn't ever that we keptanything secret from our children butyou know our oldest child was two yearsold you know how do you explain to a 2year old dad daddy's got cancer thathe's got this medicine on him I meanactually and that is what we explainedto him and we had to explain what thewords meant to him but you know theydon'tat that age they don't understand whatit means they it means nothing to themyou know for all intensive purposes forthem it was like daddy had a bottle ofCal Poly attached to him you know theydidn't get the severity of it and it wasreally tough and it brought up a lot ofstuff for me around you know what do Ido in terms of work so obviously I wasoff work on maternity leave I actuallywent back to work because I felt so muchpressure because I was thinking you knowI don't we'd have no idea how long thiscancer journeys gonna go on for and eventhough both of our employers were justthe most supportive employers B couldhave ever asked foryou always have that niggle in the backof your head that actually if this goeson for six years seven years are theystill going to be this supportive andlist understand a and I remember sayingto George you know I've got to go backto work George because we might be in aposition where we're only rely you knowwe're relying upon my salary and youknow you can't work which he neverreally wanted to face into so I wentback to work and even when I talk aboutit now I genuinely don't know how I didit I went back to work with aone-year-old just three year old and ahusband with cancer and was kind ofdoing my job as well as commuting toLondon and you know running a house youknow it was absolutely exhausting andexhausting in a way that makes your souleight you know it wasn't just it wasn'tjust sort of tired of the way thatpeople say I'm tired you know it wasexhausting and it was the relentlesssort of tsunami of it all because theway that cancer works is you kind of itis it's a long boil disease you know itisn't a disease there you know it goesit doesn't go away like an orthopaedicyou know injury like I said previouslyand it and it's it's always theresimmering in the background and everynow and again you get these huge wavesthat crash over you and they sometimesabsolutely come out of nowhere and it'sabout then how you how you protectyourself and what you what you do - Isuppose build that resilience and that'swhat we learn in that 11 monthsessentially initially it was like wewere all at sea we have no idea what thehell we were doing and gradually as theyearwent on we built that resilience muscleand we learned the techniques aroundwhat is it that's gonna help us and weknew that there were certain things thatfor us as a family he with the thingsthat work but that took some time tofigure out it wasn't like the next dayafter George I can't sir we went yeahthis is this is what we have to do thistrick is it yeahno no so it was so hard it was so sohard so hard yeahfirstly what a wonderful person hesounds like and I just in yourrelationship the way you were justfeeding a feature then you had thiswhole story behind Invictus Sol Invictusfor me initially yeah Paco Rabanne it'sthe which is what I remembered but alsothere's a film money as well yes andit's happened to feed on conquerable soWowyeah you actually said it in this momentthat's what I was feeling and I wasgetting almost goose thinking yeahthat's it how you guys have done it andit just shows the power of like thehuman will and the importance that wordsbecause just by changing that nameyou're not you're not necessarily sayingto listeners here listen let's brushcancer under the copy and pretend it'snot here what you're saying is okay weacknowledge it's here and some dayswe're facing it but we're gonna justface it in a more positive way to helpus move forward and I think that'sreally really yeah the way you've donethat and in terms of exhausting I meanwe all sit here myself included andwe'll have a 14 hour day or a 12 hourday we've been asked to do some overtimeand we feel you know what I'm tired I'mtired and here you are with no actualchoice with your back against the walljust showing how powerful the human mindand body in sync how much we're actuallycapable of doing and that also goes sexywhen you mentioned George who did thatrunning I mean who in their right mindif you think about it from a logicalperspective things after being choppedup I'm go go go raise money wait youknow you know what there are what Iwould say is I follow some reallyinspirational people on Instagram andparticularly love the the three womenand who created the you me Big C podcastand Rachel blance or sadly passed awayin September last year and I follow Ifollow the girls actually that do thatshow on Instagram and they ones a cancersurvivor one one is living with stagefour cancerthey are always out exercising andactually what I would say is it heyfor you to realize that your body isfragile and that you have to look afterit to want to look after it sometimesand actually the irony is is that Georgeactually was a fitness fanatic evenbefore he had cancer so he was on thesepeople that would go to gym gym and Iwould always be like what are you doingbut I had to say since he has had cancerand obviously lost his life to cancerit's made me go as well you know yourbody is so precious you have to lookafter it you have to be mindful of whatyou're putting in it in the way in whichyou're using it in the way in whichyou're nurturing it because it's it'sprecious to you and it's your onlyrocket ship you're not going to getanother one so you have to look after itand I think incredibly there is thismindset amongst the cancer community ofI am gonna do the stuff that like youknow that we run a 5k or run a marathonbecause almost as well you know everyoneknows the healing benefits of fitnessit's it's proven right so there is thismindset of just you know well I am whatI want to do this mentally even morethan I've ever wanted to do it so I doyou think it's crazy but I also thinkyou know not taking anything away fromGeorge because it was incredible what hedid but I also think you'll find thatthere are lots of people who areimpacted by cancer that also have thatabsolute mindset of no I'm gonna go forit I'm gonna raise this money I'm gonnago and do this and I think you're rightand I think but this is kind of what Iwant this podcast to do is not letsomebody have to suffer with cancer seesomebody also for with cancer to reallyunderstand what they're actually capableof because we're so much we're livingjust in the comfort zone all the timeand health and fitness is one of mybiggest passions so yeah I've alwaysbeen into it but then when I went touniversity was it was more about vodkacommands and hangovers sure yeah it wasthat kind of stuff for generallyspeaking up when I was about 25 I thinkthat's when cancer came into into myfamily only affected my own cause yeahand one of the things I started doingthen was really taking my health andfitness seriously so I blogged onpersonal training since then I'vetrained over like three 400 clients andI always know my analogy is I know thecircumstances for instance similar toGeorgia where you can be healthy you canbe doingright and then it's just not meant to beI can just come for what I always tryand do is just put the odds in my favorand I always tell all my clients justput the odds in your favor you know whenyou lift some weights or you do any sortof CV exercise cardiovascular you'reyou're you're reducing the chances of ofillness and that's kind of what I do soevery single morning without fail andunless some literally on my deathbedsorry or I'm traveling I'm training andI don't have to enjoy it but for me youknow it's 4% on my day just afteryourself and you touched on somethingthere by what you put into yourself andI think it's important for the listenersjust to know it's not just physicalconsumption like food and water it'salso what you say in your monitor yeahabsolutelyso the project Invictus that kind ofstuff is it's empowering and if you canjust so I just think there's this Icould talk about what you said now foranother five hours because I'm surepeople are going to pick up on thank youthank you for sharing all of that what Ineed to move it forward just slightlyotherwise we'll have a six hour podcastbut what definitely can get you back onso nice obviously change quite quitesignificantly now yeah yeah and it'ssomething that you obviously you'renever prepared for what is a day likefor yourself now and what I want to askmore in particular is obviously life'staught you so much so quicklyalready are there certain habits ortraits that you maybe do on a dailybasis that you think people listeningcould potentially benefit from yes so Imean the part of the story that haven'tgot into and maybe isn't one for thedates move maybe at halftime is the whatactually happened when George died whichin which I suppose was the absolutebeautiful firework finale to this wholeyear so if you imagine this 11 monthswhen George had cancer was like us itwas a slowly learning how to overcomeadversity and build resilience in a waythat I'd never had see before and thenwhen we realized that you know the endwas nigh when he was told there wasnothing that they could do and he wasgoing to die but weyou know how long it was going to be andwhat that what may or may not look likeand how painful it may be and all thoseother things that was the moment whereif I'm really honest and being reallyreally vulnerableI hit absolutely rock bottom because Ikind of when I don't know what to do nowyou know like all of this other stuffthat we've taught ourselves this far interms of you know finding three thingsevery day to be thankful for doingexercise you know renaming things tomake them feel more palatable you knoweating well to make sure we're we knowwe're making our bodies feel as great aswe can sleeping where we can in amongstnear the chaos of TV and children all ofthose things that other sort of thingsif you pick up any book on on resilienceand how to and how to kind of you knowbuild and and and work that muscle theyjust didn't work and I I remember justthinking oh my gosh like what what do Ido and it was it was awful and it meantthat we were both in a reallyemotionally low state which as I'm sureagain lots of people will identify withwhen you're in that place what happensis you lash out or the people that youlove the mostso we're in this hideous set ofcircumstances which was you know we knewthat George was gonna die and we hadwhat was probably the biggest row Ithink we ever had of our whole marriageour whole relationship because I wasreally angry at him and actually youknow what I was actually angry about himwhat I thought I was angry about him wasnot what I was angry about at him at allI was actually angry at him because hewas dying and that's what I now realizewith hindsight you know I was at I wasangry about him about something thathe'd said to us mom or not said to hismom but that wasn't you know and I'vegone back and rabbit reaction man thatwasn't the reason the reason I'm socrossed with him was because I was angrythat he was leaving me that he was gonnadie that he was not going to be here tobring up my kids that I was gonna haveto do life on my own in a way that I'venever ever expected to and that night Iwent out I literally ran out of thehouse into my car it sounds Hollywooddramatic and it actually was a littlebit that way and I got in my car and Idrove it was dogevening it was raining and I didn't knowwhat to do and I just felt lost reallyreally lost and in that moment Iremember thinking in my head where am Igonna go who do what who should go andsee if it goes to my mom and dad I couldgo see like my aunty best friends who'sthe person that I need that who do Ineed and I was I was sort of trying allthese people in my head to see if theyfitted with it the way I thought in myheart and none of them felt that theyworked and actually at that point intime was seeing a psychologist and Ithought do I bring her like do I go seeher I couldn't even bring myself to gosee my psychologist he was the personthat really you know I employed to sortof be the person I could take all thesethings to so I decided it in that momentthat I needed to go to a church and thenI was kind of like right really go to achurch and if I'm honest again I thinkit was rooted in some level of utopianmemory that I've got from childhoodprobably movies like home alone whereKevin goes to church and yeah has thatlike magical moment when he's missinghis mummy you know I was right I'm gonnago to church and tried that and to go toa church on this like rainy Octoberevening at about I think it must havebeen about five o'clock everywhere I waslocked her and I was so angry oran Ican't tell you how angry I amI was literally raging so I remember Ipulled my car over on a hard shoulderand I and I said at least she got out mycar and I screamed and at this point intime I was not a person of faith sothere is a purpose behind me telling youthe story and so I pulled over my carand I literally got out of my car it wasraining I was screaming and I literallyit was like I was boxer in a ring that Iwas a mad okay and I literally screamedat the universe if you are real if youare real you have to bleep bleep bleepbleep show me there was a lot of swearwords yeah I was crying I was crying somuch you know I couldn't even reallyspeak I was coughingit was awful I got back in my car andGeorge text me two words that just saidcome home and then I just wrote backokay he wrote back I'm not planning ordying anytimeSene and i just hysterically burst intotears and went home now that that momentwas a absolute another kind oflife-altering moment but it wasn'tlife-altering in that exact moment ifthat makes sense because then whatunfolded in this or three weeksfollowing on from me going out andhaving this moment where I went for itand said to God you know you are realit's now or never because I don't knowwhere else to turn it and God had neverbeen someone a force and an energy thatI had ever looked to previously but Iwas I felt like I had nothing left in mycup I had no place else to gohe was the only viable option left forme to go to and what then happened andwhat unfolded around George's deathwhich we maybe don't have the time todiscuss today was just supernaturallyunbelievably beautiful he died the mostglorified beautiful miraculous deaththat was completely driven by sort ofthe Holy Spirit just moving in andtaking residence in his room okay peopleI'm just gonna play the out role now forthis part of the show but the nextepisode should be available straightaway on your feed whether you using iOSor Android and I hope you enjoy thisjust as much as you've enjoyed thisfirst part of this incredible story fromLouise I know the next part certainlygave me goosebumps especially when shespoke about the supernatural stuff thatshe experienced and I hope you enjoy ittoo and once again thank you for allyour support and if you do get a chanceto leave this interview at the end ofthe show I'd certainly appreciate itthank you so much and remember thispodcast is absolutely free so all we askin return is for you to share this witha friend and drop us a five star reviewover on iTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
When life is unfair and unjust, Jesus came in humility notin retaliation, apathy, or rebellion, but serving those whoare lowly and broken. Can I serve like Jesus amidst whatI see?
Find your voice - Episode 16- "The Keys to Live The Life" - Jen Elyse #16Tagline: "If you're not laughing, you're not living"Jen, struggled with debilitating back pain and chronic fatigue and found no answers to conquer her condition. Having numerous consultations with doctors and specialists she was left to take control of her own life. Taking it upon herself to fix her condition she began to explore the importance of nutrition, holistic health, diet and movement and found herself regaining her health, wellness and living a life of authenticity and happiness.She is also Find Your Voice's first oversea guests and what a way to kick it off with a story of someone who makes no complaints about their life, seeks happiness in every opportunity, loves to laugh and make others laugh and continues to write her own story at her own free will.I hope you can all resonate with her story and take note of some great nutrition tips and tricks she mentions in this podcast that can help you all live a healthier, happier and higher energy lifestyle.Jen is also a holistic health counsellor, Reki master, actress, MUA, comedian and a lover of all things health and wellness and I can see this list growing! Be sure to check her out over at the show notes below:Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Website: https://www.fthelifewithjenergy.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenelyse/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelifewithjenergy/Facebook: Jen Elyse FeldyHave an awesome day#JustDeuIt #FindYourVoicewelcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so we actually have ourfirst international guest on the showtoday and yes we have gone over to thestates so it's a fascinating storyactually because it's a story ofsomebody who are supposed reminds me alittle bit of myself in terms of she'sbasically writing her own story she'sdoing the things that she loves to do sowhether that's in health and fitnesswhether it's in comedy or whether it'sactually in acting as well and she'sdoing quite a few other quirky andwonderful things that we explore in thisepisode and again the purpose of thisshow and find your voice one of themeanings behind it is that we all usethat as a metaphor in terms of findingour path in life and then obviously asthe tagline States write your own storyand that's kind of what I want people todo I want people to find out who theyreally are and Jenn is certainly anexample of that so what I'm gonna do isjump straight into this episode becauseyou're gonna find it fascinating plusyou also get to hear a much betteraccent than myselfokay so firstly I just want to welcomeJen to the show and thank all thelisteners for tuning in today so how youdoing today Jen I'm pretty amazing yeahI got a wake-up call from my buddyHoward Hoffman at fresh green so he'skind of like I think he's better thanTony Robbins so everything's good oh wowwow is that a working relationship yeahyeah we do over more like friendshonestly we're probably like he's one ofthe rare companies I'd say our onlycompany's a traction buddies yeah I'm abig fan of him in the products yeah it'scool fantastic okay um so I obviouslyknow a little bit about yourself wherefriends over on Instagram that's kind ofwhere we had this conversation - perhapsrecord this episode today I think it'simportant for my listeners to obviouslyget to know you a little bit so if youwouldn't mind if you could just kind ofexplain how you progress through lifeand kind of ended up where you are todaymm-hmm okay I mines no I'm kidding okaylet me see well I do a lot of things Iwrote comedy last night for four and ahalf hours so I'm in a few differentworlds that a lot of people would thinkdon't really make sense and the but butto me if you're gonna live a full lifeyou need to be fit and healthy and youcan't have back pain I've had crazydebilitating back pain you can't be sotired you can't get out of bed and youhave to laugh and you have to feel goodand maybe you want to look good so whatI do now is I do hair and makeup that'scoolI'm most important thing is my healthguidebook I'm a whole health guide bookfor moods immunity energy and aestheticsI'm going backwards by the way becauseyou know I think people kind of need toknow where I'm at to be like oh okayand then reverse engineer yeah I like toreverse engineer things that make senseso there's a health guidebook so mousseimmunity and imaging and aestheticseverything from immune disorders toselling light in apps and fitnesstraining pretty straightforward but alot of different weird techniques andyeah the comedy writing last name shewill be very absurd so yeah comedy andhealth and beauty and fitness and actingand modeling and some movies are comingout so that's pretty much where I'm atnow unique and how did I get here umI've always been in fitness my wholelife my grandparents were likePrevention magazine before Preventionmagazine ever came out I was at theirdinner table saying what's the proteinso yeah that was always there and thenas far as being so passionate to helppeopleI had debilitating back pain from2010-2013 where I really couldn't take anine-to-five job because I didn't knowif I'd be able to walk so when you havesituations like that and chronic fatigueyou you know once you get over and youlearn what causes it and how to preventit and how to fix it for me at least Iwant to I don't want anyone to go intothat situation so I'm very passionateabout sharing that message so I'd saythat kind of sums it up you know mypassion says yeah yeah okay that'sfantastic so there's a couple of thingsI want to touch on there so you remindme a little bit of myself and this wasone of the reasons that I I reached outto you in relation to this episodebecause similar to myself I'm doing somany random things as well so I'm aproperty investor I'm a podcaster I'vegot a separate business doing personaltraining then I've got this socialaspect to my life so I'm kind of doingsimilar to yourself just kind ofenjoying myself through life and kind ofpicking and choosing whatever I feellike doing basically so that's alwaysinteresting and also you just touched onyou this back pain that you've had andobviously that going through thatsituation is obviously giving you a kindof purpose or suppose in terms of makingsure nobody else kind of feels that wayso if we could just touch on that alittle bit you mentioned was it 2011 yousaid that like I mean I've had fatiguesince like middle school high school andjust not being literally like cominghome from Middle School in high schooljust having to take naps and I had tobasically go from being an honor societyand in 12th grade just barely going toschool so I wouldn't want anyone to gothrough that and I've had a lot offatigue and then the back pain was late2010 to 2013 and that was pretty bad tooand I'm just looking at obviously yourInstagram profile now where you're ingreat shape you're doing all thisfitness stuff have you found theunderlying cause for that was it somesort of information was it anemic orwhat was it yeah that's a good questionum my friend who just caught it wouldyou sell the back pay and I said nobecause it took a million years I'mdealing with quote if you saw me I'd bequitting quotes up quote good doctorsand you're the best of the best and goodareas but they weren't helping me soI've been failed by so many doctors andexperts in the fitness field the healthfield nutrition field the back painfield energy field that I really had tojust take bits and pieces from you knoweither things that I'm pulling from thecollective consciousness or downloadingif you're into the spiritual realm andtake you face from books and reallypiecing together my own plans so whatcaused it is what I found basically youtake a piece of paper and you divideinto two sidethe left side look at the left side isthings that cause back pain or causefatigue and then the right sinus thingsthat prevent it in alleviate I found allthese different things that can causeand prevent it and that I know how tofix it so Wowyeah it's I will say that and when Ifound the clients because I fixed backpain would be fear alcohol crappy dietscan I say shitty like there's somethingyou can say what you okaybut I curse on you yep yeah are you sureyeah yeah all I do is when the episodecomes out I just label it as explicit soit's not a problemOh perfect let's do it explicit that Idon't eat character it's really stiflingalright cool so like shitty foods shouldshe know a crappy processed food likepizza stuff like that causes informationfear over here yeah if you're notstretching doing tightening contractingworkouts without stretching so likethere's a whole bunch of things butthose are some main onesoh wow that's interesting so you alsomentioned they're you honest likeclients know who you're working with arethey able to access your services viaInstagram have you got anything for usUK people over here because obviouslyyou across the shores over is it in NewYork yeah so with Fitness I've done I'vedone a few video trainings but I reallyI really do think if you're gonna dotraining you should have someone thatcan physically touch you move you aroundbut I've had some clients request it soI'm like alright whatever but um as faras nutrition and that corresponds to theback pain I do think you have to havethat nutrition because that's the fearit's the lifestyle it's relationshipsthat's to me that's one affect your soacid it's gonna affect your lower backin my whole sacral area so yeah I do mymy health guide book that I do via videoso and then I send a copy of the book soI'd have to literally just send it Idon't do it through an e-book I actuallygive hardcopy books to everybodyexcellent and the final thing I want totouch on was a you mentioned comedy andI've watched some of your videos onInstagram as well so again it's justanother another unique thing aboutyourself what got you into comedy I justmight be a my parents are really reallyfunny so I'm just that's just the way Igo through life aside aside fromlast four months I dated someone whoproduces literally produces like dramaall the stuff he does is like drama andhe pretty was found on my life so I waslike oh let's let's try this but no I Ilike I like living in a comedy life Ilike to wake up with jokes in my headit's just it's just a nice way to gothrough life it's a good high vibrationif you give you're into thatabsolutely yeah so are you doing at yourstand-ups then in terms of what weed Isay from the UK we look on junglers orsome sort of comedy show you say okaywell a sketch sketch I do have astand-up written but I like I likesketches I like to do charactersso that's what we did last night we'regonna be doing I can't really tell youbecause I'll ruin it but we're gonna dosome we'll probably some live events butwe'll do a Facebook live and it's gonnabe all these different charactersthere's going to be a lot of Facebooklives going down like in characters andpranks fantastic well I'll make sure Ido is at the end of the show get yourdetails obviously we can put that forthe listeners and then obviously theycan smile and what's just there's morevideos yeah only two people laughingthose two people had a kind of smile ontheir face absolutely absolutely I agreeokay so I'm a big big believer that weare a result of the thoughts we tellourselves and the habits that we kind ofput ourselves through on a daily basismyself in particular I have a specificmorning routine similar to yourself isit's mainly around like healthwell-being my mindset and everythingwhat kind of routine do you have on adaily basis or is it kind of ad hoc andyou just kind of firefighting your waythrough life because you do do a lot ofthings yeah kind of switches so let'ssay like next week weekend there'ssomeone from an over show that's gonnawe're gonna have to talk about thesketch comedy show so that's gonna bepart of me that next one today totoday's you and today I'm gonna bewriting Facebook ads and I'm also goingto be meeting with the nutrition clientso today is one day I let myself wake uplate and I have wheatgrass and sprout soI take wheatgrass I get deliveries fromyou can get that by the way they deliverI've actually had it before and itdoesn't taste too great but I did haveit for aboutgreat this one's actually better becausethe ones I would get in the store Iactually almost threw upthe last ones I had it so this one'sokay and then the sprout cubes like itsprouts loose too I make them into cubeso I'm drinking sprout cubes andwheatgrass cubes and fresh greens I havemy greens and the reason I do that isone your alkaline there's so manybenefits to that there's so manynutrients but also it potentiates itreally has a synergistic reaction and itbasically just makes your stimulantsmore stimulating so I have coffee hereright now - and you're you're gonna feelthe effects of coffee more if you havegreens so that's that's pretty much howI start the mornings as far as drinks goin lemon water or ginger water inturmeric water and then on Tuesdays I doa lot of cocaine and then I have hookerswaking up so that's what use knees go yaknow a bit of abundance then yeah Idon't pay for it no I tell super byright movement you know get the looks goand get the blood flowing get a littledetox fasted cardio I try to do fastercardio so if I can't get to the gym Iwalk around my house in circles and I dowhatever I gotta do so that's kind ofwhat I did right before talking to youso that's today Vernon excellent I'veactually just done my cardio just beforespeaking to yourself as well because Ifind it kind of clears my mind and itjust makes me a little bit more creativeI suppose I'm jealouswhat's your momma with you my morningroutine I wake up in the morning and thefirst thing I do is like a gratitudejournal and I'd have my day planned outfrom the night before so I write mygratitude journal and I do this reallyweird thing so how a lot of people kindof inspire themselves and want ovatethemselves with their dreams and allthis exciting stuff I kind of think oflike the most morbid nightmare thatcould possibly think of I need somethingBad's gonna happen potentially to myselfor my family and what that kind of doesis it kind of fires me up and gets meout of bed to really kind of seize theday and not my - excuses yeah yeah Iknow it sounds morbid but it's actuallyquite motivational any no yeah I justI use all my adversity and stuff likethrough life just to kind of channelthat into your positive then the firstthing I do is go to the gym I try andtrain fasted similar to what you weresaying earlier and then I'll come backand I'll have breakfast withthe wife and then I'll crack on with mywork depending on what I'm doing in theday and when I kind of hit a slump whichis normally like after lunchtime that'swhere I just do a bit of cardio becauseit lifts me back up and then I'm then II just kind of again I do look at mygoals I write my gratitude again likesecond time in the day and I kind ofwrite like my five wins for the daybecause I think sometimes we're so busyand especially on social media whenyou're comparing yourselves with otherpeople instead we forget the progressthat we've made in life as well so Ikind of use that to just reflect andit's me just being more mindful of thethings I'm doing I suppose because Ithink there was a big period in my lifewhere I was just on autopilot if thatkind of makes sense but I do try andincorporate a lot of health foods sostuff like chaga mushroom lion's manecoffee that kind of like organic stuffbecause I listen to the model house showby Sean Stephenson and I do try and takea lot of oh my god he's amazing yeah Ilisten to all these stuff and anyanything he kind of recommends is whereI'll kind of go obviously in the UK it'sdifficult to kind of get the stuff thatyou guys have got over there so when Iwent to New York recently I broughtmyself some of that coffee obviously weget wheatgrass and karela and spirulinaand all those kind of good things hereso do you try and put as many goodthings into my body but I suffered a lotwith binge eating too many just about meI kind of find that I have to for if Ifancy a biscuit or a chocolate I have tohave that then because otherwise I'llsuppress my feelings for seven days andthen I'll eat like 300 of them if thatmakes right no it's holding if you havemy family is like eating themselves todeath so it's definitely I get it it's ahorrible condition isn't it because italmost becomes a vicious cycle becauseespecially I mean I'm not sure when youhad it but when I did it what I would dois I will train three times a day forthe next four days almost like torturingmyself and then yeah it's horrible thenyou keep then you get to a point whereyou're absolutely starving and then youend up gorging againi in 10,000 caloriesand you're thinking this can't be rightso for me it's kind of being practicalthinking what's sustainable and so I tryand get all the best foods I can in themowning hard right train everything andthen if I fancy a treat like just beforeour bun on the show with you I had acouple of biscuits and I'm good I'mhappy so yeah right right but on thebinge eating um it is an addictionactually I'm going to become a certifiedpeer recovery coach there's a trainingfor that I'm going to apply that with myhealth counseling because I don't have Ido I did take some classes in addictionbut I want to take more and more formalclasses because what I'm finding is thatlike my last client doesn't her name isnot listed so it's totally confidentialso confidential clients to the pointwhere people don't even know I donutrition but um a lot a lot of peoplewho have the binge eatingyou know it's comorbid they're also hadmaybe had a history of sex addiction oralcohol or opiates it usually runs handsin hands attempt it tends to at leastthat's what I see and these people ifyou can apply even if they don't havethe substance addictions I'm applyingthe principles of addiction for manydifferent belief systems really helps itreally helps easing you know that'sfascinating so you till you're in theprocess of becoming that coach now yeahI'm going to I'm going to hopefullyhopefully it starts next week yeah didlike you haven't got enough things to bedoing right I know well you know is Idon't have kidsand I don't have a husband so that freesup a lot of space where I can do a lotof things a lot of people say you haveto pick one I said well if you don'tkids and you don't go to breakfast lunchand dinner and you still have hangoversanymore you can kind of do a lot ofstuff yeah good pointjust I'm going off on a little tangenthere you mentioned at the beginning ofthe show I think it was fresh coal andyou've mentioned all this nutritioustypes of food that you're taking whatkind of brands do you recommend I'm justthinking for the listeners who maybewant to just make it a take on a bit ofadvice and try something sure sure okaylong list I bounced around because thisis a thing even even if you know themanufacturer and make highly researchthings there might be substances in thefoods that they don't know about youknow it's just like with the world howit is in the polluted waters so I liketo diversify a lot so withI'll do fresh cooking's I would do freshgreens for since 2010 and that I met theowner and it was like I was alreadytaking this stuff for eight years Ifound that on a podcast while in myshower and then we became friends sofresh greens for sure also on PuriImperium is a network marketing companyI don't sell it but I am a fan of theirgreen vibrance green affair um so I likeI really think it's good to bouncearound I do like the periodit's a beat what is it it is apre-workout and it's called can't beatthis before pre-workout pretty amazingso they vasodilator of beet powder lovethat beet powder as far as supplementit's not really a supplement you buy butyou can do this yourself so I highlyrecommend this you can do all this withlemons turmeric ginger and sprout theydo is all for you just take sproutslemon turmeric ginger putting a blackthey're all separate so the lemons arejust with water in a blender and thenblunt it turns into a pulp and then youtake the pulp and you put it into an icecube tray or many ice cube trays andthen you freeze it it becomes ice cubesand then you take those ice cubes put itin a bag so every time you have wateryou can just take an ice cube and put itin your water it's already prepared nomess grilled yeah so that's the turmericand the ginger a big one and those arenatural it's not a company see I think alot a lot of these brands we don'treally get them in the UK which is why Iwas quite envious because I listen toSean Stephenson quite regularly and he'ssaying and talking about organifi andall these crazy supplements that justsound like they're amazing but thenobviously you go to the UK shoppingcentres and it's pretty much basic stuffyeah so yeah yeah it's very difficultand I think they've started to do likeorganic ranges now where you've got ourwhole foods and stuff but everything'sso overpriced I'm just thinking for theregular family well maybe maybe stufflike you've just mentioned like gingertumericlemons which is relatively cheap foodthat you can almost make some sort ofconcoction yourself yeah just blend ityou can do it fresh but it makes a messit takes time and if you're really busyjust to go in your freezer and take theice cube and pop it in water it's soeasy yeah I'm not gonna grind soureveryoneis that yeah of course okay fantastic sowe've spoken a little bit about yourlife now obviously you're doing all thisweird and wonderful things I want to askyou something a little bit suppose alittle bit personal and it might againgo back to that situation about yourback or it could be something completelydifferent I want to speak aboutadversity and the reason I want to speakabout adversity is because I'm alwayskeen to see how people overcome theiradversity because I believe we're almostfaced with the choice when we go throughsomething difficult we either give up orwe continue moving forward and the wholeemphasis behind this show is to showthat the show must still go on so if Icould kind of ask you to maybe talkabout a time that you've been throughsome level of adversity and how youpersevered through it and moreimportantly what you learned from itright right okay so I kind of had that afew weeks ago breakups breakups willkind of do that to you but I'm gonna goup to the back pain I think that's thebest because that was a transformationaltime my life I really changed so the2010 Thanksgiving ish was the back painstarted setting in and when I say backpain it's it's not just all my backhurts there's a shooting pain that feelslike there's a needle being stabbed inyour back and it goes down to your feetwrong so that happens to 50% of the timefrom 2010 to 2013 in August and one dayI knew it was gone when I picked up myjuicer with one hand and I didn't feelback pain I was like oh my god I canpick a juicer up with one hand and Idon't feel back then and I started whatlike jogging through me oh my god I cantog and I was a trainer I remember I wasa trainer teaching workout classes andthat's when the back pain hit so that'spretty scary when your full time job isof cool teaching workout classes and youcan't walk across the room and Iwouldn't even drink water some daysbecause I couldn't get up to look acrossthe room to go to the bathroom that'show bad it was so so um yeah it took along time you know 2010-2013 is a longtime but there's a lot of things thathappened I went to a handful ofdifferent doctors that failed me and youknow that motivates me to help peopleand put together a cohesive plan thatworks that's why I'm passionate aboutsharing myself because nobody not onepersonwe'll help me unfortunately um switchedmy friends around that was reallyimportant I I wasn't um I wasn't analcoholic or anything but the lifestylein DC was you know it was very normallike once a week so if you're if youhave a lot of friends and I had a fewpeople even call me a socialite which isbizarre but okay so I guess I was prettysocial and teach you workout classes andthose two things don't mix don't ever ifthere's any yeahdon't try to drink tequila at a poolparty and smoke pot and then teach atwork you know until God knows when andgo to the MTV real world house and thentry to teach a workout class at 6:30 inthe morning after teaching it quite a5-man you're gonna die like something'sgonna happen to you that's what happenedI drove myself into the ground so yeahso uh you know that the drinking Ialmost completely quit I realize it'sjust a poison for me it doesn't work myhalf my family just can't drink alcohollike our body is just like my functionso yeah it's so the alcohol is reallysmall the whole diet change the friendsthat want to go out and drink and wearhigh heels because I I can't really dothat with my with my back high heels arefour sheets in the bedroom you knowgoing out at night on Fridays andSaturdays and living a normal life no soI don't I have my fun in much differentways now and those type of friends Ihave or people want to create with meyou want to write comedy and sketchesand you know just do fun cool stuff likethis you can be healthy and you can bekind of bad person you can curse and youcan do all kinds of fun stuff you don'thave to live a boring life to be healthyyou really don'tyeah I think that's a great point and Ithink it's probably something that a lotof people go through is especiallymyself so when I first got into fitnessit was very difficult because similar toyourself I was very sociable and I wasalways going out for drinks on a FridaySaturday and it's kind of like an Indianculture here where you just kind of justgo to the pub on a Friday Saturday andget absolutely wasted and then hungoverthe next day you're eating kebabs andfast food and then back on it again andinitially when I started especially myentrepreneurial journey because it'scompletely different to a nine-to-fivein terms of you're working more hours sothat lag and that hangover especiallywhile trying to keep in shape as wellwas so diffwhen you have in these two or three daysI just continuously going over and thenI almost had to kind of pull myself backas well from that social circle andinitially it was difficult because Istill found myself coming back but thenlike you said I've now got people in mycircle who we can just grab for a meal anice healthy meal and stuff like sleepand stuff I really especially again Imentioned him again Shaun's demon said Iprioritize my sleep just as much aseverything else that my hearth um andnutrition so I make sure I'm in bed by acertain time in order to carry on withthe day and like you said do all the funstuff because life for me right now Iprobably don't drink how I used to drinkbut I'm having just as much fun so it'syeah it's about reevaluating I supposeas you go through life priorities changeyeah I mean I gotta say that I meantoday has kind of just started for me Iwoke up late but today is I say one ofthe best days of my life and necessaryghosts are the most fun days and thereis no alcohol and there is not stayingup too late but um you know at first Ithink it first released for me it was alittle devastating because all myfriends not all of them but the friendsI used to party with for life it lookedlike Maxim models they're gorgeous girlsand they were these heels and they couldliterally be on a magazine and we go outat night and 8iv many sneakers I don'tcare I had to but it's like you can't Iliterally couldn't do the things that myfriends wanted me to do like couldn'twalk and I couldn't be athlete that allthe behaviors of the Fiat Li wearinghigh heels you can't help normally allruin my back so I had to kind of justdisappear yeah of course for your ownwell-being I supposeyeah and it's better it's just muchbetter I mean there's a whole bunch ofpeople that are doing I'm actually gonnamake a list and I can share with you Imake a list of all these things you cando instead of going out to dinnerbreakfast lunch and drinks and there'sso much actually that would be fantasticif you have got something like that whatcan actually put it in the show notes aswell yes so then people that wouldobviously give the list of some value aswell thank you I appreciate thatwell there'll be a valuable list becausea lot of people don't know what to dowhen people ask them to do these thingsand then they do it and they feel likeshit and then they're like well thislife is slice Lots it's like they'lljust create anyway yeah absolutely Ithink that's a great point that isbecause I suppose one of my excusesactually at that time was are there'snothing else to do you know it's aFriday there's nothingto really do but I think that list willcertainly help people thank you for thatyeah yeah I'm gonna do that and have the77 they're just absolutely sublimebrilliant fantastic okay so my nextquestion it's about fear so you're avery very happy bubbly person who lovesthe laugh but what kind of scares you isthere anything that scares you in termsof everything everything Wow okay byethat person like hey I think you mightsee my Instagram because you can seewatches your stories but I recentlybecame with on a comical level I'mobsessed with and then on a comicallevel I'm into it like 80% but on a 20%level I'm really into it because Ibelieve in it the show doomsday preppersso like home invasions and security andlooting and the government going orwhatever in the water levels rising likethese are some things that go through myhead all the time right okayyou know in a healthy way because I didin our environmental event a couplemonths ago and there are there is allthis research that shows that in LongIsland there's going to be I think it'sa hundred thousand people that will haveto relocate because there's they'regoing to have flooding in their homeslike there are real things going on sothings like that worry me and thenhomelessness has always been on my mindI've never gotten close to it but Ithink about it all the time which isweird I don't think it's weird I justthink I think it's different I think thefact that you're thinking aboutsomething like that maybe with likeempathy or something is it shows youryour nature in terms of I assume whenyou think about it obviously upsets youand you think that's not right I'm justtrying to figure out why something soexternal that's in terms ofprobabilities probably not going toaffect you while you're letting thatkind of consuming because it is anexternal factorI suppose consume me but it's somethingthat like it's just something that youknow I'm not driven by fear but it'sdefinitely something I think of like forexample I used to give my dad a lot ofshit and you would always have two carsand what are you gonna do you're gonnayou're gonna ghost ride the whip you'regonna have one foot on one car one onthe other and sometimes you talk aboutsaving money and I'd be like what areyou doing just get rid of one car so Iso by psychic and this is really bizarrebut she's looking good you're gonna bereally successful and all this stuff andblah blah blah you know by the timeyou're 40 and you're not gonna have towatch your money but you're gonna bevery preneur yes because and you'regonna save money you're not gonna wastemoney I was like yeah because I alwaysthink you know what if it's that $70001000 dollar purchase and that's why I'mhomelessyeah right okay yeah absolutely that'sit that's a different way of thinkingI've never really thought like thatyeah weird no no it's not weird at allit's just it's uniqueso clairvoyance I just want to touch onthat as I see do you believe inclairvoyance oh yeah I do I do I don'tthink that I definitely think there wasa lot of BS out there and we're more BSand there is truthfulness but I'll giveyou let's see I'll give you this examplemy first my first situation someone cameto my house in my apartment in collegeright after college and we had gone tothe University of Maryland and partyingour freshman year with like older peopleand it was crazy and she goes she goesshe walks in and I'm smoking a hookahand my diagram my living room table andI'm not really paying attention she goesJaden do you remember my friend Hollyand I just look up and I go he died likethat was my reflex reaction I didn'tfollow him on Facebook I don't have anyfriends in common we're at the sameuniversity and she just is like what thehell he died I just knew so I've had alot of situations like that where I justknow things it comes out of my mouth sosomething's going on yeah yeahI don't I don't want to scare off mylisteners I know yeah but I believe init as welland actually did a course for a veryshort amount of time I did it with mymom actually and just to kind ofunderstand what goes on behind thescenes of it yeah and yeah it wasinteresting not that I saw anything oranything but he kind of explained howpsychics say what they say ie they getimages and stuff and then it's kind oflike about interpretation how youinterpret what you're being told andactually there was a lady close to meand I actually I've probably been toabout ten times in my life and some ofthe stuff she's told me stuff that youcan't guess you know it's not stuff likeoh you're gonna have someone die of aheartor something very generic it's it'salmost like your great granddad diedbecause he had an infection in his lefttoe and that killed him and then I'vegone home and I've asked my dad and I'mlike wow how is that just happened soyeah it is some freaky stuff that youkind of think why there is something outthere but like you said there's probablya lot more fake people out there whichwas I suppose suppose the narrativereally but yet I got stories on storiesfrom the same psychic who didn't know mydad at the time and he didn't know hiscurrent girlfriend of like 10 or 12years they both saw the same psychic andthey described that they would meet eachother at the brick wall behind them andthe whole place and how it would happenand it happened that I mean that's oneof them is crazy so yeah and I actuallyuse it with clients I actually I'vetaken a few psychic development coursesjust because I used to really benegative about it I used to kind of likebe really mean to my mom because my momused to be able to crystals and I waslike listen does it make sense you'rebeing crazythe only way to knock something is tofully immerse yourself in to learn aboutit so I was like you know what I'm somean about this stuff I'm so negativemy name's like let's just take somepsychic classes in 2014 I met some guyat a grocery store and he's likeliterally throwing business cards at meso I was like alright let's try it and Iactually um i i've known with everysingle client 100% if they're a bingeeater if they're lonely there's certainthings i just know fine yeah that'sfascinating you have to keep me updatedin relation to your journey because whoknows how much they'll take you somemore courses as well myself i think youknow it's just good to know like ifyou're in real estate or if you're inthe entertainment business like i I knowpretty much right away now like if Ishould deal with this first right notjust you know it's not even psychic youcould even just call it intuition orjust reading people really well whateveryou want to call it it's just reallynice to be able to walk into a room andwygor having to deal with all these newpeople you know as an actress and belike you know and they gonna that youknow is it should I go to this auditionare they gonna steal my organs and theyget a kidnapped into versus a realaudition and it is a real audition isthis something that I should do so yougot a feel out so much and all theseindustries in real estate - you knowthat's where's your time just playingdevil's advocate there do you not feelthose sometimes and this isthe response I get from my wife orsomebody is that when somebody tells yousomething you almost start acting moretowards that kind of path if that makessense so are times where somebody saidare you gonna purchase this or you'regonna do this and then maybesubconsciously it's gone into my headsomewhere I mean I don't try and do itknowingly but you feel that maybe thatkind of and you can't rule that outyeah I will tell you writing a book is alot of sacrifice you know it takes hoursand hours and I've been writing thissince 2010 it's a hundred thirty-fivepages but I've had at least eight if not20 different psychics who don't knoweach other all over the world tell methat I'm going to be like a globalhealer and help people la ville Bluff sowhen you have all these people tell youthings it helps because if for me towrite a book and then think you knowwhat this is a piece of garbage no one'sgonna care but when all these people whoare you know winning awards would becollecting so they're all telling meyou're gonna change the world and helpall these people it helps it helps me togo reaffirms it right yeah me too aswell how more podcast is up okay yeahwhat helped a lot of people ten thousandpeople before I die that's what Idecided oh you do more than that you dolike definitely definitelyokay so you've actually kind of answeredmy next question which was aboutmotivation and I'm assuming your biggestmotivation is probably to help otherpeopleyeah to help people to be out of painand help the people who are strugglingto get out of struggle and to helpothers who are pretty much doing well tobe more alphonse really super win that'sa major main goal of mine I love that Ilove that tough one as well on the wayyeah you you gotta have fun you gottahave the vibration for fun actuallyyou know the vibration of fun is gonnahelp you to succeed more absolutely sowhat I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put youthrough the paces now having heard thebuzzer go off so we're gonna go in threetwo onewhat did you eat for breakfast we'respells coffee gold lemon juice theability to fly or be invisible invisiblemoney your fame money your idea job whatI'm doing right nowyour proudest moment mmm writing lastnight's comedy your favorite food man noI'm just kidding I know yeah I love somany things I don't have a favorite Idon't know Netflix our YouTube mmm shootyou YouTube's getting better networksright now your number one goal this yearput out at least 20 hilarious comedyvideos and to get my book to at least atleast 30 more people minimum if not 100tea or coffee coffee your favorite sportall racket sports where it's tennisracquetball ping-pong if you could sitwith one person in the world for an hourwho would it beoh shoot god I'm my dad in second AndyMilonakisokay why is your biggest addiction foodsummer or winter summer your favoriteplace in the whole wide world my homelately would you rather speak alllanguages will be able to speak toanimals animals if you could abolish onething in the world what would it be painin every single form your favorite songever Oh Godokay we're gonna go with what I listenedto yesterday which is not the truth butit's captain and it's Ricky Ricardo andthe final question is read minds orpredict the futureFinnick the future fantastic it's weirdthat the last question was actually inrelation to the stuff we were quitetalking about that's strangeokay fantastic so we're almost at theend of the show now just got a couple ofmore questions I just want to ask you soI'm a firm believer in hindsight being awonderful thing obviously we can learn alot from our lessons we can learn waysto get to where we want to get toquicker easier or with less heartachebut I'm also a very firm believer thatthe journey that we go through teachesus a hell of a lot so knowing what youknow now if you could take yourself backto a young agent and maybe whispersomething in her ear when she was goingthrough some level of adversity even ifwe look at 2011 for example what wouldyou say don't deal with true gas pitcheryeah basically I mean that it sounds sostupid but basically in who and that'snot you know at your level or basicallyrelated to the goals at hand and purposejust don't deal with them I love that Ithink that sound advice that's pretty okfantastic so that brings us to the lastquestion and the last question I alwaysask all of my guests is if in 150 yearstime we are no longer here and all thatexists is a book and this book is aboutyouit's about Jen it's about her whole lifeeverything she's accomplished or theweird and wonderful things that she'sdone firstly what would the title ofthat book be and secondly what would theblurb at the back of it tell us aboutJen oh man well first I'll just have tointerject and say that I would hope thatmy how-to guide book would be much moreprolific and well-known than a bookabout me because that will help morepeople but um that being said to answeryour question um the title of the bookmaybe you read this fuck off or the lifewhich energy and then the eggs blurbwould probably be how to live the lifethe life of the life without pain thelife with laughter good all by havingfun in health and having that that drawthe viewer you know yeah yeah absolutelyit's a terrible summary that's not herthing don't don't destroy it I'm sure wecan obviously work on it when it comesout but yeah no that's fine absolutely Ithink I think that's it that's a goodpoint you've said it a few times in thisepisode is about the fun bit and one ofthe things I've always preached in likeespecially in health and fitness so Ialways say it takes hard work and I sayyou need to be consistent with whateveryou're doing but my other two things arealways about sustainability andenjoyment that's kind of my four pillarsthat I always kind of practice I supposeso it's just interesting obviouslysomeone else who's in the kind of healthand fitness space as well that you alsosay you know you need to be happy andyou need to enjoy it basically as wellbecause I feel like we're kind ofmissing that element in there yeah inthe health effects especially yeah Iwould like to add to it though I mean Ilive to NTC my ownfor ten years away from my mom my dadand my mom definitely has told me nohave fun but my dad more so you know Iam very critical even though I like toact goofy and be stupid you know andjust played themI am very critical I can walk into roomand I'm an artist I was art studio artminor in college I can see every singlething that I consider to be a flaw and aperson in a home and I and how to fix itthis is just how my mind works so youknow as I the reason why I'm like thisis my dad would always you knowinfluence and try to be like you gottahave fun he'll ask me you know I'm likeI did this and I got an A or you know Ihelp this client or a bubble blind yougo well did you have fun did you have afire mmm it's a brilliant question toask isn't itit's and he's one of the most importantones as well yeah it's so important soI'm glad that you know he said he wouldremind me because I can be I can getvery serious actually mm-hmmI think the whole world can't to behonest and I think I'm not sure whatit's like over in the in the States butif you if you pay a lot of attention tothe media and the the television andyour newspapers here it's very very easyto kind of become depressed and justthink bad thoughts all the time becauseit's just so much negativity being postpassed around and you're almost justhearing like bad stories all the timeyet there's so much light in the worldas well and so much wonderful thingsthat I think need to be expressed a lotmore so it's refreshing that you hadthat attitude as welland I think I think the world would justbenefit more from that so thank yousharing that I appreciate it before wego Jen I just want to give you a chancejust to obviously for the listeners letus know where we can contact you andobviously are poor or they're the finerdetails into the show notes as well yeahI don't contact me I like my piece um nono I I like peopleoh the good ones the good ones so wehave two instagrams at the life withgenerally we have at Jen Elise we havemy website which just got hacked thelife with Jenner ChiCom Facebook JenElisefeldy there's Tumblr and Twitter and theTwitter is life with Jenner G yeahthat's good and in relation to yourpublication yeah I'm gonna havebits of things on Instagram and Facebooklike if you go to my facebook profilephotos of Congress on there's a lot oflike the major productions like there'sfive movies coming up and the next fewmonths so they're gonna be like you kindof go through that you'll kind of seewhat's going on but I also do have likea resume four people are in theentertainment business on backstage command I have like a seven page whole thingwith links and YouTube so you could justbe like okay just what what's going onlike can we just have it in one sheet soit actually lists everything I'm up toand it you know goes through voiceoverand health counseling and hosting andit's totally organize and categorizefantastic okay excellent so I'll makesure I put those all in the show notesthank you for your time today and foreveryone else at home thanks forlistening thank you as us and rememberthis podcast is absolutely free so allwe ask in return is for you to sharethis with a friend and drop us a 5 starreview over on iTunes have an awesomeday See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 15 - "My Way" - Raj Sallan #15Tagline: "The only person that should be proud of you, is yourself"Raj Sallan was the Fresh Prince, before he got shipped off to Bel-Air. His parents swiftly realised he was going to end up going down the wrong path if he stayed in Germany, he was sent to Birmingham, UK where he was forced to learn another language, way of life and develop his own mindset. Having had to learn his 3rd language, Raj utilised martial arts, kick-boxing and boxing to channel his mind and found a passion that would see him travelling the world and proving all his doubters wrong.Raj explains that your mindset starts from the moment you wake up. He strengthened his perspective and mindset to help him handle not living with his parents for the majority of his childhood, learning English and fighting professionally in combat sports. Realising that nothing is impossible Raj has overcome his own levels of depression, loneliness and now spends his hours helping world-class fighters, girls and boys of all ages in becoming fit and finding their own confidence.A genuinely loving guy, whose energy is infectious. He explains his daily rituals that have helped him earn a favourable reputation in the fight game, but also as a genuinely humble human being.A story of adversity, with no excuses and an individual who found his voice and continues to write his own story.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rajesh.sallan (Personal)Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/only1rajeshsallan/Have an awesome day #JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so as you sit here nowlistening to this podcast I just want toask you a quick question now obviouslyit's rhetoricalbecause I can't hear your answer but howmany times in the last week have youthought about something negative haveyou complained when it really wasn'tthat badhave you mould about how little progressyou've made rather than actually commendyourself for how far you've came myguess is probably more than you wish toadmit and that's absolutely fine listenwe've all been there but what I findremarkable about this episode thatyou're gonna hear is I guarantee 100% ifyou listen to this all the way throughyour perception and your mindset willbenefit you will change it you willstart to feel I'll say silly for morningabout the silly things that we oftenmoan about because this individual hasnot only had to learn English as histhird languagehe was uplifted as a ten-year-old fromhis parents to live in a foreign countrywhere everything was alien to him andthe only thing he really knew how tocontrol was his mind and his hands andhis feet and with that he tells awonderful story so without further adoI'm gonna get this interview on the wayso firstly I just wanna walk on right tothe show and thank you for taking timeout of your day to come and have thisinterview myself how you doing today I'mfine right it's just doing well goodgood the UK where they're glad to hearit so I think it's important for thelisteners to understand a little bityourself now I've heard about you mywife's told me about you you know wantedyou on Instagram for some time now so ifyou could kind of give the listenersbasically a history of how you've cameabout to where you are todaywell basically am I was born in Germany1988 in Frankfurt and grew up in a roughestate area basically it was there wasno Indians back then it was just if youname it just like Turks albaniandifferent all different cultures but noIndians no Asians my family was the kindof the first Indian community aroundthere my uncle and everyone and growingone went school there stayed there -lost ten the time there was no peopleprobably asking what are you doing hereyeah yeah it's just growing up in thisstate area it was a rough and tough youknow being through fucking some hardtime and the other day and seeing myparents there being there and as anIndian people you know how did Germanthey say it's not it's not a racistcountry but they won't put everyone inone the cultural people would want inone area so where this day so this istheir area it was a being a bad kid Iwas like a as poor really but the otheryeah okay so I'm getting into naughtystuff at a young age theftnot going school just no he just beingwrong basically doing the wrong thingsthat I do you know upsetting my parentsthey wasn't happy they wanted a betterlife for me so come to a stage wherethey decided to send me here because mymom's side everyone's here my uncle's mycousins so they had a decision to makewhich probably was the biggest decisionin their life so they decided to send mehere to have a better life and todaythat's where I stand is here and I'mbeing threw me through quite a bit youknow from being alone softwaredepression this is probably most of thefamily members they don't even knowthemselves so when they hear this theyprobably think we didn't know this butI've never come up out of it really I'venever told anyone about it because Ilike to keep things sometimes myself and[Music]I've always always had that little thingwhere you know when I was young come onmy own and basically crying by myselfand I was a kid when I come here cuz Imissed my parents because the hardestthing in my life was probably was goingto that Airport and looking back and seemy mom and I'd cry maybe one else that'sa hard thing yeah it's a mental thingand that's a ten year old I don't knowwhere I'm going I don't know what'shappening yeah what's going so you wereten when you came over I was 10 yearsold and was jamming your first languagebut job dream dance from Indiana okaysome may not be fast champion easilyshould I didn't know I didn't have aclear barrage you know nothing Englishfrom the age of 10 10 yes fantastic andthen it was just hard time it's justhard that moment was very hard ten yearsold you wouldn't know you took back andwhy do you crying like we think he mighthave great for holiday of his back ofcourse I know what they said that youknow going then the plan was to give ita go see how it goes that's what my owncustom a moment which was good and thenit was hard that day I remember sittingon the plane at ten years old amount andit's going to another country to start anew life and things started and use thegood is better for me basically becausethe way I grew up in Germany there wasonly one way in a prison gangs or deadawesome other than something I didn'twant to disappoint my parents becauseone thing in my life that could never dois disappoint them they mean the worldto me and yeah another indeed appear nowin school world screedcome in years six or years five yearsalmost ten years old I didn't know noEnglish no English at all basically Idid not think I was that good fresh offthe boat but yeah and had to go throughlot of stuff as a kid because knowingnot know Englishmaking friends was hard but it was justvery difficult to be fair and the way Ijust gone through it I cried as a kid Iremember going home walking from schoolI had no friends and this is when Ifirst come over andthat long road in hands of going homeand crying and just being upset missingmy parents 10 year old kid would courseYong Yong you don't know you know youdon't know how you feel and it's justvery different unexplainable to peoplethat unless they've been throughthemselves they know I feels and it washard there's hard times and then slowlyslowly things started changing for meyou know I just started getting thinkingin my head don't one thing I always saidto myself in life is that it's all aboutyou know your brief you got two arms twolegsyou're not worse than others knowthere's people out there in lifestylegoing through lot worse than yourself soI always that's one thing one of themsecond is that the only place that'sgonna believe and use yourself you can'tbelieve in yourselfand having faith in yourself then youknow I strongly believe that you knowpeople believe in like North ofAttraction the universe I thinkpersonally you are your universe you arewhat you think in it you become what youthink so absolutely things change for meyou know if I didn't have if I didn'twant to become like my parents oreverything I took a lot of criticism inlife as well like you can't do this myparents up to because they sent me yeahas if our Asian families are they'll putyou they'll put a lot of people downthey like to say oh he ain't gonna donothing course of course being in amaking oh why you sent him there for myparents after he all that then it waslike a it was me against the people asone to prove them wrong that you knowwhat I'm fuckin of made it yeah you knowI am Who I am I'm a good personI've not turned that wrong a lot ofpeople expected me to come here and takeadvantage oh yeah and film become adruggie junkie do whatever can you knowmake most of it because my parents inhere but um you know you know plenty offriends we just forget just before thisinterview as well I've been mutualfriends we've got as well yeahdefinitely is so I think that'sinteresting what you've touched from ityou said a couple of things that I'vejust made notes of so one is you becomewhat you think and believe in yourselfthis is something that I know is a verydate hero you have to say affirmationsand implant that in my head now and Ithink indirectly because you've been putin that situation you have to developthat yourself andgiving you some strengths although youmight not have seen it as a strengththen it's brought you into the personthat you are now which I think it'sfantastic because and a lot of peoplelistening to this probably had a lotmore shout class yeah whereas you wereby yourself and you thinking buddy gotthese two hands and legsyeah and just speaking on those twokinds of legs now yeah that you knew youhad you've done incredible things withthose yeah which I just wanted to tellthe audience as well it all started witha fire school basically okaywhen I was in Germany I was a bit of atempered kid you know it's but I stillgave too loud so when I come here I wasit - I got into a few fights and this ismy first the first few month for youalreadyand my uncle goes to meet my mom'sbrother he goes you know you gotsuspended from school you just come overhere in basically Punjabi because Icouldn't speak English course and sofrom there he started and there he goeswell I'm gonna send you to kickboxinggym and I go ah they don't give me acoke it's nothing they asked or justyeah by then I made friendsI put friends by them you know peoplethat were around me and school friendsand I took one friend with me and saidlet's give me a coke see what's aboutyeah and who wants me to go okay andwalked into the gym and then from therenever looked back cuz just suddenly Ifound a talent I wasn't good mmm yes soit wasn't actually beating people up butit's something I had in me and I usedthat a lot if it wasn't for that I thinkthat sports and combat sport fightingand all that helped me in a way my usingmy hands and feet my mentally if it mademe better and it was more energy changedeverything like if I was upset at homeor if I was feeling downoh go to gym no I'll use that a lot andthen that just made me who I amfrom there he just kick-started amateurfights I went to turn pro in Thai boxingI had laws of numerous fight all overthe place over India to fight at a proMMA fight for winning age and over 20pro kickboxing fightsit's incredible a mature buck cells aswell as boxing for Saint Francis inBirminghamfantastic yes or other good chance I waseven told to stick to boxing and one wayis that gonna be pro in that but I justlove kicking okay yeah so that's whereyou all started my hands or feet andthey kicked off then I think that'swhere I I saw your Instagram stuff Nickinitially because I know my wife Tommylove about you because you went to thesame school and she said it's reallyinspiring you've come from completelydifferent country and you found your wayin life and I remember going to be spokeabout this just before the podcast goingto ask them University yeah which iswhat ten miles from my house can getthere in 15 minutes yeah and I washomesickso Monday to Thursday by the timeThursday comes I couldn't wait to gethome on a Friday so I can only imaginewhat it's like for a ten-year-old kid tokind of have to do that but I don't nowwe've spoken obviously before this yougo home a lot now and you visit inGermany quite yeah I spend much timewith my family I can I personally thinkthat nowadays degeneration now theyforget their parents and they forgetabout the old alumni like I spend a lotof time my parents because thedifference with me is that I've notactually I've lost a lot of time withthe growing of pianos and not being withthem so be going back and then everytime so anytime that means the world tome now first thing you couldn't you knowa man if you don't spend time I agreeand I'm sure they're very proud of howfar you've come now they are yeah theyare very very proud but the mostimportant thing is my dad always tellsme is the only place that should beproud this are you proud you have peoplelike that that's what matterspersonally I'm proud of myself that's apretty messy that's the best thing toyou now look that message as well andthat's something that I try and getthrough this podcast as well is thatyeah the way we look at ourselves in ourself-worth and stuff like it's the mostimportant thing yet cuz it's nicegetting plaudits from the person nextdoor or somebody across the road butuntil you start looking yourself andbelieving in yourself I'll do somethinglike this is something I don't are manyByrne I wake up in the morning and speakto myself let me read it and there's areason why I do it because then I wentto see someone about three years agomm-hmmand he helped me the way to think andwhy how to change negativity intopositively I don't you feel great aboutyourself so he said do something liketalk to yourself yeah but he actuallyworks so I realized that your mindsetstarts from the time you wake up youknow when you say your feet touch thefloor yeah that is when your mind startsworking and whatever you think whatthought you wake up with so if you wakeup negative your day is going to benegative if you wake up positive you'repositive so walk to the mirror and I gotthis little white top where I just say Iam positive I am rich I am blessed I ammy own God I am this and that so and Italk to myself yeah and then I said toher I'm gonna have a great day todaydo that and it helps me yeah that'ssomething that really helps me I knowsome people might thinking wow that'sthat but that is something like I canreally really help someone it's a mentalthing and this is like a you mentallygetting stronger and your mind youyou're basically transforming your mindset you straight positive team andyou're looking forward to the day thenit can rain out there because no evenwhen I'm finished knowing and it's shitwhether I'll say it's a toy don't stopme doing the finger prize of course it'sthe mindset how people yeah and I know alot of people that wake up in themorning say example one day I hatemondays absolute that's the firstnegative word that you say to yourself Ihate why do you hate go and do what youhad to do come home make a plan yeahthink coffee I love that so it's one ofthem things I think as you were saying Ijust opened up my diary so I have everymorning five thoughts and it's similarto yourself I am powerful I understandmy own bothyI am perfect every single morning bestthing and it's only something I've beendoing recently as well but it's soimportant like what we feed am I here soyou're an athlete you know what it'simportant to feed your body physicallystrong but if this is weak that knowseverything there's no point of it's notpoint being you know I mean the bestbody but if you're my name right it'sthe same with the fight game you can bevery good in the gym you can beyou can be whatever but if your mindsetswrong and you my name in the fightmm-hmmyou must say you lost the fight yeahbecause it's not there lost it before itstarted yeah but a lot of people don'trealize that so my mind is a powerfulthing I don't think people realize it Ithink you're right there I think it'sbecoming a bit more and this is probablybecause I look into that fear you've gota lot of mindset coach and a lot ofpeople talking about it but when I hearit from someone like yourself who's putit into practice in an arena and done iton an international stage I find it alot more authentic and real so I'm gladyou said that and it was actually theone of the next questions I was gonnaask you was about your routine and so Ilove athletes and if I could if I couldhave a separate podcast in this they'vebeen just interviewing athletes becauseI think it takes a certain type ofperson to get to the top to stay at thetop to have that mindset because itisn't like you said it ain't all aboutyour physical attributes you'll be thehardest hit but if you aim right hereyeahand somebody's got more clued on therethey're gonna have perform you throw itmain rhythm as an example indefinitelyso what I want to ask you is this was mynext question what do you do until thetime you go to sleep so obviously youall can have you spoken to yourself inthe mirror now yeah what are their kindof rituals or habits do you do in theday often saying I can go back to when Iwas fighting yeah yeah what I used to dowas we stay twice a day or three timespushing it depending coming to a fightwaking up in a pony go for a jog I'mjust going back when I was at school myuncle used to wet this secondary schooland I was competing then amateur leveland I was doing then I'd turn pro and Imean my uncle waking you used to comefrom a nightshift 4:00 in the morningbefore I go school is to make me go fora jog go for a run so the technologiesyou hear I was 14 to 16 this was and thededication was built in me already youknow having that warrior mentality andthat listen you gotta train hardmaintaining one way to so what we usedto do is train three times a day say maxand diet so when you wake up in themorning you run check your weight comehome eat you gotta watch my eat as wellyou have a nutritionist watching whatyou eat if you don't have a nutritionyou some people do it themselves whichis good as well so my daily routine isBella and especiallyall days was going school all day watchye at school wow this is the time whenno one hardly knew realized I was inyear eight nine I was just my name wasjust coming out and not people knew thehouse no one knew that I was doing itonly later on people found that comingfrom school finish school come home grabmy bagdon't do no homework come on felt liketraining back there go straight to thegym to our session and then back homeeat food go bed then after that when Ileft school it was the only thing thatchanged was there was no school time sothat's when three times a day trainingstarted just running in the morningtraining from different things likestrength speed and sparring session padwork different sessions and needs to bethree times a day eating right and hedays used to just go basically and thenI'm coming home in the evening afternoonchilling with the family and then in theevening if you feel good you go formother jog and this is when it comes toan eight week camp fight camp your aimis to get fit get mentally strong andget your weight down as well dependingon what weight division you find thatand then they just carried on like thatI've done that for a good 15 years to befair herI've been training since I was 10 stilldo it now but I'm fond of fighting fitand fighting professionally I stopped at25 my last fight was 24 when I was inIndia a fourth road and times change butI still keep the same similar routine Istill go for a jog here in l a-- wake-upcall for one you know in the morning andI love going running in the morning at 4or 5 I love that I love that it's thefresh a door full run go work andespecially with my job now you know wedo shift work so I work everythingaround it and the only thing that keepsme going is my mind basically your bodycan get old as much as they want but ifyour mind is strong can control yourmind and yeah and the funny thing isit's your mind that tells you're tiredeven before your body is as well yeahand that's something we definitely kindof battle with yeah I looked at and Ijust sort of touch on that so you'vedone this for like 15 years I had a veryvery short period and this is kind oflike something that I celebrate where Itrain like an athlete as a knight Igot myself under an Olympic coach nearboxing what I was doing with thosecopying national champions so when theywere training free time today I wasdoing the same yeah because I knew I gotinto the game late and I really wantedto go on a floors so I was training andI was copying them I was eating theright stuff and I couldn't understandwhat you're saying there I'm not sure ifthe listeners will get this but there isa point where your body and your mindare in sync that you do stuff that youthink shit how we're doing this becauseyou're training so would you do so muchand the reason I say that is because nowI'll go to the gym and people normallyis not comparison trained or whateverbut the intensity that I had for thosetwo years is 10 times more than now whatI can't do is bring that intensity backhere so now when I go to the gym the momI'm tired up I don't know I just kind ofthink okay let's got that Communistsabuse away and I wish I could transformthose two years of a true athletesmindset into now are you able to stilldo that now so you know how you wouldtrain that 25 can you bring that alittle bit back or is it a matter ofwhen you're not competing it's difficultto do I know exactly it doesn't makesense yeah I don't make sense to doright there especially the copying partmmm that's exactly why I used to dobecause watching people like the runningI got from sue my uncle told me run inthe mornings and everyone that fight hermentality and I just watch people likeTyson and knowing the jog in the morningand he watched these videos okay andthat's the copying part like justthought you said yourself you copy itand do it but that's the only way tothese people are there it's by of courseyou learn from them so that's why itlike Mayweather says you know what myopponent sleep 2 a.m. in the morning I'mgoing for it says it's a very good copyit's not a bad thing it's doingsomething that they're doing and then itworks on you but going to transformingit if I wanted to do that now andeverything I could like I said it's asit my head I knew boys the older youget or do you believe as welllaziness kicks in you know andresponsibilities change appear you knowyou have a lot more other things to doyou know work people get you knowrelationships and everything justchanges but in your head you got a youhave like a notebook and you writeeverything downtoday I'm gonna do this tomorrow I'm dothis you know you can write a routinedown and it still can be done it's don'tcoming there's nothing impossible inlibrary people told me I could neverspeak EnglishI've never got to speak English or aschool I get picked on here a day not asin you know just not picked on but justlaughing you know he can't speak Englishoh my cousin's would say oh and I thinkyou know what I realize now nothing isimpossible even when I was going throughthe depression point no I'm sad I justupset cryI never should tell my family no oneused to know I should be on my own icelike be a man just cry and miss myparents but then while Walter went alongand I got older I realized that you knowwhat nothing's impossible I could doanything or what you know whatum these people were standing out therewhat am i crying about what is wrongwith meyou know I mean I can do this dusty andtoday I'm here nothing today right nowI'm probably in the most longest mindsetI just believe in myself that I'm alivethey feel the good energy yeah and thisgood energy but Zampa when you passpositive energy got me excited herebefore we started this you can see howhappy I'll wait that's the best thing todo is the vibrations between two peopleand it's a straightaway you send it tothem and you want to spend time withpeople like thatthat's it girl one thing I have to do isthe certain people didn't say family orfriends who all they do is negativenegative negative and when it's yourfamily and friends you can't always cutthem out yeah so after do is limit myconversations with them or if I'm inthere if I'm in their proximity isliterally like how you doing and then Iwalk away because I don't want that youknow what all of these kind ofrelationships and this is where I'mcomplaining nowadays in life and on thegrand scheme of things and people haveinterviewed on this and includingyourself their problems that you knowthe trivial the minor compared to whatyou guys have been through nobody's beenlifted from their parents do you have tolearn a third language to that you don'tbe fired in and they're notunderstanding what people are sayingabout them to then having to developtheir own - such a young age where I'mhere now as a 30 year old still tryingto develop myand I'm seeing people who I'm actuallyworking with now who you are older thanme still trying to develop their Mon soI think it's you should be very proudfor this yeah I think it's commendablethat you've been able to do that yeahespecially it's true you don't think Iagree with that exam it's that fuckingthat did you do so you can't give a fuckabout anything fuck what people thinkfuck what anyone thinks really and dowhat you make sure you have people yeahif you work on yourself you're nevergonna get out of that blockage it's acircle around you like we've seen it alot with lot of people not mind coachespeople saying it like they put and diein the middle then they put circlearound it that is you and you can't getat that comfort zone you're just in thatmiddle you have to break through andthat's what he's like I had a friendmake for me two weeks ago saying I wannacopand I said to him you found me to tellme you walk onwell how about you think to yourselfthat I am gonna get I'm gonna have thatcar or believe that you already in thatcar believe in yourself like I said yeahyeah there's no one else gonna believein you you know I mean you can't askphone someone can you believe inaddition of everyone else that's it yeahcuz I knew this was interview was comingup and I try and learn about the persona little bit I took myself back intothose two years and the key to mysuccess in those two years was adecision I will just make a decision andbelieve it oh there's an analogy whensomebody says I'm trying to quit smokingfor a bit or somebody just says I don'tsmoke anymore they're two differenttypes of people the person who doesn'tsmoke and move will not be tempted andnobody will really ask him wheresomebody's that off stop smoking for abit the most aren't you're gonna getasked in a grave you want one or they'regonna be very very tempted it's kind ofyou've got to make your own identity youdo if that makes sense ain't the worldlike I'm trying change that try to I amNOT little words how you think I'm whatyou say your language you know yeah youto yourself what it's raining today orCongo you know but you say I will go forwhen the rain stops to be rain is notgonna kill you you know it's just it'sthe mind thing to be fair it's it's hardit's hard I know what where people comefrom like for me softly from beingjudged mean creaturesis going through depression at a youngage you know feeling alone andovercoming them things it's just it'snot as easy I want people to know thatthey're not on their own you know I knowpeople it's hard to explain to someonehow you feel but they need to realizethat you're not on your own becausefirst of all these people not worse thanwhat they're going through you knowsecond you're breathing you know he gottwo arms two legsyou put got a roof over your head getfood on the table and end of the worldnever think that and just feel strongabout yourself and even yourselfbut never give up and that's one thing Ithink in the Asian community is Wallynot all there's nothing wrong with youdon't worry you're just crying allyou're just upset it's a debate knowwhat's going through yeah you don't knowwhat's going through the person's heador what's happening and me as a youngkid I remember them little things when Iwas on my own and crying and all sortsit was quite hard and not family membersdon't know this to be fair but all thecomment in a way that it was that fuckyou attitude like you know what I'mgonna I'm gonna prove people wrong youknow I didn't care what people think butI used that as a I'm gonna prove a momthat I'll turn that good and I turned updoing I achieve things that day car so Iused them as a fuel baby that's why Iused the mass and it carried on likethat and my mind just got stronger andstronger hmm and anything even todaylike I mean people who having a bad dayand I turned their mindset it's just metalking deception isn't it yes it's howyou see itand I think you took started this soyou've been doing this since you attendthey pretty much and that's probably whyyou're better at it than most people Ithink the important thing people shouldtake away from this episode is make it ahabit yeah so how you go to the toiletat night how do you go have a showerevery morning it needs to become a habitthe way you speak to yourself from howyou see stuff so another good thing I doother than these five things I dogratitude journal is oh so I used to doevery morning which is fine butsomewhere along like the day after a bitit kind of rubs off so something badhappens even myself I'm guilty ofsometimes looking atwhat I do you know I do have themtonight as well so I'm doing gratitudeas soon as I wake open before I go tosleepit just helping me and my natural vibesand everything it's very hard for me tonot be grateful for what I have like yousaid I've got two hands and a few of myhealthtouchwood at the minute got no diagnosisof any illness isn't nothing I get to goon holiday I know what I get to live thelife are what I'm blessedyeah do you know what I mean I convincedmyself of that because because I amnever give up attitude may seem you knowthat's the best way to be and beinggrateful I've always been grateful I'llbe my dad and like we come from nothingmy parents come from nothing and we haveenough today to keep us happy and that'sall that matterswhich is how well you know half is themost important thing of course and youknow I've always been bought up in a wayto think that stay humble as well and begrateful and that's well yeah and that'sone thing about me I love that andthat's something you preach on yourinstagrams in your facebook as welllove that because always I can relate tothat so on my Twitter I just kind of saystuff that comes in my head it's kind ofme talking to myselfyeah because sometimes if I'm a bad daymy first thing in my head is going backto a prayer yeah and listen to how youtalk so be that person that you sayyou're gonna be here and I wrotesomething the other day which saysgrowing up I didn't have everything Iwanted but I had everything I needed andthat's literally how I grew up and andthat's kind of like one of my timelinesas well because I think my life is thiscompared to so many other people that'swhy people it's hard for them they thinkthey're humble but they're not reallythey don't understand how what it takesto be grateful you have to believe inthat you know what I'm happycoming for my breakfast is a bit hardtimes II was me I know and I've seen youknow looking at my friend he's buyingnew train is no lazy Navi and now I'msitting up and for one but I still don'tgo and get what I want because I knowI've got enough I don't you know that'snot gonna change your liver whathappened it's all still here it's notcause it's a big example my friendsalways like oh why didn't get yourself anew car you know you all you need toknowwhat can I'm humble in a way that my cartakes me a to be I'm happy that's whatthe purpose of a car is that's all ifyou could treat yourself to treatyourself don't forget where you comefrom people forget where they callthat's what happened I agreethey really forget asleep hour for alisten that is I think so I come fromsimilar backgrounds no not as bad as youin terms of not being very humblebecause we had normally going up and Iremember the moment I got my first goodjob he was in London and I was anymoremoney thing on you wanted to deal withand when I say what money I mean to meto other people it's probably a normalsalary so I know all this money and Iremember Bibles designer gear thesejeans and stuff and if you go upstairsto the third bedroom they're all themjeans and all them teacher I just and Ihardly wear because yeah very quickly Irealized that doesn't make me happywhat makes me happy is being able to dothis or help people or give a hunter andthat kind of the best thing you can doyou know helping people is one of thebest things as well even if it's doneit's like the littlest thing like I'llexplain some time was of course tellingthem how if they're saying the day'sbeen bad try and help and be they bebetter not have a joke or just havesomeone just maybe someone small yeah Ithink I thinking in the world butgrowing up humble and down to half isprobably my first thing not taking myheart honestly from your hair is thefirst thing that there is respect beinghumble and down to the best can comeafter that's the best thing I think theworld would be a better place if there'sno greed then like lot of people arethere's not greedthere's a lot of competition Cubacompetition not a lot of people competewith them with others or their mates ortheir family members like I've alwaystold my parents like listen don't worrywhat people say let them talk let thembe they think what they want let themthink what they want they're jealous theHaiti they got a negative problem whichthey need help in but they don'tunderstand that especially in ourcommunity indeed pretty they see theywon't know that they don't stand thiskind of stuff this is like if you canfucking get it what can't you why don'tyou do this why don't you do what theydon't realize the other person might behappy you know they're happy with whatthat for my dad my dad one kind ofperson like you were says to me whatkids are happybe healthy about reform I'll either seeyou always you say that his whole lifeand you're drilled into my headno even though I didn't grow up withthem but but then let them believeremember yeah I remember these thingsand now always when I stay at homethat's why I got that little white booktop of the mirror and I love that lookhoney and I've got one thing that I'mI'm rich yeah and you know how I feeland well feeling about everything I wantyou keep saying that the things that youdon't you don't expect they'll come toyou anyway then you're attracting thator anything of course but yes like Isaid it's not easy for people out therethat's hard but I already know I lovethat you've shared that because that'sliterally how I think yeah so we justbefore we started this episode I toldyou I'm selling this house now yeah andI was like we're gonna get ourselves asmaller apartment and two other peopleit's gonna be like shit you're given abig house for a small little apartmentfor what for me is my happiness mywife's gonna give up WIC we're gonna betogether I don't care that I don't allmy house that doesn't bother meI don't care my family or friends say ohyou don't want to have anymorelisten not many people do all thathouses the lights on the houses for astart but secondly it doesn't bother meI've got not ego in relation to thatwhat I am doing is controlling my ownlife I'm living life on my own terms andmy wife's happy that's the best way andgoing back to banks on that to be fairwe don't own exactly nothingwe're here for a very very short amountof time we're leasing almost everythingin life you know to me we don't ownnothing and all your own only thing yourown is your own happiness their ownmindset and yourself absolutely and likeyou said you and your wife are happythat's when you care about a lot of thepeople out there to care about the kidsand their parents and that's what theyshould be this I think time is morevaluable than money you know I mean themost most important commodity you canget money all day long you'll get thatforever at the time you never get thatback and that's me saying it becausethat time I lost with my parents I'llnever get anything I get that back yeahme growing up as a most of my friendsused to go back schooldon't open the door go back home sorrydon't open the door one day mom and dada day no I didn't have that feeling Ididn't know what it's like growing upwith parents or what it's like beingwith you in a moment dad and my mom anddad had to go through a lot they have tocry you know they're always outevery day have known a magic I mean I'mnot a parody I can only imagine how hardthat must've been a song he was alwayssaid to my mom and dad I said no there'speople are there I've lost you know theparents in walls and this was going onnow and people are you know dying and Isaid don't worry I'm fine andeverything's goodand I always came that positive energyand that thing that I'm gonna do welldon't worry come off it and I will neverbasically we say flop come so I'm gonnaprove everyone wrong don't worry andsame people they used to criticize usthey don't even want to look at me nowyeah yeah I know I still pull my handout unshaken because that's not the wayof yours just because they hate youdoesn't mean you have to hate back don'tgo on to their level yeah and mostlikely reason that they have these kindof opinions or something positive stuffis because really it's an opinion aboutthemselves so when they see you doingstuff or saying you're gonna dosomething they believe they can't do itand that's what it is I had it well Imean when I was 25I'm 25 slate and I was like 42 poundsoverweightheavier than I was now tits andeverything and I would but I want to goand box it every single person close tome other than my mom I like my brotherand like my immediate family were likeyou can't do it straightawaydad already decided my fate in here justincredible how do you guys know youhaven't seen me try I wasn't as good aswhen I was 17 when I first know but Iwas like oh because I was so likefocused I was like respond I think Icould do something because I had anOlympic coach who told me I could do itand I was at surely his opinion in thatfield matters a little bit more thanyour opinion yet but then saying that ifI never had that guy tell me that Iprobably would have believed it and Iprobably would never have tried it and Istill say to this day those two yearsare the best years of my life I neverachieved the things that I want to dochief but I built my counter and I builtmy strength and I built so much about meas a personyeah in those two years that I think isreally important that was me literallyignoring people's opinions or definitelyurge people shut up everything the thingis that when people when people say toanother person you can't do it who arethey don't you are needy they'renobodies they just feel like that butthemselves that they Condor is on youcan do itand it's good in a way because when youstart thinking like that you getstronger and you think to yourself youknow what that's true who are they totell me and you that's why sometimesthat period of my life where I gotcriticized judged I probably took anynow people but they won't do to my faithbut yeah but you need them peoplesometimes because they've got a issuewith themselves in within themselves ofcourse but they're taking it out onothers but you need these people becauseyou use them as a competitive thing likeyou know what I'm gonna prove you wrongthere and it helps you it pushes youeven more and it's just forget it I justhave this quote from the whole two yearson my wallpaper on my phone and it was Ido because I can't I come because I wantto I want to because you said I couldn'tand that's what it was because there wasso many people that said I couldn't yeahI'm just gonna go and do this now yeahalmost to prove them wrong so I get thatyeah it's very hard but like I saideveryone goes to so much through lifeand you mentioned the depression thingearlier and obviously you know you foundfighting as your way of kind ofreleasing energy and helping you and allthe benefits of exercise on mentalhealth and depression yeah how did youovercome it or is it something that youstill feel you battle with now I thinkum I don't have it no more now basicallyup in a way but back then when I was akid I didn't know it was depression okaybut it was but I realized afterafterwards it what it was because goingin a room lock yourself up and crying isjust as a 12 year old and I was 10 to 12that's when it was the main period andit was a bit more you wouldn't realizeand you think one more crank you justyou know but that's what's going on yourhead is telling youDanya you're on your own you got no onethere your mom and dad that's so faraway you know you have all thesethoughts going through your head andnegative thoughts basically and hestarted from there and I worked myselfin a way thinking and first of allsports was helping me anyway keeps yourmind of things you know like I alwayssay to people find a hobby don't have tobecome a sport do any sport it could beanything you know sitting playing onPlayStation yeah sometimes it gets yourmind off things remind some wellabsolutely and the way I overcome it isbasically I was justone day I'll just come home and thinkingto myself I'm about 14 now and I'm doneit in ages and I was thinking to myselfhold on I felt alone I'm not sittingthere I was thinking and no one caresabout me you know I want to go back toGermany I don't want to be here no morebut then I started thinking these peoplestarted coming all in my head thatcriticized me and just my family myparents basically and everything and Isaid if I go back now and give up Igotta hear that for rest of my life andmy mom and dad will have to hear thatsay he didn't make nothing of himself heain't done nothing so at 14 I have tothink and more 14 year olds they don'tthink about us knowing no chance I haveto prove after thinking my head don'tthink you know what I can't do this Igive up no matter how hard it becomes Iwill not give up I was there yeah andprove everyone wrong and I'm not tellingeveryone that it's easy to do you knowdepression is it's a very I don't thinkit's looked into as much it should beand it's quite hard and not many peoplecan overcome itbecause they feel that there's no oneday and of course you know I mean untilnot only in the hard waylook I didn't speak to no one I usedmyself as in I'm gonna do this I'm gonnado that I'm gonna prove them wrong andI'm gonna give it a go I'm not gonnagive up and then I never gave up fromthey carried on I went through a lot ofstuff through it throughout then as wellI lost my grandparents in India mum ormy dad's mom and dad both died day aftereach of that and especially a funeralday it's a very different thing I'vegone I've lost fights that's made mefeel down you know I've had shitperformances fights I've been criticizedjudged again this was around 18 19so through in my whole life there's beenbits and bobs but I had that one thingin my head I don't give a fuck I am NOTgonna give up and I'm gonna carry on andtoday people respect you for it you knowpeople think you know who's strongminded person yeah definitely and nowI'm just too old I'm getting I feel likemy body might not be the same that I waswhenwas 18 I'd like mmm fire and then gotthe punches got the kid speed whateverbut in my head I'm still that lion andhe still there and if I have to dosomething I know I can do it my bodymight have to be shattered even if it'snot fighting or whatever is all trainingusing that one is yeah unify they saypeople lose their jobs they getredundant the baffled they don't knowwhat to do they go to a pub they startdrinking no cuz they don't used tothinking one fuckin into the worldno walk through that door be happy mmmsee your familywhat about girlfriend kids where thatsmile say you know whattomorrow's another day absolutely simpleas that to do them and that's the way toovercome things it's hard it's it's noteasy I'm not saying it's easy but youknow yeah I think you need mindset yeahyou've got like an athletic like a toptop level of mindset but the thingsyou're saying is you're not saying youdon't feel it as well yeah you stillfeel pain you still feel this struggleor making a hole and you're not Supermanlike nobody wants to wake up and runningthe cold but you have to do cosnecessary you have to do and if anythingif we can train ourselves whether it'sthrough exercise combat sports orwhatever it is like any goals we have isit going to discipline yourself yesthat's really where you get your rewardsyeahdiscipline yourself alone you have todiscipline your mind and your you haveto think right and it's just like likeyou said it's not easy but what isn'teasynothing's easy in life and this is athing and I think I'm not sure of theright word for it but I feel a littlebit sorry for people who haven't beenthrough the hardship in life or sufferedas much because it's more difficult forthem to put themselves in somebody likeyourselfs position yeah see the thing isyou had your back against the wall youhad no other choice easy there look Iquit and this is the end now or I keepfighting forward and you're callingforward stand by swing it's true even asa kid like when I was in Germany goingthrough being bad influence through Iwas only seven eight and I wasn't doingtheft and that and literally you knowjust I think the only time one thing Iremember is getting my head kicked in bya bunch of sixteen year olds me I'm aI'mseven years eight years old but that wasthe life growing up in the state and Ithink coin from coming from Frankfortthey stay area there and come into handswith it's just as bad well yeah I boughtthat mentality to England that no one'sgonna fuck with me and I am Who I am Isee and they've helped me I don't knowme I remember last time getting introuble here in England you know juststay disciplined and then what I have todo found a talent kept up with it keptmy head strong you know regardless ofwhat happens in life they're gonna beups and downs gems are gonna come that'sno matter what they don't matter who isokay you can be a celebrity you can beyeah multi-millionaire credit they'reall going through storms and they allcome through life where they stressedand they're whoever but the carrier ofthe carrier they don't give up you knowand that's the way to be to be basicallyand I carried on to be fair I boughtthat same mentality it took time andlike I said I still you have ups anddowns now I have ups and downs now andthen but doing that thing like waking upin the morning how makes it positiveit helps Lord and I hope people try thatthis you try all right definitely I meanI've started yeah I told you you'd liketo get people to start it because it'simportant out and the thing that'simportant is you showed your underability there so we all know you as thistough guy yeah you know kicking ass allover all over the world but it's good tohave wannabe of you as a human sayinglook I still struggle that's it but likeyou said you've got two choices youbefore you go backwards and yours isalways to go forward keep lookingforward and don't look back basically ifyou start looking back you living in thepast of course live in the moment that'swhat we've gone the future that's got tobe fair forget the future the past livein the limit yeah I believe in thatmoment you know you wake up that's yourday live in that moment that time thatyou got in that lake every minute hourwhatever counts yeah and giving thatmoment I love it future is a plan pastis gone forget that and the moment iswhat you're gonna do then whatever youdo in the day doesn't mean I'm tellingpeople to train or whatever not asathlete wise as a normal human beingwise find happiness firstin yourself and think positive and whatyour mind just starts changing myselfI'm just living that moment I love itthat's the best way brilliant bro Iappreciate that great lessons there um Iwould ask you then another question andso I know you're not scared of likecombat and stuff stuff that most peoplea normal person on their own will bescared of confrontation is tough becauseobviously you've been then you're notjust competing against a normal personthrow it you're competing againstsomebody who's trained and probably justas hard as you yeah but other than thatwhat else in life scares you then youknow what be honest I've never fearedanything to be fair the only thing Ifear and as in person who Dean he'sprobably my parents losing my parents Idon't feel nothing else I can go back tothe bottom I know I'll rise up againnothing fears me but we all know that weget old at one point and we're gonna usepeople we love and it's a hard thing andespecially like me that I haven't spenttime with them as much as I want to domy life and try my best I'll doeverything now a lot of people ask mewhat you want you go holiday come withyou mate so I can do that whenever ofcourse at that time I have off I'll gohome and that time I spend with my momand dad it's the most important time inmy life and I think if I fear anythingit's losing my parents in life basicallynothing else fears me I could lose wahwah lose my house I can lose my job I'lldo whatever is but you can't replacethat you can't replace certain thingsyour parents are one thing that youcan't replace you loved once somethingyou know and that is my fearwe take you for granted yeah we doanother fear that a lot it's it'ssomething that you know you gotta acceptit one day it's no and but you don'twant it to come and that's the fear youhave any you've got the right mentalitythough that every day is you basicallyseize the dayyeah so you make the most of it I'm thesame I think that probably one of mybiggest fears as well my immediatefamily obviously if you know is you doand I know a lot of people use thatdreams to inspire my sometimes use likemy nightmares to inspire me so I Isometimes I know it sounds a bit morbidbut it's like just imagine if this istheir everlastingdo you know what I meanthat requires we have to really give myall on the day because my my end game isfor them to have their life that they'vealways wanted a do you know mean untilthey have to find that for them so ifyou always because I'm not the longeryou take the more chance it is of thatday coming that's it yeah that makes itand you're right that is using that isbasic I use the same thing like I alwaysthink the opposite I think to myself youknow it's God forbid something happensto him that's why I booked my ticket onthe last minute hang on when I have thattime off it can be two days three daysI'm their dog of course no catch theflight I'm gone you know I mean I coulduse that money to do anything I want Idon't know anywhere in the world if Iwant some toys and do I want but thattime I spend with them that's the bestwas the best time and even if he's justsitting at home and just talking tohaving it laughing just chilling itcan't be no there's no that's the onlything I personally fear anything else Idon't feel like you can throw me in thejungle with nothing you know I meanobviously I'll come at what I've gottado and going back to the bottom of myadvice by cooking I'm not scared normalbecause you know once you've been thereyeah you don't fear to be there againbut you know how to wake yourself upthen yeah you can be poor rich but theywere still living our India and you seepoor people you see you know how peoplelive and how people are they still haveyou know yeah you don't mean it's crazyeasy it's still happy I'm going Thailandback end of last year and I rememberthis one particular family was a threegeneration family and they were justsmiling in this very small hut whereclothes on the line that didn't looklike they were washed but they werewashed I don't mean that in anydisrespectful way but happiness it wasalmost like an advert you know that whenyou watch these business embolus and Iwalked past it with the wife and we justwalking back to the hotel sir that'sbliss I mean like no God they've goteach other that's actually enough youknow those relationships they gothappiness love and I was like I lovethat it did change my perception a lotcoming back from a place like that and Ithink them as people especially intoday's society so glued to ourInstagram and we should go out there weshould look at these people and travel abit of the world and see how lucky weactually are I went when I fought inIndia for in Bombay andit was a the poverty day was crazy andpoor but I've seen it remember goinggrowing past in the car on the righthand side there's a mom with the twokids and they seemed happythey smiley and the kids were playingand they ended up in the dirtthings are not change you know you'regonna experience a lot that change andyou think you know always complaincomplain why am i complaining but yeahgoing back to the fear that's the onlything I fear in life otherwise I don'tfear anything - yeah I was gonna say ifyou don't see that the guys getting itherefair enough fair enough so I'm gonnaassume obviously your parents are yourbig motivation but you're also likeyou're inspiring other people as wellnow so you when I've talked about yourInstagram yes if you're waking Mackenzieaway commit will China another minute aswell what keeps you motivated to stillkeep that up because I'm not even aboutday job as well yeah through touch phoneyeah so you went from network around isit yeah engineer you're an engineer andyou do that full time when I see you Ijust see you is it after you keepfinding people and doing amazing thingswhat inspires you in terms of keepingthat going is that just something thatyou just enjoy this part of your life orhave you got a bigger inspiration to doanything and I'll be honest you knowwhen it's been in use since 10 years oldit's an it is in your blood and you willnever give it up he's always gonna be inyou that attitude that fighter mentalitythat been there done it and he inspiresme in a way that I used to do this it'sthe world I lived he was it's what mademe I'm not I'm not when people say knowme as me they know me as the fighteryeah yeah no means nothing so easilyit's gonna live with me foreveryeah so that's why it pushes me to helpothers I like to help but I like to bein that environment in that gymenvironment where kids are training itreminds me of me and when these guys aretraining for Big Show's big fights andI'm holy punch to them I'm training himit reminds me that I'll be through thisand I love itI think it's great and Guilds all boysand we have students that are littlekids from girls to boys and this so muchtalent out there and I think it's justbrilliantfor them to get off the couch or hang onthe computers they enacted yeah I thinkit's it's gonna be in me forever alwayswhen it comes to that side I'll alwaysbe there in that sport environmentbecause that's something that stuck withme yeah yeah it's always there and I'malways there to Harper I think thisinterview is going to be interestingthough when people listen to it becausethere's a lot more about this as well asyou as a personyeah and I think you don't give yourselfcredit for how wise and how emotionallyin terms of you you've obviously taken alot of knocks to the head as I telogenbecause I listen to a lot of largepremieres and world leaders and mostpeople speak the same things so that themax of everything is the same everyone'strying to motivate us by I said therewas stuff but what it is we will have adifferent way of communicating and yoursis obviously through your fight game butsome of the words you're saying today isit's literally like I'm hearing it andyou can see how excited I'm when I'msitting here because I was just hearingsomeone I admire lip killing it acrossthe game saying the same stuff yeah sothere's obviously a secret to thesuccess you know the secret ingredientwhich people have it and whether it'smaking money or whether it's inspiringpeople are getting to the top of a5-game the things you are speaking aboutare amazing so hopefully this interviewgives that and I think you shoulddefinitely try and showcase that more aswell we touched on mental health andthis is something we'll take offlinebecause I'm deuce a couple of projectsin mental health so my mom suffered withit for eight years on know how seriousit is and I think having someone from soof health and fitness background into itthere might be room for us topotentially work together or somethingto what help into poor people awarenessis tough so I'm excited for that becauseI think you've got more than just hornypants for people you've got a lot oflife why I like helping doing space ofthat I don't see I'm doing yeah yeahsometimes if my friends all my family oreven my parents of the day of negativetimes on the talky negative I'm thinkingI'm explaining it to them yeah it's truelike you said you don't realize you havethat in your head you have it here likeyou don't have to have a great a beall agree but if you got generalknowledge in life and you know how toespecially help people I made peoplehappy no life experience is the mainthing a female nowadays this youths outthere that like thatyou know I mean of course parents wantto give them everything on the platedon't want to see them struggle butthey're not gonna experience life she'snot gonna not true no and I think thebest lesson they could teach at schoolis how to control and understand yourown mind which is something that you'vehad to do definitely cuz I remember lasttime using science I use it a little bitfor fitness but generally speaking yeahit's some of the stuff is okay yeah Idon't know how to pay tax and yeah ofcourse they should just be like a lifeschool or thing yeah yeah but I thinkthat's something that I'll probably dowith my kids because I'm not I've gotacademics yeah then the whole degree theMasters and stuff and it's not really some where I want to go look this stuff Iwanna do I don't actually need any ofthat so for me it's like I've justwasted so many years so when I get kidsand stuff I'd love first I'm gonna getin the club box it's a little boxyengineer sports all that's also butgenerally speaking what I think whenthey get to a certain age if they find apassion or something they wanna do Itook their choice yeah absolutely theirchoice and another thing I want to hiton is basically a lot of people don'trealize this when there's no differencebetween a girl and a boy a girl can doanything that a boy can understand Iknow girls are tough for the boys yeahthey're champions and I don't disagreewith the thing that a female can't dowhat American you know they can doanything anything that American andnowadays females are more successfulthan men really do what and he's justthe individual that's why yeah because Iget a lot of parents saying that oh yeahmy boys gonna do this but how about yougirl look of course it what means shecan't do that no example like fightingor boxingoh my boy he might not want to do thatbut you go might become a world championbe and it it's I mean yeah there's a lotof female fighters now I'm seen comingup as dangerous imagine you also is allgonna bring on a female power lifterit's just a normal girl that youwouldn't think thatthe power of technique and everythingthey got and everything else boys thisgot their own training and it's hard andit's all a point athlete and fighting tothe sign as a person and human I'll bethrough things but I'm still standingokay so there you've heard it the buzzerhas gone off now we're gonna put Rajthrough his paces and I'm gonna askingthe most random questions ever was 60seconds so are you ready buddy yeah I'mready let's go okay brilliant three twoone what did you eat for breakfast seeya the ability to fly or be invisiblevisible money or fame money Bruce Lee orChuck Norris Bruce Lee your proudestmoment your favorite food pizza Netflixor YouTube Netflix your number-one goalthis year just be healthy boxing orkickboxing boxingwould you rather know how you will dieor when you were dying your favoriteboxer ever everything more or less yourfavorite MMA fighter ever John Joneslove or money love books or moviesyou're number one fitness tip yourfavorite workout song yes if you couldsit with one person in the world foranother who would it benot bad your worst fear is a child youever seen what is your biggest addictionjunk food summer or winter winter yourfavorite place in the world India if youcould abolish one thing in the worldwhat would it be your favorite superheroyour biggest friend and the finalquestion is your favorite movie starRobert De Niro really good stuff okay sothe next thing I ask is about reflectionso if you could go back to maybe anearlier time in your life where youcould whisper something to your youngerself say for instance when you're firstcoming to Tom that Airport yeah youleavin funfair fine you comin up toEngland and you can just whispersomething into that kids yeah knowingwhat you know now what would you say ifI'll take it back to that timewhen me when I first left Germany goingto that Airport back with my bags nowhispering to that kids hear my sob I'lljust say go there and smushy hmm you'regonna make it okayso we're actually at the last questionnow and this is a question asked all onmy guess yeah and it's if you're nothundred fifty years no members arearound anymore and all that exists is abook book on the table and it's a bookabout your life and everything thatyou've done open to whenever you passand on that book what I wouldn'tobviously what the player would be andsecondly what the summary would tell usabout you at the back Montana would bebasically my favorite song with no oneknowing this notion of comedy it's myway from Frank Sinatra okay love like mybook would be called my way yeah becauseI've done everything my way the way Iwanted it to do the way I wanted it tobe and that's why I'll call it just myway but a picture yeah okay straightahead my legs and the name my way and atthe back just a great human beingbasically like how people and wentthrough the struggles through journey ofmy life and a Beatle come my way my waytry and get the truck oh yeah I lovethat song literally but um yeah that'sit really but that wouldn't be the bookand I will be the back the journey of mylife okaythat I destroyed my way no fantastic andI've sort of said thank you again forobviously sharing your story I knew it'dbe good my wife's been telling me forages brought myself as a podcasting backin the day but she was like you need toreach out to write you know it's got anamazing stories inspiringfrom the moment I met you today yourenergy and stuff appreciate thatthank you very much days on I'm justlike as a friend now I'm proud ofeverything you're achieving and whatyou're doing going forward until yourparents are as well and just before weclose up the show what's the best placethe audience can connect with you orfollow your story they can connect withme through Facebook social mediaInstagram Facebook and your names forthe names are red silentokay on Instagram only one radish saladI likeand they're on Facebook right silentI'll come up and you'll knowstraightaway and you spout Raj Raj andmy second name is sa double L a andfantastic so I do he's operating in theshow notes as well you'll find a lot oflike training footage as well I'm surethere's a lot of mindset stuff in thereas well obviously if you throw a liketraining like I knew actually before Imet you I was gonna want to go to thegym after this episode so I've got myshaker ready I've got my gym attire onI'm going straight to the gym hopefullyinspires you guys but also inspires younot to make excuses in your life becausethere's always somebody out there who'sprobably got it with so thank youRaj and for everyone at home thanks forlistening and remember this podcast isabsolutely free so all we ask in returnis for you to share this with a friendand drop us a five star review over oniTuneshave an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 14 - "And still I rise" - Bep Dhaliwal #14Tagline: "No matter what life threw at her, she felt the pain, she cried the tears, and then she chose to rise..."The Queen at finding the Silver Lining, Bep Dhaliwal shares her incredible story. You may recognise her from her fantastic movement, Thrive 365 which focuses on life coaching and empowering others.In this episode Bep discusses her incredible perspective on life, having overcome cancer and seen the damage it has done throughout her family and friends. Initially having a career in the Corporate world she has now transitioned into something more self-fulfilling and purpose driven.Her infectious and positive attitude is evident as she has had to re-evaluate her own mission in life, focuses solely on helping to empower others.A truly emotional story, which resonated with me personally due to Cancer being a common theme in my own family, I am grateful Bep shared her story and encourage you all to follow her journey.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bep.dhaliwal (Personal)Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thrive365uk/ (Thrive 365)Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrivebep/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bep-dhaliwal-coactivecoach/Apple podcast app:https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/find-your-voice/id1448344412?mt=2Stitcher:https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/aren-deu/find-your-voiceSpotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/3EYhA7LvSu8vi3sTL07GGs #JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aaron and as always I am thehost of the show so what a fascinatingstory I've got lined up for you todayyou see this person is not onlyinspiring but she carries so muchstrength and I have so much admirationfor her because life hasn't been easyfor her however she's not sitting theremaking excuses she's not sitting thereplaying the victim card in fact whatshe's doing now if she's thriving 365days of the year and while she's doingthat she's helping to the people so Ithink it's really gonna hit home withquite a few of us that listen to thisand I think there's certain parts ofthis episode at least not gonna resonatewith you at least they resonate with mebecause some of her stories I'vesuffered similar stuff in my lifeand maybe you have too and I thinkthere's real beauty in the way that shedescribes a struggle and how she'sovercame it and how she's coping with iton a daily basis today so I think whatI'm gonna do is jump straight into thisone again it's always more fun listeningto the guest than myself let's get thisshow on the way okay so I just want tobegin by obviously thanking thelisteners for tuning in to the showtoday and more importantly our wonderfulguest today which is Bev Dahlia so howare you doing today I'm really goodWinkie great too great to be on andgreat to speak to as many people as wecanfantastic fantastic so as we touched onjust before this off is always obviouslytrying to get you on the show for quitesome time now mainly my fault I'd liketo rearrange because of my cold and mytissues which I still have but I thinkit's important for the listeners to getto know youa little bit and understand your storyso if you wouldn't mind if you couldjust kind of tell us how you progressthrough life and kind of ended up whereyou are today okay and so as ayran saidmy name's Bette I I suppose I'd probablydescribe myself as a regular Indian girlwho was being brought up by some amazingparents actually who have worked reallyreally hard so you know they were thefirst generation to come to the UK theyput a lot of their dreams on hold interms of you know my dad wanted to be adoctor and he ended up having to work ina factory just you know bringing thecash et ceterathey both had an amazing work ethicwhich I think has helped me my brotherand my sister to really appreciate thevalue of kind of working hard and youknow being respectful and looking outfor each other and caring and you knowfamily first sort of those kinds ofthings so it was really privileged andactually you know months all of that andI was working hardthere was also loads of fun so you knowwe've just laser fun things as kids notwith a lot of money but you know it'sjust making time for each other reallyand because my dad work shifts we'd havea lot more quality time with him so thatwas always really you know good so hemade sure that we played in that timewhich was amazing and then went off touniversity it was probably the firstAsian girl in our family to go touniversity he see that had his ups anddowns so for me the ups were obviouslylike loads of freedom and friendshipsand it just felt like you know oh my Ihad never really experienced freedombefore so it was just life with norestrictions and it really sparkedsomething in me in terms of just beingindependent and just on my own two feetactually putting myself first you knowthinking about what it was that I wantedand Load came from that so you know thatwas a really important time in my lifeafter university and got married Churchyou know chose the guy that I wanted tomarry because I kind of wasfresh to get married and unfortunatelythat didn't really work out we you knowyou kind of realized quite I realizedvery early on that we were just livinglife on very different you know myupbringing had been different values inlife were very differentand there were later lessons you know Ireally should have realized at thatpoint in terms of the power of trustingyour gut you know which I really shouldhave trusted even today and I didn't butthere was just a lot of pressure to youknow I suppose to live the dream that Isuppose for some respect you know myparents had given me the freedom to goto university I owed them something backand although I chose this guy you knowbut we we all learn a lot in thatprocess my parents in terms of a spacedout strong and independent I can be forme it was just a case of wow sometimesit's really important listen to yourparents and their gut instincts but youknow don't worry about it and that's thebiggest thing for me is that you knowyes it was you know seven or eight yearsof my life but who I then became was aperson that I just think wow I wouldnever become that person if I had stayedin that kind of relationship or not beenthrough that yeah exactly not beenthrough that and then I suppose you knowhad a few years of again being singleand enjoying my life and then I met theright guy and got married and thencancer came along and threw in somecurveballs so very early on into ourmarriageprobably about eighteen months in Ithink so yeah so that's me yeah faith interms of just that additional element ofWho I am I am I supposed part of theother theme that kind of ran through wasI had a 20-year kind of corporate careerso I was working you know in a bigcorporate business for 20 years invarious different roles sales marketingPR and I were recently left in 2017 andset up my own business called Wray 365and it's literally about how you canthrive every day I love itokay thank you for sharing that you'redoing this thing now which is thrive 365obviously I'm assuming because of yourcancer situation and it's kind of changethe whole perspective on life and Ifollow use now on social media not in astalking way but I'm very inspired byyour messages and the work that you'redoing out there have you always beenpositive inspiring motivational have youalways thought about doing somethingperhaps like this in your life or is itbecause of the circumstances that youwould doubt you felt no actually I needto give up this corporate life and Ineed to have a shift in my life it'sdefinitely been because of a secondsentence is not I've never ever thoughtabout running my own business you knoweven than my parentsdid you know my mom had a sound wave isNess and we all bought up in that and Irealized how much hard work cause that'snever been my thing my thing has eatengo you know bring in you know a safesalary and I think for me it was alwaysa case of them you know and bring homeyou know a decent enough salary in termsof living a nice quality of life and butbut then it was always that case of forme it's factly I suppose even after thedivorce it was a case of actuallythere's more to life than work and workwas my nine-to-five but it was what Idid outside of those hours was whatenriched me and really kind of likebought more perspective to my life andthat's where I wanna see a lot of myenergy but the cancer definitely made memade me really stop and think about whatI wanted the rest of my life to be aboutand it wasn't necessarily mynine-to-five I've have had cancer in myfamily kind of ripped through it as welland it does completely change yourperspective and I'm not I'm not sayingit was a reason I kind of gave upcorporate because I gave that up for adifferent reason but I think if it wasto happen at that time I'd probablystart to reassess my life as well and Iguess that's kind of one of the reasonsI I want to do this podcast is because Idon't want people to wait for asituation or a circumstance in theirlife in order for them to kind of thinkdo you know what I better make the mostof my life all of a sudden because a lotof us is just going through autopilot inour life to this shame it's a shame tosee because we can do so many beautifuland wonderful things out therecould we just if you wouldn't mind justexpand a little bit just so thelisteners know in relation to the Thrive365 yes sure say and I think for me likeyou said and I think you've alreadyrecognized as well just you know cancermade me really really stop andreevaluate everything in my life and theone thing I realized that you know thatI really wanted to do was to to make themost of every day and there's somethingabout and thriving doesn't mean thatyou're living life 100 miles an hoursometimes thriving for me is literallysitting in front of the telly watchingGrey's Anatomy because that is the bitthat that chills me out and that's theprogram I just have to watch on my ownand it just settles me and it you knowit does everything and I am ready thento face the world after I've had thathour and so thriving but it's justknowing you know knowing that actuallywhat is it and it's so personal and it'sso individual as to what it takes forsomebody to thrive every day and sowithin my business that's what I'm doingI'm helping individuals throughone-to-one coaching in terms ofunderstanding themselves better and thenalso you know going into corporates andI'm just the on-site coach that againgoes in it just holds that space forpeople to be seen and heard and to feellike they they value their valued andthat they matter because I think therewas something so I suppose about youknow not living life on everybody else'sterms and expectations and I thinkabsolutely for me it's that journey ofknowing who you are and I didn't reallyknow who I was until even I supposeactually was the it was after when Idecided to get divorced I also decidedto invest in a life coach which was thebest thing ever and she really helped mework on my values because I was so stuckabout who I was and everything obviouslyhad been turned upside down for me and Ijust thought I don't know how tonavigate forwards and you know and sheappeared at the right time and justhelped me recognize my value you saythat every decision I then made with himmy values were embedded in thosedecisionsand I think that really helped fantasticI resonate so much with that in relationto my corporate life I actually I did Ididn't employ a life college similar toyourself but why did is I had somebodyhe was a lot wiser than me at the timeasked who I saw as a mentor and he heactually asked me the question Erin whatare your values in ethics and it's oneof the question where you know it as akid I suppose or you kind of live by acertain way but then you kind of forgetit and you like the whole autopilot andthen all of a sudden i sat there Ithought I don't actually know the answerto that and I remember sitting there andI went home that evening us I used tostay by myself in a hotel when I wasworking and I sat there and actuallygoogled ethics definition and I waslooking around to kind of get someinspiration and then when I started towrite it down it wasn't far along afterI say about five or six months later Iactually give up corporate world forforever and I then went on to become asocial worker and kind of attachingthings that resonate with myself interms of giving back and stuff so yeah Ifind that really interesting that yousaid that I was gonna say that that'sgreat that you actually were able tohear that and take action against itbecause I just I don't think Idefinitely didn't realize that I didn'tknow what my values were I knew thatthings would trigger me and I'd getupset but I didn't realize it wasbecause something whatever thatsituation was was treading on my valuesmmm-hmm and I think there's so much inthat you know the corporate world isamazing the you know for giving youperspective and introducing you topeople that have that awareness and thatcan mentor you and I've learned so muchin you know my 20 year career but I justthink you sometimes it's those lifeexperiences that still you know helpabsolutely and I think you hit the nailon the head when you said about knowingwho you are and the funny thing is Ithink so many people including myself atsome stage I didn't know who I was andit's such a simple question but I thinkI kind of wish that everyone can justmaybe take time out of their day or inthe weekend or something just acollective thing is everything I'm doingin my daily life itis it working towards my core values atleast because if you can align those inwhatever other sector is you will findsome level of fulfillment happiness Imean that's kind of my take on it and itis it's about the alignment piece and Ijust think I wish this stuff could betaught in schools in terms of I didn'ttalk quite recently citizen teenagersand I was desperate to say to themplease don't lose sight of what yourpassion is now so be it sport BR keepsomething that's just yoursbecause that will be also be a piece ofhow you thrive you know almost every daybecause you need to have something thatconnects with you and and I suppose oneof my other biggest life lessons iseverything starts with you and you knoweverything everything is centered but ifwe don't take the time to know who weare or our triggers are what ourpassions are then that's quite oftenwhen we last and we stand we get on thiswe live life on other people's terms andyou know with other people'sexpectations and then actually that'swhen you then end up potentially gettingill because you realize that you areliving you know very stressful lifebecause it's not in alignment and that'swhen I think sometimes you know theawareness hits and sometimes that's toolate you know because the illness orwhatever is that's happened is there andi reaiiy mutl on that page of let's dothis early let's just realise now andyou know you you you can change you canfind a way absolutely to help inunderstanding yourself better and livelife in a so you know so much moreempowered way but yeah I can relate towhat it's like in a corporate lifeyou've got early starts you've got latelate evenings and you're pretty muchworking more than the state seven and ahalf hours that you're contracted toyour life's change now and you're Isuppose you're kind of living it on yourown terms have you got any sort of dailyhabits or anything in relation toroutine where people who perhaps aregoing through this phase where they'retrying to find themselves and they're alittle bit lost could perhaps adopt ormaybe kind of alter anduse yeah I suppose one of the thingsbecause my you know my my weeks mymonths are all very very differentbecause I'm kind of out doing laterdifferent things networking you knowmeeting new people you know doing someclient work it's all really reallyvaried but something I realized isespecially in terms of you know walkingmy talk how do i thrive every day andand i think there is something aroundthat that i know i'm gonna have a goodday if I literally do you know startwith exercise in the morning but thenthere's something about you know thatthen triggers me to then eat wellthrough the day will be much more awareof what I'm eating but then also I thinkthere's something about taking time formyself so I you know I have I actuallyreally enjoy time on my own in terms ofyou know either listening to ameditation doing a bit of journaling youknow I don't have a set time in which Ido that and actually give myself a bitof a break on some of that stuff andthink actually you know what do I feellike today like what is going to enrichme what's going to feed my soul todayand sometimes it's actually even justconnecting with certain people that Iknow do that for me as well I spend alot of time with my familyand so I've got two young nephews and Iyou know where I can they're probablyyou know them and my parents are theones I think okay I'm gonna get a buzzfrom spending some time and that's thefreedom and flexibility I love workingfor yourself that you can factor in timeto do you know and suspend where youknow you're gonna get a lot in returnand it is going to enrich you and theseare things that I don't want to everlook back on my life and think I didn'tmake time for the right people and andall of that so I think having thefreedom and flexibility is what I reallyappreciate but also I've realizedstepping away from corporate now justhow free I am to learn and grow insubjects and areas that literally feedmy soul soI'm a passionate you know I just feelthis so much more I've got to learn andso I do you know spend quite a bit oftime in terms of reading absorbingthinking out how I can use some of thisinformation with my clients and so I'mjust constantly feeding myself likeknowledge but also experience and givingmyself time to still get to know myselfa lot more and I've kind of said myhusband and myself a challenge this yearthat this year is all about us in on anindividual level so what is it that weboth need to do for ourselves so that weare still connected and I kind of feellike I although I am connected to myselfI still feel there's so much more I needto know about myself and I think thattypically again the whole you know I'mthe big sister I all my energy goes oneverybody else and and I need to writewhat I really want to just stop andthink actually stop focusing oneverybody else focus on you and what isit that you need I think you need toobvious if it's like the analogy youneed to fill your own cock before youcan fill out the people's up there's somany fantastic points you saw you spokeabout there you walk in the taughtyou're getting to know yourself and Ithink in a relationship and being inrelationship myself as well just gettingto know yourself and your own needs asan individual I think his song yeah so Ilove my wife to bits she's my rock she'severything and she allows me to do whatI'm doing todaybut we've also I'm very fortunate thatshe thinks similar to myself we bothrealize we have our own needs as welland I think you need to all asindividuals but ourselves kind of firstand I know it kind of sounds selfish butin order if you can do that right Ithink that we can obviously give so muchmore out to the world yeah and I don'tyou know I've kind of challenged youknow I've always thought oh my god is itselfish is it selfish and I realizeactually it really isn't that selfnurture and that self-love and self-carejust means that you you do fill your owncup first you know you are the bestperson you can beand then other people benefit from thatthey don't burn a curd and InTouch andall of those kinds of things I thinkpeople it's so much more from when youare in a good place so whatever you needto do to get yourself into that goodplace first that's what everybodybenefits absolutely i 100% agree i thinkthe hardest probably point is for anyonewho's very giving in the nature andactually is to kind of flip that breathbut yeah i think you've hit the nail onthe head I've seen massive improvementsin my life my wealth my health andeverything and by taking that slightlyselfish approach and to be honest itdoesn't even need to be anythingextensive so what I do is I wake up anhour before my wife and within that hourI will listen to something that willhelp me mentally and I'll go to the gymwithin that hour so by the time I comeback I'm then fully present and focusedon like my relationship and then thework and he just it just works so muchbetter so yeah fantastic the the nextthing I always like to kind of ask myguess is about adversity and I know Iknow some of your story and I know withthe kinds of scare as well I mean if youfeel comfortable could you explainperhaps maybe for listeners who could begoing through a similar situation or canresonate with your story a particularexample of when you've you've gonethrough this adversity and it's like aparticular day and how you overcame itand I think more importantly the lessonsyou've learned from it because I thinkthat's really important that hopefullythat can give some insight to thelisteners yeah sure so and you knowcancer is my story really and if you'dhave said to me years ago you know whatdo you want to be named or like I wouldnever have chosen cancer but it hasliterally is big it's become the veryunwelcome visitor in my family who keepson showing up and bringing a differentfriend every time which is just reallyreally annoying but you can either drownwith all of that or you can find a waythrough and and I've chosen to find away through and I suppose our storystarted I suppose in in 2012 and myhusband was diagnosed with lymphoma sothat's a blood cancer and that you knowobviouslyjust knocked the not Dez off her feetcompletely because he was the oneactually narration when a relationshipwho is a healthy one and actually myfamily a lot of people would look at myhusband and think no this guy's me thisguy goes to the gym and he eats well andyou know and he's a good guy and and sothat really shook and it was the firstkind of real experience in my immediatefamily of cancer and his family and sowe you know we didn't know how to dealwith it we didn't know how to cope withit what we realized you know veryquickly was you know you lose all senseof kind of control and you become partof the system and so even for me I youknow being the person on the sidelinesthat wasn't really able to do anythingso as a carer you know it took hist ohbecause everything centered you knowaround the cancer and everythingcentered around his treatment isall-encompassing and it's over thing youyou just think live breathe cancer whatare we gonna do and and then you getstuck in the system of like okay we'regonna do chemo and his and his chemostarted straight away and you know andyou get into a regime takes loads ofdifferent drugs in between chemo cyclesand and yeah it was the it was it wasmental you know as a family likeeverybody was just like how did we dealwith this and and that can cause tensionin itself because everybody wants toprotect to make him betterof course you know and I think so thatwas really really tough in terms ofnavigating how we were approaching itand in the end my parents were amazingand you know my husband fainted afterhis first chemo when we were just athome and so my parents said actually youknow you can't do this on your own andso we moved in with them so that I couldstill do a little bit of work work forme were they saying as an employer and Ihad an amazing boss who basically justsaid he's your priority look after himand work when you can so I was so solucky just kind of to it with you knowis really they were so supportive and Iknow how lucky we are because that isn'toften the case in cancer journeysand so we just kind of fell into aroutine in terms of managing symptomsthe one thing it really did bring homewas oh my god do we stress about stuffthat really isn't important you know anduse every day yeah I know because Ithink we all think we're invincible andnothing's going to happen to us and sowe get ourselves so caught up in thingsthat aren't important and so we realizedyou know when he was on that journey andand every day and you know in his 21days there's always different as to howhe would feel and there are some niceside you know like people get angry andyou know and and miserable because ofwhat the drugs are doing to them and sothere's lots of things you don't see interms of you know from cancer and andbut we did start enjoying simple thingsso just going for a walk you know we'regoing for a cup of tea in a cake all ofthese simple things that we so take forgranted suddenly it became so bigbecause whenever he was actually up toit and was able to do that that was abig thing in our day so so that wastough and then on a holiday to celebratethe end of his cancer journey so he wasreally lucky and he he responded reallywell to treatment and he was inremission and then we went on holiday tocelebrate the end of his treatment andhim going back to work and then onholiday I found a lump in my breast solook at that so that I mean that was thebit that it was hard because you know weobviously thought we were we were at theend of it and and we were and for methat was really hard because because Ijust wasn't used to putting myself firstor even being the center of anythingwill essential attention and and the onethe biggest learning I suppose from thatwhole journey was it made me realizethat I matter I didn't realize that allthat should be eating had um a bit andactually I'm so grateful for cancer formaking me realize thatyou know it totally made me step offthat treadmill of life that was thetrigger for me in terms of you know okaynow it made me question everythingeverybody in my life everything that Idid how I was living my life andobviously I'm so so grateful that bothof us got through it you know I I haveobviously been part of some journeysense where people haven't got throughit and you know a really good friend ofmine like one of my best friends whoreally stepped up when I was goingthrough my treatment and she just youknow happened to be on maternity leaveat the time and so we ended up spendinga lot of time together and I canhonestly say that she since then hasbecome my real sunshine pal and so I sawher whereas other people didn't knowwhat to sayand it's awkward and people avoid youwhen and things like that she rose tothe occasion and she stepped in and andshe just became you know I'd like to gosee her and she just whisked me off fortea and cake and do things you know wedidn't have a nice lunches some lovelylovely things and who knew thatliterally in that year in 2013 as I wasgoing through my journey her and herhusband then moved from where they wereliving in Windsor up to Nottingham shareand which would be near her familybecause she just had her second childand then her husband got diagnosed withbowel cancer and sadly he dies in 2016at the edge of that overall and I justthink but you know mine and Louise'srelationship as a result of all of thisis it has become so tie and so strongeven though we've got distance betweenus in miles how she actually hasinspired me beyond belief in terms ofhow you how you face death because sadlywe hate talking about death but you knowdeath is a part of life and and actuallybeing at the end being there at the endwhen you know George very peacefullyburied I'm seeing how she was and howshe shared that with her two boys whowere three and one and a halfliterally today inspires me to my coreevery single minute of how she dealtwith that and how she continues to dealwith it actually so much so thatshameless plug here we are going to dooverall cod cuts terms of adversity andyou know um what it how it can changeyour life and in a way but better if youif you allow it if you hold it yeah ifyou choose to see things differently andit is all about perspective and the giftin the suffering you know so there issomething that can come from it andthat's why we do you know of course ourown little sunshine tribe people that weknow will always hold that space for usand will always let us live loudly livebig dream big be the best that we can bethe first thing I want to say is uh youyou spoke about gratitude day I'm justvery grateful hearing your story and I'mthankful that you're able to share thisfor me I was getting I was getting alittle choked up myself a little bitthere because I can relate in terms ofcancer just ripping through families andcausing this heartacheand I sincerely hope that you know thekinds of scares for yourself yourhusband and for your friend and foranyone out there really that you knowthat they're long gone and that we finda solution and you know your health goesfrom strength to strength you you alsoyou touched on some amazing things andone of my wallpapers on my phone isactually there's beauty in the struggleit's just a little quote and it comesfrom a song but I think at that time wealways think you know it's justhappening to us and the world ishappening to us and it's it's all aboutperception and I been through quite abit as I'm sure the listeners have andyourself and I really have managed tostart changing my perception whensomething bad happens to myself and Ithink it's made me the person that it istoday you touched on beautiful littlethings like just going for a walk andhaving a slice of cake with a cup of teaand I think we often forget these littlethings because we're in this world wherewe see social media and we chase andthis we're chasing this dream that somecelebrity or some improvhas got on there we get the beauty liesalready within us and it's within reachyeah and I think sometimes we're chasingthis stuff because we think we're notenough and you know and we need toconstantly be feeling like there's morethere's more you know and I justsometimes I just think there's so muchin the simplicity of a moment whereyou're not actually doing anything isjust you're with the right people youknow and there's just something magicalthat if we stopped and and stopped it'sa really big word for me right now interms of stuff and just let it be orfully appreciated it was you know I kindof think this this one moment in timeright now is the only one that we caninfluence absolutely and it's the onethat's going to be you know if weappreciate how good we've got it rightnow in this very moment then we realizehow blessed and how lucky we are becausewe can't influence you know we all havedreams on what we want for the futurewe've got experiences in the past thathave shape does and I you know I've hadto realize that I'm not going to haveall the dreams that I wanted and my lifehas not gone the way it when I was 20that I kind of expected it to go but boyam i a richer person because of airsometimes we don't know what's good forus and what is in and and if I don'tmake the most of the rest of my life nowI've got the choice to realize that I'mnot forever and you know and right nowhow blessed am I for the experiencesI've had up to now and I know that therewill be loads more twists and turns inthis life then was I've always got achoice in how I respond and I've got achoice - you know I would definitely sayacknowledge the emotions acknowledgeeverything that comes your way give itspace to let it teach you something youknow I still know that a lot of mycancer journey for myself I did it inthrough denial you know I kept onputting a smile on my face is whatpeople needed around me that's the otherthing I want to anyone going through acancer Joejust just expect the family and friendsjust know that that patient quite oftenand is having to be really really strongyou I mean because they can see the fearin your face and actually I know thething that really helped me through myjourney was having a counselor she wasthe person that I could go to that youknow wasn't you know a close family orfriend and and she was the one I couldgo to and say what if I die you knowwhat do I need to acknowledge in my lifehow do I prepare myself if that isbecause you when you get the cancerdiagnosis you face your mortalityit's a massive smack in the face youknow and you realize have I doneeverything I've wanted to do up to nowand like you said earlier in the podcastdon't wait you know for the cancerdiagnosis don't wait for that you knowanother massive illness or somethinglive like now because you know if youtrust any of them and they are true I'msure all like the stats that are outthere by 2020 so next year one in two ofus are going to be affected by cancer atsome point in our lives and although myfamily's taking taking one for the teamin quite a big way I I still think it'smore you know just to stop andacknowledge the power of you right nowand living the life that you want tolive on your terms absolutely absolutelyI I want to talk about something justafter this first point the first pointis that just in relation to what yousaid there and you you you got yourselfa cunt counsellor sorry to speak to youabout having been through would you havepreferred your family to maybe speak toyou openly about it rather than kind ofsee as the elephant in the room becauseI only ask that because I find it veryvery difficult if like when my uncle'sgot it or when my uncle passed away withit do you kind of speak to him about itand it was always kind of we justignoring and pretend everything's happyand we're all smiling yet we'd go homeand we'd feel sad and then I I know theywould be sad would you employ people tokind of maybe have that conversation ordo you think it's best left with thenext daysource like a counselor I thinkeveryone's unique and everybody or youknow because knowing that I use denialas a coping mechanism I'm not sure thatI would have been ready for certainfamily members to say to me okay tell mewhat's going on here and how you'refeeling it was actually safer for me tohave somebody outside of my circle andbecause I was in denialputting the smile on for everybody elseand you know and navigating through itdid help the other big thing I probablyreally do want to share at this point iswithin the Asian community we reallyneed to start talking about cancerbecause it is here it exists and we runaway from it and I know these only myhusband was diagnosed and actually youknow there's a lot of people in ourfamily still don't know that we bake hadit because we bore a smile or carried onand and you know I had the most amazingwig and so I had the most amazing hairevery single day and and so I just thinkyou know I even turned up at familyfunctions where people didn't know andpartly because we weren't able to dealwith their handling of it so in a wayI'm not saying everybody should know andeveryone deals with it differently but Iknew that if the more people be told themore you don't managing their emotionsabout the situation than having theenergy to focus on yourself and to dowhat's right to get you through it sothere's no right or wrong everyone hastheir own way of doing dealing with itbut I think acknowledging it as a familyif that person I shared it with you andtaking the time just to say you knowwhat can I do how can I help the procurething I remember typing a friend of minewho's whose friend had it I remembersaying to her she said what can I do andsaid take her sunshine I said you knowshe doesn't want to talk about so allthe time you know she actually justwants you to acknowledge her as her shewants you toyou know she can still talk about theweather she can tell you what shewatched on telly last nightcancer is all-encompassing and sometimesyou just want to break from it and youtalk about other things and you want totalk about things that you talked beforeand the one thing I know I craved wasnormality I was so desperate to go backto the life I had before cancerPeyman and and you know I can like youknow I'm so full that I can go back toyou know typically the life was likebefore now because you know within amuch better place and I know that's notthe case for everybody but know thatwhen you're on the journey the one thingyou're craving is normality that'sreally powerful thank you for sharingthat I think that's that's a great pointand the like you said the Asiancommunities everything seems to be ataboo in the Asian community whetherit's cancer whether it's mental healthit's kind of everything is just brushedentirely under the carpet which is ashame but I'm just I just want to goback to my initial point I really wantto do just highlight you said earlier inthe podcast that I this unwelcomevisitor cancer and you'll be known forcancer in your eyes and I just want youto know and I sincerely mean this isthat I think you're an amazing soul andyou'll be remembered for a lot more thanthat you'll be remembered from this veryshort interaction with yourself now yourinspiring is half out your kindness andyour endearing nature and I think allthe good things that cancer has broughtout of you because I believe it wasalways within you to help other peopleis truly amazing and you know I wouldnever just see you as that and that'sfrom our very short conversation so Ijust wanted you to know that I'll blessyou I was I was gonna say that you knowI really want people to know thatthere's joy joy runs through my core sono matter what I kind of think pleasefind the joy in the simple things andthe big things in through everything Ijust think you know just live a lifethat is just full of that kindness loveand joy so I just think and that iswhere I do walk my talk in terms of youknow making sure that I do find a waythrough and you go I know you go what'syour biggest fear in this moment today Ithink it is you knowing about what thecancer hasI do I still fear of it returning aferret returning my husband for me foryou know other members of my familybecause you know you just think althoughI've learned in lessons and I stillsometimes think like okay if it did whatwould I do but then I just I dosometimes just stop myself and going XI'm like okay like I said earlier bit meof being a bit of a hypocrite you can Ican only influence today that's a day asfar as I'm aware I don't have it and soactually that make the most of today soI think there's always going to be thatunderlying fear once it's been there inyour life you know but then I supposethat's maybe why I'm on over tribe ofcramming as much wonderfulness into as Ipossibly can and so and I know I've gotthe strength to deal with it inwhichever guys it does if it does so Ithink sometimes I just take myself towhat is that fear acknowledge it thinkabout how I'd handle it and then put itto bed so don't let it kind of likeovertake and so I think yeah I thinkit's it's still there in the backgroundlurking that's fine that's fine and Isuppose that's probably you don't reallyneed anything to keep you motivatedI suppose in life because a lot of lotof people I come in contact with on adaily basis we're all trying to motivateourselves to make the most of life andyou just said a beautiful word there I'mnot even sure if it's a word but it justsounds beautiful wonderfulness and Ithink if we can all make the most of ourdays and they're over driving that youuse in I think I think it's so importantI try to do that as well as ie 100percent think sleep is important but Ithink once you have enough sleep thenstop hitting that snooze button reallytry and make if you if you want to dosomething in life go out there and do itif you want to connect with someone goand connect with them if you want totell someone you love them then go andtell them because your stories areliving proof of this you can't takenothing for granted in this world no toomany of us do spend a you know lifetaking a lot for granted absolutely andpeople supplanted and I just thinkthere's something about the magic in thepeople around us andwhat they bring you and and to sharethat with them and select them nobecause we can't take anything forgrantedabsolutely and I think I mean I'm notgoing to sit here and say I take I don'ttake things for granted because I I Dbut what I've done is and it's just alittle tip for somebody who's probablynot gone through the harsh circumstancesthat you have is to really try and havetriggers in your day so for me I have mywallpaper on my phone I have a photo ofme and my wife have a photo of my familyand I have all these little triggerswhere if I ever kind of revert back tomy old habits it will snap me straightout of place and think I don't fix upoverdrive because because this fault wasthere where people are missing as far asthere were people are ill and it's justit makes you think completelydifferently and I just you don't wantyou don't want people to go through thatlife or have those experiences but Ithink sometimes like you said when youstruggle or you go through adversity ifanything it becomes I suppose I can giftinto curses and it you get the case butthen you get a gift from it as well atthe other side I was gonna say when youget the suffering and I you know there'ssomething in that suffering butsuffering is also teaching you so muchif you allow it and if you don't fightit Sam and I just think there'ssomething in the pain part and that doesthen bring the gift when you're ready tosee it okay we are gonna shift gears nowactually we're gonna start smiling nowand what we're gonna do is this isactually the fun part of the show whereI literally put my guests through just60 seconds of the most random questionsyou've probably heard this week sothere's no right or wrong answer justtry and obviously with your face thoughtprocess and we're gonna start in 3 2 1okay what did you eat for breakfast Ohpeanut butter on taste the ability tofly or be invisible fly when your fameI think Fame for this message yourbiggest achievement to date survivingcancer your favorite foodoh my mum's lamb curry Netflix ourYouTube each aid your number one goalthis year Ohto to thrive everyday but I reallywant to raise the game on how peoplelive their lives more fully and so tohelp people understand how much theymatter would you rather not how you adied or when you were dyingwhen love or money love books or moviesbooks if you could sit with one personin the world for an hour who would it beMaya Angela what is your biggestaddiction oh gosh don't know but I'maddicted to anything really other thanthis constant need to better myself wereto learn more and it's all more that's abrilliant addiction your favorite placein the world I have to say I took myselfoff on a holiday to Brazil and there wasa beautiful hammock on my on my littlebalcony I was on my own actually this isme testing myself and that hammock andthat v---aids on a beach in Brazil wasyeah one I'll never forget if you couldabolish one thing in the world whatwould it be I suppose it's ignorance orpeople being unkind to each other lovethat and finally your favorite song everoh my god actually cherish I'm gonna getcherish cool in the gangI've heard that played live and isbeautiful brilliant okay fantastic sothe next question I always like to askmy guess is about reflection I believehindsight's a wonderful thing and uponreflection we can always think of waysto get to where we currently are quickereasier or with less heartache but at thesame time the journey teaches us so muchand it's a real belief of mine thateverything happens for a reason so whatI want to know is if you could go backin time to that one moment where youstruggled say as a younger vet Dannywell somewhere down the line andsuffered with adversity or an obstacleor anything in life maybe the first timeand you could whisper something in yourear knowing everything you know now whatwould it be and I think it would be thatI'd want to say it's okay you're exactlywhere you're meant to be right now youknow don't by to allow the lesson tocome feel the pain feel the feelings andjust trust that there's going to be somelesson that your learner is as a resultof this and you'll be a better person asa result of this so just trust andactually ask for help I'm really bad assnot asking for help and that's one thingI've learned is ask for helpmmm-hmm are you better at asking forhelp now I am and I know but I also knowwho who I know so I've got you know somespace it probably is more my friends nowand you know and some family members Ijust think I know what they won whatwhich ones will give me what I need loveit and if I can help in any way as wellI know you having a podcast soon or anyanything in relation to thrive sixteensix five or even personally please dolet me know thank you you're verywelcomesadly we're actually at the lastquestion now and the last question Ialways ask is if in 150 years timescience fails to save us all and allthat's left is a book and this book isabout your life and it's abouteverything that you've done everythingyou've accomplished all your dreams andeverything what I want to know is whatthe summary at the back of the bookwould say and also what the title wouldbe okay and say I think it's gonna bethe summary in the back it's gonna readsomething along the lines of no matterwhat life threw at her she felt the painshe cried the tears and then she choseto rise and she took the lesson learnedsomething from it she found something tospark the joy you know she was the queenof finding the silver lining and I thinkthere's there's always gonna be fun inanything that I do and and I there's abeautiful Maya Angelou quotes and shejust says and still I rise and I thinkthat would be the title of the bookbecause I just think you know that lifeis tough but then so am I you are that'svery very powerful thank you for sharingthat and just before we close the show Ijust want the listeners to be able toreach out to you if that's okay I knowyou're busy and you're probably jugglingloads of things but I thinkit'd be worth people following themovement maybe maybe they can support aswell so I normally ask my guests toleave one place but I think because youdo such a wonderful thing and it's youknow it's gonna serve the communityyou're welcome to give as many pluginsas you as you wish okay lovely so thethe easiest one would be my Instagramaccount and that's thrive bet so that'sone LinkedIn please follow me onLinkedIn and please if you can introduceme to your to your businesses orsomebody that can just come in and holdthat space and allow you to thrive andthat would be amazing the other thingthat I really did want to mention withif anyone's heard of Simon Thompson whois a lady that had her Instagram accountis free in cancer and she's permanentlygoing through a stage 4 lung cancerdiagnosis at a very young age so I thinkshe's just turned 30 and Simon has setup a Facebook page baam e for cancer andI think it is just about uniting theethnic communities so that we do starttalking about cancer and we you know weopen the debate we have the debate andwe start sharing a lot more so it's justit's a supportive little community justto hold that space for each other as wenavigate through and yeah and pleasefollow primer as well she's doing someamazing work that's fantastic and what Iwill do is I'll probably get those offyou so I can put them all in the shownotes just sort of anything you know foranyone to reach out to you and also tothat Facebook page as well because Ithink that's a really really importantthing I want to once again thankeveryone for listening and moreimportantly I really want to thank youfor your bravery and your openness toshare your story and inspire many peopleand thanks for taking time out of yourday and there's always people thanks forlistening well my pleasure and thanksand remember this podcast is atwe free so all we ask in return is foryou to share this with a friend and dropus a five star review over on iTuneshave an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 11 - My Little Spartan - Michael V Kalisperas #11Tagline: "Unleash your inner spartan..."Apologies in advance for the sound quality on my end. Technical issues certainly played their role. But in true spartan fashion we kept going.Michael Kalisperas life turned upside when his son was hit with a number of health conditions due to the neglect of a midwife. Sadly his beautiful son's life had changed which would have a knock on effect to Michael and his family.However determined to not let this get him down, Michael continued to take action and let his excuses be a thing of the past. Realising his own excuses and rationales to avoid doing the hard stuff are so insignificant compared to the battles his son, and daughter face on a daily basis he ensured he crushed his goals.A successful property investor, an author, a father and loving husband Michael story is one which touched my heart.I reached out personally when I first heard his story because he genuinely changed my whole perception on the way I view my life or sometimes feel about my own situation.I urge you all to ignore the sound defects, which I take full responsibility for and listen to this incredible man's story.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikekalispera (Personal)Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EffusiveMarketing/ (Facebook group)Michaels book: https://amzn.to/2RUZ7MS#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so it's very rare thatI will stop a podcast especially at theend of it just to kind of find out whothe individual is now I'm not saying Idon't get inspired or motivated bypeople but generally speaking I'm justkind of excited for the next podcasthowever on this particular occasion afew years ago I actually pause thepodcast towards the end of the show nowthe only problem was I still had therest of my car journey to go so I waskind of sitting in silence but it wasworth it because I really wanted to senda message to this individual who I'm nowvery grateful to have on my podcast andI sent a message out to Michael to kindof say thank you for the inspiration forthe motivation and more importantly Ihope things really do progress a littlebit easy for him I suppose in life andspeaking to him in this interview it'sdifficult to say how things got easierbut one thing I can say is that he'sattitude is still the same he'swillingness to just go out there andtake action and not be a victim of hiscircumstances is fantastic and that'skind of what this podcast is about it'sabout eliminating your excuses it'sabout pay with the cards that you'redealt with it's about literally thinkingokay this is what's happened now how doI change this how do I go out into theworld and really find my voice and kindof write my own story so I think I'mgoing to leave it thereI just want to say before it starts Idid have some teething issues with theWi-Fi so we actually have to do a zoomcore wherewhich was fine for videos butunfortunately some of the Sam when I wasediting it back wasn't quite as clear asI had hoped because I was using mylaptop speaker as opposed to my mic thatI'm now recording this intro with sohopefully you can bear with this becauseI think more important than the soundquality is the message and the storybehind Michael's life so without furtherado let's get this interview on the wayokay so I am here today with my courseobviously I want to say thank youMichael for taking time out of your dayand there how are you doing today youngI'm very well thank yougood stuff good stuff so I think it'simportant for the listeners to reallystart to understand your story fromyourself so if you could please explainhow you progress through life yeah sureprogress through life as it seems like aI'm 42 in them in literally a couple ofweeks time so it's February you know sonot long I'm gonna be 42 so other knowwhere to begin to go through the wholelife scenario but I've done quite a lotof things I guess I could go back toeven school where I would say I wasprobably not the best at school and notreally someone that was a you know inthese special sets as they call himbecause I wasn't really interested inschool I didn't feel the vibe at schoolI just didn't you know bond with theteachers if I'm being honest but my lifecompletely changed where when I went tocollege and you meet a different type ofteacher and different environment and itwas a bit more more creative more myfeeling you know what cuz I've alwayscome from a creative background I'vealways been like an artist as such andthen I ended up pretty much ending upgoing to to university ended up at deMontford University and doing them so wecall multimedia design and marketingbasically which was basically it wasmultimedia and I left there and a lot ofmy friends ended up in the 3d world fromfrom from those sort of forces and endedup her kind of like playing games forSony Playstation so I'm got a real whileyeah got really good friends I'm quitewell in that and then and I ended upbasically showcasing my work they theyasked for a few people to earnto showcase their work at an exhibitionin London I think it was the Olympia Ican't remember the actual name of thevenue from being asked me so many yearsago and it was a big place and and theyhad about I don't know six of us theshowcase our stuff so they picked peoplethat they wanted to showcase at thisshow and it was just like a sort of likegreatest show and Khaitan story short Igot a head hunted by my boss back thenCharla Crais for the BBC ended upworking at the BBC basically doingdesigns and websites for them and yeahwe touched on many many areas it waswithin a group of people as a lot ofthese companies are and so I was in thedesigner group and basically designwebsites ranging from Teletubbies tocrime watch Top Gear yeah yeah very veryvery very very varied set of you knoweven like you know History Channel maybewe've seen so it was really it was adepartment called fracture and learningback at the time I think they've got ridof the actual Department have somethingelse it's called a different name nowyeah and I was in and I didn't staythere as long as I could of I decided toleave I don't know what it was I comefrom originally London actuallyironically but most of my life wasbrought up in a small village calledMulford where they've got the movinhills and more than spring water and allthis kind of thing and it is a bit likehouse on the prairie kind of thing andas when I lived there I can't wait toget out and you know escape and get intoUniversity and all that sorcerer and andmeet people and but when you go to thelike concrete jungle and kind of thinkon what god what is this AZ yeah yeahit's kind of like we start realizing youknow my dad says it is well he lived inthem the most of his life I actuallycame over here with nothing I mean heliterally had no money for shoes heliterally came with nothing from fromCyprus and he started up and he's donewell for himself through hard graft andhe he said to me I will I won't go backto London even if someone pays me youknow younot because he doesn't like Londondidn't love it you just just just founda different vibe somewhere else simpleas that and I think for me it's the samefind different vibe I still go to Londonoften I'm going for five days literallyin the next day date in half I'm goingthere for five days you're going in outof business and meet people and you knowso yeah it's a it's I love it a littlebit but to live there it's a differentworld he's in itdifferent world I lived there bought ahouse on the outskirts of it was a waswell II did the Olympics actually nowreally wish I didn't sell it I ended upselling it because I got squatter's youbelieve that I so that's my first trueinvestment and actually that propertynow is worth about seven hundredthousand I bought it about 115 I thinkit was i sold actually actually i onlyhad it for a year and I sold it but Imade 40k profit in that point that's loque ya I can't complain and it was a butstill I can't complain absolutely mypoint of doing it in keeping up was Ialways I always thought back there Iused to watch location occasionally allthose programs and I always wanted tobuild my own house I just wanted mightget buy land above my house and you knowobviously working in London you knowyou've got to be pretty sorted you knowsign up and bloody you know 23 years oldor whatever was coming about what andyou know the reality is that to buy landin Londonabsolutely from some guy in Morphin youknowand yeah just bought that property nothe plan was to keep it butunfortunately got screwed over yeah yeahand I was kind of like I just lost thewill to live my eyes I have to get ridso yeah ventually got rid of them andthey trashed it as well because althoughI Franky refurbished it and they trashedit which was really nice of thembut hey and it's one of those and it I'mback in it now yeah back into propertywell I wanted to do it quicker if I'mbeing honest with you I bought my ownhouse back in Melbourne after I sold mymy house therebought my own house back in well whenthat was brick building you knowsomething come up whilst we're comingout of the recession a boy at therecession period which was the worstthing can do I look because I'm soparanoid I was stuck on a highfixed-rate back of n so back then whenrates were going down to ridiculousamounts I was on a 6% or something crazyand it was but it was high right at thewrong time but there was there's off atthis something there's nothing betterthan having a peaceful kind of like youknow as long as you can work bloody harddid all the hours of possibly do tocover it and literally you like workingand everything was going straight intothat pretty much but I truly believe youknow if you can get through the hardtimes that you know the green the greensgrowing you know absolutely is notgrowing yeah so no it was a it was worthit it was worth it and there's my myfirst house and I say proper house 5bedroomed detached properties in it yeahlots of people of them you know donethings with you know the great thingsbut at the time that was the right thingabsolutely how so some wonderful thingisn't it yeah absolutelyso that's took you back into property Iused still actively a property investorknows that where you kind of callyourself or ya know it's a bit weirdbecause I mean I think digress in thatlast question I'm I got back intoproperty after my son was made severelydisabled basically we basically had mybeautiful son bornVasili born completely healthy came homewith him completely normal and then amistake by the Midwifenot following certain procedurebasically ended up with a catalogue ofmistakes not just the Midwife we forgavethem publicly in the newspapers which ispretty damn hard to do because you knowthere was blatant mistakes I mean whenyou go to the report that they did itwas like there was several mistakes andit basically you know from having abeautiful child born healthy coming homeyou know healthy we've got a child nowthat's severely disabled trapped in hishot and wheelchair pretty much trappedin his body and declared blind deaf withspastic cerebral Z so I mean he's realcontrol is his tasteyou know and that was hard we were toldhe was blind to completely weave andsort of like therapy and all sorts ofstuff we research in America and and youknow not too long ago we had somereports saying that he's they put someprobes on his head and the reckon hecould see now and that really just aboutthat he was completely deaf but wepainful taking a decision while they'reyoung to put them through horribleoperations but but we put him through anoperation that has given him like therobotic sound if you know I mean so okhe's got something called Cochlear'swhere they kind of drill into the headthey put a magnet processor goes on thatand then they put some probes orwhatever goes straight down into thecochlea and now that goes back to aprocessor and so he can hear like andthe best way I describe it to people iswhy we've been described we've been toldit is Americans used to talk yeah that'show he can hear pretty much so he'llpick some things up certain spectrumsome sounds he might not be able to pickup but um generally you know but hereacts to me he knows me his mom heknows that's the love it definitelyresponses without that just give me anexample but the amount of light therapythey put on him is basically that youput it had he his blood was poisonedpretty much had to do platoons but theythe way they can sort of negate thatthat the increase of bilirubin whichhelped cause brain damage was put himunder the lights and they did that for alot of premature children actually butbut they put him under the lights and hewas that much under the lights that heactually looked like a black child andhe was you know you know at work witholivey skin but generally kind of whiteyou know but he look like a black childand you know I will never forget andI've got him on my phone I meanliterally I've just got him on my phoneand it's a reason to have a picture ofhim on my phone like this the reason whypeople think it's probably weird why doI have him as a screen saver as my childwith all these tubes in him you know uphis nose on his arms everywhere probeseverywhere and looking it's likecompletely you knowokay but the reality is I'm really proudof him that's why that's his that's hisdefining moment you know they survivedthat and no matter how much crap hashappened since in the last almost sevenyears literally I look at that photo andwhen I'm feeling it and I've had a lotof crap come on trust me within a lot oflocals when I'm really feeling thatthinking how dare I even complain youknow I complain this kid has gonethrough everything you know and hesteals your perception and killseverything that is your lifee absolutelyyeah yeah I'm even using that now on mydiet I'm on I want to call it alifestyle change a lifestyle yeah I lovethat change but I've lost like almost Iwas it I was 17 pound 17 stone - alrightand I put on weight free depression 17pounds - - and with just over threeweeks on and I'm I'm 1510 now so babyit's a big drop for a short period timeand that's because of him you knowbecause I just think I thought screwthis I can't I can't keep killing myselfabsolutely but it's a property yeah I'dsay I'd say that was my defining momentI needed to do something to help my sonand to have my family well we're inhospital whilst all that stuff was goingon with transit bills coming in neededto pay and what people don't show you isyou know obviously you don't have thesupport you know the supports maybe lateIran after a while a little bit ofsupport here in there so it's charitablesupport you know if you get a casethrough negligence then you get supportlater on down the linebut even then you've got support wherepeople assume or you know you thoughtyou got proper support your support soit's actually like that last night youknow I had about four hours sleep whichis standard now most people don't getthat they think that's weird but that'sstandard for us and like we've got withthree carry Shaw so you know my wife andI cover in that you knowI got full-time care 24/7 well he'ssupposed to Apple we've never hadfull-time 24 not for seven years it'sjust impossible it's just we struggle toget people you know what you get it it'slike it's like yeah unfortunately ourhome has become a business in terms oflike it's a care home you know but youknow what in the last year he's beenreally stable so you know it's taking alot more there's less hospital visitsand stuff like that so you know he'sbeen really really stable and you knowhe sees making massive massive strides Imean he was declared blind he wasdeclared deathwe know he can see now he's using on Iguess how much he can see we don't knowI truly believe it's with the therapy wedid with that research we did withChristine Ramon which basically involvedputting a torch in the eyes andswitching on and off watch the peopleopen and grow he'd never met a flinch totalk through the light and he couldflinch and then so at night me and mywife throughout the night with takingturns and just through four hoursyou know switched it has to be tungstennot a blue like they can screw throughthe eyes er it has to be like thoseold-fashioned boulders you know yellowones and yeah and you just watch hisbody so he's like my sergeant is I Irecite which open and grow grew andclosing and and yeah off and theneventually after months of doing thatonce I think is my wife in the in thebathroom she was he wasn't sleep andseals up with him and she was just doingit bless her persevering on and she'sjust called me and I'm not military wentin there and the lights were all off Iput the lights on and I put the lightson because you had a torch and hechanged the hell Wowand she goes let's see he did it to youas well I'm like wow that's crazyso ya know it's mine it's mine so isthat and then again he was fed throughthe tube and we retrained him through alike a milk bottle he couldn't move hismouth off he couldn't in his braindamage basically he's brain damaged butand we used to squeeze the teat you knowand then move his bottom of his chinwith our finger just dissolved so gethim into a sort of like you know any nowhe takes it takes food from the weekendfrom Holly is itit's it's been hard it's been hard manbut you know perseverance what can I sayand that's what it is and I think it'sdifficult because obviously I can'trelate to anything that you've gonethrough in that situation but using thatas an example so my foster siblingssay pastor Simmons there were initiallyfoster siblings we went through specialguardianship so three of my siblingshave had similar what's gonna call itdisabilities growing up as well so forinstance the older one he's got a mentalage which is less than half his agewe've got one who's on the autisticspectrum yeah and when they came into mylife a little bit which is why Iresonate with your story a bit is itchange my whole perception of life andeverything that I used to mourn aboutthe silliest things now I'm grateful forand I know you know we all sending outquotes every single day and we're alltrying this positive beacon of light butI genuinely had them within my followersas well similar to yourself and it'snear when I'm there feeling crappy orfeeling sorry for myself because I don'tknow the car tires flat or somethingsomething daft perspective but thesekids are finding them much harder battlethem then I'm having to fight and yesit's commendable because I don't want tomake this about property because anyonethat wants to know my calling propertiesnew fantastic and you've got podcastsout for that and you can reach out tohim afterwards but this is more aboutyou as a person who's taken this use youchange the perception you've dealt withthe cars that you are handed it's notfair I can't explain only thing anyonecan explain why weird out certain cardsbut all we can do is play with them thebest way that you can a new kind of Iknow you very quickly scaled up afterthat and maybe that's because your backwas against the wall I suppose and yeahyou spy on me I mean there's a myfavorite quote and I promote it in oneof my groups could effusive entrepreneurit's called it's from Jack London andit's a it's basically about you knowplaying a bad hand well basically yeahand there's an ace of cards you know aceof hearts on the card you can you canalways play a bad hand well and sobasically don't even if you you can dofeels like on them on the outside of ityou might feel like you're losing it'show you play or how you react to thatthat counts so example is in propertyis I mean add a commercial toresidential big oneI'm Birmingham it's 15 rooms in the endand it was my my first commercial and mysecond project in property and I prettymuch jumped the gun a bit but we haveeverything complying at us literally andit was really stressful and at the sametime as going through moments or likeI've been for my own health careproblems I was going through cancerscare myself and there's a lot going onobviously my son and you know dealingwith deal certain builders oh my godnightmare and getting things wrong andit was just you know massive learning wehad contamination issues we had we hadall sorts of problems just cracking onbut you know again look at my my son onmy photo on my on my phone and I talkabout my son but I actually used my sonas a metaphor for my family yeah becausemy kids that my children Ellie Maria twogirls they're just as amazing Maria forinstance she's actually disabled as wellbut people don't know it and she's gotsome good Zubaz syndrome where middlepart of her head the brains not fullyformed and really rare and it can happenby being sheared and my bum or I've beenshitty stressed at birth and it can beit can happen from genes and allsomething that it's not our genesbecause we checked them and you know itbasically she's got autistic issues shecould go blind that she grows olderbecause the protein doesn't protect hereyes and all this kind of stuff but shecould have been worse I mean apparentlythey're not supposed to have balance andcan't walk but she she fires us all Imean she was she was born and had wasshaken her lace and Eliza liked she hadnystagmus and head wouldn't stop shakingso she's trained a brain to you know toplanets her eyes and and she's learnedyou know to keep straight and she she'stalking to normal school she's doingeverything she's you know she's onlyfour or five now and she's doing reallyreally well and I she's got littletantrum tantrums but not doesn't quiteunderstand certain stuff but I mean I'dsay but now she's still more behavedsome children I know that haven't gotnearly so I classI think I don't sort of put out therejust because she's not disabled reallyyou know he is on paper but she's not sofor me you know it's almost like my sonwas brought there to sort of like helpus deal with the shit that's to come ifthat makes sense my thought was likethat and we didn't have no problemsbefore and all the stuff for theproperty stuff I don't I think whatwould have hit was hard but goingthrough sheer hell you know when my sonreally sort of prepared us a lot for alot of stuff oh it came I understandthat but I think sometimes it's funnybecause I don't wish anyone to really gothrough pain it's not yeah yeah but thatmakes me feel sad when I know people aregoing through pain but sometimes I feelpeople need to experience some level ofadversity you know not to really findfocus and change their life as well andas much as I'm trying to tell peopledon't wait for that wake-up call forexample don't wait for to find out thatyour child may need extra care forexample or you've been hit with theillness get out there and do it now andI suppose it's easier said than donebecause if nobody's having to live thelife Safe Routes that you've lived forexample yeah well like my siblings theydon't really have that agency my it'sfrustrating I get frustrated because I'mlike we are so blessed like beyond meanseven what we're doing now being able tocommunicate how we eyes Isis anythingyeah absolutely I mean there's so muchhorrible stuff out there in the worldand it's just you know it's crazy to youknow to to not be grateful for whatwe've got and and and you know when yousee people that are grateful whenthey've got little and we've all beenthere we've all been them in some way inour minds we've been at the greatest oflows and it could be from spitting outwith your boyfriend or girlfriendit could be splitting up with you knowyou know a JV partner I don't know thepoint a point is you know at that pointit could be serious the most absolutelow you know you could have healthissues cancer issues family there's allsorts we've had that as well in thisperiod and that n is it's not great it'snot great but at the same time you knowI've always said one of my sayings islike you know we will never you knowwe'll neverI don't get my words up today well we'renever given a Golden Pathit was never we never no one promised usanything you know and so and so like ifyou want something you've got to go andget it you either fail or you successfall you know and if you're successfulgreat if you fail get up and do it againand keep trying that and even if you'vegot no money or anything there's alwaysaway you know and you know what worstcomes to the worst I'm dying fromsomething it's if you've got your mindin the right mind and you think you knowwhat I was conceived that's amazing Ilived a few years that's amazing if youget your mind in the right mind youstill be grateful even when you're dyingyou know I mean and we've seen otherwitness people like that you know yeah Ilove that mindset you just touched onsomething and make sure we add it at theend of the show you've got a group youjust say yeah I've got I've got a groupit's called the effusive entrepreneurokay so anything about stuff like theseentrepreneurs is in the name but aboutyour mindset as well well it's actuallyI do marketing I do it mine only amarketing training and that's like alittle group I actually put more effortin my closed group which is people in myarm in a number the thing for me is likeI literally had a VA that was helping meout on that side of thingsand she literally went AWOL live justrandomly went AWOL and I don't know whathappened I really don't know but she'sfrom Philippinesit just went AWOL so yeah looking at adecent VA at the moment I think I foundonewe'll see how it goes but yeah now Ineed to push push put more engagement inthat group from being honest with youokay yeah I know it's a great group I'vegot loads of people about I think about300 people in the group yeah I doengagement but not as much as I likeI've got a couple of other groups havegot one called it's magnetic marketingsystem is another group it's justbasically a really secret one groupwhere it's just the people that I trainarm property marketing getting leadsabout business and all that kind ofstuff an investment it's a small verysmall group at the moment I've got a fewpeople that you guys know some reallygreat people successful people right inthere and yeahso that's going really well gonna beopen that up again soon um yeah justI've got my event in London that'scausing a lot of bloody Wow yeah my sonright that's marketing again it's goingto be we've got we've got a Khadija theapprentice star she's gonna be therewe've got a YouTube expert you know he'shelped Samuel Leeds get from 50,000 to150,000 something a lot you know he'stalking it's all about marketing it'sgonna be it's gonna be awesome and canfit about 480 people at the MarriottHotel in London it's my event bigpressure on me it's only 16th and 17thof March this year prices start at 97pounds but you get actually what we'redoing now we get got this programactually that I'm affiliated to andwe're going to be offering people freeaccess to this program which is you knowpretty amazing yeah any other ticketprices which basically covers theircosts on the bottom ticket easily andbasically they could create landingpages you know can forgive the emailsystem within it so if you want to buildyour own website that's the andtemplates in there so they get that forfreeI haven't launched it yet but you'veheard it here first on our I'm justgonna say you were saying your nervouslyI'm sure you don't need any moremotivation than just to look at yourphone before that exactly exactly thatmay be right yeah okay absolutely that Isee it I mean I guess that thenervousness is the fact that you knowit's a it's a big thing you'd love tofill it out you know you care about itcare about I've got 15 speakers and manycome from abroad there's people like youknow top and marketers making 40 50grand a month you know it's crazy but afigure of guy theretheir partnership guys and and and youknow it's yeah it's it's this pressureyou know but it's great it's great nowI'm like you know I'm one of these likeyou know it's easy for me to go easycoming to go you know what you've got totry these things what does Rob Moore saydon't the risk you know basicallyabsolutely yeah yeah I'm surewell yeah I'm so it's all quite a fewtickets not enough but we've only justlaunched so you know it's a it'ssomething we pushing out there lookforward to it make sure you mediainformation isafter this and I'll send you a signaturenotes it's automated I said it put a lotof people it's good for you know coachesanyone wanting to launch an event anyonethat's in marketing wants to do a bitmore marketing on their property and getsome really great bubbly gonna get sometools for itfantastic okay brilliant so you actuallydoing like more stuff than I knew aboutyou I know I know of course he's afull-time dad and I thought that wouldbe taking up all your time but here youare making your own events andeverything so another question then soyou're successful in what you've done interms of the property you're doing agreat job with your children and yourfamily so what's the day like from themoment you wake up tell you got like 17or yeah I bet I amI wake up about four or five in themorning right sometimes going to bedlate unfortunately but it's not mychoice no that's not by choice that'sactually by habit now that's initiallyit wasn't by choice now if I'm beinghonest with you the reality is I couldsleep a little bit longer but I've justit's just become me now if I can getsleep and I accidently sleep throughthat because all exhausted or whateverand and actually doing this diet it'sreally helping me so if my son doesn'tdisturb me and doesn't wake up and thatyou know I could easily go into 7:00you know easy yeah well it's it's justum it's just nice you know I actuallyget a good rest when I go to like eventsyou know you know so but my schedule isbasically get about four or five I Ialways turn ask me why it's reallystrange but I always always comedownstairs I eat a bananarandal cake I'm not banana manmy first thing I do a banana I go to myson I give him a really big kiss becausehe's exhaust get ready has his dinnerand he's get ready for his he's likespecialist school a given big kiss thegirls are still in bed and my son's lotobviously awake and then I start lookingat my schedule for the day I neverfollow it just to meokay he's organized work just look at ityes I'm aware of it because what happenswhen I start creating a website orlanding page for someoneor final for someone to help convert youknow get people to event or throughFacebook ads or whatever I'm doing forpeople I end up like getting engrossedin the computer and some way it's gonnabe supposed to be an hour it ends upbeing longer so so setting time becausefor me doesn't and and what I do is Ijust make sure I do the stuff and and Imake sure I do it at whatever cost andso I do I literally do that and I tryand mix it with the children like I havethe computer here in the living room momore often on by my bed upstairs on mybed believe in our it's not the bestcomfortable thing to do here because ofthe reception's better there you know abillion you get piece if the kids arekind of well-behaved watching TV I liketo kind of come here in that but if it'stoo noisy I just can't I just can't overthis I've got like a an outbuilding aswell that I converted for a trainingsuite and I've got an office there thatneeds a little bit more finishing offbut it's pretty much burn so I'm gonnastart and can start utilizing that morejust gets a bit cold I've got the heatis on there in that but it's like you gowarm it up for like an hour or so beforeand today I can't be asked you know justa lot stay upstairs on my bed and justdo my work you know not a great thing todo but now I've got a proper PT involvedwith my exercise we're gonna make itthat part of my schedule something to dothis year try and get you know not justuse the lose the the fat actually getsphysically more stronger and you knowgetting care scheduling for that atleast I think for me there's anything onschedule that I want to do I'm pushingmy marketing efforts because a lotpeople while so I've been my propertyjourney you know I've had a few podcastsand interviews and so on I've not reallypromote it'll push what I what I trainedin you know design and marketing and andI've had a few people approached me overthe years from property world and it'slike I've helped them massively I'vehelped people like were there you knowthey might have a 399 ebook and I makethem 15k within a couple of months injust Facebook ads butby promoting a book you know and it'sit's I know I'm good at what I do but Idon'tand III this is my biggest flaw I don'tlike selling I don't like selling andI'm one of rob mores mentors and I'vesigned up to his thing cuz I got reallygood at helping people value theirselves helping them realize their worthand he said something recently he saidhe said something about when people sayoh I don't need to sell myself I don'tneed yeah I don't need to sell myselfpeople come to me that's me that's meman I hate to admit it it's like I get Iget work it just comes to me right butactually imagine what I'd do if I shouldstart promoting myself you know leave itso much on the table yeah I'm leaving somuch on the table almost I almost don'tgive a crap because I'm designing my ownlife you know I mean yeah at the sametime if I really want to get to my goalmy goal is actually to eventually beable to afford to buy an Ironman suitfor my son some sort of give him theindependence thought we know that'sgonna cost millions and if I want to getto that goal at that you know at thatpoint then I'm gonna have to do betterthan this sort of like you know just youknow happy happy that enough workscoming my way and people using me thatway I think I should be you knowprofessionalizing myself a little bitmore and and valuing myself more to thepoint that I should promote myself it'sjust that there's a nervousness ofpromoting yourself I mean I think you'veprobably seen it amongst the the theforums and that people kind of thinkyour guru rising yourself or you knowlike oh god who's another personthinking a minute I had a businessbefore hello you know these peoplebusiness before and what you do inbusiness is you promote a market that'swhat you're supposed to do you knowthey're almost I allow myself to beaffected by other people's judgmentswhich you can't do even myself I mean Ipromote myself a lot more recentlyespecially in the last 12 months interms of like my own brand and me as aperson that initially was the hardestthing I've ever had to do and the wholepoint of like you need to know yourWorth and stuffwe were spoken to me I thinking one ofmy first jobs when I was young as aproject manager and my manager at thetime because I came out of meyou know when they ask you what'sspecial about you give three things asan icebreaker I was like nothing I'mjust I'm just me yeah he told meafterwards because he he listed like afew things that he found special aboutme and long story short he was that ifyou don't blow your own trumpet nobodyelse is gonna in this world because ofthe way the moment is and I don't knowyou always resonated with me and itstill took me the best part of seveneight years later on to real stuff I'mthinking if I can just do this and notreally worry about the engagement andkind of just be like look I've got amessage here I want to share it it comesfrom the heart it's honest if youresonate with it fantastic if you don'tnot a problem so it was difficult for usbecause they used to send it off andyou're kind of looking at your phonethinking what's gonna happen and nowit's kind of like I just Lars a andpeople ask me that how did you writecontent and I say I don't like reallywrite contact a kind of document like mylife kind of things like you've donesomething a property I'll speak about itif it's health and fitness I'll speakabout it if it's like an interestingmeeting I'll just speak about it andhopefully I always try and give peoplesome sort of tangible yeah informationthat they can take away I think youshould be that because I didn't know youwere doing all these amazing crazywonderful things yeah a bit here inthere I do you know I mean I'll get myflap out on flipping social media justto really put myself available to theworld you know that I'm gonna loseweight and I say I wrote i put a visionI put watch this miraculous journey ofthis of me this is anyway and I've doneit in three weeks already there's noultimate accountabilityyou know ridicules you that you're gonnabe it's embarrassinga whole lot the source stuff but at thesame time you know for the first time inmy life we have tried different dietssince what happened to my son I put alot of weight on the first time in mylife I'm facing it head-on so yeah ohyou and look at my fat mass yeah I'mhereabsolutely even my addictions and I callthem addictions because that's all I'veever eat and then it's like I literallyget urges for this stuff isn't my portmy secrets of this diet is I'm facing itand I call it the no BS lifestyle dietokay basically I put Pringles fizzydrinks and I've got a packet of Haribooutside of my bedoh no Quinn okay right and I sleep withthem by the side of my bed and I wakethat with the word webecause I had to face my addictions yeahyeah and it's a bit like that inproperty when people would like go totraining training training trainingtraining training training trainingtraining training the good mentors weresaying you got to do you've got to justyou know and and I you know I'm a coursedrinking I'm proud of it I'm proud of itI'm a course drunk eating for two mainreasons number one it's always good evenif you already know the stuff to go overagain it's good to get reminders rightbut number two and this is the biggestonementors need Mentors even if you'rewhatever level you are and all mymentors have got mentors themselves youknow I mean Nick James is mentorshipI've been under song azuki's mentorshipI mean Rob Moore's mentorship you knowthe reality is and I I mentor otherpeople myself yeah and I truly believethat you you've got to really be what'sthe word humble enough to want to keeplearning absolutely and there's a lot ofpeople that are arrogant and feel likethe only courses well good for you happyyou do not everyone wants to work thatway I actually love people right I lovenetworking I love people but I lovegenuine people that I've got integritythey're true to them certainly I reallycan't stand people that fake I hate itand I can sense them a mile away and andI always when I talk about marketing'sbe true to yourself just be yourself andpeople attract to you and a good friendof ours Camilla does the sa stuff Iwould say so namecan we look oh yeah she's exactly greatand I mentor mentoring in marketing aswell but it's usually just started to befair and and you know she's a reallygreat she's doing massive should bereally successful and she's doing it byjust being herself she's been brilliantyou know and you know we all learn offeach other I've learned a lot of Simon'suchi I've learned a lot of Rob more I'velearned a lot of Nick James you knowI've got another mentor that is you knowdefinitely need him because he's likehe's like a sales machine he reallyknows he's you know he's good he's got aproduct called open with a closingdoesn't do its Leslie it's just like youknow you want my product is I'm worththis much and you know so this is whatit is and he's named my Elwell reallygreat guy amazing guy getting hired bysome really top guys at the momentbecause he's easy really is you knowlegend or what he does and so yeah Iwant to constantly improve I want to beI want to be my ultimate self before Idie and I know more than a lot of peopleknow life it's bloody short manit really is severely because of yourexperiences yeah absolutely yeahyeah I think you touch on quite a fewthings with your whole I'm lookingforward to it but I actually lose 42pounds in seven and a half weeks myselfso what I want to do boxing never go tothe gym and I was a think was about 24at the time and there was like sevenyear-olds two ten-year-olds very cheekylittle kids and I'd to go for a roomwith him so I told the kids because thenI was all the way and I could I couldn'trun more than like 200 meters and all Icould hear him was saying come on oldman come on Batman and all these kind oflike really literally me facing it but Itook I took it personally I was likeI'll get you back and then with a loveworking working my ass off basically forthe next two months it really reallyhelped and there is no magic formula toanything whether it's property whetherit's health and fitness whatever it isliterally you just got to go and do itand then if you you learn a little bityou pivot I hope that's called it on myuncle my own podcast called Mike dropsget okay I guess my drop is call mineyet close and I've interviewed a coupleof a top level you know we're talkingreally high level guys in America mycalls another guy called les Evans and11 there's Evan said a thing to me hesaid he said um he said people thinkthere's an easy route to success butit's all hard work even when it doesn'tlook that way and he said even if you'repeople just speak in the thing they'rejust speaking they're successful fromspeaking andand he's brilliant at that is amazingamazing me he's gonna you know he's he'sadvised people in the White House he'sdone all sorts he's just bum a lot theguys absolutely legend and he's hadbecome a really good friend of mine andand he was saying to me you know Iremember it was on the lines of like Iremember when you said pedal stallpeople like that look big and famous andhe became himself but in the end they'rejust flipping normal people and whatpeople don't understand is that you knowthey want to laugh you know they want toget on you know they don't to be usedand and and there's a lot of truth inthat and there and there's a lot ofpeople do assume they also die theyconnected that way back I used to givehim a lot of my time for free and in theend I ended up blocking him and this iswhere you learn about time for money andit wasn't yeah it was like you everyevery conversation about a heart I'vetough your love to have your lives loveto out Matt me yeah I'd live in aflipping shed and have my son healthyyou won't want my life trust me it's notgreat but you know it's not as great asyou think it is you know and and it wasjust constant constant constant constantlike you know like MV and it wasn't thenice he wasn't moving forward is that Iwant to get 200 houses within two yearsand he was like really unrealistic yeahall right 10x it I you know go for ityou know I hate that comment that wordclinics it got you know I love whatGrant Cardone is about I just hate the10x it that side of it not because Idon't believe in it I believe in itit's just that I see if thrown aroundtoo freely now and and like by peoplethat could potentially really screwtheir lives over if they do try to 10xit you know and where they feel that youknow they've been inspired and they canjust rush ahead you've got to get theeducation in I don't care what you knowyou got to build the foundations he'sgot to build the foundations and andthen and then to exit first you know andthen check out what you know check out aflavor for it and then check out what Xmight be you know I don't like the 2xyou know I'm not doing us a great pointI think we're in thesociety obviously with the wholeInstagram highlight reels and nobody'sreally posting stuff that is like theirbad days of supposed and I supposedindirectly I don't know how but when Iwas getting a bit of traction in likethe property groups it was because I wasjust Oakley admit all my mistakes upsomething I was just documenting againlike listen I am probably the worst guya property talking three years ago I wasa look I made this mistake I've madethis and people resonated with that soindirectly actually helped 9% of thetime it is lychee everyone showing theirbest date on a highlight reel and Ithink we get that thing and then peopleread the secret and it's all thiswishful thinking and it's like listen itis goes back to what you said earlier doit do it you've just got to face it anddo it just exactly I mean madness you'respot on and the crazy thing is is thatI've been exactly the same I've donepodcasts and I've been honest juststraight on you know I'll straight upwith out loud you didn't want to hear itwe didn't want to hear it I'm like youknow and and cut long story short thethe realities that they won't value inmy time but I wasn't violent valuing itI can't blame them it's actuallysomething that I get a trouble from frommy wife so I'm always trying to help asmany people as I can so I'm alwayshaving these one-hour coffees that goingto like one and a half hours orconversation 15 minutes or less yeah andthen at the end of its like I've got notime to spend with my wife for exampleyeah because I'm just trying to help butthen most of those people they'll comeback with pretty much the same kind ofquestions or concerns two months laterhaving done nothingyou're almost yourself and I think I'msimilar to you in that respect which isthere's some great points that you madedays that I need to start my new my timea little bit there yeah not so much Iknow I need to charge for example it'son the faith basis that is this personreally going to do it and what I'vestarted doing as of the last two days istaking calls on the way to the gym soI'm like you've got ten minutes with mefar away I'll kind of give youeverything I've got I know it's workingokay because it kills that time to thegym so yeah absolutely yeah it's noteating a weigh-in time that you which isvaluable time is valuable time time I'vesaid entire book emergency we have youknow in the lane if if if people don'tvalue your timemmm bug you you spell as I and why workwith people that don't value you they'rejust picking and sponging your brainbecause they can't be asked again spendthe money on the courses and theeducation and or go through the grit inthe action that you've gone through inthe pain that you've gone through theyjust want to just you know squeeze yoursponge brain and get all the bloody Evoout you know those people it doesn'tmake us a you know this is not a youknow I'm holy than now I'm perfect I Iknow my share you know this has justjust been honest with the situation youknow so I absolutely love helping peopleI really do it's just some people justdon't value your time enough so okaywe're gonna change gears a little bitwe've spoken about adversity which isone of the main drivers like in yourlife and I don't wish it on anyone to gothrough the same kind of stuff but weall go through something what I wouldask you though is a different questionis about fear so it's probably a commonquestion but I want to know what is yourbiggest fear but I want to stop and takeaway what I think he's gonna be yourfirst answer from doing some Daryl Browntactics here so you can't mention youryour children or your wife in thisscenario but what is your biggest fearas as yourself my biggest fear formyself is not accomplishing my dreamsokay and my dreams are actually yes theyare to be able to get enough money toafford certain things from my family andI'm not supposed to mention them but myactual my dreams are to actually besuccessful and proud enough to know thatyou know that boy in school that was atloss was crap had to have extraeducation was themedyou know classes dyslexic really smashedit regardless he's not I mean and and soyou know for me to start that wouldreally be probably my biggest fear stophim from for me I really I really wantto get aspire to inspire is what I wantto do right and the way you inspire isby doing great things and and thosegreat things could be I give a lot tocharity myself I donated just over fourthousandpounds Christmas do recently you knowand and before that I've donated loadsand even my book my little spot and thatI've written for my son all the all themoney from that including the cost ofmaking it which most people don't dothey has gone to different charities youknow everything wasn't a lot you knowbecause these costs of these profitscarry yeah yeah and even before thateven you know I've just constantly youknow every year given in some form tocharity and the point is this like it'snot because I'm you know I want to beseen as you know are what passive and uhand people that know with me will knowthis is true so I could be a propertymeet in and we're walking up the roadfor me laughter and I'll just givetwenty pounds of baby homeless man Idon't record it I don't you know butpeople that would mean no it yeah Idon't do it for you know I know inLondon wherever I am if I see someoneI'll donate and you know and I don'tcare if they're they look like they'redruggies well it's not at the end of theday I because I'm not gonna judge youknow they can do what the hell they wantwith ityou know I want to give if I've got ityou know and if it helps them it helpsthem I just get I don't need to promoteit or anything that but the reality isalthough ironically there's a promote inthis podcast estrangement but honest islike where we're and it's just merelyanswering your question you know my goalis to aspire to inspire to inspire andif I can do that for my kids and otherpeople and great you know and and if itmeans like you know giving when youhaven't even got it and I've done thatand and you know it's like then you knowyou do you leaving some sort of trail oflegacy wait wait people might notremember me you know but you knowsomeone might you know yeah I don't knowbut at the end of the day it's strange Ihaven't made haven't made it in in mymind a successful property developer ormarketing agency in my mind I've got along way to go but I'll also at the sametime I don't want to have a lot you knowI want to be comfortable I don't want tohave like the two hundred thousandliving rooms and whatacquiring to do well you know I reallydon't I don't envy people like that whenI see people doing well I'm like good onyou I'm yeah I really I never had thejealous I never I just truly think goodon you the ones I don't like are theones that do it and they're they'rehorrible assholes you know I mean thesepeople win don't they yeah yeah okayfantastic no I know that that makessense I think I'm very similar as wellin relation to what you saying there andjust on that analogy song I've had goingoff on a bit of a tangent here peoplewho are quite charitable but they'llnever give to somebody who maybe theyassume is gonna have alcohol and drugsor something and my philosophy hasalways been I mean growing up and theway my mom's always talking is just givewhatever you can give but and the baseis that maybe maybe your donation thatthey will just change that person'sperspective or life and providing you'renot just throwing it at home and maybeyou can just give it a try contact willhave a good day or something so I justgive him that lift that they need alljust to keep him going for another dayso I'd always urge people whatever youcan give this absolutely give but yeah Ican't imagine you being somebody's gonnabe taking a selfie while you're doingthat I mean and the truth is I should beyou know utilizing it for you know butat the same time it's it's not itdoesn't sit rightyou know it doesn't sit right so you'veheard the buzzer it's going off so whatI'm gonna do now is but Mike with threespaces for the next 60 seconds and he'sall I do basically whatever the firstanswer comes into your head please giveme that one and you ready mate I'm coolI'm ready okay we're gonna start inthree two oneokay the ability to fly or be invisiblefly money or fame fame singing ordancing singing Netflix our YouTubeYouTube Marvel or DC are Marvel easilywould you rather know how you were dyingor when you would i how love or moneylove books or movies i love booksactually if you could sit with oneperson in the world for an hour whowould it be I would love to sit withDonald Trump to figure out why the helllooking weird andgo ahead going on I just I'm justperplexed and also kind of yeah it's aweird onethat we interested yeah you're worse bea growing up fighters actually okay andfinally what is your biggest addictionmy biggest might what was my biggestaddiction was slight wrinkles and yeahwrinkles my biggest addiction at themoment is learning junkie for learningand just some Pringles because I'm aPringles fun as well what's yourfavorite cocktail sorry I don't get methinking the next one's on reflectionyeah we've spoken about this earlierwe've spoken about hindsight being awonderful thing how you can teach you toget to where you are quicker easier orwith less heartache for example butknowing what you know now and with yourlife experiences and obviously yourmindset now if you could go back to atime maybe when you were younger maybegoing through college or school and youcan just whisper something in your earknowing how life would pan out for youand just to kind of maybe motivate orinspire that young Michael what wouldyou say I would say you're able to doanything you put your mind to because Ireally believe growing up because I wastold it you know my teacher I didn'thave a good attention span and myteacher must teacher said to me ohyou're gonna end up as a glassblower shewas old fashioned herself and mostpeople didn't really kind of connectwith her if I'm being honest with youbut that really thought I thought whatthe hell you know kind of thing to saythat just because I you know and Iwasn't interested in her lessons I justwould and again it goes down to what weread in property marketing people couldbe connected you know whatever you do init's about attention and connectionright you've got to get the attention tobe noticed and you've got to connect soif you're going to get an investor tocome to you you've got to get theattention you've got to do that one wayor another and then you've got toconnect and you can only connect bybeing you because long term wise youknow it's a marriage you know it'ssimply that absolutely and it's theeasiest thing to do be yourself ratherthan trying be someone else off man donot have some music but I see people mygod and I just cringe and I know that itmakes me cringeI see people they've been II won't even touch into it too much butthere's people that mean there's aparticular person that's training thesame people when they're like they'refollowing the same moves and everythingin their acting the same as this personexactly in every way and it's a it'ssquiggly it's creepy and windy it is andthe problem with it is as well if you'recopying somebody else you're almostrelying on them to do something you knowthe few to follow see as a policy if youjust make your own journey and writeyour own story I've got one thing whereI've got respect for these people that'sall for helping them is they've alreadytaken a step at least they're gettingthemselves out of the shell and they dosomething but but seeing exact copiesit's just yourself yourself it's likehave you ever seen those live videoswhen they're sat there quietly for likeflipping five minutes I'm like I don'tlike it I just it's just great I'm likeI just talk shit for a bit I say topeople okay just talk shit wait topeople come on[Music]and that's not always like to ask myguess is if in 150 years time and youare no longer here but all that existsis a book and it's about your life andsomebody's walking past and they pick upthis book what would the blurb say andalso what would be the title of the bookwell already written it it's called mylittle spot on the globeit says embrace your struggle to findyour strength and pretty much what wetalked about today and and I it has asub heading saying unleash your lip in aspa and because we've all gotten in thispart and and what I mean by that it'snot a judgment thing on Spartans andwhile it's just the fact that you knowagainst the odds it's a metaphorit's against the odds they know they'regonna die but they're fighting all theycan yeah and that's the point at the endof the day we're all gonna freakin diebut let's just see what we can do youknow that's all we can do but you knowyou know the end of a that's why I don'tmind helping people as much as I canbecause that you know any bit of helpyou get out there is whatnice absolutely Granta our future looksalready out yes my little spy Amazonyeah best seller internationalbestseller there you go is it oh wowyeah i 100% put that in the bottom ofand the show notes as well alright it'sactually the first time somebody'salready answered my question and done myquestion but what I always like to askpeople is there is somewhere they cancontact you now I know you're doingamazing things all over the world innetworking marketing property you're anauthor as well there's one place and I'mjust gonna limit it to one but I willobviously add everything else afterwardswhat is the number one place that you'dprefer base for Facebook Facebook I'm 5mI'm maxed out sorry guys so just listenI've got another group page good MichaelV Calais Paris just a baby bear I'd bethere and start using it more nowbecause I'm that's my that's my ownthat's my professional page so just wantthem on to Michael V or try and messageme on on on my one at least and I'm nottry and connect and brilliantly it'sbeen a absolute pleasure like I said atthe beginning I reached out to you longtime we don't know yeah I love yourstory you know that this is fascinatingpromise there's live calls on them youall get busy I haven't managed toreconnect there so and thank you foryour time today you've been doingawesome things as well okay it's good tosee and again like you know we reach outto people that we connect with and likeand so on and you know obviouslyresponded back to you because I knowlike and trust okay you know it worksthe same way you know yeah that's how Isee it and and that's how that's howrelationships grow that's how investorsget involved that's how all this stuffhappens you know it's it's all aboutthat you know so absolutely absolutelyspinning it's been an absolute pleasureand well as well thanks for listeningand remember this podcast is absolutelyfree so all we ask in return is for youto share this with a friend and drop usa 5 star review over on iTunes have anawesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 8 - Memoirs of an Anxious Mind - Cos KyriacouTagline: "To HIM its just a game, playing with my mind. An easy target for HIM, he always seems to find. He always seems to be there to put me in my place, lurking and scheming like a puff of smoke up in my face..."Cos is a talented Poet who has found his voice by utilising the power poetry in speaking about his depression and anxiety. Riddled with many trials and tribulations growing up Cos has battled with suicidal thoughts from time to time.Now determined to conquer his mindset working on his health, thoughts and gifts he is looking to help those struggling with mental health illness more.Alongside this, Cos is also a qualified Accountant and Personal Trainer and this is just some of his hidden talents. He kindly shares one of his poems, HIM, in this podcast and I am sure once you hear this you will follow him over on his instagram channel to learn more about him and hear so many more powerful poems.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cmklifestyle/ (Personal)Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfullfitness/ (Movement#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so like many of myguests I get really really passionateand excited to try and support them andI suppose that's the beautiful thingabout this show because it's real peopledoing real things just like me and youI'm really trying to make a differenceand today's guest is no differenttoday's guest goes by the name of Kosand I do apologize in advance but Ican't pronounce their surname but you'regoing to get all of that in the shownotes but what's important about thisindividual is what they've been throughin their life and I suppose even moreimportant than that is how they'vetackled their adversity they've tackledtheir mental health their depressiontheir feelings of suicide and reallycome out on the other side and now whatthey're doing is making an impact tohelp other people and that's just mykind of person and I'm sure it'sprobably your kind of person too so Ithink it's important that rather thanyou listen to me whoo yes once again Ihave a cold I think that's gonna be atheme of this show let's jump straightinto this interviewokay so firstly I just want to thankcause for coming on to the show todayand for all you listeners who are heresupporting our movement so my friend howyou doing today good morning I'm goodnot as early as you Baba fantastic youlike to hear you well we've had a bit oftechnical issues and it is slightlyearlier than normal so excuse our voicescool so you've heard the introductionI've explained cause his story but whatI want to know well I think what thelisteners want to know is more aboutyourself from you and I think it'simportant that they can get tounderstand your story youjourney and how you basically progressthrough life and ended up where you aretoday so if you wouldn't mind my friendif you could just give us a rundownbasically of the life of cause the lifeof course easily hey I think it's bestto start where I am now and then kind ofgo through how I got here so I'm aqualified charted accountant soundsriveting ah no he says exciting as itsoundswhoo guys recently qualified in Decemberand in the new year I've gone part timeto kind of tramp pursue my own endeavorsin life so starting from the beginning Iwas stopped when I was born because I'mquite old now or in my own eyes I'm oldbut I don't like to use the word sufferbut I've had anxiety my whole life andnow been listening to your your showshaven't they been amazing by the way Iappreciate that thank you just listen toyour different guests you know strugglesthey've had to go through and obstaclesthey face for me I've always felt itdifficult to kind of ask for helpbecause I've had I've had such a goodlife in something upbringingand the situation I'm in I've hadamazing parents I've never had to askfor anything not that was slow in anysense but I was given everything Ineeded clothes water the essentials andthat but from an early age I just felt Iwas different kind of like I had thesevoices in my head I used to think it wasit was good it was someone else I reallydon't know what it was and I find thiswent through life with it at school Inever really felt like I fit in whereason the outside poori it probably seemedlike I was that guy good at his workgone along with people but I kind ofquiz my anxieties I threw myself into mywork so I think into studying into beingthe best I can in that sense so I justdidn't feel comfortable socializing Ididn't feel comfort with myself and thensaw some much easier CSIS etc I left forsix oneI changed sixth one then and that's whenI started to spiral a bit looking backnow it's funny because I can see all mycatalysts I can see why I feel the way Ididwhere is at the time I just had no ideawhat's going on I'm just in my own mindso for me what gets me a look is changeand uncertainty and new things andespecially socializing in in newenvironments so change into a new sixthform with people I didn't know newsubjects just threw me off completelyand it might sound stupid some peoplebecause this is such a simple thing butfor me the biggest fact thing anyone canhandle is their own mind and that'ssomething I've always struggled with yesI might not have had big thermal in mylife a lot of people have but a lot ofpeople live in with their own minds andtry about that every day and people needto appreciate thatit is hard for a lot of people mm-hmm soyeah went to I went to six-month pickingup from then and firstly was extremelyhard for meI was probably on the debts ofdepression where it's back then I thinkwe know what the pressure was so Ididn't really see as that I just felt itwas me so my family helped me through alot I got through a levels my secondyear beta it was great because I wasmore comfortable in my environment andthen applied for university got goodgrades and got into UCL to studyeconomics and I think at UCL was thefirst time I really but I understandwhat the pressure was I start to gothrough it so I'm still living at hometraveling to London every day and justdidn't feel like I fit in they're alwayscomparing myself to others that I wasn'tgood enough to be there and then Istarted getting suicidal food so I standon train tracks and my mind we kill himto jump and yeah I in my mind I've - Iknow myself cuz I've never had thosethoughts before and I'm in the past I'venever when I've heard people who commitsuicide or taken her own life I've neverunderstood it but in that moment and nowI've been through it that's the onlyplace you see confort is by not beinghere not being with your mindWow is that is that kind of a thing thatyou've you've convinced yourself that itwould just be better off yeah a hundredpercent it's like you explore differentoptions so when I start to feel anxiousor when I'm gonna extremely the prostateI start to looklook at the fact that across the greenon the other side so I was at UCO and Iwas saying to my momI'm gonna quit I'm just gonna get jobI'm gonna apply to a different Union I'mgonna do this I'm gonna do that I alwaystry and wash one away because then allthat anxiety all that all that hurt willbe gone and over you place intosomething new so that's the first time Istarted seeing a counselor Britt at UCoh and while I was at UCL I write toanother university again seeing that thegrass is green on the other side justwant to get out of it so I startedstudying for my exams at UCL it's aboutApril time and then I've gotconfirmation that I was given anotherplace at Royal Holloway University I'vebeen sorry okay and I thought to myselfyou know what it's not worth the toiletturn won't burn through I'd literallywrite vice for all my exams the weekly Iwas gonna sit there but I decided that'sit I'm not sitting them because I justwant this this kind of cloud to be overso I quit or I gave up UCL andstraightaway I just felt that count hasbeen liftedI felt so good then I was like you knowwhat this is what I need like my nextuniversity is gonna be amazing I'm gonnafind so yeah that summer was great andthen September moved up to roll away tostop my new course and in the same thingstarted comparing myself to others newsituation a lot of social anxiety Ididn't go out a lot in my first year andlike I'd hear people in the kitchendrinking and stuff and I just be in myroomjust with my own thoughts Wow and I'mglad today I have amazing friends andamazing flat I'm still in touch with andthat's friends with your good may aswellfears off so she helped me through a loteven if she doesn't know it and bygetting my first year of uni I wasthinking I need to apply to another uniit's gonna be better on the other side Ineed to take my course something to dothis I applied for a job and luckily youknow I was convinced to stay I lost myfirst year went on to the second yearand that is the biggest term like mylife is the second year I just spiraledout of control just in myselfamong thoughts just not being able tocall or be in social situations withpeople my first day my room up my mum mysister would always come and visit me tomake sure I was okay because they wereextremely worried about me of courselike I used to lock myself in my roomthen and research how to end my lifebecause it's the only way I can see anend to it and I knew how wrong that thatwas and the the only thing that stoppedme from ever doing it then was yes myfamily like what we do to them but I'mactually getting emotional saying thissorry man please take your timebut yeah the most it's really silly butthe thing that stopped me was I wouldn'tend my life right and my parent wouldhave to look after me and like her in astate where I think people looking aftermyself yeah sorry man no no I can onlyimagine what what you're going throughbecause my level of desire is nothingcompared to your level of depression andwe spoke briefly before we had thisinterview that you know it took the best8 years of my mom's life away and Ithink unless you live with somebodywho's going through or somebody it's sodifficult because from the surface Imean you look at your Instagram you lookat yeah the way the way you conductyourself your poetry which you're goinglater on in the interview it's just likethis kind of depression you know youjust know isn't no more that is itnormally is somebody you can relate tobut it's it's amazing how some it's notsomething so simple but something likeyour mind can just completely just yetturn your world upside down and it's oneof my favorite quotes ever and Iprobably say to myself at least six orseven times a week not because I do itbut because it just helps with thingsinto perspective and it's comparison isthe thief of joy you said that you hadins ie from a very young age and I meanI'm 32 now and I'm kind of peeling backthe onion layers using an analogy ofwhen I started getting anxiety and Ithink yes having reflected and lookingback at myself I'm able to find certainmoments in my life like when I was sixor seven I was atshit I was actually quite anxious thenand then maybe that's really kind ofsnowboard have you been able to in yourcurrent situation not be able to lookback and find these key triggers or haveyou always just known yourself to beanxious no a hundred percent if I knewone who I knew now about myself I couldhave controlled a lot of what happenedto me and not let it happencould you elaborate so my anxieties mycatalysts are changed like newsituations where that's a new job newUniversity a new subject I'm studyinguncertainty so I'm a perfectionist as Isaid before I used to put myself into mywork and just try and excel at that soif I'm not the best at something I startto get anxious might sound stupid butthat's just the way I am so it's notstupidso you've always had this in psyche yeahand now you knowing what you know nowyou've said you can obviously look backand think I could have changed stuffwhat kind of things I mean I'm thinkingpractical things here for somebody who'smaybe a little bit younger thanourselves who's going through thismoment they're just constantly anxioushave changed like yourself and being inthese kind of environments what wouldyou kind of say to them now the onenumber one thing does has helped me themost about anything is talking about itso talking about how you feel because Iwould often just keep everything balledup inside me and whereas today I'm openas hell honesty oh are you guys to swearon this podcast may you can do whateveryou want thank fuck for that that's finesome people might not like that but youknow sometimes it's one of the only waysyou can express it sometimes one or twoepisodes myself sonot a problem mate so yes second year ofuniversity extremely down I went to sawa doctor there who prescribed me afterdepressants and I'm back then I hadnever taken a tablet in my life not evena paracetamol just nothing I was justagainst putting foreign substances in mybody so I got prescribed down to theirpresence I went and got them but I didnot take them and I came back home forChristmas and I was just so so bad oneday my dad leave she just got me in thecar drove me off the sorry and when hemom didn't say hello to any of myhousematesjust went in my drawer guys I depresswe drove all the way back home to NorthLondon and I started taking them andthey helped me massively they're therethey're a tool for helping you they'renot a magic pill that's gonna makeeverything go away could you have to putyou have to put other things in yourlife that's gonna help you get throughbut they definitely help just balanceout the chemicals in your brain and theway you think think mm-hmm and so Istarted taking them must I've seen atherapist as well and then I startedgoing to the gym again so I was injuredat the time I got really depressed theymy substitute but I had a fun injuryokay that's unique yeah so I couldn'treally lift weights and so as soon asthat healed in the new year that's likea gym again I started feeling good Istopped them seeing my therapist eventhough he advised me to carry on and Ifinished my second year third year wasgreat really enjoyed it when I almost Ihad finished uni over to 1/2 percent offat first which again I beat myself upagain about don't beat yourself up todayI by the time I was in tears thatliterally so fun and and then yeahapplied for a job took me eight monthsto get a job and I had no idea what todo with my life was planned foreverything in anythink mmmgot over Owen into accountancy and thenstart here and then things that Ispiralling down again so and evenprobably even deeper depression I had inmy second year and the extreme thatsuicidal thoughts I just didn't knowwhat I want to do with my lifeespecially working full-time andstudying and studying for something youdidn't you didn't really want like Ididn't know if I wanted to be anaccountant up in all this effort into itwhat am i what am i giving to otherpeople what I'm given to the world bybeing an accountantthat's just how and I just didn't see medoing anything else so I I said to mymom not gonna quit and the Khan teachI'm gonna quit and do this and quit anddo that and my mom bless her she she'shelping me a lot but I know howfrustrating it is she understands fullyjohnstad 3 but I know how frustrating isto try and help someone who nothingseems to help themselves and you can seethe same things happening again in termsyou wanted to just change again to a newsituationso I stopped taking as the presents whenI was at Union swell after that Sigmaperiod and I was at work I cited themagain I'm slicing the therapist againand a major thing that helped me getthrough if I did not do this I would nothave qualified to try to count and I maynot be alive today I'm being honest withyou I told him what I told myself aboutmy depression so I went spokes inmanagers I went spoke the partners inthe firm and they were so so good aboutit honestlythat's brilliant like they helped memassively they put things in place forme and I felt I could go and talk topeople about it more mm-hm so yeah itwas tough as hell and I qualified aboutthis December just gone so I'm currentlyin the process of coming up mad for thepresents fantasticI'll be off them in about two weeks I'vedefinitely felt some side effects butthey start to wear off and I'm feelinggood about life now and the mostimportant thing about anything thatbeing through mum I don't like to usethe word happy up being through it I'mkind of I'm glad for which taught me andso six months ago if I was doing thispodcast review I know I was in tears alittle bit before but I would not beable to talk about this with withanybody whereas now I don't give a fuckI put it on Instagram I talk abouttrying to speaking about their feelingsespecially especially as a man today inthe society there's so much manypressures a lot of stance what about 100percent mate it's a it's an ego maybesurprise thing I don't know what it iswith guys we don't realize thatvulnerability is actually a truestrength and I spoke about thispreviously again I'd recommend if youcan listen to Lewis Howes I think he'sgot a book the mask of masculinity andit's a fantastic book because I think asguys you're doing something there thatis something that we don't do and I'mnot stereotyping it but how many of usreally talk about stuff when we feel ohbecause it's a bravado thing isn't it wecan't show weakness we can't show thatwe're feeling down or low and I thinkthe reason I was really interested ingetting you on this show is or becauseyou've touched on something there so wespoke about the social enterprise thatI'm working on with mywe're going to get back to mental healthand awareness the first question askedthough was what do you want like if weraise awareness is it money is it likematerialistic things what kind of thingswould make you guys feel better and shesays somebody should talk to you andthat brings us to the whole thing thatwe spoke about prior to this episode isI'm gonna open up just centers I'm gonnahire them for the day get people who aregoing through it people who haveovercome it to just maybe talk about itand I know that might sound like such asimple thing from the outside but you'vetouched on it now as wellthe world needs to speak it's thesimplest of things look us I say toeveryone I don't see anxiety as anillness this is my this is my personalopinion yeah everyone has anxiety butjust different levels of a spectrumdepression is the lowest of the low thusthat that's an illness that's somethingyou can you need to case of our but thedifference between me and the guyssitting next to me the only differencebetween us is I can talk about it now Italk about it that's the only differencethe guy still has anxiety 100% differentmaybe different levels different aspectsin his life but he just doesn't talkabout it that's the difference and bytalking about it which you've been doingmore openly now and some of it's throughyour poetry is all which is fantastic aswell have you genuinely seen like ashift in like your overall moods and didthe severity of your laws as well Oh100% like if I have a load they know ifI don't know they in the past I comehome and I keep all my stuff where it'sI come home now and thank what my sisteris my rock honestly I would not behonestly hands-down I would not be aliveabout her today and she has she's notbeen through depressiontouchwood and thank God but even so ashard it was for her to help me she wasjust there to listen even if she didn'tunderstand she was just there to listenand put small things in place to me forme and so yeah I remember this one timeat university when I was when I was homefor that Christmas when I was really badI had an essay to write and I told her Ijust can't do it I'm gonna quit but sheliterally sat down with me and made mewrite for five minutes at a time when wego and have a break and come back onwrite for five minutes so that's amazingyeah she's been amazing and you'refortunateto have that because there's so manypeople out there you may not necessarilyhave that kind of support network aswell yeah because like you've touched onit's an illness and it's because it'snot physical because it's not like yourthumb for example or yeah you knowsomebody's leg broken or something it'sit's internal and again because peoplearen't speaking what we're doing iswe're masking everything with it with itwith a smile or Facebook post orInstagram post but deep down we'verarely know what somebody's goingthrough exactly it's just scary and Ithink I think living with it is scary soI can only imagine what you're goingthrough so again I just want to saythank you for for really sharing thestory no problem I just want to say umthank what I've not been in the pressdate for about two and a half years nowyes I live with anxiety but I am knowingthat press date and I'm I will fight mymy utmost not to go back there and helpanyone else to come out absolutely andI'm not I'm not in a position to giveyou any advice having not been throughwhat you've been through but yeah thenthere's a simple quote we use it for ourfor our business that me or mom aregoing to start it's okay not to be okayyeah I don't know it sounds simple butit's so important that we understandthat because myself I mean I don'tsuffer with depression but I will wakeup on it on a Monday or a Tuesday itcould be any day of the week and I willbe in an absolute funk and I'm like whydo I feel like shit like nothing's gonewrong like you know my health is they'remy wife's happy my mom's finethere's nothing actually happened inthat day I've slept well but then youknow what you just you just feel reallylow and you got like no motivation andstuff and I used to beat myself up aboutthat because I just think I've got somuch stuff to do I need to change theworld I need to do this at least getmyself up now it's kind of like Iliterally say that quote to myself it'sokay not to be okay and all I'll do ison that particular day or do stuff likeI'll go to the gym I'll try and keep mynutrition as well as possible becauseobviously that helps your mind andeverything I try and speak with my wifeor my brother or my mom in the day justto kind of cheer me up and I might stillbe in a bit of a funk to the end of theday but the next day it all washes overrather than me dwelling on it and thenhating myself like throughout the weekthat kind of makes sense so it'sfantastic that it's been like two and ahalf years and there for yourself comingoff it but if you ever do find yourselfperhaps going a bit lower just knowthat listen mate you've come out of itso many times yeah kicking and fightingyou're doing great that it will be okayand you'll be alright you next thing Iappreciate I know and and such know whatyou said I've learned that saw so ondays from the rule of and you you won'tknow why but you just have to take sometime out for yourself and on those dayseven today I've made wake up and I mightfeel a bit low I know I know deep downthere is something causing that maybenot the day before maybe not on that daybut a week my ass something I didn'ttackle where it was on my to-do listwhich is still bugging me yeah orsomeone I didn't talk to or someone Isaid something to which is bugging mebugging me now and why I feel low so Ipersonally I think there's always a rootcause somewhere it's not always easy tofindmmm there's always something that'sthat's led you to feel that way I thinkyou're right there somebody elsementioned this actually I think it wason Episode three and it's about findingthat that deep meaning and I thinkbecause we're so most of us wake up inthe world whatever is on our phone or Iemail a job it will it will dictate ourdate we very rarely get time to sit backand actually reflect upon our life ourcircumstances in our situations and Ithink if we could do that probably haveless of those days because it isprobably a cumulative effect of thingspropping up and then you've got thislevel of like I don't know burden oranxiety or something that will kind ofjust hit you on one day and you'resitting there thinking what's going onhere but it's actually like you saidpossibly something that's that'shappened a few days ago that's powerfulso the funny thing is it's like there'sno like magic secret is there they'renot I mean if there was then the worldwouldn't struggle a bit like Fitnessyeah if we had the magic pill nobodywould be obese and it's kind of findingI suppose did you touched on it earlierhis voice you've got this toolkit nowyes the the antidepressant tablets helpyou control the chemical imbalancethat's going on but you've also got atoolkit of stuff that you've probablyhad through your therapist yeah thosewho probably gives you different toolsthat you can literally bring out as andwhen you need them because that's kindof how my mom explains it as well ahundred percent like I'm kind ofreinvent the tools they gave me to workfor meso something that I do massively when Ifeel extremely anxious I don't if you'veseen on my Instagram or that bar splitpage into and I'm one on one side Iwrite my negative feelings and emotionsand on the other side I write a healthypoint of view and it just helps meconceptualize how I'm feeling it kind ofbrings you out of my brain onto paperand kind of I can actually write down adifferent way of or view in it mmm yeahyour Instagram is brilliant and you'regonna get the oddest friend requests bythe way because I've asked my mom tofollow your Instagram because some ofyour stuff is like I can't get some ofit like I get like 80% of it send mebecause I've lived with my mom my momwas like my best well she is my bestfriend and and I'll sin what he's donelike taken away from her life so it'skind of I know that if she can read yourmessages and listen to your poetry Imean you know huh no gtv sorry yourstories your Instagram stories it willhelp and it resonate with her so yeahI'm obviously gonna put all the linksfor the listeners as well to know yoursocial medias at the end of it because Ithink it's really important that you'veseen someone who's yeah you you're notfully 100% over it at the minute butyou're dealing with it and you'redealing with it in the best way and eachtime you're getting better betterequipped and hopefully somebody who'sprobably earlier down the journey theycan benefit from yourself and this isthe whole point of this podcast is thatthey can learn from your your experienceof suppose and hopefully change theirlife for the better sooner exactlythat's that's the thing like I am NOTI'm not perfect I'm not free to stormyou never will because life justfrustrate you all the time I've come andbut the only thing I can do is just tryand help people through how I try tohelp myselfmmm and you are so yeah just try and beas real as I can on Instagram you knowlet people know how much it days becauseInstagram is a is a fake world really itisn't it's a highlight reel is which iswhy I appreciate like your content sokeep that going buddy I'm gonna switchthe pace a little bit now so I know someof the stuff that you do on a dailybasis but I think it's important for thelisteners who have heard about yourstory to understand what your dailyroutine is like so I'm a big bigbeliever that we are the results of thethoughts we tell ourselves and reallyhabits and so what's your daily routinefrom the moment you wake up to themoment you go to sleep well or every dayis different and I'm not gonna I can'tlie to you hmmI don't have a daily routine I'm stilltrying to work out myself in terms of Iknow what what would work well for mebut I haven't put it in place so I'velistened to one of your podcast one ofyour early ones about the guy who usedthe miracle morning that's right yeahchin very good friend yeah I knew thatwas a great podcast by the way thank youso yeah I bet the miracle morning thingwas last year and I started putting alot of things into practice in themorning not felt great and but thenexams came around again from my accountsand I just fell off it well I havecertain things I do during a week ratherthan a daily routine a daily routine issomething I'm working on in 2019 okay Ineed to incorporate meditation I need toincorporate leaving my phone out of myroom in the end of the day because thatjust adds to anxiety mm-hmm so thingsthat I do on a weekly basis to try andhelp me and relieve my stress is numberone you probably see a lot on InstagramI love my Costa Coffee yeah I love goingthere by myself taking a book readingmaybe writing some poetry just sittingthere watching the world and just beingcomfortable in my own thoughts I love myalone time now and another big thingdaily is Jim obviously so I usuallythrough that after work and it literallyjust puts me in a difference day ofnight it's almost like meditationabsolutely almost like meditation andyou're just there with your own thoughtsmusic in or not and you're justconcentrating on pushing the way upyou're not thinking about your pastdecisions you made you not think aboutthe future you're just in that momentthere and then so that helps memassively another daily routine mealprep obviously every morning but yeahI'm I'm still learning I'm stilllearning about routines and I will haveit together soon but like you've toucheddown there even myself my routinechanges from like year to year becauseyou always you're almost tweaking it soI've done the whole waking up at 4:00a.m. and then working my ass offbut then what would happen is at twoo'clock in the afternoon you not crashand let's sleep for like an hour and ahalf because I'm absolutely knackered sothen I was like this is pointless and sothen I mixed it up and now it's likeI'll wake up at 6 or 7 it depends onbasing my day so if you'll get an earlypodcast or I forgot like an investormedium or something like that then I'lltweak it but generally speaking I don'treally care what time I wake up becauseI believe it's what you do in the daybut you've got some great habits inthere like like the gym the meal prep Imean that you're feeding your bodyyou're feeding your mind there so it'sabout utilizing your time and takingchunks out of the day where you canreally be productive in terms ofwhatever your end goal is and a greatbook that I've read that is gonna helpme put that my favorite Wiens practiceis called the room of the rhythm of lifeby Matthew Kelly the rhythm of life okso I know you you follow my mindfulfitness page yeah yeah I do I'verecently just started following thatyeahthat's that's in the making and mytherefore mindful fitness is stemmingoff that book really so what walks aboutin that book is you have essential meansin life to survive so you have you haveoxygen you have a young Ward so you needthose things or you will diebut what people often neglect is theirlegitimate needs and there's four ofthese and we collect them because we'retoo busy day today which is sofast-paced in our lives and but thosefour needs our physical needs sonutrition and exercise emotional needswhich is relationships with people wherethat's going to get coffee with a friendtalking someone haven't talked in a longtime then you have your spiritual needsa bit harder to define for me it's justbeing being comfortable yourselfspending some alone time with throughmeditation going for a walk in natureand the fourth one is intellectual needswhich is knowledge and learning newthings and we often neglect a lot ofthose and one trying to do is encompassthose in my life and try and help peopleencompass those in this because when oneof those things are off that's when youranxiety will spike yeah yeah that's sointeresting that's powerful I'm gonnaI'm gonna attach that book actually therhythm of life by Matthew Kelly you saidyeah yes brilliant Kay I'll add that toobviously you're you've got to Instagrampages as well would you at the bottom soI'll have a look at that I appreciatethat buddy thank you look into thatfantastic okay sothe next question is about adversity andwhat I want you to do is if you could goback in time and think of a time thatyou faced great adversity but youpersevered through it so just oneparticular time and I want you toexplain how you won obviously theadversity to how you got through it andthree what are the lessons that youtaught you at the end of it oh JesusChristget your thinking cap on okay my figuredyou know you know I said to you beforethis podcast you sent me the questionsin that and I was gonna happen littleread about them you haven't read all ofyou know what last night yeah I upgradedmy iPhone on Saturday and it deletewhatsapp conversations lost by a 10o'clock and I was like sheets messagesjust suck up do it which is why I thinkthis episode so far is so intriguingfascinating because everything you'resaying is if you know it's not youhaven't scripted it out it's literallyjust you speaking from the heart so Ialways find that more authentic thereason I do give the questions thatbefore is just because some peoplesuffer with is ie exactly okay well youhear anyway the question has been askedjust have a have a few moments again anydead time and stuff I can always edit ithow so I'll probably cost me becauselike a particular situational momentbecause there just been so many my lifeand I've had to come out of wellprobably my latest one is justqualifying as a child accountant loadsof adversity faced there whether it waswork just not seeing myself was goodenough in septal workout producing theknowledge that I have and just comparingmyself to others that within my firmsort of thing and yet having to go backon antidepressants was a big blow for meit helped me massively enough if anyoneis taken out to the presence there'sabsolutely nothing against them I was ona about 20 milligrams a citalopram ifany of you listeners know just stop givethem the information and I've been onthat for about three years since I likemy jobthere's no comment and slowly slowly Iwas prescribedten just before Christmas so 10milligrams taking one every day for twoweeks and then I take one every otherdayfor two weeks and now I'm in a processof just taking two tablets a week forthe next two weeks and I'll be off themand yes I defects for anyone gran outthere there are massive side effects soI did feel a lot more rumination comeinto play so just kin stuff very a lotmore emotional and very snappy er peopleclose to me I love my family so Iapologise to them on here I'm sure Iunderstandyeah and very very tired and lethargicbut now honestly I feel amazing honestlyI really do feel good brilliant mateokay so the next question it's we'regoing to get to happiest if I show youso today it's a memory but but the nextquestion is what is your biggest fear mybiggest fear is probably going back intoa depressed state massively that's mybiggest fearand the fear of that I think helps mekeep keep out of it and is that throughyour daily discipline like the stuffthat you doing the stuff you you'resaying to yourself 100% like things Isay to myself just be more open andtalking now and actually feeling like Ihave something comments to pursue like Ihonestly believe I've been through whatI've been through for a reason aseveryone will probably say but I'm onthis earth not not to be an accountantlike I love my job and I love the peopleI work with but my true calling is justto help people help themselvesjust bring me talking about experiencesand everyone can do that and you will doyou helping me and I've gone through itmyself even just some of the stuff yousay you know it's making so much moresense but we are a result of the thingswe tell ourselves then just on thatpoint I think that's really importantit's something I'm trying to get my momand anyone on all going through thatsimilar situation to do as well becausea very very quick example a little bitabout myself is yeah suffering withanxiety and be shy I've always basicallywalked looking at the floor kind of likewith a hunchback if you can kind ofimagine that so my hands in my pocketand I've never really making eye contactwith anyone and I'm just kind of walkingand I remember recently I think it wasabout two weeks ago we went for somefood and I saidmy friends I hadn't seen for about sixmonths and he goes have you gottentaller and I was like what like pubertywhen a long time ago me and he was likeno you've gotta be like taller and I waslike well I've always been this tall soI'm like I'm just six foot eight sixfoot and I was kind of like just thesame height as in and you kind ofshocked and what I realized was so I'vebeen doing like affirmations and tellingmyself stories every single morning ispart of my morning ritual and one of thethings is I am confident I am no longershy I am and I would say well theseempowering words to myself and withoutrealizing it without even thinking aboutit my physical body had changed which Ijust find fascinating that's somebodywho I've known for like the best part of16 years had come up to miss it manyou've just grown a few inches but it'sbecause my demeanors changed now mychest is proud and that there's no levelof arrogance or anything in that it'sjust I'm just confident knowing myselfand I'm not this shy anxious person whoscared the world or what people will sayabout me I'm comfortable in my own skinand the other thing about you is you'regoing to the gym and you're gettingbigger so that's probably right myfoodstuffs I do try and eat outbrilliant so we spoke about your fearwhat is your motivation then what keepsyou going even on the days when you'rein a funk for example lucky gentlemanwhat keeps me going is knowing I'm herefor a bigger reason than myself mmmdeep down when I still help him myfamily around me helping friends helpingpeople I don't even know and that reachout to me not try not good as much as Ican but just believed I found somethingcaught truly believing and anyone outthere like I know how hard it is to notknow your purpose it like be being a jobor be a plan for job in a union not knowwhat what a fuck you want to do of yourlifeyeah and it doesn't matter how would youget it I believe one day we'll justspark like if you asked me a year agowhat when I do I have no idea andwhereas things have just lightssparking and you know pulling into placeand that will happen for you it's justabout whether you're you're willing totake the risk to go and pursue thosedreams that's all it is I love that thatis so true and I think I always urgepeople now so even like my youngerbrotherI urge people to just try new things anddo different things because 12 monthsago May being a podcast host wasprobably the last thing I'd ever want todo other than it'll be an out of a planeI mean and I'm at I'm actually debatedwhether I'm gonna do that in the nextyear or so jumping out the plane safelyshould we say yeah trying anything crazyobviously with it with all this rightpeople around but it's weird how you howyour passion just develops my actualpassion now is like you said it's makingthat true impact it's making thatdifference in life so yeah the beautifulthing with that is is forcing me to comeout of my comfort zone hence doing apodcast hence putting myself out thereon social media and doing this podcastopening that business with more mommiesit's crazy to think that I would havebeen doing this because I just didn'tthink I would so I think you've hit thenail on the head there people shouldjust go out there take that risk trustthat it will fall into place because Itruly believe it won't but at the sametime everyone's journey is different sojust because it's falling I think inplace for somebody out there he doesn'tnecessarily mean it's going to be thesame for you it could be at 22 or itcould be at 50 but don't don't comparebasically what I'm trying to say exactlybecause I've people might look at me andsay oh he's a qualified accountant hesaw it for life now I'm just I've chosento go part-time comma salary you knowmoney doesn't money you need itunfortunately you need money but I'mfocused on my happiness right now whenI'm going part-time to to actually gofor what I truly want to do okayfantastic so there you've heard thebuzzer and we are now in the fun part ofthis show so this is a quickfire 60seconds where I'm gonna be asking costsall sorts of wonderful and weirdquestions and the beautiful thing is hehasn't read the show notes so you haveno idea what I'm gonna ask him andthey're not the same questions as alwaysI do like to mix it up a little bit butso please are you ready buddy I'm readyokay we're gonna start in 3 2 1okay the ability to fly or be invisiblefly money or fame fame singing ordancing singingNetflix on YouTube that thinks Marvel orDC I don't watch evil okay Batman orSuperman Superman favorite TV show everoh Jesus Christ soprano would you ratherhow you will die or when you were dyingwhen I would die love or moneylove books or movies books if you couldsit with one person in the world for anhour who would it be my sister yourworst fear growing up getting older whatis your biggest addiction Instagram ifyou could abolish one thing in the worldwhat would it be depression yourfavorite song ever compete J : Drake anysongs French or Spanish Spanish pizza orsteakthey comedy or horror comedy and thelast one which is completely randomwhich is wizards which is the funnything is I wrote these like a long timeago so I'm looking at it myself to getwhat okay brilliantthe answer about your sister as well Ithink I think she's gonna love to hearthis back I'm sure you tell her anywayon a daily basis but if you're anythinglike me sometimes I shy away fromtelling the people I love the most Icare for him so much and it's probablysomething that I should do as well butso we run to the one but last questionand this one's always about reflectionbecause I always believe hindsight is awonderful thing and upon reflection wecan always think of ways to get to wherewe are quicker easier or we lessheartache and we wouldn't be the peoplewe are today if it wasn't for theprocess I've been through so what I wantto know is if you could go back in timeto that one moment where you reallystruggled and suffered with adversityand you could just whisper something inyour ear knowing exactly what you knownow what would you say say to yourselfoh I probably tell myself to tell peoplehow you feel and because yeah it'sextremely hard even by looking back andeven the you for today it's hard toexpress how you feel whether that'sbecause you're gonna be mocked on socialmedia your friends won't understandbecause of different maturity levels ahyeah just be just just talking about howyou feel just talk about it I love thatand I want to get you to do if you don'tmind one of your poems now I thinkbecause you've been through it youcouldn't you can hear the passion inyour voice as well are you just beforeyou start this are you thinking aboutdoing books or ebooks or anything onthatOasis I want to release a bookpoetry book and also I'm in a process oftrying to gather to do like spoken wordevents okay um so I wanna go and performpoetry and and yeah it's funny how Ionly started writing I used to writepoetry a lot for Mother's Day cards uhmy mom she's probably got loads of poemswhich is quite handy because every timemy sister would ask me what we shouldget my mom article I'll just write whatlast year I went to Cyprus and mygranddad was writing poetry in Greek Ohwhat just about turmoil he's beenthrough in his life and stuff I wentover to Cyprus by myself actually justto save my grandparents for a coupleweeks and I thought you know what maybeI should try writing down stuff as wellso it's the one I'm gonna read is thefirst one I wrote in Cyprus some of someof them when I write them I can kind ofI don't feel this way anymore but cankind of go back to how I felt and writethe emotions down which is yeah yeahwhich is quite good for me and so yeahthe one I'm gonna read this the firstone ever wrote when I started writingproperly and it's called him him love itlet's go all right so here miss just thegame playing with my mind an easy targetfor him he always seems to find healways seems to be there to put me in myplace lurking a scheming like a puff ofsmoke all up in my face and I are closedmy eyes praying that he'll go but in themorning he's still there he always seemsto show he follows me constantly like ahovering dark cloud I turned to look atmelook at him in the face sometimes and hesmiled was also proud what did he wantfrom me what about done a question everyday my whole life he seems to have takenand he's here to stay but one day itseems to click and I look all aroundhe has no physical presence so how canhe be so profound that's when I realizedI'm living in the past and future withmy other thinking mind an easy targetfor him he'll never ever find Wowthat is powerful yeah and there that'sthat's about depression may that's atalent there you know you've got may gotmany talents you work out well you'vegot the accountancy going for you you'vegot this poetry going for you yeah andif your aim is to like change change theworld for the better and help people whohave been through similar situation toyourself like you know it's going to beexcited understand I mean people likeand we've never actually met in personbut with people like you is voice allabout as well I appreciate that and it'sthe reason I love doing this is becauseafter after speaking with somebody Ialmost feel like a new level ofconnection if that make sense so it'slike I see you like as a friend now Imean I've probably spoken to more indepth about personal stuff than I dowith some of my friends and butgenuinely like my hand is here if younever need it if ever there's anythingthat I can help you with in the futureif ever there's times that you feel andor anything because it is about justhelping each other up because there'sgoing to be times where I might needthat for example yeah 100% you know I'mhere absolutely hit me a messageabsolutely I appreciate it and you justkeep doing what you're doing because Ithink you're gonna you gonna inspire somany people and like I said my mom'sgonna be fun in you hopefully today Ididn't tell you yesterday so alrightI'll look up no pages yeah she typesquite funny I was always left for thembecause she taught me like the onefinger thing and it doesn't always makesense but I just think it's importantbecause I think any age any demographicsor whatever it is your message is justtrue we are at the last question now forJenny and this is a question that Iasked all of my guests and it's if in150 years time science is unable to saveus and we are no longer about and allthat exists is a book and this book isabout the story of your life it's astory that you've written moving on fromnow up until the day that you sadly passaway what I want to know is firstly whatdoes a blurb say about you I a summaryto make someone you really want to pickthat up and think actually I'minterested in this person and secondlywhat would you call the title of yourbook OhI think my book would have to be apoetry book rather than biography andthe title of the book I think would bememoirs of an anxious mind and the blurI don't think would say too much at allit would just say I don't even know apoem perhaps that could kind of sum upyour yeah a poem that sums up or just aman in his mind just an anxious mindfull stop just something plain andsimple and the poetry and the poems willspeak for themselves about thesituations about the feelings andemotion that's powerful I think you alsolisten to episode one I thought youmight have not been getting this by herewhy keV and the beautiful thing withKevin's as well because he's my boxingtrainer he's a lovely chap but he alsodoes poetry as well yeah and I just findit I find it fascinating because likekeV you do poetry and I listen to acouple of years as well and we're in theprocess of kind of resurfacing himbecause he's got him in like normalbooks and I'll say maybe you could selfpublish it get it out there because Ijust feel like really hit yourheartstrings so it's powerful buddy it'sbeen an absolute pleasure I just want tothank you for your time again andapologies for the stuff in the morningobviously it took us about 30 minutes toget skies it's got going but at leastyou managed to find your voice yeah theshameless plug there from the morningbut what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna putlinks to all your social medias that Iknow but if there is anything else oranywhere else you want people to findyou because I think it's important thatpeople can follow your journey andpeople can learn from you learn from youyou can maybe help them if you wouldn'tmind where's the best place to find youthe best place for me is probably mypersonal Instagram page which is cmklifestyle and then my other page whichis up and running and I want to stop ita lot more up there as my businessexpense is mindful fitness spelt withdouble L and actually spoke incorrectlyby accident but actually actually worksreally well now and you know there'sactually a funny turn on Instagram youcan only one person can have a name inthe worldyeah for a name so mindful fitnessdouble-l was taken so I originally hadto call it mindful doc fitness and Ifound the woman she was in a miracle anda person who had mindful fitness and thename and I said to my friend I'm gonnamessage her and ask her if I can haveher name like we can switch and wouldlike don't be silly she's not gonna dothat so I sent her a long message I seethem two at the MS they're like Iliterally spilled out my heart out toher and asked if we could swap names umand I've got a message the next morningand she said she'd be happy to for $50so I sent over fifty dollars a night andshe's got mindful dot fitness sofantastic yeah see that it's all of itsall about sliding into DMZI love that okay um are you active onany anything else or should we juststick to Instagram for now Instagram fornow and then I'll be expanding prettysoon fantastic and obviously once peoplecan finally find you on thereyou're quite active in terms of yourstory so they can obviously fun of yourjourney I'll be finding your journey mayit's been an absolute pleasure speakingto you this isn't going to be the lasttime you speak but obviously offline ifI can help you in any way and vice versaI'd like like you're helping me you'rehelping my mom as of today and you'll behelping many other people as well so Iwant to say thank you to you and to thelisteners at home thanks for listeningand remember this podcast is absolutelyfree so all we ask in return is for youto share this with a friend and drop usa five star review over on iTunes havean awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 7 - The Way I Changed The World - Mus Jones Yafai #7Tagline: "They are willing to do this, no matter the circumstances, no matter the time of the day, no matter who you are, they are willing to take your child, no matter what!"Mus Jones Yafai is a wonderful human being who needs your support in raising awareness for his wonderful cause, Child Safe. Having experienced a child abudction attempt on his younger child Mus has made it his lifes purpose to ensure the public are aware of all the ways possible to safe guard their children and other peoples children from abducters.With shocking statistics, it is the first time in my life I felt scared for anyone with children, for my younger siblings, for my own family members. I felt somewhat oblivious to all that was going on, only to really be woken up by this.I urge you all, to listen to this episode or at the very least follow Mus over on his social media outlets and help support this amazing cause to better safeguard the children of our future generations.P.s. it is not everyday you hug a grown bodybuilder the first time you see them!Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yafaichildsafe/ (Child Safe)Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mus.yafai (Personal)Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childsafe1kickstarter campaign:http://kck.st/2UuLWPM#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoicewelcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAaron do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aaron due toanother episode of find your voice myname is Aaron and as always I am thehost of the show so it's very rareyou're gonna see two grown men embraceafter an interview in fact you're notgonna see that because I never recordedit but this individual was an amazingperson that after this interview weactually we had a moment and I say thatbecause I thought a true connection tothis person and I trust my gut feeling Ihaven't been a social worker in myprevious life this is a person who's outthere really trying to change the worldand more importantly what he's trying totackle is gonna affect almost everysingle one of us because it's aboutchildren and that's one of the mostimportant things in the world if you askme so I'm gonna literally jump into theinterview you're gonna hear about anamazing person who's doing amazingthings but he's also had some incredibleexperiences something that I don't wishupon anyone so without further ado let'sget this interview on the way okay so Iam sitting here now with moss so how youdoing today man good very goodalways and yourself very well than thecold yeah thank you for taking timeevery day I think it's important forlisteners to obviously get a story aboutyourself from you because rather than mykind of narrative yeah so if youwouldn't mind if you could just give usa little bit about your life maybe yourupbringing just like key stuff that youthink would be important and relevantfor this story and then we want toreally touch on the word that you'redoing today which I'm really excitedabout but be good to get everyone tojust get to know you a little bitokay well I'm a family of 11 Wow okaysix reverse two sisters we grew up in athree-bedroom house wasn't easy but wewere so it was fun and scary at the sametime see living with strict Muslimparents okay no people tend to stillreally know about it's not about thereligion it's about culture the cultureis completely different I did aboutChristmases I do like birthdays but thatmade me appreciate life even more nowespecially with my children yeah I meanso I'm very grateful to have the littlethings with someone tries to give me agift now I'm not well then so growing upyou know growing up I played Lockerbieokay I plan to the playing professionalwould be the age 80 after playing rugbyand then when two universities my degreeafter doing a sports degree no idea whatI was doing constantly searching for itand I always wondered what is it whatI'm going to do in life until now Ibelieve we all have a destiny absolutelyno matter when it will happen in ourlife we don't know as we keep searchinggood surgeon and I found when I stoppedsearchingI think everyone's trying to find theperfect age I suppose yeah or they'llsee somebody else next door to findingit that's not necessarily your storypeople these days well they see was theysee the value of money objects as wellyou know you know I do as well you seesomeone if I want to do that look wellthen you realize they put that hard workin I haven't just been handed it to andthen this day when their work you knowtheir lives to get those things I alwayssay that I think it's so easy to look atso you see people on Instagram forexample or Facebook and they'resuccessful they've got a nice car moneyand you like it's easy for them well isit really easy for ya do you know whatthey win through the power sisterjourney and actuallyyeah okay that's interesting so youdidn't use your degree actually touchedon phase of your path so eleven childrenin your house are you the middle one theolder young yes are you the young oh yeshe's a pretty one yes we are at theCouncil of four children okay justbefore we go into this it was mine ofcourse so you've got your degree yourealize you're not gonna do nothing withthe degree I can relate to thatyeah and you do something now what'shappening in between here is this momargue just be lost the wall no this isall found one supposed to do now this iscompletely and it took something tragicfor me to find it but there's nouncertainty in my mind and now what Ihave to do and it's for the rest of mylife it's there's no doubt it's like I'mfinally happy it's it's an amazingfeeling to know what you're supposed tobe pond why'd you were put on earth forand this is the feeling that we need togive to everyone else to find it it'sthe most amazing feeling ever youwouldn't you know what you want to dolike I said life is not about just goingto work every single day to work yourwell for someone else and then just togo home yeah I'll see you happy kidyou're happy then just go work if it'sup to me obviously we have that passionto find something we'd love to doabsolutely and then spend the time withthe people we love that's what lovesabout I mean you have to do somethingyou love to do in life there's no youcan't work just to end your lifeI suppose it's a shame though societykind of teaches us that that's the normof course it's go to school get a decentbread innocent that's it retire at 65make sure you've got pension safesixty-five no we can do it now of coursethe white decision is in the rightaction okay so fantastic so we're gonnajump into the bit that I'm excited aboutyeah so I just thought of a name youknow I want you to elaborate I want youto explain it or it's gonna be the firsttime I'm listening as well okay sohopefully the listeners will will getexcited as much as I am okay what I'mgonna start with the Nana neighborschild safe mm-hmyeah bread more than that well I'll tellyou the story and how the story came sobasically my three-year-old daughter wasalmost taken from me the 7th of October2018 at 1 p.m. and Lidl was doing mysupermarket shopping it was the craziestscariest feeling I've ever heard of mylife I'm just doing my shopping asnormally doing but I noticed this manwalking around the shop he had enoughfusions constantly not taking any foodup no do no shoppingso I'm a partner there's something weirdhappen in the shop he's everything Icould just feel it and then he carriedon following us around a shop and theyjust I tried to ignore it but not knowat the same time because just when didyou involve with children your parentsdid you're the protector you have to doanything you can't just keep them safeso we get to talk when we're doing putenough into the into the trolley andthen Otis joined our queue and he's gotnothing any sound so I'm just like okayand then I've put more daughters as bothAttilio there's normally an edgysomething like that sent them enoughfood in the toilet and then the exits toour left and with kids it's alright sowe're standing and then he just wants toplease shut down I said okay something'sdefinitely having no and she's donepause I'm gonna go get ice concert Kim aperiphery looking at him and then hewalks past in the queue so he's leavingthe shop but he doesn't leave the shophe walks then to the right and goes itsix six market and I'm like don't tellmiles of him whatsoevermom my head's like is he gonna dosomething is he not am i playing trickson myself I'm not just reading into thistoo much is he generally just a normalman just stand in their waybut it wasn't that case unfortunately hedecided to get close to my daughterclose to my daughter and then I saidtime upon again I said he's about to dosomething which is like he's not doinganything so I've turned back round givehim that chance to see if he does turnback round again he's then about to pickup my daughter and run out the shop withher this is where like I completelyfroze at first because that was a nutmuch shock you just like you know a lotof men would say why didn't you do thiswhy didn't you do this and fortunately Ireacting the more perfect why you're noteven around my kids and I've got both ofthem put them both behind me and Istared at this man I said you just triedto kidnap my daughter mmm the thing thatbaffled me them even more he just stoodthere said to me do you even sayanything did you move didn't do anythingjust the best there and I mean I'm likeyou just tried to take my daughter turnwhat are you doing nothing so now I'mstanding there I looked at my bondanother man comes running through theshop grabs him in a bow the most is thatpeople slamming body doesn't do anythingabout itI'm shouting this man telling me tellinghim he's a toy yeah everyone's carryingon with their shopping no this is thething that I'm trying to get people torealize that we need to stick togetherinto these situations we all need toeducate on child abductions mmm I'm chodcrimes so we are aware for otherpeople's children I'm just trying to putmyself in that situation even as a boyand a girl go apprehend that or what youmust have been going through andobviously the whole reaction side andstuff to it people can't see you on thispodcast you're a big guy you know a guythey're gonna rob something from likeI'm being honest I would go tea yeahit'd be intimidating for me so you justprove she's come out absolutely provedto me they're willing to do this nomatter what I mean this is at 1:00 p.m.in the middle of the down I'm doing myshopping you know I mean the tauntingyou least expect under the times whenthey're gonna try and strike because weare get so complacentday to day lives we're gonna do myshopping my kids this it was a vigilantthere and I'll sometimes done stuff Idon't know it's a bit of drivingsomething you drive something you knowdriving yeah of course do you know yourdaughter pilots subconsciously yes thescary thing is especially my mom ponderkind of beat yourself up for a becauseshe for a long time she couldn't dealwith cuz she knows and even or no and Icould say she day she would have beengone if I was in there yeah come onpartner didn't see nothing she's verybelievers in their own world she shewouldn't think there's someone trying totake a dog especially so close to homebut this is the thing we're gonna makepeople realize it does not matter whereyou are in this country next country ishappening people do these things andit's scary that people know people don'tknow anything about what happens we seethe films that's how you 2018 last yearwas I speak like people don't know therewas 1189 actions with almost a hundredthousand attempted a child yeahManchester being in this countryBirmingham's third these every yearsthey're very high and people don't knowanything about it yeah I mean I was asocial worker in my last life yeah Iwent back to uni and looking afterGeorge was always kind of a my dad Iwant you to be the best social workerfor children yeah wonderful children ourhopes and feel your passion in hereobviously you just can't do somethingelse that's crazyso did the police did you get the pieceabout what yeah obviously I'll gone into speak to them I'm in the shop so I'lltalk to the manager I said listen I needthe CCTV the finish of the story I'veactually ran out to the shop I've got mykids got something and they was they wasstanding in the middle of the car parkthey were just basically and I'll run upto them again just to say listen you'vetried to take my daughter the police andbecause I'm stealing that much shock heplayed in my mind he tricked me he waslike no noI didn't take your daughter and I'm justlike he's not my wife is in the shopshe's got a full trolley she's waitingin the queue okay let's go back in soI've locked the door but other kids Isaid I'll be back in a second soobviously as I've said that about Debwalked off quite quickly so I walkedback into the shop they did have a womanwith him but they had no shopping allright so that as I've gone in them threeare running out the shelf so this is thething we need to reload they're workingin groups and we can't judge the fuckthe male or female a comedy with afemale and two groups to try and track achild obviously though maternity thinkthat woman has with children they doinganyone would do it but yeah of courseyour point he was just scared to knowthat a woman would be in that group aswell so this is the thing that I'mtrying to but try to have one that notjust for our kids for other people ofcourse as you said we see things how wethink we would do it other way oh wegotta realize everyone is different Imean I already grabbed it do you knowall these kind of crazy but you don'tknow well okayso thank God no of course all of thatfrom that what was your process then sothen I went to the manageras for the CCTV footage he said there'sa code they have to get from the headoffice the police the police I said okaywe're gonna go down and get the head andget the code we'll get the CCTV footagebecause all I wanted to get that thosefaces out to the public so they knowwhat they look like and they can beaware from it you know what I blame thepolice for a while because I kept goingobviously every weekend to do my foodshopping you do kept telling me thepolice I'm pinned down you the policestation again I said what's going on waswhen we bend down and we said we have wesent police down there okay what'shappening this is the way for the codeI've gone down to little again I saidthey come to get the code it was like nono no one's come down yet and I'm likeokay what's this quite strangeafter three weeks gunned down againanyone in all come to get the code Nocome down yet four weeks have gone theCCTV footage has rewritten gun this isthe thing I've gonna made my socialmedia I make videos about the policesaying calm believe what they've done tome then they let me down those foul butthis system was fine filed by the policewell I wasn't the police went down threetimes little failed me right they keptlying to the police telling them thatthe code haven't come down yetthe code don't come down yet yes ofcourse it is so they let me down theycompletely let me down they didn't getthe code when they never attempted toget the code in the first place whichwas their heartbreaking comment whichyou know it was all never those facesyou mean you know I never thought forthat was gonna happen I never knew thiswould be the outcome of my daughterThomas being taken from me as well sothroughout life things are gonna happenwe're all gonna go straight faced yougoing to go through stuff that it's notfair some stuff is out of our controlyou have in that moment day I supposeand moving forward of course two waysyou can either take it or you can takethose actions when you're in controlyourself control you change the world socould you explain a little bit moreabout this net so we know it's calledCharles Seife yes it's based on thestory that obviously you went throughthat horrific moment there's so firstlyI opened up a social media page so howdo I reach the people these days it wasall social media so my way to reachpeople with social mediatold my story which I think are 10 to 15thousand views share it compared to myvideos now I'm not yeah of coursesuppose I mean how many ever got so manyviews on it and that's what then enticedeveryone else to follow me what I wasdoing so what can I do to challenge itfirstly I just like okay I walk aroundsupermarkets are warriors shops yougotta move it here you get to Birminghamwhen you see signs everywhere sayingcriminals in action watch your carsthieves here did nowhere is that a signtelling you that child abductors arenowhere is someone that someone may takeyour kid I know that people might notwant to see that unfortunately this isthe life we live in people need to beaware I mean I would let my daughter aworld did let more daughters run aroundthe shops let him do what they want youknow me no one's gonna tell my kid butthat's not the way life is now so sadya know I'm even going back to when Iwas young doors are open in the housescause it was a community yeah I think itis a problem and I'm guilty of thismyself I'm sure listeners can resonatewith this is like even now I mean I'vegot lovely neighbors on both sides yourhouse because its head down I'm gettingon with my life course and Tokyo yespose because but the thing is you say wehaven't got time but stuff like this weneed to make it non negotiable onJupiter and we have okaybring it sorry sorry trucks yes okay sofrom there obviously I've got theseposters and I'm like I need to getsomeone designedI've never done anything - where do I gosome was like the graphic designer I'mlike okay I'll go speak to so that isonly he doesn't mean oh I have thisimage in my head and what my designlooks like and then can you do me aposter poster for me and I'm like oh mygod this is amazingso I'll get thousands of posters printedI'm using all of my own money I'm betterthan everything I possibly can into thisand then on this social media page I'mtelling everyone who was a help who wasa help memessage of the message after message andI'm like what the hell I didn'tunderstand I didn't realize this isgonna I'm not okay I'm gonna I'm gonnahave to take the you count by myself I'mlike this but I hate I mean I've had now3,000 followers among them to free fastfollows I'm a group and my page I've got900 almost hitting the thousand I'm mypage and I'm just like messages someparents telling me what an inspiration Iam teenagers telling worried aboutasking me for four posters saying I wantto help I want to get your posters outthere I want to put them in the shops Iwant to post your fly for the door andI'm like I wanted to make a differencewhere I'm noticing that everyone elsewants to make it fits as well at leastyeah so I spend the first few monthsending posters here Thursday and I'mlike I'll totally get in around in thisarea by the hillstar which everyone I'mlooking it's up in Yorkshire sucked downsouth it's it and so from there knowwhat do I do nextfirst we need to raise the awareness sothat's the main thing we need to dobecause people don't know what'shappening so the main thing to me was toraise the awareness to everyonemmm-hmm well and I'm like this is goodit was not good enough no where do I gofrom hereyou know what I went to met this mancalled Oliver he messaged me and saidcan I meet up we are because I love whatyou're doing up and he was an amazingman he's been for a lot of things aswell our kids he's weren't in prisonsand his scene is but with people and heseen so much of his stuff and heeducated me and so much it gave me thisknowledge I'm not okayeducation that's where I'm goingeducation so that's where I got to startand that's why I'm gonna finish we needto educate the country and educate ourchildren on the dangers because ease thechildren a this is happening to sochildren don't know what's happening hmmand as parent you know we do as welleven if you tell you know what I'll tellmy daughter things she won't listenschool she's like the best pupil becauseI thought I'm an authority figure tellthem something they were listen andlearnso I need to get into the schoolsdesigned with the kids because the kidsare on the games and there was over ahundred children you know they have noidea about after doing research if youwant you're gonna win this country ofcourse but it's just like no one's herepolice like after getting them up on aloved it because they said we used to goto the schools and do the strangerdangers and things I mean yeah yeah butwe don't Lisa V Cohn anymoreyou ain't got no police we can't sendthem down you guys we need the police inthe streets and because of what'shappened in our stabbings or the theftschild abductions or child cards havebeen pushed to the back you know I meanbe this it's absolutely we need to makesure it's gonna be safe for now so I'mgonna dust the plantbut that's just the beginning of courseso with the school I'm not okay I'mgonna go to my doors prime school Ican't go down so promise don't saylisten this is what happens when you getthis is the tips and you need to know soI had a bear designed cord captainCharlton okay so how can I get two kidswhat do I do monkeys to teach them areread books to them every single nightand you know what they're nuts sometimesthey love this in their favorite butthey even recite them to me as I'mreading because they beat him so muchI'm like I'm gonna make books I'm gonnawrite books at the moment for booksbooks the first one I've just sent offfor editing he's come back and it'samazing I love itwhich is based on a true story calledthe supermarket okay so the first storyeach story will educate the children aswell as be fun which will also educatethe parents because we need to educatethe parents as well because parentsdon't know this parents understandwhat's happening so we say to theparents the kids can't stay next to meso I mean I'll where's he gone book wedon't but there's no sense of panic whenthey have gone always probably in theother oil so for me to then show thatmessage that in the supermarkets withhe's capturing child safe so he's thehero you know say Whitney got Sly Foxhe's the one in every situation we'lltry and take the job so in eachsituation in each book there's always ahappy ending right always a happy endingbut in happy so that's how I'm targetingthe younger age is to to a to the otherso through story and because the thingis also okay I'll do a program for thekids at the primary school what kidsforget within 10 seconds before going tomention span as well but somebodyspeaking of course of courseso if I went into a smaller I teachingthem I'll go in there once I'm not gonnago in everyday online so don't forget assoon as they've forgotten I sit insidetheir head so if we do it for a storyit's gonna be read to them time and timeand time again and being Brennan totheir brain and they know as they growupno calm run off in the shop because if Iwanna finish shut the slyfox mindgetting out that's what I'm trying to doand feed into their brainWow I mean like you said when youstarted this you had no idea no ideawhich way to go goes the books yourNorth in our liver said this isfascinating so you you were talkingabout raising awareness then you've gota fantastic Facebook page and all thisstuff will be in the show notes and I'llshare it as much as I possibly can aswell okay everyone's life's busy coursewe're gonna hear this it's gonna touchmore people as hearts but some peopleare gonna touch them for a bit and thenthey're gonna get on with their livesyeah of course if they could just do onething that's very very quick that wouldjust help your message whether it's likeis it as simple as just sharing yourvideo or these leaflets here you've gotavailable put in one of those oh thisI'll have my leaflets these days I'llpay for our print they're all free ifanyone wants posters they're more thanwelcome to us they all have to do isdrop a message to my page I will thendeliver send it but yet the Flyers andthe posters are free I've had caustichas done as well which these are soldand my website is gonna be finished justcalled child safe okay they're stickersI have t-shirts made it's Ruby sorryright on the page as well where all themoney that I'll music space or my ownmoney or the world I've worked for andany profit made it all goes into thechalk on to the police there's somethingcalled active citizens fund okay and I'mwaiting for the approval of it approvalof it because I can't go into theschool's intended I can't go to thosekids and be like yeah as soon as theylisten they need something to read totake the information they need the tipsso they concert can keep reading oh andalso show the parents because there'stips and there for parents of what theycan and can't doing or should orshouldn't do even to let them childrenbe safe yeah and stuff you were gettingearly and I'm like I I get that becauseI'm sitting here now midway through thisand I just want to help you like yeahI'm gonna help you right noweach and Brian this will probably comein I don't know a month's time for weekstime because of the schedule bumblerthis needs to be out there now so upuntil that timeoffline after this I want you to speakto me as well and let me know of courseI've got a couple of friends in theprinting industry as well okay and evenif it is quite a few favors can you justdo the first thousand free listen thisis going to stuff that's going to changethis world the world hundred percent youdon't mean and it's most people aregonna have children in their lives or nochildren of course find of children tomake sure that there was no why even notthe people just with children peoplethat don't have children need to knowthat so they they are aware as well sowhen they see someone talking to a childand they and the child is acting in thecertain behavior that don't look rightthey can step in and say excuse melittle one you okay is this your dad isthis your mom I mean so they need to beaware of this is for everyone it ain'tjust at first I generally thought usedto the parent and I'm like you know whatthe best one that happened to me thisgirl I want to be waiting just cuz Ifinally realize what I gotta do ifyou're like okay this is just this is mymissionthis is that's my mom this isn't ourmission so this is I'm just doing whatI'm supposed to be doing so this wasbuilt message me tell me one inspirationa man that and I'm like okay well thankyou flyershe's messaged me again and I said shejust put thank you so much again fordoing what you doing you helped me savea life what do you mean I helped yousave a lot she goes I was in memory Hilldidn't shopping because I've seen alittle boy were in on the shop and he'srunning down there and there's noparents and she said all of a suddenman's grabbed his hand and she saidshe's lucky that she's run over to thisbone and said this dust on your son isit she he's let go I'm enough so she'sobviously she said because of whatyou've doneyeah you've educated me to be vigilantand I've saved the boy's life and momscome were in that shock come here my sonshe's like some manhood and I'm like ohthat was the maddest even that was likeI'm tingling that was the best feelingDonna my message is gonna buzz it istenit's working that girl is now savedanother kidswe almost need everyone to know nobodyso everyone's singing from the same hymnsheer supposed because there is atendency are suppose even we're notwe're not gonna have for example and yousee tail up without us and you see likesomebody may have been a bit like overlyaggressive speaking to his wife you knowPyrus and suppose you know should I jumpyeah should I know it's always that kindof know your limits know your boundarieslast thing you want to do is go in andthen even she turns around he's likewhat are you doing I mean no couples allyou don't yeah anyway we need to jump innot justify just to stop and profess ifyou're not jumping into joining thefive-year someone because you've hurthim what's the point you're just doingthis bad as that privacy really don'tmake money to join in just to stopbefore explain this and you guys explainthis like the best I supposeintervention methods for the phobiapercent I figure of someone who'sprobably gonna be anxious to do thatalthough we need to do it yes I've saidbecause I had so many messagesmmm-hmm when fortunately I reacted inthe perfect way of what government mykids and everyone else should do that aswell especially if it's someone elsedoesn't matter if it is that or is momand you think they're acting the way ofjust grab that child's hand and ask ifthey're okay and you're not do nothingbad it's so many people telling me sowhy didn't you beat him up and you knowwhat I didn't know there was a group Ifirst turned to me there was one man soif I've jumped on this Mannie my doorsare never seen that go my children arenow panicking I'm on top of this manbeating this man oh all of a sudden Ilook up there my children are gonebecause the other two in the group oftank in themwe can't this again how it's almost likeyou actually reacted in the yeah it'sfortunately that's not me notfortunately I acted in the perfect wayand grab muchOh No maybe he was the decoy to get metogether you see I think it's plenty ofvideos where there's somebody who I seenone the other day sorry I'm going a bityeahthere's a piece of delivery driver on amotorbike you know the guys robbed thepizza from the back of the day okay andas he's run off the guys that my pizzahe's gonna deliver it so he's chased himto the door of someone's run on his bikeyes but it's a similar kind of qualitybecause they saw suppose house Wow didthey use our brains again so it's init's in our interest to act 100% the wayyou act you children your children isyour first priority in life no matterwhat you were the first thing scrubberJose Cuban said don't need don't worryabout Emma don't worry don't grassydon't jump on him it's if you have yourpartner with them or someone else getyour pond it's a cup of kids and theydetain that map you know mean see thisis arrest that manthat's it you don't you don't wanna stopbeing an absolute yeah the fault ofsomeone taking your child is that partbreaking you will go too far you maykill that man and then you're still notgoing to see your child anyway okayfantasticI could just speak about this for like awhole day I'm conscious that the show isit in its own yeah of course and so Iwant to kind of find out more stuffabout you yeah a little bitI'm just it's fascinating it takes acertain type of human being to do thislike I said I'm in my social life I saida lot of people or moms from like anursing background I always thoughtthose kind of people with that naturethat caring nature the world needs moreof it and of course they need moresupport so if I could support you afterthis podcast I'll do that thank you sosome of these questions now this is moreinterested I always think it'sfascinating when I when I when I sitwith people at yourselves you've gotsuch an amazing story so I think routineand daily habits are where we are inlife for example so I look at successfulpeople like okay he's doing this I'mgonna just take this from his dailyhoney I can explain from the moment youwake up to the moment you sleep how is aday that it's all routine I've got aworking with you you know whatI see most times in my life I neverworked in routine and you don't yourbody is a machine your body is acomputer whether you like it or now youneed to realize that your body in yourbrain it all workson repetition so if you do somethingyour body knows the next day it's gonnado the same thing so and even to ourmotion because I've still never plannedout course we don't happen so I have thekeys marketed before I leave the housejust in case anything does happen to meso that's what I do and then I get upI'm on a routine time I'll just try myso then so I've got my routine foodclothes give some love to my dog to work[Music]this is me hundred percent so I'm gonnago to work come back home spend sometime with children you know what you allget so focused and forget a lot ofthings sometimes and sometimes we forgetour children and you know I'm she wasdoing 70 80 hours a weekso we just spent fun it's on soon as Tomgoes sammartino go to the gym in themorning I tell my kids to school whenI'm saying it seem normal because I'mdoing the key thing is I just wannastare is you've got the routine causethis is so important because plan planplan plan plan like I did before mrs. Inever planned anything Moloch was allover the place watch your reactiveimpulse on the moment live for the daythat's all it's one of the things sowhen I gave up my job I had to getroutine in placeI'm scatterbrain yeah everyone knowsthat regimented from the moment I wakeup similar to yourself Anderson evenstuff like I have to have a liter and ahalf of water so nutritious ineverything is so regimented of coursebut you get so much more done becausebecause I've got no time I guaranteeyou've got you probably said no but it'samazing stuff you're doing now you'vegot three doors as well yeah you'redoing all this amazing stuff you'reworking out as wellI know you're in competition prep it'stough I know what it goes through menteeto use that that way in everything sothis Lodge we live in this live fromwhen people are going freejust doing the easiest things possiblejust to get through the day no meanthere maybe you go to the pub have adrink of a laugh or no but this love yougot a challenge yourself man everysingle day is supposed to be a challengeI mean if you ain't challenge yourselfor fluff about no mean cannot do thatlets covergirl let's do itI'm scared of that let's do the scariestthing possible man cuz that doli thosethings will give you those amazingfeelings no if nothing else will giveyou that feeling it's impossible hundredpercent I mean I always say at themoment your brain tells you should we dothat or no do it do it cause that issomething that you need to do yeah ofcourse that's where you're talkingyourself know a little bit like we spokeabout just before a stylist podcast thereason I'm doing this part I have to dothis yeah I have to do this and it's notabout me and I keep saying this thispodcast is nothing to do with me like mystory's not on here but this is aboutpeople like yourself yeahbecause even if I get 5 people to listento this and to share your story andthink child thing's safe enough I lovethat model stuck in my head lookee whathe said it was yeah if we can stop fivepeople that my job is don't do of coursethat's Michael isn't that 5 or 10 saidsomeone else and then that Forbes orsomeone else and then the word passes onthat that's it that's how the worldworks it's all gonna do we're gonnachange each other's mindset to makepositive impact you know what happens tome every dayit's just it's no even downpour this isa teenagers well I didn't expect thereaction this is one of them adoresfence follows me on Instagramno I've seen his post and he was on hisstory these poornamed neo gliese girl in my class andthen the only boy in my class andeveryone's going in on itno what is this boy doing so I have tomessage it no I don't know himpersonally I saw I saw a young manthat's like we can't judge people wesmell up to us the judge I said youmight affect someone's life really backspeople are putting four names on thisthing I'm a man I said we need to dosomeone else we need to change watermake it positive let every wheel I saidpeople will love you more if you dosomething good and tell say who is theprettiest who is the best of footballwho is the funniest and then you knowwhat I was expecting a little teenageryes he said to six laughs he deleted itpeople who defeats the funniest and hethinks the face he got so many morecomment soon he had so many people hewas reported look how many more peoplecommented now because it's a positivemessage I send you know yes so that wasa wicked never write anything like thatas a kid because simply we gotta havethat emotional intelligence whensomebody create new almost constructivecriticism AUSA's which is hard to takeas hundred are you going stuff but asI've dropped my ego as I've grownthrough life and personal developmentit's easier now 100 would I had thatintelligence Isaac as a kid so if I seesomething like I was driving yesterdaydo you man see people said really doesno people think that maybe we may haveall bad bad things happen in our livesand he's supposed to choose how we dealwith them problems and happy happy or wegonna dwell on it and be set for therest of our lives this is what I need toteach people we need to teach people alot of people think they're stuck in therock yeah I mean they don't know how toget out and this is their life nowthat's how they'll be with celebritiesthis is a message to perform coach edgewe're all in control of our destinyeveryone is in control of it well Easterday tomorrow in a month we are controlyou say you want to go do that so manytime you put the hard work in and it canget donethere's notice things are possible kidssay I carnate a word in my addictionyeah yeah you know body get rid ofthat's one of the first Birds I got ridof nano magic screen there told oh manhe's powerful you remind me of myself soyou'll meet my wife one day yeah hopeyou have this we hundreds ain't gonnakeep in touch I'm sure died for thisbecause I I'm one of the most emotionalpeople like you'll ever see for a guyyeah I like I've done the whole boxingscene may I do that all day but you showme a sad story when I see someone hurtwhether I normal not I I don't know whatwhat happens to me but I feel they hurtand you almost want to just say look letme take that away from you know kind ofthing like we bless we're looking evenbetter listen people like this yeah wehave such big hearts and we came herehave that emotion to give to everyoneelse so I used to so I'm gonnafront-engine here I just have this thingwhere a leopard doesn't change this busand all we believe people could havechanged and I've interview somefascinating people are gonna cook onhere and they've changed their life aswell yeah so I've almost changed my ownbeliefs to sort of think everyone's goodbut we sometimes make bad decisions yeahof course we do and I think if we cantry and like you said chain thatperception get everyone thinkingpositively doing good things will itcome and I used I used to be scared ofsaying like I want to change the worldright yeah because it's that you changethe world you just don't just a normalguy whatever I'm like okay I want tochange the world I can't do by myselfit's a bit like you say you don't knowhow you're gonna get there but you justtake one step on it I'm gonna get therethis is the thing that you don't dothoughthis is why I attempted to do I wantedto know I wanted my boy I did and I'mlikecompletely burned myself out and I waslike I even doubted myself there is toomuchI mean in my Eskimo convict's a pictureof my kids there is I was in the paperrecently there's an established news ofpictures the article to remind me ofthat day you can even use the analogy soI always talk about how to finishbecause it's a part of me you want toget to where you want to get to on yourdate so one thing always trying to dowith people is I wanted to get involvedin the gym or some sort of activitybecause that's the transferable skillwhen you master it you can take it intoanywhere it canthe next question is about adversity soif you could think of a time whereyou've been through adversity you'vecome over it you know more versity myluck was you know I gave my love to somany people for one more friend and itwas the hardest seems to be for me to dookay so much love and I generally foughtmy friend on me back my life and then Iremember sitting down watching BobbyKahn you did a little casting session hewas like we need to figure out why youlove the people that don't love you backand we know you know I never reallyfigured it out till you Vince it upuntil now and the main thing I had to dobecause there were bad people I didn'tunderstand why doing do things like Iwould call my friends daily asklike they'd go for trial tribulation soI thought I'll be thereI mean I know we're doing the stuff thatyou would have done for this yeah coursebut I generally thought that's whatfriendship is yeah you know I mean but alot of people see friendship as is hegot something for meand you know what broke my heart manremember cry my eyes out dedicated tohim and never got it back no and then Igrew and then I met some other peopleI'm not are these clothes cool and i'madjoining with these and then the samething happened again man I'm like Iblamed me I mean I'm like this issomething wrong with me when I'm ondoing what about done this must besomething wrong till I met my partnerthen we got kids they love me yeah musthave never done anything wrong like I'vedone bad things I never do Bettis topeople don't know I've always hadpeople's backs and I never understoodBrian and you know what people want tobe my friend or he would talk to me andneed help I'll never stop change it'snot can't change that's this theme I'mnever gonna stop changing but I'velearned to never expect it back that'smy wife sister is something about theseat home I'm not gonna call the systemtheir expectations and that's theproblem so when you come from a goodheart in everything you do you expectthe person to reciprocate that in thesame way as yourself only did it causeand it doesn't weather and I learnedthis in solar even in the property gameor I've had people reach out and Ialways take it on face value I'm likeI've got no reason not to trust you so Itrust you straight away yeahso when they telling me all this amazingfun right this is fantastic then all ofa sudden there's a hidden little oh isthat one yeah then I used to startthinking is that the reason that you'reyou're nice to me for youafter all this time and I'm here likewilling to do anything for you I supposepeople sit as a weakness oh yeah so thatyet people could see as weakness byPegasus strength days so powerful whatyou're gonna go on and do yeah and Ithink as you go through this like youmentioned a guy earlier Oliver forexample yesyou're gonna meet Oliver's in the worldgym right he was the first same userJohn who's the first person a person ohwow these people don't know what's goingon this is what I want yeah I wanna youare an influencer of the people youaround yeah of course you you when youstart spreading this you're only gonnatrap genuine people yeah because I'mgonna become a millionaire supportingthis but I'm gonna change ahead of a lotof lives do and if that's somebody'strue purpose lie like it is mine yeahwe're gonna back this season mean thisis amazing I mean not the fact that Igot 3,000 followers in what's it'sOctober November 3 to two months it'sjust two months man and I'm like thatmany people want to make a difference aswell this is like changing my timezoneby a thousand a million because thatmany people actually want to do it wejust need to get it in their eyes getthem seen this it's not I didn't evenattack a lot of work doesn't take a lotwhatsoever all it takes is that littlepin on the board this podcast yeah andeven it's just them viewing it they arebuilding the knowledge we're not evenknowing they're getting the knowledgejust by watching the videos I don't knowthere's I mean I just think it's anothersocial media page okay cuz I've there'sso many social media pages and I see somany videos but we tend to get enticedin this board into the funny video whenit comes to the serious things peopletry to forget about it don't want to seethe serious book they have to is youcan't forget I know what your answer isto the next question right and it iswhat is your biggest fear you touched onit basically idea I know anythingopportunity kids before I had kids alittle bit stank'sin sports I was the best in the Midlandsand even now like you know I guess Ifelt like a failure to my family as wellI still I believed I was gonna changethe family my family's lives I stillbelieve that now there's no I'm stillgoing to so that feeling never wentwithout failure okay okay so nextquestion I think you've kind of answeredit again it's kind of just aboutmotivation song yeah what motivates youyou know I'm still human this is thething we've got to remember that we arestill homeless okay so on the days whereyou don't feel like getting out of bedand doing the stuff what we mud Smokieseveryone says that's somethingyou know before I was my kids was to bethe best so if I didn't get up in themorning and go do that run someone elseagain up in the morning doing that runand then he's gonna be better than me soI don't want to be that loser so meansob I'm doing it soon as I'm like a cakeyou know now someone's going to sleep solet them sleep I'm gonna do some moreworkyeah I mean that's how that's what I wasmy motivation to be the best I mean itschallenges and those sort of thingseven other people mana motivate me wehave to learn more about ourselves wellknown as why we might abandon ourselvesbecause we want to do this we want toget this far even if it's the motivationto work hard cause you want to go buy anew carI mean for some people that's they thinkyeah cool it's not necessary my there'snothing wrong with that or I do what youdo so I do this thing right and ifsomebody doesn't understand all goingthrough a person development Statesgonna think I'm crazy but I do thisthing so I'll go to the gym for examplenot Sam do cardio I hate cardio isbecause I then start talk to myself whoelse is doing this at this timethat's only I'm doing it I hate it butI'm doing it and I kind of like almoststop digging myself up yeah yeah whathappens you start feeling more confidentpowerful and then it's like then I'll goin for like a gym workout and the laydown but nobody else is doing thiswhile I'm working 16 hours a day whatI'm trying to do this one time and it'sthat self-talk and I suppose the reasonwe're doing so much done is because alot of my life I was talking to myselfthe way the negative people had spokento me you know you're shy you're anxiousyou're this you're that and he wasalways those kind of stories thosetelling me now it's like the story Itell myself is the story I wanted Thomasyeah that's gonna bring me out into theworld in new ways it yeah so so dopeople don't be scaredthis is a thing don't be scared if thatbus is bigger than you or the challengeis bigger than you you guys think okaythen let's tackle this i'ma take youdown so now we're at the fun part ofshow so we're gonna start in three twoonethe ability to fly or be invisible flywhen your fame Netflix our youtube neverCoke or Pepsi Pepsi would you rather nothow you would die or wake you withoutlove or money no books or movies moviesit with one person in the world whowould it bewhat is your biggest addiction to winsummer or winter winter your favoriteplace in the worldspeak all languages will be able tospeak to animals in the world what wouldit be you favor some Emma voice the manin the read minds or forget the teacherGod have you ever been in a fight okaycool so the next one's about reflectionso I believe that how it's a wonderfulthing because as we've spoken aboutalready yes so you can always think ofways to get there quicker easier withless heartache I suppose but the journeyteaches us a lot of course it does Ithink the process is so important so ifyou knew what you knew now unless sayyou could go back to say before yourdegree for example yeah and you couldwhisper something knowing everything youknow now to that to most at 17 forexample what would you say you know whatit's probably tell him it's gonna beokay it's you're still alive it'sbecause you know what when you gothrough the trials or tribulations inyour life those things feel like theylast forever don't you just like yeahlike a week from then and what's on themenu here from then that won't evenmatter now this all was I wish I couldtell could've talked as I dwell too muchon the bad that was happening in my lifeand whenever someone made a mistakeevery time someone bad happened to meI'm not boys happening to me again whatam I gonna do and if I could've justThomson don't worry about it yeah don'tdwell on itit's okay it's a case no I tell myselfthis all the time now through everythinglike we are so lucky to be where we arein this world are you still alive Korsoso if you're in that situation and it'sthat hard but you still know there'snothing than someone no one can takethat away any long as you know no onecan take that away from you know me so Iwish I could have told myself that Wowokay last question okay okay so the lastquestion I always ask my guess is if in150 years time science doesn't save usright and we're no longer here andthere's a book on the table now and I'mgonnaand a little bit to this crystal as wellso there's a book on the table in it'sabout your life right so what I want toknow is in any order you want firstlywhat is the title of the of the book andif we turn it on the back you knowyou've got blueberry there what willthat tell us about you okay the bookcalled the world I think it'd be thatwill be I've always wanted to change theworldand like you see so much bad happeningthere's no way I'm gonna go from bridgesand I'm gonna come over and there'sgonna be everything that's good thisthings are gonna tackle me these peoplethat may even go against me no I thinknow sometimes I would have to savechildren's lives here but there's stillgonna be people out there I neverthought I'd have one person at all so -and the one I did I'm like yeah ofcourse in them do something positive isexactly what he went on I'm trying to benice and said back into this and thatwasn't Denise yourself I'm referencingwhat I've got it from unrest he's doinga quick Google search he got the firstthing they said look at this no no no itgoes deeper than that and then then Iactually said to him in the end I saidyou got so much energy because look howmuch I said use that good that energyyou got tackle it someone new and tellsomeone about what I'm doing that's thelast thing to do everyone a message it'snot just about giving the people themessage that want to listen yeah yeahsome people will find it at the wrongtime but it's in the beginning yeaheveryone's journey is different ofcourse the information is there youmaybe you just keep you've done your jobthere long as you've told all thosepeople always gonna come like I saidwhen I release this podcast blesseveryone frame even reviews it I've gotsomething like 65like five-star reviews right you know IlookI was overwhelmed but because it's notagain like I said like I said to youbefore this is about touching the peopleout there and getting people storiesheard and I send a 3-star like in therejust randomly no comment nothing I'm aBravo message me actually I'd be upsetbut I know the way the world reallysomebody's got the energy there probablyhas a listen to an episode I understandthat person's stories you know whatwhat's he doing it on Facebook threestone because it is the way the room mymission is one person finds this and itchanges a life that's going to rippleeffect yeah there's always gonna bepeople trying to bring you down nomatter what you're doing in lot justtake their energy and then use it to thepositive and then we're gonna do morewith it you know bring you down justbuddy that's the end of the show youngman oh what a pleasure what an absolutepleasure but just before we leave yeahI'm gonna put everything in the shownotes or all the links and everything toCharles Seife to yourself to yourpersonal page if you don't mind courseof course hopefully we get you likethousand friends after this new peopleif you could just tell us the bestplaces that we could reach you ornormally ask my guest to give one yeahbut because I'm literally this is touchmy heart yeah Facebook and my socialmedia pages child safe so got the bothgroup and the page controls medicalchoices yes child safe there are otherlinks on their choice at UK they're alldifferent ones but what you're lookingfor is an orange circle we're the childsafe wound across the middle with likecube right in pink blue so that's whatyour that's the symbol you're lookingfor so I'm my group and on my page sopeople on my group opposite the groupyou can hit a wide you can hiteverywhere on pages on our people youcan it's on the group the group yesthat's the public because with your pageyour page can only hit the people thatFacebook to try and get it out becauseit doesn't always show of course so cuzyeahI'm a group do I put butt off do bi doboth but the group mainly I'll puteverything on the group and put it onthe page okay like just to make surebecause there's some people on the pageInstagram child-safe one chance everyonemistook child-safe but you know whatthis is the thing like when I starteddoing this you gotta realize there's somany people out there doing it not doingthe way I'm doing it there's so manypeople that have different platforms aspeople go out there like justice forchildren hunters for children they'reall out there they're doing an amazingjob of capturing all these online soprops all of you they're doing anamazing job there so and there's peopleout there do not block my page raisingthe awareness but no one's doing whatI'm doing this is what I believe I'mdoing on there on Wednesday next week mywebsite we've finished where there'll betips and how-to on child abductions inthe streets and these tips of what to doand helplines what to call on youronline Grumman's things you need to lookout for know situations and onlinegaming clothes we got all the kidsonline game at the moment every dayonline so we need to be aware of thisand what to do and what they're doingyou know I mean you put I've put my mindin there I'm thinking what would I doand the things I've found out how theydo it you know so you can then be awareof the things they're doing so CharlesSeife online code at UK and there willbe my t-shirts or sounds people want tobuy any more t-shirts also more costbecause they're one pound fifty each sothose are the pages now have okay so allthat stuff will be in the show notesand as always people thanks forlistening and remember this podcast isabsolutely free so all we ask in returnis for you to share this with a friendand drop us a five star review over oniTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and 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Find your voice - Episode 6 - Stay strong by Hezron Brown #6Tagline: "The impact I was making & seeing was unreal. To see their face and actually light up and think Hope!"Find your voice - Episode 6Hezron Brown, has been in the papers for his incredible story. As a child he was tragically burned in hot water which has left him scarred for life. His life then continued to spiral into a life of drugs and crime.Somewhere along his journey however the idea of belonging and hope kicked in. Hezron self belief, which he accustoms his now success too is a key factor in him finding his true purpose. Hezron is now inspiring the youth who need to hear the message and realise that there is hope for them irrespective of the cards they have been dealt as kids.There is more to a life of death or jail.There are more opportunities if we remain commited to succeed rather than just having a slight interest.It's a remarkable story of seeing some change, something I was always skeptical about.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hezron_BrownInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/hezronbrown/#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and this is a classic thisis somebody who I actually reached outto I'd say about six months ago and itwas following a news article that I sinthat they were mentioned in now theywere mentioned in this news article forhow they turn their life around andthat's kind of the stories I really loveto hear but I need to make sure that thelisteners ie yourselves you're gonna getsomething tangible from this and you'regonna get some life lessons and let metell you you're certainly gonna get somelife lessons now maybe many of us can'trelate to the way that this person wasbrought up or some of the stuff that hedid and I think he's held his hands openhe said I've made a lot of stupidmistakes but more importantly than thatif you listen to his story there's a fewmoments and we touched on it halfwaythrough the interview where he wasgetting signs he was gettingopportunities he was getting peoplecoming into his life giving him thechance to potentially turn it around andI thought that was a really importantpart of the story because I think evenourselves in life we sometimes getopportunities but because we're soblinkered or a mindset isn't thinkingthe right way or our perception isn'tright we sometimes miss theseopportunities and we spoke a little bitabout self belief and confidence andjust having a vision and I think that'sso so important myself for example Ihave some crazy visions but what I'verealized is by having these andexpressing them to the world and beingaccountable I'm seeing moreopportunities come my way and I'm notsaying these opportunities weren't therepreviously butmy thoughts and my processes of how Iwould interpret things were differentI just wasn't taking advantage of him sofair play to this person he's done anabsolutely fantastic job he turned hislife around he was very close to youalmost having no life so I'm verygrateful that he made that step when hedid I'm very grateful that he also tooktime to share his story because he'sgoing places remember his name he willcertainly be I think a household namevery very soon simply because his storyis one that you can't replicate you'veeither lived it or you haven't and thisguy has lived it so without further adowe're gonna jump straight into thisinterview with hezron Brown ok people sothank you for tuning into the show todayand I am honored to have hezron Brownhere with me today so firstly I justwant to thank you for taking time outeven your day today buddy no problem howyou doing today I'm fine thank you verymuch how are you I'm very well thank youI believe you were working as well todayis that right no no well I wasn'tworking I was I was more kind ofconcentrating on myself okay building upmy self today yeah that's still kind ofworking I suppose okay fantasticum what I want to do is obviously I'vegiven an introductionprior to this show about your life and alittle bit about your story but I thinkit's important for the listeners toreally understand you and hear it morefrom yourself so if you wouldn't mind ifyou could just kind of give a wholebackstory go into as much detail as youwant and just really try and let theaudience and myself get to know hezronBrown yeah that's no problem at all sofor me all kind of started when I wasfive years old I he fell in a bath ofboiling hot water and burnt the upperright hand side of my body so my arm mychest and my stomach I actually had ajump run at that time and when I fell inthe water all of my skin had melted overmy jumper and when my mum came up sheripped my to rip my jumper off out ofpanic and because of that she ripped allmy skin off so all this skin that'sactually on the upper right hand side ofmy body is actually from my legs I hadvarious skin grafts I was in hospitalfor numerous mumps getting all thoseskin grafts to kind of correct correctobviously what happened oh well at thattime you know when I started going toprimary schoolkid's gonna understand why I looked theway I did and because that reason theystarted to call me names started tobully meso from there I I I do that's a reallybad anger problem it was something thatI couldn't control okay and I would justget angry at every single little thingand he got to the point where it wasjust literally out of control to andfrom school I was always fighting I wasfighting in school as well and I thinkfor me the reason why I developed thattemper was because I didn't want anybodyto call me names again I didn't want tofeel weakagain and I kind of said to myself I'mnever gonna let that happen to me againand because of that my rage and mytemper just kept getting worse and worseand worseWow even though it was affecting me atschool it was affecting me at home aswell and my relationship with my mum youknow my mom was a single parent I'm oneof five children so you know it wasdifficult for my mum to actually kind ofdeal with what I was bringing home rightand there was times when I was gettingso angry I was throwing my wardrobe downthe stairs punching holes in doorsbreaking windows you know like it wasgetting out of controla lot at the time my mum would have tocall the police because I was gettingthat enraged that she was scared for myown safety and she was probably scaredfor her own safety as well of course wasthis around did you say eleven years oldat this point yeah yeah when I was 11that's quite a young age isn't it to bedisplaying so much anger yeah is it isthis is what I mean like my temper wasjust yeah it was it was uncontrollableand he got to the point where I wouldliterally black out so I wouldn't evenknow what I would actually be doing orwhat I was doing until I actually cameback around and it's like the only way Icould come only way out and calm downwas if I punched something not someonejust something right I could just go andpunch a door or punch a wall or you knowpunch some glass and immediately mytemper would go immediatelyand so yeah it was just it was it was itwas quite bad it was quite bad so I saidlike my my home life wasn't that good ofmy mom and she kicked me out that timethere's one and I when I lived in one ofmy older sister's you know having totravel to school every single day fromTamworth because she lived in Tamworthand having to travel from Tamworth toworthington every single day I'm theboss in the morning yeah it was adifficult time but the relationship thatme and mum had was I would go homeshe'll kick me out I'll go back home shewould kick me out again that was thatwas always our relationship so a lot atthe time I knew kind of what was gonnahappen when I went back home I knew Iwas gonna get kicked out again butthat's where my home was yeah so Ialways wanted to go back so that wasgetting to the points where a monkeykicking me outI was sofa surfing I was going to I wasgoing to friends houses staying withthem they knew the situation that youknow I was in in knew that I had theseanger problems knew the kind ofrelationship that I had with my mom andyeah like when I was kind of goingthrough school school was trying to helpme to teach I'm trying to help me aswell for those that knew and you knowthey were trying to better me they weretrying to keep that temper out of methey were putting me through countsthrough counseling putting me throughanger management but nothing reallyworked nothing really worked and when Iwas 13 so my mom kicked me out again Iwent and lived with one of my friendsmm-hmm an amazing woman her name isDevon and she literally just took me offthe street I was homeless and I went toher house and actually went to her houseto actually see her son okay and afterspeaking to me for like a minute shecould see that something was wrong withme she could see that I was strugglingin some form of way and she invited meinside she gave me a she gave me a hotdrink and she said to me tell me what'sgoing on with you right nowso I did I told a lot situation I was inand like that she took me into her homeshe she literally made me part of thefamily every time when we was outshe saw someone that she knew she wouldtell him that I was her adopted son yeahit was yes she would she's an amazingwoman she's an amazing woman I livedwith her until I actually finishedschool can I just ask so you you findyou Vaughn and God bless her soul shesounds like a wonderful ladyand you said things were obviously shewas introducing you as part of thefamily you felt at home how did how wasyour anger at this particular time thendid you find that you were able tocontrol it or was it still still youwere still getting flares of anger Iactually wasn't getting angry when I waswith her I think it was just jus down tothe respect that I had I would never getangry with her but maybe if I was likestill go into school I was getting angrywhen I was a try but I was never gettingangry around her okay that's because howI seen it wasI can't disrespect this person thisperson has literally took me from offthe street into her own home and I hadjust this deep respect for her and herwhole family up until this day you knowI still see her I called her mom mychildren call her nan you know herbrothers and sisters I call them uncleauntie like I see her family as myfamily so that respect has never it'snever gone away never gone away so yeahshe took me in and kind of went throughschool life they're living at her housemy mom actually found out where I wasnow Yvonne that she lives around thecorner from my mom and it took her knowenough two years to actually come roundto the house to come and get me andYvonne gave me the choice she said wellyou can either go home or you can stayhere and continue to live the life thatyou're living but even though I wasthere and she took me in I always hadthis feeling that I needed to go homeand that that wasn't my home so I tookupon myself to go back home and livewith my mommm-hmm two weeks later she kicked me outagain and I was back on the street and Iwent and lived with my older sistersleeping on her floor one of my older ofher sisters and I was sleeping on herfloor she lived in a flatshe had two kids at that time my nephewand my niece and they kept see seeing mesleeping on the floor they kept comingin asking her you know why his unclehezron just sleeping on the floor mm-hmmand I think she got to the point whereshe just wanted to you know she justdidn't want them seeing that anymore andI to be fair I didn't want them seeingme in that in that position so she cameup to me and she said hezron there's aneighborhood office at the bottom of herflat so there was a neighbor laughs atthe bottom of her flat and she asked meto go in there and just tell him what mysituation was and see what they couldactually do for me so I went down thereand I I spoke to themI remember when I I stepped through thedoor I had six black bags three in eachhand full of clothes and I literallyjust collapsed on my knees when I when Istepped through the door and I justbroke down into tearsbecause I think it was that realizationof knowing that I actually had nothingand I had no one around me then wasactually truly supporting me and it'slike I kind of felt like I was a burdento to my family and I remember thiswoman came running up to me and she saidwhat's wrong what's wrong and I I toldher I said you know I haven't gotnowhere to go Liz there's no one aroundme that that can look after me and shesaid okay what there's no family orfriends I said no there's there'sthere's there's no one around just youit's just me and she sat me down in thechair and she said okay well I'm gonnatry and sort something out for you soshe got me a bed and breakfast I stayedin that bed-and-breakfast for about twomonths now I was I just finished schoolyeah so I finished my exams I never andthey were left with no we've no gradeslike none at all and at this point whenI was staying in that bed-and-breakfastnow through that time I was happy to sawsome money on my own food hmm all thethings that I needed to live on yeahabsolutely because because I was soyoung the so I went to the Jobcentre andthey they said to me are there'sactually there's actually they don'tdidn't know how they could help mebecause I was so young of course and ittook them quite a whilefor him to actually give me some moneyso I actually ended up going on toincome support okay and kind of theirdead back dated me but throughout thatwhole time I was trying to find ways tosupport myself and it was quite hardeven down to college educationno college wanted to accept me because Inever had no grades I actually wanted todo IT that was something that I waspassionate about at that time and theythey said to me because you haven't gotany grades there's there's no real waythat you can start an IT course becauseof the the level of entry that youneeded I eventually found a college thatwould accept me it was Matthew Boultoncollege and they were saying and theysaid to me okay cool like we can't putyou on an IT course straight away mm-hmmbut if you do this course in this coursethat you make up the grades that youneed to get in onto the IT course I saidokay like for me it was just anythinglike anything just something to occupymy mind something to take my mind offwhat I was going through at that timethe counts would have found me aaccommodation as well it found me atemporary but a nation in Hockley so Iwas like okay like you know things werekind of exciting to look back up jobcentered they put me on the incomesupport so I was starting to get moneyin I found education I've got my ownplace so at that time I thought thateverything was going great everythingwas going in the right in the right kindof order and when I was at collegethat's when things started to get a bitkind of like off-track right I will youknow skip lessons I was being in thecommon room all the time trying to hangout with friends I had met loads of newpeople that you know I didn't knowbefore and then that started toobviously play an impact on my educationhmm I finished out my first year it wasa two-year course I was on I've doneother media and photography and I'vecompleted my first year went ontoanother course with media photographywhich was a two-year long course and onthe first day I started I had anargument with my tutor over a can ofcoke and again I lost my tenwas there swearing I was punching thingsand the the head of the college wasactually walking down the path at thetime I was actually losing my temperworst timing ever the worst time in everand they phone security security cameupstairs got me and escorted me out ofthe college so at this point now I'vegot my own place money's coming in butI've got no education and I'm kind ofjust dusting around doing nothing andthen that's when things startedspiraling out of controlI started you know going to parties Istarted hanging around with people thatI shouldn't hang around with they spiedinfluencing me and even though I knewwhat I was doing was wrong like therewas no one really around me to say to mehezron stop doing that or hezron don'tdo that we'll show you a better way Isuppose well show me a better wayexactly yes that's exactly it showed mea better way hmmso I just continued to stay on the paththat I was on I started doing a lot offoolish things I was you know committingrobberies I was walking around withweapons I was I was doing a lot of sillythings okay and when I was doing thesethings I kind of I know kind of had noremorse like I was just like again I wasjust doing it to survive you know I wasstanding drugs as well and I was justdoing it to survive I was doing it totry and make money um and again as yousaid there was no one really around meto to push me away from it and put me ona better path can I just jump in therejust quickly I mean I've got sort of gotso many questions cause it's such afascinating storyyour relationship with Yvonne now hasthat completely broken down at thisstage or is it or is it a matter of youfeel you can't go back there now oh nono no Yvonneshe's as I said like she's still amother figure to me okay so she wasn'tshe was always still there oh yeah yeahshe she was always still there but againit kind of felt like to me like Icouldn't go back there does that makesense yeah absolutely and at this stagewas you was you taking accountabilityfor anything or was it just you know theworld's just doubt you shit cards andyourcarry on do what you need to do to getby that's exactly it the world wasdealing me this hand that I didn'treally you know um you didn't ask for itbut you've got it and I've got it andand I'm just rolling with itand that's just kind of what he got tohe got to the point where I was justrolling with it and as you said like forme my temper my temper has always got meinto bad situations like Mitchell IIlike even till now even up until thispoint like my temper has always got meinto situations and I know it's becauseof my temper and there's so many thingsthat you know I try and do to try andhelp me deal with my temper but when itcomes upI can't explain to you I literally justhave no control I literally have nocontrol and it's only when people see meangry that they go WOW like you'veactually got a really bad temper andit's hurtful really it's hurtful to hearthat to hear that you've got this thingthat you can't control and even thoughyou do so much things to try and controlit you can't and it's hard andespecially when you know that this thingis getting you into trouble it's ruiningrelationships it's ruining opportunitiesit's not serving you it's not certainlyany it's not so many purpose but youknow what I say that and so it's a it'sa tricky thing because times when youknow I was when I nearly got kidnappedit was my anger that kept me alive beingable to fend for myself being able tofight back that's what that's what keptme alive and so as much as I kind ofhate my temper I also love it becauseI'm able to protect myself in a way thatsomeone else can't protect me well thatmakes sense I does yeah absolutely itdoes make sense it's interesting isn'tit because I suppose in hindsight you'drather not have the temper but oh asyou've got it you've kind of managed toharness it at least to give you somesort of advantageor at least help you in some situationsif that makes sense oh yeah yeahdefinitely okay so you're now saying youspiral out of control what are youthinking like I'm justtrying to get into your head at thisparticular moment now what are youthinking is the future of hezron Brownthe future heads around Brown I actuallydidn't know what the future of headswere on Brown was as I said - I was justthis person that was rolling with E soone would say I wasn't I wasn't thinkingabout my future I wasn't thinking aboutmy loved ones I was just thinking how amI gonna get by how am I gonna surviveand how did that change them when did itchangewell changed when I got done for arobbery charge okay I got done for thisrobbery charge and it wasn't it wasn'teven it wasn't even a robbery like thatand as they grabbed my friend I hit thatperson when he was on the floor which Inever even realized cuz I actuallywalked up at that point but when he wasactually on the floor someone robbed himsomeone took his stuff now when thepolice came they they they they pickedme up and when they when I was in thestation they turn out to me and theysaid oh you've robbed this boy's stuffand this that do and I was like no andthey said oh do you know what kind ofdamage you've done and I was like whoaand the policeman looked at me and hesaid you did not punch him you hit himwith something and I said no I actuallypunched him anyway if you've been ableto do that kind of damage from a punchthat's scary and I was like I actuallynever even realized I even done thatbecause I walked off and when it got tocourt they decided to do me for therobbery charge so not for the assaultokay they they decided to do me forrobbery and I got found guilty of thisrubbery now I have to go for mypre-sentencing report and when I wentthere I stepped for the door and thisblack lady she came up to me and shesaid are you my next appointment I wentI don't knowshe went what's your name I said hezronBrown she said yeah yeah you're my nextappointment and she turned and shelooked at me and she said she totteredand she she said not another black manthat was the that was the thing that shesaid to me and from there I fought Wowlike okay like how much how much haveyou seen today yeah yeah and she said tome tell me everything just tell me thewhole situation mm-hmm so I did I toldher everything I told her what hadhappened and she looked at me and shesaid okay leave it with me I'm gonna tryand help you and I was like okay I don'tknow how you're gonna try and help mebut you know I'm gonna I'm gonna rollwith ityou know as I do and the night before mysentencing I remember sitting therethinking I'm going to do like I am goingto jailmmm yeah and my solicitor was saying tome you know hezron you're facing yearsin prison for this like it's not like ahalf month or anything like that it waslike you're facing yes so i sat therethe night before and I actually boughtmyself a KFC and I bought myself aMcDonald's and I just sat there eatingall these different random type of thingyou're like someone said to you whatwould the last meal be that's one that'sbasically white look like I had Big MacI had a piece of chicken I had somechips I had you know I wanted everythingthat I knew that I would miss hmm and itwas crazy like that feeling of thinkingI'm actually going to prison like it's ahard it's hard to describe what thatfeeling is actually like knowing thatyou're gonna see the outside world againmaybe for a considerable amount of timejust I'm not sorry I mention it in oneof my early episodes I worked in aprison for six months okay and justworking there me it was draining likementally because I was seem I've seengood people I mean I believe we're allgood but sometimes we do bad things andsome more than a listener and there wasthough some people in there who I methim on the streets or something I justthink they're just normally just nicepeople and when you see how little timethey get with their friends and theirfamily and how restricted their life isin prison it was so like heartbreakinginside and it was after that experienceI was like I am never getting on thewrong side of the law because I'm notgoing to give away my freedom and whenyou're in prison you they kind of justtake that away from you so yeah I canimagine how you must have been feelingat that pointyeah I think I think that's somethingthat's important something that youactually just said it's not thatsomeone's bad it's just that they justdo something bad at that time yeahabsolutely and you know a lot of these alot of the guys that are in there likethe women I window they're actually goodpeople but they've just done somethingbad just made a bad choice or a baddecision I always look at that I alwaysthink I think you know how we look at sofor instance we look at a celebrity forexample and we think obvious easy forthem but we forget all the sacrificesand everything that they're putting inbeforehand like hope the whole processand it's the same with somebody who endsup on the wrong side of the law weforget that they may have actually beentrying to sort themselves out or justnot getting a break in life and thensometimes something comes up andsomething happens and then they've actedthe wrong way which in hindsight most ofthe people that I've spoken toespecially in prison wouldn't have doneagain whereas you get some people whoare just literally straight-up crazyyeah they are straight-up criminals butgenerally speaking it is that and I'llbe honest I used to be quite judgmentaland think people don't changemmm again that was just my limitingbelief and now speaking with peopleinterviewing people especially likeyourselves and seeing that you're ableto do the amazing things which we'regoing to talk about shortly it fills mewith like joy in like happiness and alsolike hope and you know having that senseof hope that we can create a betterworld we can create a better communityand yeah we definitely canI always feel when somebody's been atrock bottom they can offer so much moresomebody like yourself who's been on thebrink of like you said you could havebeen stabbed for example you could havehit you in an artery or something andboom you're gone there is no more as RonBrown absolutely at the same situationyou could have been in the wrong placeI've hurt somebody else in their lifeand their future is finished so I'mgrateful that that hasn't happened yeahyeah so I went for my sentencing Iremember sitting in the dock I was satthere I had the the police officerstanding next to me although the guardstanding next to me and while I was inthe dock and the judge came here and sheshe said hezron Brown stand up and Istood up and she said I was actuallygonna sentence you this morning this washer work this was her words to me mm-hmmand even up until this point I stillhave not forgotten she said I was gonnasentence you this morning but yourpre-sentencing report was glowing shesaid I don't know what you didor here you spoke to mm-hmm but I'mwilling to give you another chanceWow and of the feeling I got inside myheart just my heart just my heart sunksecond chance that's you know thatsecond chance and I literally reduced meto tears and I was just in the dock justcrying my eyes out while this woman'stalking to me and telling me what she'swhat she's actually going to sentence meto but I actually just didn't care aboutwhat she was sending me because I knew Iwasn't going to prisonyeah but then at the same time I thoughtto myself I've just wasted like 20 poundand a mat done all day hey I see likeyou know thinking that I was getting mylast meal with actually I'm not theregoes a six pack you know like I wasstill grateful so she gave me a two-yearsuspended sentenceshe gave me two hundred and eighty hoursof community service and a four hundredeighty pound fine now this two-yearsuspended sentence was something thatmade me was was one of the reasons why Ihad to change there wasn't I never had achoice I had to change because what thattwo-year suspended sentence meant wasthat if I had done anything in that timeat any point if the police is beingcalled and I'm involved or Thunder I'mautomatically getting sent to prison andmy actual sentence will get activatedthat's how they put it to me so theykind of scared me I'm thinking no way amI going to be put in a situation whereI'm going to prison so that started toslowly change my mentality I had a sonalong the way as well hmm I had a childon the way now the relationship brokedown with his mom and I actually endedup taking her to court to actually seemy son now this was a battle that lastedin totally spin seven years now my otherpartner at that time she turned aroundto me and she said you know hezron youyou need to bet your life you're yourson can't grow up thinking you know thatyou was a gang memberthat you don't know these bad things hesaid you need to prove what you'recapable ofyeah I love that when she said that tome really made me it made me think aboutthe future I think that was the firsttime I actually really thought about thefuture I I can't be this person that Iwas before just you know doing all thesebad things I have to change there isn'tthere isn't a choice I have to I have toyeah and she was being able to get meinto courses so I done a parentingcourse I donehealth and safety I don't food safety Idone I done my IT never one two andthree I redid my English a masked man Iwent in I don't customer service skillsand employability skills I just I justtried to build myself up to a pointwhere no one could turn around and sayhmm wow you know you're this bad personit sounds like it was something thathappened in like a month's time or ithappened in like too much time and I'msaying yeah I've got this qualificationthis qualification this talkit took me yes yeah it took me years toget all that done but I was proud when Igot done you should be because thatprocess of you developing yourself andyour mind and picking up all theseskills that can never be taken away fromyou could never be taken away never betaken away and I try and say this topeople because maybe maybe it's my age Ican look back a little bit but sometimeswe spend that time trying to pick upmaterialistic things and stuff and we'renot training our mind no and that's themost important thing and you know I'mproud of you for that well done and Ithink that and the best thing with thatis it's taking you two years and I'mkind of glad it's taken you two yearsbecause now you know how hard it is andI suppose you can appreciate the skillsand skilling up and stuff so oh yeah100% like hundred percent um becausethroughout that time you know I hadnever had I've never had a job beforeI'd never had a job before at this pointopen to the age of 22 I'd never had ajobWow I was living off the system and Iwas unrolled as one would pull it I wason road you know when you walk around inthe street and you see that hoodedperson walking around that was me thatwas meday and night that was meWow so you know I've gone from thatperson to now and he said upskillingmyself train in my mind training myselfto be a better person and what wasactually a really big turnaround for mewas one day I was sat in my flat and Isaid to one of my friends I said youknow what I need to change I sat downwith my friend and I said to him I saidyou know why why do we do these thingslike you know why do we why do weactually do these things well and helooked at me and he turned to me and hesaid well we have to this we need to doit and from there I thought now I cansurvive in a different way I don't needto be creating heartache and committingyou know crimes to you know I mean toget him to go finally yeah yeah and Iactually turned to him and I said youknow what tomorrow I'm gonna change myclothes and he said what do you meanyou're gonna change clothes I said I'mgonna change my clothes because at thattime I was always wearing black as Isaid I was that person that you see onthe show you know everything that I hadwas you were basically fitting thestereotype this there was likeabsolutely yeah 100%and I said everything I had was blackdown to my socks down to my boxerseverything was black yeah and I said tohim I said you know who I'm gonna changeI'm gonna go hey chin him and I'm gonnabuy myself some light colored clothesand he started laughing at me and I waslike why you laughing forand he said our heads on you're notgonna go and do that that gave me themotivation that I needed the next day Iwoke up I woke up earlygot myself a shower and I went to townand I went and bought a white top bluejeans I actually came out wearing theclothes and I put my black clothes in abag and I was sat at the bus stop andthis old lady came up to me and she juststarted randomly talking to me tell meabout her or all day or what she wasgonna do for the day tell me about hergrandkids tell him about her kids tellme why she had planned now when Iactually mentioned this story to peoplethey they always laugh because theydon't see that as a big thing but forme that was a big thing because that hasnever happened before I'm not saying shewouldn't but would she have spoken toyou or would you have even been in aplace that was approachable if you wereaddressed how you address yeah butexactly so and when I I remember thewhole journey she was speaking to me onthe bus because she was um she wascoming she was on the same bus style wason I remember the whole journey I wasjust smiling to myself and I got off thebus and I went to my flatand I just sat there and I was justsmiling to myself and my friend cameround to my house and he said oh yoyou've done it of course I've done ityeah I said don't ever doubt me becausewhen I say something when I say I'mgonna do something called do me and I'vealways stuck to that model if I say thatI'm gonna do something and I said whenthat old lady spoke to me that reallychanged me it made me it made me realizethat actually I wasn't a bad person thatI was I was just as you said making badchoices can I just touch on what youjust said there so you just saidsomething fiercely that I wasn't a badperson so somewhere along your life inyour journey you had this belief thatyou were a bad person because maybesociety told you you're a bad person allthe decisions you made there's a verystrong thing and I try and say this to alot of people is we are the story thatwe tell ourselves so if you consistentlykeep telling yourself that you're a badpersonsomewhere along the line you're gonnastart acting like a bad person you'regonna you're gonna find your way toalmost fit the narrative a bit likemyself when I used to say I was shy andanxious one I was very shy and anxiousbut two I'd almost get myself out ofsituations where I could grow and becomea person not shy and anxious if thatmakes sense so yeah yeah definitely it'sweird because you've touched on threethree ladies now who have really come atpivotal points in your life so you hadYvonne initially then you had the ladywho took your appointment she said notanother black man and then you've gotthis third lady you just come on a busand it's almost like somebody sendingyou a message all the time yeah againit's those subtle messages that peopleactually ignore that actually are thethings that change your life if youallow them to and if you accept it ifyou're allowed into an if you accept itand it's exactly is it that simplebecause you could you could have I couldhave seen that in a different way youknow but I didn't and I decided to seein the way that I did that these peopleare trying to change my life and that'show he's bettered me and that'sI've decided to change or did decide tochange get him back to the story of whenI was actually at court for my son orwhen I got all of those qualifications Iremember I went to court and I initiallyslapped it down on the table like Iliterally slapped it down like he waslike it was a movie or somethingand it's just like try and stop me fromseeing my son like that that's all Isaidand the judge looked at me and he saidwe actually can't stop you though but wecan't stop you from seeing your son youknow I mean and it was a good feeling toknow that you know I had achieved all ofthose things for my sonabsolutely and I ended up winning thecourt case so that was one of the realpivotal reasons why I decided to changebut yeah like from there I just didn't Ididn't decide to stop you know I didn'tjust think to myself okay like I've wonthe court case now I don't need to betmyself no more I don't need to enhancemy life no more I'm just gonna chilllike I've never done that I'd stilldecided to keep moving forward keepprogressing and and it was quite funnyyeah because when I was doing thevoluntary work there was people comingup to me saying why are you actuallyworking in here like there is no reasonfor why you need to be working here andI said I'm doing it to better myselflike I'm doing it I love it I'm justdoing it for myself and I was there fortwo months two to three months I wasthere for doing the volunteer work everyday I was dressing in a suit don't askme why I was just arrested in the seatjust because swaggered out I mean theBritish Heart Foundation you know andpeople say people just got to understandwhy button again was all because of mymentality I wanted to have a differentmentality and what was actuallyinteresting was that they actually tookme they signed me off from the JobCenter and signed me on to perhaps andit was for like those people that reallywanted to find the job and it was themthat actually got me involved with thePrince's Trust so one day I went in andI see my advisor and I asked him I saidoh he's there he's there anything goingon is there anything happening there anyjobs available and he turned to me andhe said oh there's there's no jobs oranythinglike that but there's a thing with theprinces trustees could get started intheater mm-hmm and I was like okay I waslike what is it he was like it's not ajob it's like a course I was like okayand he was like but I don't know if youare done if you want to do it becauseit's more like a confidence-buildingcourse but he's like hezron you knowyou've already got confidence so youdon't really need to do that course andI don't think that they would accept youmm-hmm and I looked him and I said putme on it I said even if I don't getaccepted onto it put me on it anywayI'll go I'll see what they say if theyaccept me then they do if they don'tthen oh wow it's just enough one ofthose things mm-hmm so we did he put meon it it was at the Birmingham reptheatre where it was being held so Iwent to the Birmingham rep theatre hadlike a little open day for it and itwould taste a day a little workshop so Ihad done that I had they had then put meonto the course and when I was on thiscourseI sat down and I said to myself I amgoing to commit a hundred percent thatwas it that was it I just said I'm gonnacommit a hundred percent I'm gonna sayhello to every single person I'm gonnabe the last person to leave and I'mgonna be the first person there that'swhat I said to myself and I stuck to mehe got to the point where people werewere asking who I was because I keptsaying hello to random people I was Iwas walking around a bearing a reptheatre the saying just just being likehellomorning morning and people couldn'tunderstand why I just kept sayingmorning and hello but that got theattention of people in the Birminghamrep theatre and I ended up doing thecourse so at the end of it we had toperform a play outside the brick theatreand we had to market it ourselves weeducate posters we had to do the playourselves and we look doing this playand guy from the West End came and thedirecting manager of the rep was thereas wellhis name was Steve bored and afterwinning had finished everyone wasgetting their awards and he wheneveryone was getting their awards forcompleting thecourse the guy turned around from WestEnd and he said Oh where's hezron Brownwhere is heso I'll step forward and he said I'mactually a talent scout and I would likeyou to play a part on the West End and Iwas like what so every wonder thereeveryone's there applauding everyone'sclapping but while they're doing thatI'm standing there baffled thinking I'mnot an actor like and I actually saidthat to him and he was like you'veactually got talent he said you mightnot know it but you have he actually hewanted me to play donkey in Shrek but Isaid to you no I haven't got noexperience and he said yeah I know youhaven't got any experience that's whythe repple gonna take you one sit inSteve ball he then stepped forward andsaid yes as wrong if you come and see menext week we can talk aboutopportunities about how to kind ofbetter your skills and enhance youracting basically so I did I mean I'veseen him and he gave me some actingposition that the Birmingham rep theatrejust like that and from there that'swhen things really started to change soI have now gone from this person thatwas homeless this person that never hadno food at times never had no money attimes that was unrolled at times to nowthis person who's an actor at theBirmingham rep theatre you can make afilm on that I could make a film be theactor as well so then the Prince's Trustgot wind of it so I sat down with awoman called Tsukiko Hale who is theyoung ambassador executive manager inthe West Midlands and I sat down withher so I told her my story as she saidokay she said how would you feel aboutbecoming an ambassador for the Prince'sTrust and I said yeah like I'm up forthat I definitely hundred percent Ithink I think that's a great lesson foranyone I'm not saying necessarily youwanting to become an actor but what youdid want to do is put yourself in abetter situation around better peopleand have a better life and by youembracing that opportunity and justliterally throwing yourself out therebecause I canimagine how comfortable you must havefelt coming from straight black blackhoodie black jogging bottoms to a suitsaying hello to people who you don'tknow how they're gonna perceive youbeing overly enthusiastic spending timeout of your own day go to charity placeslike British Heart Foundation and to putyourself in that environment and thenjust shine I just I just think it'samazing and hopefully people listen tothis and think if you really wantsomething in life and if you know whatyou want just go ahead and do it do youknow what I mean don't wait don't waitfor someone to give you give you the nodor the acceptance because you've got totake control of your life and you'vedone it may in fair play Tia thank youyou know what it's all about Southbelief I agree oh you know like there'snothing more powerful than self beliefnothing if you believe in yourself andyou believe that you can achieve thenyou can if you tell yourself everysingle day I'm gonna be a millionaireyou'll be a millionaire not just becauseyou've said it every day but becauseyou're you're putting it out there tothe universe you're installing that intoyour mindset so things that you will dofrom that point on will be things tomake you a millionaire absolutely a lotof people don't believe in themselvesthey don't and to be honest I'm guiltyof it so I never believed in myself Iwas into podcasts about two years ago orthree years ago yeah they are alwayswanted it because I'm always fascinatedby people's stories and I used to saycertain things about my life and peoplefind it inspiring and it's taken me like12 months to really have the self beliefand you touched on something there likethe millionaire thing and it's a bitlike you know for instance you go andbuy a red car for example you're goingto see that red car everywhere and thatthey call that the reticular activationsystem is kind of some scientific termso when you start saying you're amillionaire and you start putting it outthere into the universe you're going tostart seeing opportunities where you canpotentially become a millionaire you'regoing to be you're going to seemillionaires and millionaires you mighthave a conversation with one you mightpick up some information from himthrough your 20 minute conversation orwhatever so I think you've hit the nailon the head there self belief is soimportant especially to inspire peopleare motivated to go out there and dowhat they want to do you have to believein yourself you have to have him and youhave to because what will happen is thatopportunities will present themselves toyou but you won't take them because youdon't believe in yourself becausesaid you might feel like you're too shyor you know you've got this anxiety whenyou're around so you know like then isyou then start to lose out on some ofthe things that are actually there toactually better your life things areonly just started now really you know tolook up and as much as you know I haddone all those things before to bettermyself it's only now that theopportunities are actually coming my waythings that I had never seen before nowI was doing like garner dinners I wasgoing to red carpet events I was I wasstanding in front of corporate busestelling him about my life story tellinghim about how the Prince's Trust hashelped me and I'm at these I'm at theseplaces and I'm thinking to myself howdid I even get herelike sometimes it's a bit unreal becauseI'll be sitting there and I'll be I'llbe remembering the people that I used tohang around with mmmI remember the things that I used to doI remember the hard times that I was inthe times when I was literally I wentfor a depression I was literally likeyou know I was having suicidal thoughtsI was I was I never thought life wasworth living you know every day cryingmyself to sleep because of the situationthat I was in so I've gone from thatperson to now sitting down at a tablearound millionaires literallymillionaires pretty it's corporatebosses eating lobster like literallyeating lobster for my start I mean I'mkind of things I'm thinking like it'scrazy like it's crazy how I got myselffrom there today but obviously it waspossible and obviously I'm done laterself belief and it's the process andit's the process and people forget theprocess and you you've had to endure itand a lot of people think they can justwish something and it just happens in amonth in a week sometimes it can takefive years sometimes it could take tenyears I'm glad for your sister for yoursake and for the community because ofthe work you're doing now it's happenedit's quicker because now you're outthere and you're able to do great thingsso mmm it's fantastic man thank youthank you so he built up my confidenceit built upthe passion that I had actually becauseI think what was what was hindering meetme before was that I actually didn'tknow what I wanted to do a lot of peoplewere always like saying okay what do youwant to do you know like you know whatyou want to be coming I was always likeI actually don't know and I actuallydon't know what I want to do I don'tknow what I want to becomebut the Prince's Trust gave me theanswer and it was from doing all thoseevents because I was doing those eventsand I was talking to these people in mymind I was always thinking these aren'tthe people that need to hear my storyit's the young people that need to hearmy story surgery and from there Istarted going into schools I was doingit for free I was just going intoschools speak into year groups and I wasjust speaking to the young people turnedhim about my storysometimes on a one-to-one basissometimes as a whole year group and theimpact I was making and that I wasseeing was it was unreal you know cuzthere are a lot of young people that aregoing through similar finger yeah whatI've gone through and to be able to sayto them actually like I went throughthat but this is where I am now and tosee their face actually light up andthink hope to know that they've got hopethat they can now you know that they cancontinue like there was a boy that Ispoke to I told him my story and it wasit was during a it was during one of mytalks that I do and and he was to thewhole year group and this boy came up tome at the end and he's eternal it's okaywhat's mean he said can you be my mentorand I said well yeah like if you want meto any went I've got a temper and it'sexactly how you describe yours and hewas like to see and it's because he saidyou know he always keeps getting intobad situations and his temper keepsdefining him and I looked at him and Isaid your temper doesn't define you Isaid you know I've got a temper youwouldn't even believe it but I've got atemper as well but look where I'mstanding and now you're coming up to measking me for help youI said you can be that person in thefuture absolutely and and to see hisface was light up it was great man andit's nice really it's the best feelingto know that you've made an impact onsomeone's life in a way that you neveractually thought you could you know wasit sitting there before and I wasthinking you know if I speak about mytemper that's gonna help peoplesomething that could be possible it'swell deserved given from me it was wrongbecause you couldn't were given up andyou could have just I could have givenup stayed in that life and contrib senta hundred percent and this is whatpeople need to understand that life thatI was in before there was only two therewas only two roadsit was either jail or death and the lifeyou live in now the opportunities andjust the hell it's unreal to be honestthis is kind of like one of my missionsas well because you mentioned liketemper then just from you saying thatstory one person who could relate toyour story you could potentially have arole on effect for his life and then hecouldn't do fantastic things and theguests that I've got on this podcastthey're all got their own story so oneof my good friends he's got blind in oneeye and all eyes people because he's aboxing coach he's a fantastic personthat one of the best people I know andsomebody who's going through those kindof issues they might be able to relateto each story I've got somebody who'senlivened with cancer and they'restruggling in their mindset and dealingwith that so that's gonna help peoplewho are suffering with cancer so whatabout finding people who have hadadversity in their life but they've beennot given up they've not let the cardsthat lived out an effect and whatthey've done is they played with themthe best way they can and they found away to win the game and you're undermoney you're winning and longmatecontent I'm winning my I'm gonna move iton a little bit now I'm a big believerthat we are resort of the things we tellourselves but I'm also a big believerthat ideally habits are really importantas well so now if you could just tellpeople now it's a day in the life ofhezron Brown a day in the life of hezronBrown yeah well you know I need I needto be true for everyone I'm not I'm nota celebrity yet you know yeah yes butit's the process and he still sees tothe process I'm just looking to besomeone that you know these young peoplecan look up to and and hopefully howchange some people's lives but a life inthe day ofBrown is a life like everyone else youknow I get luck actually what I onething I do is when I get up I look inthe mirror for about five minutes and Ijust stare at myself as much as as muchas we're that that sound yeah stare atmyself I put my hands on my hips hmm andI just stare I'll just stare into myface I just stare into my eyes okay andI'll just keep saying to myself you'regonna make it you're gonna make it I'mgonna make it yes and that's all I keepsaved myself and I do it oops about fiveminutes sort of standing it and thatactually gives me the motivation to todo what I need to do in the day mmm mmmyou know if there's anything that I needto look at in regards to work or youknow if there's someone I need to go andspeak to it just gives me the motivationthat I needit's a powerful affirmation andsubconsciously you're strengthening yourself belief which is the reason you'redoing amazing things now so I think thatthat's really important this is kind ofwhy I asked the question becausesomebody always has something in theirroutine which they might not necessarilysee as an amazing thing but it's somekid out there who doesn't believe inhimself just simply stands up in themirror tomorrow morning with their handson the hips or wherever they want to putit and they just say empowering thingslike I am NOT shy for example or I amworth more I will achieve more I will domore for people and they consistentlysay that and it's not not just onceyou've got you've got to keep saying itespecially if you haven't got the selfbelief they will start seeing they willchange so mate that's a fantastic pointI think I think it's I've actually gotan image now because I said I said whatyou look like and standing there nowdecide I shouldn't be thinking it youknow because I've got black boxes I'vegot you there and I know it's empoweringfor myself as well you know for mymindset and because I said he just givesme the motivation that I need but yeahafter that put my clothes on go to workand come home eat foodgo to bed well actually no that's that'swhy I eat food and work on work onmyself again so that's good at themoment when I saythat I go into schools and colleges andpeople are Farrow units youth offendingteams prisons I do my talk but I alsotalk about some of the social issuesthat are plaguing a society as well so Igive talks on nice crime I give talks oncounty lines and I'm creating otherprograms as well other presentationsthat I can do in schools as well so atthe momentthat's what I'm doing just trying tocreate those presentations create I saidI'm just I'm out here trying to helppeople so love it in the evening thatjust work on myself fantastic justoffline we'll take this conversationoffline on my I did this little bit outI was a social worker in my last life aswelland I send the kids that I've gonethrough the system and how hard it isand stuff so one of my big goals in lifeis to have a social impact change aswell so something for offline becauseobviously you're in Princes trust I wantto start a social enterprise for mentalhealth as well there's a lot of thingsthat I feel that in the future we canwork on to make a massive difference inthe world so let's definitely go let'slet's do it mind let's do it let's gomanthe next question is about adversity andI think you've pretty much touched on ahell of a lot of adversity but if we canjust go back to one example and what Iwant you to do is give us the lessonsthat he's taught you and how that's madeyou stronger today oh I would say thetoughest like adversity that I faced waswhen I was in that bed and breakfastgoing through that time when I never hadno money I never had no food when I meanthat time for me was harder I mean thattime for me was hard I was 15 years oldturning 16imagine being that age - to fend foryourself literally like everything yeahand you know I remember nights MitchellI said I was crying myself to sleepbecause I was that hungry that my bellyfat like he was turning inside out and Ithink that taught me especially now hetaught me not to take for granted thingsthat I do for me yeah that's one of thebiggest things for me at the moment likeI just I just I'll just live life how Iwant to live life but I just do what Iwant to dobecause as I said I look back to thosetimes and and I realize actually whereI've come from and you know you've got asense of gratitude now as well foranything that you take which is reallyoh listen you should see me when I eatfood you should you should yeah ahthough you don't want to be around methe chicken brilliant brilliantokay so the next one's a little bitwe're gonna spin it a little bit againwhat's your biggest fear now my biggestfear is my temper even now and me losingmy temper losing that control andsomething bad happens which puts me backin that situation that I was in when Iwas younger a hell of a lot to lose aswell now and I've got so I've got somuch to lose like and you know when I'mtrying to say like I want to be a rolemodel for these young people and how canI be a role model if I'm out heregetting locked up for something or youknow I can't be that role model thatthese young people need if I'm doingthose if I'm doing those things and itis hard there's a guy called inkyjohnson I don't know if you know him hesays something about there's no pointyou trying to be a public success ifyou're a private failure exactly it's sopowerful because it's so easy on socialmedia to try and portray yourself to besomebody else do you know what I meanbut I think you have enough having thatin the back of your mind knowing how didthese kids depend on me you don't knowhe's watching you tomorrow it could be akid who's about to go and do the worstthing in his life but if he sees you andhe's looking at you and think it's hotin a minute this guy he's going placesdoing things that maybe I could do thatit might just completely change histrajectory of his life on the basis ofthat so obviously you've got that in theback of your head you don't wanna letyourself down you go you've got yourlittle one as well what's your what elsekeeps you going what's your motivationis it just to know go out there just bebigger better help more people yeah mymotivation now is to get into as muchschools of a can as much prisons as Ican as much people refer units listen Ijust want to get in front of as muchyoung people as I canand spread my story and hopefully changepeople's lives that's my motivationalong with my kids as well as I said youknow I don't I want I want my kids togrow upclean him proud of me err you know howyeah that's something that's somethingin my life that I've never really hadyou know people being proud of meand I think as well that's somethingthat I've tried to strive for yeah I'lltry to strive against that thatacceptance you know and for my kids mainleaf mostly I just want them to be proudof me yeah I just want them to be happyand know be able to say to people youknow that's my dad you know there were100 percent hundred saying man to manI'm proud of you for how far you've comeas well in your stories is I'm excitedmate for you for your future I'mgenuinely excited yeah I can't wait forthe things it's okay so what we're gonnado now we're gonna go into a quick fireround of 60 seconds and we're gonna puthas run through his paces we're gonnaask him as many questions as possible soif you're ready we're gonna start inthree two oneokay the ability to fly or be invisibleability to fly money your fame moneyNetflix or YouTube Netflix Coke or Pepsior Pepsi would you rather know how youwill die or when you were dying oh whenI would die love or money love books ormovies movies if you could sit with oneperson in the world for an hour whowould it be my kids I love them what isyour biggest addiction my baby oh theygive the Dixon food summer or wintersummer your favorite place in the worldmy bed speak or languages will be ableto speak to animals speak or languagesyour favorite song I don't have fun thelast song you listen to okay love ityour favorite superhero Superman if youcould abolish one thing in the worldwhat would it be or badness love it loveit okay times up so now we have finishedthat round we're gonna move overstraight back into the interview sectionof the show so the next question has runit's about reflection so how that's awonderful thing and upon reflection wecan always think of ways to get to wherewe are currently quicker easier or withless heartache but I guess the journeyteaches us a lot especiallyyour journey as well and I've got a realbelief that everything happens for areasonOh hundred percent absolutely so what Iwant to know is if you could go back intime to one moment where you reallystruggled let's let's take thatbed-and-breakfast example and sufferedwith that adversity being hungry in thatmoment and you could just whispersomething into your ear knowing what youknow now and where you're going now whatwould it bestay strong mmm literally stay strongcuz I said that was something that Ialways and I struggled with men when Imean like you know I was having thosesuicidal thoughts I was having some realsuicidal thoughts you know and if Icould go back then and you know speak tomyself I would just say heads one staystrong don't cry just stay strong stayon the path I wish I had done this stuffearlier but you know one thing that Ialways say it's people is I'm glad thatI've lived the life yeah people peoplealways people always say to me like ohif you could go back in time would youchange would you change anything no Iwouldn't and if anything called probablydo it worse because because now I havethe story sit down and speak to people Ican sit down and speak to well I haveI've sat down and spoken to older peoplehmm about things that they thought Iwould never know nothing about but I'mable to sit down and speak of thembecause of what I've been through sosuddenly that brings us to the lastquestion and the last question I alwayslike to ask my guess is if in 150 yearstime we're all dead because sciencehasn't managed to save us and all that'sleft is one book and that book is basedon your life about you telling the worldwho hezron Brown really was what I wannaknow is what that Blair would say andthen I'm just gonna add a littlequestion at the end is what would youcall it as wellokay I'm gonna probably call it thestruggle is real of it that's notprobably what I would call it thestruggle is real so if anyone's outthere who's listening that can write abook for me that's what the fight willbe the struggle is realand I think the blurb would like theblurb would just have to be somethinglike you know this is a man but you haveto say in a voice as well you can't justdo it like normally he has to be like ina voice like you know okay like a LiamNeeson kind of voice I'm gonna try asuccess with Scott let's go this is aman this is a man after facing hardtimes changed and became a better manfor the love of his kids and for thelove of what he wanted to do for societyI like it I like it I like it I like itbut it would have sounded better withthe Liam Neeson voice but oh that'sbrilliant that's - basically the end ofthe show so what I normally do now aswell is I ask people to reach out to youif you wouldn't mind and I think yourstory just one that's gonna inspirethousands of people so I've got you onTwitter but I know you've just startedthat have you got any of the socialmedia platforms yeah like I'm onFacebookokay um I'm on Twitter I'm on LinkedInas well is Helzer on brown on on most ofthem I think um Twitter its hezron Brown90 okay fantastic fantastic what I'llalso do is I'll put all these links tohezron social media in the show notes soif anyone wants to reach out please docheck the show notes and you'll findeverything and as always thanks forlistening and remember this podcast isabsolutely free so all we ask in returnis for you to share this with a friendand drop us a five star review over oniTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 4 - F*ck it by Joshua AsquithJoshua Asquith, is a genuinely loveable guy. He was a talented athlete destined to do great things, which he did. A World title in New York for kickboxing, semi professional football, acting in Macbeth to modelling he had the world at his feet.Until the death of his two close friends suddenly rocked his world. He then got hit with Quinsy illness along with more health complications. But with a mindset of a true champion, my UK Rock (a nickname I give him) has found a way to control what he can control.His mindset. He adopts a F*ck it mentality but the most beautiful thing about his story is, he sees himself as “ The luckiest man in the world”.I urge you to follow his story and watch this space as he comes out of his comfort zone to prove that physical or mental challenges should never stop you from being average or giving up.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh_asquith/#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into the show today so this episode offind your voice has really changed myperspective and I suppose this is one ofthe reasons I wanted to do this showbecause I believe everyone has a storyand there's some powerful stories outthere that just not being told now I'mvery grateful for my guests coming onthe show because although I know himthrough the property world I had no ideaabout the other things that were goingon in his life now at such a young agehe has done more things then more thingsthan I've done and he's done things thatI suppose I wish I could have done butmore importantly than that I'm moresignificant to this story and I hope youcan extract this from the end of thepodcast is how he's persevered throughso much adversity and when I say so muchadversity I mean there's a point in thepodcast where I've kind of had to stophim listing the amount of stuff thathe's going through for the simple factthat why it was hard to comprehend but -I felt like the message was alreadythere and I'm here to get him back at alater stage so we can obviously explorethat a little bit more but I rememberedand somewhere in the podcast you'regonna hear this I refer to him as the UKrock now I'm not talking about thatstick of candy that you get up that polepleasure Beach I'm talking about rockersin the Dwayne Johnson because he givesme inspiration or watch him on Instagramand it gets me to the gym in the morningit makes me kind of eradicate my excusesbut this gentleman that I spoke to doesthe same because he's battling far worsethen Dwayne the rock Johnson atsuch as young age as well and his storyis still being written I've managed tobring him out of his comfort zone toshare his story so hopefully you guyscan appreciate that and I do appreciateyou time because it's difficultsometimes sharing some of the storiesand there are some points in thispodcast which I don't even think he'sfamily knew about as well so I'm gonnastop rambling and let's check out thisepisodeokay so firstly I just want to begin bywelcoming Joshua to the show so how'reyou doing today my friend very goodthank you you yeah not too bad thank younot too bad so I just want to say thankyou for taking time out of your dayfirstly and I've briefly introduced youin the introduction myself but I thinkit's important for the listeners to geta feel for who you really are and tohear from yourself so if you wouldn'tmind if you could just explain how youbasically progress through life andended up where you are now okayso well first of all thank you forhaving me no you're welcome anythinglike this before so this should be fun Ithink it's probably easiest to startwhere I am now it's not a particularlylong journey but it's quite a packed oneI'm 24 I'm Josh I'm a physiotherapistand I'm currently just hopefully gonnabe a property investor soon all thingsbeing well God willing you will be sostart another child I am I was reallyreally lucky I had a really nice mothershe gave me everything she works allhours of the day so much so that for thefirst few years of my life I really sawthat much of her cuz she was always justkind of working hard and slaving away togive me and my sisters a good life I hadan amazing step dad and I had aintermittent real biological fatherthroughout reels a bad word my Stefan ismy real dad book and biological fatherand I saw every couple of weekends andcame down to Birmingham because that'swhere his family are so I got to have alittle bit of my black heritage a mixedrace by the way because you can't reallysee it no I Rachel whatever you want tocall it and played a lot of sportsbeing a kid through school and I am alsodid a an African recreation of Macbethwith some really famous actors which wasreally interesting experience althoughit kind of fit with some of the thingsthat I went to go and do in my teens soin my teens I am through school wasfairly normal with the exception of Iwas fighting as a kickboxer for GreatBritainso from kind of why I went whentraveling around New Zealand with myfamily in year eight of school so I wasprobably 13 got back start playing somefootball got given some trials for alocal football academy near me and theywere preseason trials so I went throughGoogle to see if I could find somewherethat keep me fit over this summer foundthis place advertised as fitnesskickboxingI fell in love with it very quickly andfrom then on I kind of never went to thetrials never pursued it that muchfurther and started fighting I had myfirst fight fortunately or unfortunatelyfor me it was with the current worldchampion from my age group and my weightand did really well- just somehow scrape a victory off himhe's now one of my really good friendsactually and then from then on I kind ofthought well maybe I'm not too bad atthis so stuck it out eventually carriedon fighting every week around thecountry and then ended up fighting forGreat Britain which was really nice gotto travel around the world then got myfirst proper world title in New Yorkwhich was kind of cool went out therethen I came home went back to school fora few dayswhen then we're back to training andthen got called up to go and fight Ithink that my next one was I picked upin Florida mm-hmm then I did I went tofight for a European title in Romebrought my toe in the finals it's kindof like knockout stages to get therebrought my toe in the final came reallyclose second then yeah so I kind of justcarried on traveling got to see somewhat got to see some really really coolplaces like Sicily Serbiaand then I managed to keep up my gradesthrough school so kept my mom happy keptmy stepdad happy and then I got to about17 and it all started to change quiterapidly from there can I just stop youjust for a quick second just before wego into that so obviously you've had avery very dull boring life and not notreally done much but they're just somany questions that it's almost likewatching a listen to a movie so I justwanna ask you a couple of questions justquickly then would jump straight backinto where you weigh the cost so youplayed Macbeth it was that sort of likewas it a school role or was it sort ofan external audition or oh yeah sorry soit was kind of there was an arm to theyoung Shakespeare come okay they werekind of doing some diverse work theywere travelling around the country andthere's some adult actors in it as welland I just I don't know how I came abouthaving this audition but ended upauditioning for this role and then I wasin a park in Salford called Horton parkwith my mum just having a picnic and shegot a phone call saying that I'd beenaccepted to play the role of youngMacduff Wow all right Mac Duff sorry soit was Macbeth that was the math wasthat play my role was young Magda rightokay shows how much I know aboutShakespeare okay have you done any sortof acting since then or that was thelast of my kind of theater acting I wentI wanted to go back into it and then gotsidetracked by football but then when Iturned about 17 mm-hmm I actually know16 when I left school I went back intoacting kind of by accident okay andanother one I've got here is kickboxingso I grew up as a massive massive VanDamme fan fan I'm not sure if you if youknow him I do I'm fantasticI would have loved to have donekickboxing and so kick box for GreatBritain that's fantastic but then youwent on to football as well yesWow okay out of the two if you have tochoose one and if you could have pursuedit for the rest of your career which onewould you have gone withvery very very good question I wouldn'tkick boxing I would say okay yeah I'mpassionate I love football I'm reallyreally passionate about football whatkickboxing gave me a and kind ofextended family around the world hmmand in terms of the places you've beenyou mentioned Sicily with what was whatwould you say was the greatest placethat you've seen oh the most interestingplace I've seen was Serbia I think ohwow why'd you say that because where westayed we got as with the Great Britainteam we got pop in a five-star hotel andthis five-star hotel was kind of like ait was built within a mall or the mallwas it built within the hotel I don'treally know which one but it was hugebut as he looked across the road you sawall the old war torn houses it still hadbullet holes in them and things likethat and it was a reality shock it wasone of those places where you have toget police escort around with you fromBritain and oh wow that must've beensome experience yeah it was sorry yeah Ijust had all these questions thinking ohmy god this guy's done a lot we're noteven at 17 yet so yeah sorry if you wantto continue from 17 you said it went alittle bit downhill yeah so it didn't gostraight downhill it kind of seems apeak fairly early I was playing footballand we're playing an elite called theNorthwest Youth Alliance which isessentially the the Youth League of thesemi-pro football teams around theNorthwest and it was kind of like thehighest non professionalsemi-professional level you could be atbelow 18 if you weren't in one of thosePro slash semi-pro first team selectionsso I was playing there and having areally really good time really enjoyingmyself and I'd also signed to a modelingagencyat that point for a little bit of extramoney and there is between shoots wherehour between castingswell I'd actually been cast there wasthe occasional day of extra work and oneday I got a phone call saying do youwant to do a day of extra work and Ithought kind of thought well it beatsgoing to college so yeah did a day ofextra work up to do my college workthere anyway just quickly jump in onthat if anyone out there listeningthis says they've got no time to doanything extra I just not gonna believehim because I don't know how you'll fitin all this in sorry carry on me ofcourse and so I kind of did a few moredays of extra work and then it kind ofjust evolved into doing a few one-lineroles in different TV programs and thenI joined then after that I thought maybeI should learn what I'm doing soenjoying like a drama group that'sreally well-known in the northwest andjoined a drive during an acting agencyand was being put forward for somereally good roles and at that time I wasalso just about to hit sponsorship fromone of the kind of biggest martial artsfight companies that were around at thetime so it's doing really well asplaying well at football my grades aregoing well at college and then all of asudden I got back to got back to collegeand I was just having a few days offfrom everything that was doing just totry and recover recuperate and I wasdriving from my mom's to my Nan'swhich was not very far away less than amile away and I remember getting a phonecall down a one-way street and Ianswered the phone on speakerphone andchucked it on the front sea and it wasjust somebody in floods of tears and Ithought why are you calling me in footto tears and it was a phone call to saythat one of my oldest ever friends hadgot meningitis and died in the nighthe'd got it the day before and he hedied in the night and I am so I kind ofjust stopped the car and couldn't moveit mmm I had to put the phone down tocall my mom and ask her would she comewalk for the car and drive it around tomy Nan's mm-hmmand I think that kind of I think thatwas probably the start of maybe it was astress or something in my in my lifethat started maybe it was something thestraw that broke the camel's back fromwhen I was carrying too much from do ifI'm acting fighting playing footballdoing my college work oh I also had ajob at McDonald's which is just in yourspare a few hours yeah so it's kind oflike and now I was where I should haveprobably beenleave I was I was working at McDonald'sfor a little bit of extra money and I'myes I'll then I kind of a few weeksafter that I was grading for my blackbelt and missed it quite a few timesthough I'd have to go and do my blackbelt and then a fight had come up andI'd take that instead because thought Iwas probably more important as part waythrough my black garden I got this kindof it was just a sore throat and myblack back was actually down nearTelford somewhere and I live in inBolton which is I don't know two hoursaway or something like thatand I was and I got this sore throat andwelcome the next day no tonsillitis andI thought nothing of it going to collegeand have some salt water couple ofparacetamol see how it gets on all thetime I was kind of like trying to dealwith my my grief so I thought wellactually maybe just kind of felt badbecause I was in a bad headspaceand it was coming up to exam time andall the rest of it and I am so it neverreally went away so I went to the doctorwho's got some antibiotics it clearedaway for a couple of days came back andthat process kind of repeated about Ithink it was 14 15 times I got someslices in a rowbetween going to the doctors gettingpainkillers and I'm one of thoseoccasions I am my at my mum's house thefloors are on different levels it's areally old house and my mum's on thevery top floor my bedroom is on themiddle floor and I kind of there was apoint where I hadn't eaten anything forabout ten days I've lost 11 kilos inbody weight and I was just lay in my bedjust sweating and in agony and Icouldn't I went to take a tiny codeinetablet to kill some of the pain and Ithink it closed what little was left ofmy throat so I couldn't so I kind ofcrawled upstairs mom or dad's room andthat's kind of last thing I rememberso I got the hospital and they were theysaid that you were very lucky becauseyou were if you'd come any later thenthat kind of would have been the end ofyou on that's what it said to my mom Iwasn't particularly awake for of courseyeah and this was what when your17:18 yeah 17 on the brink of 18 soeventually that cleared up happenedagain and it was because of somethingcalled Quincy's which are kind ofabscesses which sit behind these tonsilsand they're filled with just bacteriawhich when they burst they give you theycan give you some really serious sepsisbut Maya just burst so I was lucky to bein the hospital as mine burst so I wasluckier than most that get that then ithappened again about six months latercut the rest of that story short becauseit's quite a long story of me being outis there a reason why that happened oris it just literally like a bacterialinfection or was it a matter of youbeing perhaps rundown or everythingbecause you were doing about 300 thingsa day I think maybe it was being sorundown and then being stressed becausewhat I forgot to mention was in thisother time there was a close friend ofmine it was a female friend of mine thathadn't died sushi she had a headachejust never with a headache and it turnsout that she had a brain tumor so oneside kind of recovered from the coupleof rounds of Quincy's and my differentbouts of tonsillitis I am I had 18months of what they call post-viralfatigue syndrome which is essentiallyjust anybody's and there's kind of likeI didn't have the energy to do anythingfor the first six months if I wanted toget from my bed to downstairsI would have to have somebody eitherside of me because my legs weren'treally strong enough to carry me fromanywhere to anywhere and if if I so Icould manage kind of a longer landing tothe toilet because I could crawl it'dtake me a while so it'd be like I'm thefirst woman black right set off nowbecause if you need a way then you wantto get caught shortso about I had about six to twelvemonths of not being able to kind of beleft on my own for too long just becauseI couldn't do anything for myself reallyI couldn't I couldn't struggle to liftmy shoulders from the bed it felt likesomebody had nailed big nails throughthe front of my shoulders andinto sorry if I went quiet because I waslooking at my shoulders just rememberingnice line into the bed then after that Ikind of thought oh well kind of on themend here now so I started to get alittle bit fitter and I thought rightI'll go back to football training so myteam were nice enough to have me backwent back to football training minusthree training sessions of me doing kindof 25% of what the rest of the team weredoing and then I got home at one pointand my left knee just ballooned I don'tknow if anybody's ever injured their ACLbut I've seen one but it's kind of likeyou need your swells up goes purple butand I thought or mine hasn't gone purpleso maybe it's something else but Icouldn't it was so strong I couldn't fitmy trousers on the next day so I thoughtoh well I'll ice it and blah blah blahrested it never went away went to thedoctors they gave me someanti-inflammatories it never went awaythey sent me to a consultant who did asome keyhole surgery never went away andthen so they sent me to RheumatologyDepartment to see what was going onthey sent give me lots of blood testsand nothing came back positive theydrained the fluid couldn't figure outwhat it was as soon as they drained thefluid it came back every single time andduring this process it lasted about ninemonths of me going back and forth allthis time I felt really lethargic andjust not like the old me that could doall those other things I could barelyfind the energy to juice go to collegeor to just go and well I got fired frommy McDonald's job for being too ill andso oh sorry you feel strange bringing itall back I can only imagine so yeah fromfrom there kind of then as they kind offigured out what was going onit sort of deteriorated and it spreadfrom my knee to my left hip and then Icouldn't really use my left leg verywell a lot of the time which theythought caused a problem in my right hipturns out it was just the same problemand then it moved up from my hiptwo joints in my back and then it spreadup through the majority of my back itspread into my fingers spread into mytoes and it got to a point where as Igot to a kind of I got through mya-levels got really good grades somehowsomebody was looking over me gone to aphysiotherapy course as that kind of allwas happening I was just getting worseand worse and kind of more and I don'tsay disabled because it's not a greatword but I was I wasn't able to do thethings that to do anything and kind ofalways felt like I had the flu my eyeswere always on fire and it messed withthe way that my urinary function workedand all kinds of other problems and thenit got to a point where I justcompletely intermittent that completelycould not move so in my second year ofuniversity at the end of it I am I justthose days where probably three days outof the week I was bed bound anyway thisis getting probably getting bored no noit's not to be honest I mean in theintro which everyone hears and one ofthe reasons for this podcast is tobasically and to combat people's excusesbecause I believe that we always lookand we always think the grass is greeneron the other side or we've got it worsethan other people and we always give usour some rationale or reason in what wecan't particularly do something and thewhole premise behind this podcast itselfis to hear people who have gone throughsuch adversity but are still getting onwith it and just because at the end ofthe day there's a guy interviewed theother day and he mentioned you've gottwo choices in life you either gobackwards or you go forwards and mm-hmfor me it's inspiring to hear you sayall this because even myself and I'mguilty of this myself is I'm known asthe guy with the really poor immunesystem because I always catch a coldI've got a tissue in my hand as werespeaking now it's the kind of person Iam I'm always known for the guy withKleenex and people laugh I should haveshares with them but I've I've alwayssuffered but at the same time I'vealmost become a victim of my own storyas well because I mean I'm here tellingpeople they shouldn't make excuses orthe stories we tell ourselves butdictate our lives and I'm sitting herefeeling sorry for myself because I getcold easily and I've just listened toyour story and I'm just thinking I'vegot it so easy and and I'm sure I'm surepeople listening to this up it I thinkin the same because when I first saw youas wellI always recognized someone who keeps ingood shape and looks after him andyou've got very good physique you lookwhile you look like you eat welltraining well and you've got all thisgoing on in the background and up untilthis conversation now where I'veactually asked you specifically if youwould have mind opening up just fortheir listeners you've never mentionedyou never mention any of these excusesso I think it's admirable to be honestmate and it's inspiring so I wouldn'tfor one second think it's boring I thinkthank you people should hear this andpeople should take inspiration from itbecause I'd be very shocked if someonelistening to this has had that muchtrauma and not to mention at the age of17 you've also lost two of your bestfriends I mean I I've dealt with griefand I'm sure many of my listeners andeven some of the people I've interviewedhave dealt with a lot of grief and lossof family but I was what 26 27 wouldn'twhen it happened to me I don't know if Ihad the emotion of stability at 17 if Ihad gone through what you'd gone throughto manage the same way so pleasecontinuehonestly it's inspiring me okay as longas I'm not boring anybody no I'll makebasically I managed to get throughUniversity with a few other challengeswhich I'll touch on later but he got toa point it kind of everything that wasgoing through reared its head kind oflast year so up through all the stillfrom kind of age 17 to age 24 yeah 24 Ikind of I was kind of plowing on yes butnothing ever felt right like I neverfelt like I had the energy to do what Iwas doing but I was doing it anyway butI never felt like I could my attentionspan dwindled massively and and it wasjust hard to kind of couldn't have makea plan because I didn't know whether Iwas gonna need my crook shoes or whetherI was gonna be bed bound or whether Iwas gonna be okay to go and walksomewhereand it wasn't all doom and gloom withinthis because at one point I was onreally really high dose of steroidsand I felt like Superman for about sothat explains your physique then 2021and I just managed to kind of keep itfrom there I suppose I got I got luckythere but throughout all of this I waskind of despite the fact that I couldn'tsoexplains what really said last year oreven this year as opposed to a certainextent it kind of I got to a point whereI was on my crutches for two or threedays a week I was stuck in bed for twoor three days a week then the othercouple of days a week I was kind of Iwas I wouldn't say okay but I was goodcompared to the other bits so sometimesI'd have a couple of days where I wasgood sometimes I'd have one daysometimes out of four days I've neverreally know so I couldn't really makeany particular plans and I got to apoint where it was creeping up my spineso much that driving to work as a I'dalways be on my crutches at work as aphysiotherapist which came with its ownset of challenges not one not only beingthe jokes of all maybe you need a physioor can I help you where there's kind oflike eight speed bumps between there onthe route that I take to the clinicwhere I work and see most of my patientsand those peoples are only you couldeasily do thirty miles an hour over themand not particularly feel it but my backwas so sore that by the end of thosespeed bumps there was a I'd have to turnleft a junction some traffic lights andI would have to pull the car over at thetraffic lights loved to get out of thecar just to try and catch my breathbecause I was so I was so winded andI've broke I've been kicked in the ribsand broken themsemia I've had all sorts of pain book Iwas in so much painevery day going over these people I justhad to pull the car over and just gaspedfor air just to try and just so I couldfinish my journey to work Wowall the time while this was happening Iwas trying different medications whichweren't helping with the pain but one ofthem is a it's quite a commonly useddrug in rheumatology it's calledmethotrexate and it's in thechemotherapy family and it the sideeffects that fairly similar you don'ttend to lose your hair but the sideeffects such as vomiting and so I wouldtake my medication on Monday and spendTuesday and Wednesday kind of over thetoilet bowl when I could get there andand I would have to excuse myself frommy patients or I'd actually just takedays away from clinic or I'd just breakinto random sweats while I was talkingto people and just almost saturatemyself in sweat as a as a side effect ofthe medication and I am I had some otherhealth problems that going on at thesame time so kind of 18 months ago theyfound I had an x-ray just to track theprogress of the disease through myjoints and they found a tumor in my hipso for the past few years with the pastfew years for the past few months beingunder investigation for some cancer inmy hip all of the medications that hadbeen taken it kind of slowed my kidneyfunction down to below 20% so thosetalks of me needing some specialistkidney treatment or potentially gettingto the point where I'd need a kidneytransplant if things didn't pick up andyeah so that's kind of my health story Ikind of lost for words to be honest ermI think more importantly just currentlyI wish you all the best with the cancerscare hopefully is just a scare I knowcancer has affected millions of peopleacross the world is is broken through myfamily as well so mm-hmm it's somethingthat I don't know I just have a bad badtaste in my mouth when I think of cancerso hope hope to God and I'm not areligious man but I pray you know yourecovery I think you've been I think youcould do with a little bit of luck mateto be honest because you've sort ofcollected everybody's illnesses and howyou still manage to keep smiling andstill keep going and you're not sittingthere making excuses and I'm actuallyamazed because lucksaid earlier this is the first timewe've spoken really in-depth about aboutyour life and stuff I mean looking fromthe outside it's a completely differentperspective I mean nobody would thinkthat you've been through half of thisand and I'm sure you could probablyspeak for another 20 minutes on some ofthe stuff that you're experiencing andI'm not trying to move past that becauseI think it's important but I think thelesson is here already that peopleshould really just feel grateful foreverything that we have and it's thelittle things in lifewe're often chasing some sort ofdestination in terms of it's going togive us happiness when we've goteverything that we technically need ifwe just look at it in the right way tobe happy now I've got a lot ofadmiration for you mate you're young aswell so you keep going and hopefullythings will just start turning backaround for you I believe that yourthoughts matter as well so I'm not quitesure how you are in terms of your yourmindset and stuff but I do believe andI've done a bit of research I know I'mnot an expert that how we speak toourselves can dictate our physiologymm-hmm I know for myself for example ifwe use the analogy that I used to bescared of dogs and if somebody mentioneda dog for example my physiology wouldchange I would almost mmm as if the dogwas there and I think here I thinkpeople are aware of sometimes theirthoughts it might not necessarily belike a spider or a snake but sometimeswe're giving ourselves these fearfulthoughts that are affecting ourphysiology so hopefully you're workingon your mindset I'm sure you are I knowyou're doing pretty much everything elseso hopefully you're developing on thatand if you wouldn't mind if I could justbecause I'm fascinated by how you keepgoing and I'm sure listeners areprobably thinking firstly how is thisguy doing all this in 24 hours and thensecondly with all these complicationsthat you've got but if you could justexplain a day in the life of your lifenow so say for instance from the momentyou wake up to the moment you go tosleep because I just think it'simportant because if there are peoplethat out there making excuses for whatthey can't do stuff or they're justfeeling a bit under the weather andmyself included in that I'm not perfectthank you just how of course yeah so Idon't have a set routine because I'venever been able to have a set routinebecause I don't know whether I couldactually make our bed to do my day ornot but I docertain things that that do regardlessof whatever condition I wake up in andthe first thing I do is I wake up andcontrary to what everybody tells you isI checked my phone and I checked myphone in fear that somebody has sent mesomething that would be something Icouldn't get over maybe I've lost allthat I wouldn't like to see maybe I'velost a family member or something and ifthat's not the case then I go straightinto believing that I'm the luckiest manI know which puts a smile on my faceAbsalon I'll put something I put somenice music on usually it's a song calledthe fire by John Legend and the roots itinspires me that song and or somethingby Stevie Wonder or something justsomething half-baked something that I'veheard and something that keeps me in agood place and then if I can move I'llget up and I'll have a dance to thissong well nobody's watching absolutelyright luck cheers me up a bit and then Ilove that attack my day home usually ifI haven't some kind of thing planned inthe morning I will be awake two and ahalf hours before it if possible justbecause if I'm if I wake up and I'mincredibly sore and stiff then sometimesI can feel a little bit better in two totwo to three hours time something likethat so I just give myself that gap forjust in case but that's kind of my onlydaily routine I suppose okay okay and interms of exercise and stuff I mean Ithink you've done enough exercise by theway to last a lifetimebut if we are talking about exercisebecause I believe and I always try andpromote with my clients as well thatexercise is fundamental because you canliterally take some of the the mainthings from that in terms of likeresilience and building calluses andstuff into anything so do you still areyou still able to exercise maybe two orthree times a week or do you kind ofknock that on the head and look look atmore on how you're feeling and thenassess the day as you go on if Iphysically can do something then I willdo itI believe that rule that I have so if itmeans that I have to crawl to a place todo some exercisewhere my bottom half doesn't work and mytop half does then I'll do what I canwith my top half Wow and that is my onlyrule so sometimes it's just my left sidewhich I can't stand on or can't use orthen my right side is perfectly lookingI'm looking after two sides and thatside will work or if it's my right sidethat doesn't work then maybe my leftside is useful so I try my new actuallyhave a mutual friend that put my stateis about fitness goals and my fitnessgoal for this year is to do whatever ittakes to be well enough to beconsistently able to go to the gym anddo what I wanttwice a week by February 21st so you canhome it to that I've already made you'veactually got me feeling guilty nowbecause I did some cardio in the morningand I was planning on doing a legsession around 12:00 and I had a littlebit of Dom's and I was like now I'm notgonna do it and I wish I'd recorded thisearly because may inspire me to get myass to the gym because I feel bad nowbut I just loved what you said then I'vejust made a note of it I'm lucky enoughto have two sides and I think that'sincredible because that's perspectiveand I suppose maybe you've kind of beenforced into this reality I think a lotof people go through adversity and itmakes them stronger and they do verywell on the flip side you get people whogo through adversity and they just sitthere and feel sorry for themselves ahole their whole life you also haveanother set of people I believe on amacro level who don't really necessarilyhave the adversity or haven'texperienced it yet and they're kind ofwaiting for it they're kind of waitingfor that wake up wake-up calland I just wish that they could get somesort of inspiration or motivation orwhatever you want to call it fromsomebody like yourself because like likeyou mentioned previously like with withthe death of your your friend and likelife could just be taken away tomorrowor your own capabilities I mean you werein an extremely talented athlete and allof a sudden now you're kind of verygrateful just to be able to go to thegym twice and I just find it thatsometimes we think I will leave it tilltomorrow we'll leave it to next year andthat's not promised it's it's a shameyou don't actually actually I'm nottrying to give you another job here butit's a shame you don't you don't youdon't post more oftenabout your life and story because I'lltell you what you didn't fire a lot morepeople because I get inspired by peoplelike say for instance the rock and Ithink the whole world loves the Rockieskind of like the ultimate guy andsometimes you feel like you can't bebothered to do something you'll see youstay ascent boom you're off but foryourself to get there mate you are youare actually my UK rock at the minute sothat's a new name for you so keep it upbut if you do get time I think the worldwould love to hear a little bit moreabout you and hopefully this episode aswell will give give them a little bitmore of an insight into into your storybecause it's fascinating so far mereally enjoyed it and I've also got aI've just made a note I need to listento the fire by John so that's someonenext list I'm gonna move it over and I'mgonna move it over to fears at theminute you seem kind of unbreakable tome but if I was to ask you what yourbiggest fear is given that you've beenthrough so much alreadywould that be I thought thought long andhard about this question and I mean I'mgonna give you a bit of round the housesanswer and so I'm kind of scared ofeverything there's not many things inlife that doesn't scare mekind of walking down the street scaresme to an extent but by that same virtuethere's nothing really that scares mebecause everything seems to scare me anequal amount so I'm not gonna be pirateif I'm not paralyzed by a paralyzingcondition I'm not gonna be paralyzed bymy fears especially if I'm scared ofeverything in everybody so there's notreally anything that scares meother than mediocrity I suppose I don'tparticularly believe that I was put hereto be mediocre and fall into the crowdand to be and just to not make adifference to anybody else's life so Ithink not filling that purpose that Ibelieve I've held and that's kind ofscares me I love that well in thisconversation may I feel like I just feelcloser to you as a person now I don'thaven't you opened up and I've got a lotmore respect not that I never had anymore respect anyway that kind of comeout the wrong way but generallylistening to your story andunderstanding what you said I've got somuch admiration for you and I was I sithere sometimes and I I do a lot of selftalking mm-hmm what I always do is I wassafer in somewhere can I always give myself his self talk like I'm the baddeston the planet for example it's kind oflike a David Goggins thing love it whoelse is working at 5 or 5 a.m. in themorning and now all of a sudden I knowwhat I'm gonna be doing in the morningI'm gonna be thinking Joshua's work youknow he's ill he's got about six jobs todo he's gonna go to Mackey's and weapply for a job because he's bored Ibetter get going so I'm May hats off toyou honestly I salute you thank you sonormally at this stage I kind of jump inand ask people about adversity and and Idon't even know where to start with youmate because I think you've had obstacleafter obstacle after obstacle that youyou seem to be facing but but I'm gonnaask you anyway because I'm sure there'sthat there's a lesson here for thelisteners here that they can take awayso if you could just tell me about atime that you faced great adversitysomething that you haven't maybementioned at the minute and how youpersevered through it and then if youcould just explain the lessons and whathe's taught you because I think someonelike yourself who's given given thatexample it's gonna mean a lot more thansomebody just reading a book or readinga quote yeah so and I'm gonna pick aperiod of a couple of months in my lifewhere everything kind of went a littlebit wrong I'm gonna choose the Christmasof the end of my second year atuniversity and so they'd reached a pointwhere as I've mentioned before I wasn'tparticularly fit enough to go and workas a I would have worked as a waiter orsomething because that's what I've donein my bits where I was fitting like myfirst year Union College and there was apoint where I wasn't fit enough to doany of that my student loan wasn'tparticularly covering my rent at allI had a bursary to train which didn'twhich covered me to eat and a few of mybills but I was kind of like 1999 poundsinto a 2,000 pound overdraft and it wasabout the Christmas and it was aboutChristmastime so I was kind of I askedmy during that time as well I should saythat my um my stepdad had left my mom soand just because they parted ways atwhich meant that I was kind of the onethat was there to kind of I was up till4:00 in the morning with my mom or withmy sisters who were just kind of alldevastated by it and at the same time Ideadlines to me etc and and all thattime I had bills that I couldn't pay soit was kind of a point where I had askedmy mom for Christmas could I have somemoney to buy my younger and my oldersisters and some Christmas presentsthere's otherwise they wouldn't have gotanything from me and I would never havethem miss out just because I'dmismanaged my money or whatever and soall the time whilst this was going on mymy nan on my mom's side had got aserious case of rapidly deterioratingoutsiders where we couldn't care for heranymoreand so we had to try and find her a homeand my nan was kind of the one whichwhich brought me off as I said at thestart when my mom was working so hardand was working really hard and and mystepdads dad got some got Parkinson'sand so we were trying to find ways tohelp him so I'm just trying to keepeverybody afloat because I was the onethat that kind of just brushes stuff offbecause I've ruined everything else offand Kevin Hart says he shoulder shrugstuff I just kind of brush it off Idon't really have much alders but I gotto a point where it kind of all got andit just all the time it was just I wasjust kind of I couldn't make head ortail of anything because I was I had somuch to transfigure out out andeverything hurt so much physically and Icouldn't I was trying to figure outbills and I was trying to do myassignments so I didn't failing it keptbehind I'd already been kept behind incollege and I definitely didn't wantthat feeling again so there was a pointwhere I kind of when I'd gone back homethere was aa good bridge him Bolton that's quitehigh and quite secluded I took myself toit and just kind of thinking about whatwhat the consequences would be here if Iwas just to kind of take a trip and lookat the bottom of it I don't know what Ikind of don't know what what stopped meI think it was just the fact that Icouldn'teverybody was suffering so much alreadythat I wasn't gonna make them sufferanymore anymoreyeah and that was I think that wasprobably like my well at least I thoughtthat was my rock bottom and then afterChristmas there was a whole host ofbills which I'd never which didn't evenaccount for just cuz my head wasspinning so I ended up about threethousand pounds into my two thousandpound overdraft and I couldn't didn'twant to ask anybody because everybodywas already suffering with their ownproblems at home so I just kind of Ithink that was probably my moment ofadversity now of anything else that Ikind of struggled with the most and Ithink I got through it I found a JimRohn video on YouTube and watch that andthat kind of made me feel a little bitbetter and then I read a couple of bookslike The Alchemist and thought actuallymy life doesn't have to kind of be thisway so for well the most immediateproblem that I can affect is my moneyproblem so I learned a couple of newskills that learn a little bit of onlinemarketing and look we found a way tosell those and made my broke even andthen my student loan came in so I had alittle bit of money and so I could buy acouple more presents for my better halfand I didn't have to worry so much thenabout the bills for my rent and stufflike that so that was kind of nice andfrom there I kind of thought wellthere's no real situation that saysthat's as bad as that and I've been kindof smiling ever since to be honest Ithink reflecting on everything that hasbeen with my friends my family etc itkind of that's why I think I'm theluckiest man I know cuzcome through it all and I still gotmajority of my family still got themajority of my friends and still got anamazing dog lovely girlfriend and I'vemanaged to get a really really nicecareer so yeah I love that I'm just veryglad firstly that you didn't make thewrong move that day at the bridgebecause I think the world and yourfamily and your friends and even myselfnow getting to know you more you wouldhave all missed out mate and I mean thatsincerely you also touched on a verygood thing there as well I think whenyou when you've been at rock bottom andI don't wish this on anyone who hasn'tbeen there but sometimes I feel that ifyou've been rock bottom and you come outof it then everything's a blessing likeyou said you're the luckiest man thatyou know in the world and I suppose Isee this from my mom I see from my nanwho have who have had similar adversityto yourself and I used to laugh becauseI used to relate them to an episode ofEastEnders I was like you've almost gotlike a soap opera kind of life like thatthe adversity that we've always gonethrough and just hearing obviouslyyourself oneit proves that everyone in the world isgoing through something we're all facingour own battles and stuff just to kindof take the gratitude element from itand move forward from it and having comeout of it so even if you moved one stepaway so you move one step away from thatbridge now everything is it's so muchbetter that quite if that kind of makessense I think I think you've got theright perspective now and I'd certainlyurge you because I'm sure you've got avery very good Network knowing theperson you are and the piss and anythingthat you've got that if ever you do feelthat things spiral out of control pleasedo always reach out I'm sure you've gotmany people close to you as well thatyou can rely on and one thing I realizedis when I used to struggleI used to enclose a lot of stuff andthat's even from like my missus at thetime or my mom or my brother and it wasonly when I started showingvulnerability and I think for a guyVaughn durability is strength and we wesaw often me we have this provider thatwe can't cry or we made her cry I cryall the time you know I'm not I'm notafraid to say that becauseby me expressing my emotions andspeaking about it it just helps me somuch in terms of face and face inwhatever I'm going through and basicallydealing with it so I'm proud of you mateand I can't believe a young you are toshow such intelligence you mentionedalso something else I just took a noteof which was about the managing moneyand how you didn't when your sisters tobe without you took a kind of abilityfor mismanaging your money and up untilprobably the age of 25 myself I I had nosense of responsibility so again likeyour emotional intelligence is fantasticso um was it awkward for you man I gotmy fingers crossed for you we're on theway up the buzzer has gone off and whatI'm gonna be doing now is putting youthrough the paces so we're gonna see howquickly you can think and how quick youcan answer as many questions as possiblelet's do it there is no right or wrongif you can't think just say pass andwe're gonna start the timer for 60seconds in three two oneokay the ability to fly or be invisiblefly money or fame money Netflix orYouTube YouTube Van Damme or Bruce LeeVan Damme Coke or Pepsi pass would yourather know how you would die or whenyou were die pass summer or winter thewinter your favourite place in the wholewide world grasmere in the latest ratespeak all languages will be able tospeak to animals animals if you couldabolish one thing in the world whatwould it beit's self doubt love that your favoritesong ever the fire read minds or predictthe future and put it in feature cats ordogs dog have you ever been in a fightthen you know this hundreds and did youalways win no favorite movie star AmberHeard pancakes or waffles pancakescomedy or horror comedy singing ordancing dancing okay and that's time butI'm curious I don't know why you passbut Coke or Pepsi mate I need to knowcuz I don't really care for eitheralright okayyou don't drink any of them I do I don'tcare okay okay well I kind of carry alittle bit just a personal thing I'm aPepsi fan anyway a Pepsiexpand so okay we're just pretend thatyou like Pepsi as our yeah okay perhapsthey love it okay brilliant so we'rekind of coming towards the end of thepodcaster so we've just got a couple ofmore questions that I really want tojust try and get from you so the nextone is about reflection that's awonderful thing and when we reflect wecan often think of ways to get to wherewe are quicker or do things earlier orperhaps move us towards that goal isthat little bit quicker but I guess thejourney also teaches us a lot as wellI'm a firm believer that everythinghappens for a reason so what I want toknow is if you could go back in time toone moment where you really struggledand suffered with adversity and youcould whisper something in your ear soif you use the example that youmentioned I standing at the bridge andknowing what you know now what would youwhisper to your 17 year old right inyourself however old you were at thattime I would whisper don't be afraidbecause pain and fear are your friendsif that's the way you see them okay Ilike that because it is how we seeeverything isn't ityeah pain is fuel for me now now Istopped my toll the other day and foundit really really funny because somethingthat pain is something that motivates meto be more now it's made me stronger soI'm gonna be strong then you are me youare it's that's kind of them I don'tknow if you follow David Goggins Imentioned him earlier a little bit hmmhe's somebody who I'd certainlyrecommend looking out for he's got acouple of interviews on impact theoryokay and that guy's is incrediblebecause he kind of uses the whole painand basically pushing your body to tohis limits he's just got a new book outactually I should be getting sponsor forthis by the way but he's got a new bookout called can't hit me and I listenedto it and honestly if I'm feeling lazyfor like an ounce of a second it makesme feel like shit so it kind of likelistening to you today I feel reallymotivated I feel inspired by yourstories the stuff that you've beenthrough it's made you the person thatyou are today and you're gonna help somany other people and it's by a book Ithink you've just got a brilliantperspective on it and that brings us toour last question so the last question Ialways like to ask my guess is if in 150this time and there was a book andsomebody come across it and it was aboutyou about Joshua well I wanna know is Ishare one or two things so I'm justadding a question in here first I wantto know what the title of that bookwould be and secondly I want to knowwhat the blurb would say okay well thetitle of my book would be can I swearyou can say whatever you are me thetitle of my book would be fuckingbecause one thing I've learned is thatyou never really know what is gonnahappen so fuck it whatever happensembrace it enjoy it whether it's painfulor pleasurable or whether whether iswhether it happens to you or somebodyelse enjoy it embrace it learn from itand use it to feel you to go further soyeah I'd say fuck it cuz that's kind ofwhat I say whenever anything happens Ilove it and the blue and the blurb wouldsay he enjoyed every day that he livedhis dog was his best friendno it would say that I enjoyed every daythat he lived and he was the mostgrateful man he knew and he never he hada lot of pain and suffering but he neverreally suffered yeah I'd say that's me Ilove that endearment I love it and to behonest you're probably one of the mostgrateful people I know as well so it'sbeen a privilege before I and I justwant people to connect with youhopefully that's okay with yourself yeahcool I think your story is just startinglike I said you're very younggot all the years ahead of you you'vegot you're gonna do amazing things and Igenuinely mean that whether it's inproperty or whatever it iswho knows you might be you might be inthe theaters might be the great showman- who knows but I think before we leaveif you could just let us know just justone place that people could reach out toyou maybe connect maybe have aconversation with you because I feellikethere's so much more in your story and Ithink you'll inspire so many people maybe going through adversity and they canlearn so much from me yeah my I'mactually in the stages of writing a bookbecause there's lots that I left out ofthis interview so there's lots that Ican share with people and I would loveit if as the same courtesy you extendedto me if I could extend to everybodythat's listening that if they are everstill freed and feel like they're atrock bottom and please contact me andI'm gonna give up my Instagram becauseI'm currently in the at the beginningstage of rebranding and this is the onething that which won't be rebranded it'sjust Josh underscore Asquith that's asqu i th all but the actual links andeverything in the show ops anyway justin case anyone didn't get that spellingas for the book mate if you've got atitle let me know if you haven't closedit to the time please let me knowbecause I'll make a pledge now I'll bethe first to purchase that I think it'dbe fun lastly thank you like I saidearlier there's nothing boring ormundane about your story it's it'sinspiring and you truly inspired me Ithink people like the rock and all thosepeople yeah it helps me when I go onInstagram in the morning but seeingsomebody who I know in real life and Ispent some time with and I've got a lotof time for just in the back of my mindnow I could see myself in the morningjust be like fuck it let's go to the gymself I love it mate I just want to thankyou one more time for taking time out ofyour dayno thank you please do reach out to Joshand as always thanks for listening andremember this podcast is absolutely freeso all we ask in return is for you toshare this with a friend and drop us afive star review over on iTunes have anawesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 2 - The Wake Up Call by Jin AtwalJins life screams adversity. The loss of his uncle, father and sister within such a short space of time caused his life to spiral out of control. The word death links closely to Jin's life as does the word alcohol abuse. A stigma perhaps in the punjabi, asian community Jin refused to let this be his story. he wanted more.Determined to succeed and not let his circumstances dictate his future he woke up and took control of his life and started writing his own story. Now in the process of writing his own book, “The Wake up call” Jin is now looking to inspire others and help them cope with the grief he has suffered.Alongside this he has a mission to help children and ensure they struggle with less hardship in their lives!If you think that’s not enough his also a successful property investor with many more talents.."When you lose somebody, it's always there. It never goes away." - Jin AtwalThanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/manjinder.atwalInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jin120280/#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoiceYouTube Transcript[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people yes that is correct myname is Aren and I am the host of theshow so I'm extremely excited todaybecause my guest is somebody who's notonly got an incredible story that isriddled with ups and downs and trialsand tribulations but he's also someone Iconsider a friend alongside that he'salso a loving father to two beautifulgirls he's a loving husband and he's avery successful property investor so Ithink it's more important we speak tohim rather than listening to myselfbecause some of the stuff he's gonna sayis really gonna blow your mind sowithout further ado let's get thisinterview on the way good morning Jin sohow are you doing today good thank youhow about yourselfnot too bad thank you just a little bitof a cold which hopefully doesn't affectthe podcast too much so I just want tostart firstly by saying thank you fortaking time out of your day to shareyour story I'm very confident it's goingto obviously inspire other peopleknowing who you are as a person so Ithink it's important for the listenersto basically get to know youso if you could just please explain howyou've progressed through life and endedup where you are currently okay sowithout sounding like the okie DonGoonies indeed though I'll give you abit of a summary so a bit about meso my first memories of a child isprobably my older sister he was aboutthree years older than me and she's tokind of always be up to mischief and Iwas well I was a little sidekick I'lltell you one of those stories so one ofthe times she dared me to throw a stickat a wasp's nest me crazily is to doeverything she told me to do seems likea good idea why notyeah so I did that what spirit stick Iwas nest and had a swarm of waspschasing me and the garden didn't endwell for me educate imagine but yeah Iyou know I just follow around everywhereand I was always you know really proudof her you know she's got a biginspiration to megrowing up and then caught us tosummarize the kind of years after that Icould prolly summarize the kind ofexperience a lot of grief at the dealwe've my dad he was an alcoholic seen alot of violence and experiences ofloneliness as a child so kind of goinginto the grief part the firstexperienced grief when I was around 10years old so my dad's younger brother myuncle I used to live with us for a whileand so I was very close to him and kindof be wiseass or even mourning a seconddad really and around Christmas Eve wason Christmas Eve he went out for a worksparty we have a few of his friends andthere's all over the local quite drunkand the drive was over the limit and onthe way home and started getting chasedby police officers and they tied thedriver decided to try to get away and heended up smashing the car into a brickwallmy uncle was at the back in the middleseats about a seatbelt on so probablythe worst place you could beand a head-on crash I need to basicallyjust went straight right straight to thefront and died on scene so he was allholy person in the car to dieand it was just clearly in the wrongplace in the car really sorry to truckhow old is you at this time yes I wasabout 10 years old at the time and yeahit's kind of a difficult time for me Ithink as as people or any heart we findit hard to deal with grief and I thinkthat's especially within the Indiancommunity so I think nobody ever spoketo me about it and it was kind of isthere happening in the background and Icould see the pain in my dad and myfamily and stuff like but nobody evercame andhow we felt as children and I saw and Ithink I ever dealt with it properlyuntil happy until like recently reallywhere I kind of started to think aboutit bit more so that was kind of thebeginning of you know make me experiencehim grief from what grief was like andthen from there I think my dad healready kind of had a Greek problem atthe time kind of just went off the railsso he just didn't had to handle it andwell his wife and he would just turninto drink and weave that he started tobecome quite violent and we experienceda lot of violence in the household on akind of daily weekly basis basically soour store are still quite young then andI felt it is my role to protect myfamilyso I used to try to get my sistersupstairs and out the way the venisonviolence is coming and then I'd comeback downstairs myself and then tried tostop my dad but you know which I coulddo being so young and that kind ofstarted affecting me in a you know quotenegative way it just made me feelworthless I felt like I wasn't a man Iwas like I wasn't to be able to myfamily and I was really hard on myselfso kind of that continued into myteenage years basically and as I gotolder I got bigger of still was tallreally afraid of my dad kind of embeddedinto me at that saw him you know if hejust raised his voice I would get reallynervous and scared and that make me feltfelt like even worse as a person andanother violence continued and you knowand I just felt like I couldn't doanything so for me I started aroundabout 15 years old I turned to boxingokay you need to boxing helped me inmany many ways it just taught me controlthat aggression that was inside of meand you know that anger so yeah going tohelp me in a lot of ways but alsostarted getting the reputation at schoolas the Hardeman and you know every timein school say Argentina Sortino sausageand I end up gaining points at school II thought I was always quite lonelyprimary school didn't have any manyfriends didn't have any you know just towalk around myself I didn't have a funnytime we have a single friend until about10 years old and then when I got asecondary school you know started makinga few friends but not many but then healways always for the wrong reasons Ikind of I got known as tough guy yougain two points or then I starteddrinking myself which I always I used tohate alcoholI've seen is what I call my dad problemsof course I lost my uncle for alcoholalcohol related but I think there's onetime I just I just I drinking with somefriends they started a lot more earlythan me and I just II I didn't reallyhaven't I couldn't really pick in thecrowd and they stole do their own thingand went out with one time's it come onnow every drink with Jean and I end updrinking with him I was talking mostoften and I kind of got that reputationand as you know he's a good laugh whenhe has a drink and he's he's you know hegets it he's a good good good ofpointing so if any trouble you're saltyand that's not the person I wanted to beinside well that's the person I becameand that continued really for many yearsand then from there I kind of I went towhen I finished school into Universityand I kept that persona you know Jeanwas the default crazy fun guy that youcould have a good laugh we've ended up afew drinks and he's you know they weretough not and you know inside I alwaysfelt that that's not me I'm just I'mjust no other person and that's theperson that people like they don't likeif I really thought he was myself peoplewouldn't like that I wouldn't be that Iwouldn't you know I wouldn't be that oneperson that everybody enjoys or becamesomebody else basically that's veryinteresting point I think you just madethere your dad and the violence in thehouse and I supposed you somehowindirectly almost became that kind ofperson ie the Hardman for example yeahbut I think it takes a mazing awarenesswhich you've just mentioned a couple ofseconds ago that you quickly realizethat okay although I'm getting plauditsand people are kind of now coming to meand the finding my company great forexample but this isn't the kind ofperson I want to be known as and I thinkthat takes a lot of awareness becausepeople will relate to this we sometimespigeonhole ourselves into situations orgroups just because we fit in by being aparticular person but what I always wantto try and do is tell people don't tryand fit into a crowd by being somebodyyou're notI just wanted to point that out just forthe listeners because I think it'simportant that you were able torecognize that hold on a minute thisisn't Janette well this is an episode orshould we call it a chapter of your lifebut this isn't the person that you areit's certainly not the person that Iknow today yeah I think yeah if I didrealize but I didn't I didn't I didn'ttake action to change I was very quicklyto be honest I took me a long long timeso now after finishing University I'llstop and I was not that reputation I wasstill that kind of person and then Istarted my job and you know I did I'dcome a first job working for a bigenergy company in there I was stolen ahappy you know started off doing a job Ididn't really want to do just to get myfoot in the door a degree in BusinessStudies what I did didn't really seem tohelp me and get there was the kind ofincome that I wanted so I started offstapling bills for a big energy companyyou know I haven't been to universityand don't open house you know I wasthere stifling bills you know five daysa week and I kind of annoyed me and Igot my head down and I know rightjin-hee you can't do this you need toyou need to you know work your way up inthe companies so I got my head down andI moved from that position all the wayup until senior position within thecompany in ten years looking at thebusiness strategy so my rock my rolltowards the end of my career empower waslooking at the business strategy and howwe can use smart metering it's moredated to launch new product into themarket so it's a good it's a good job ornot you know I worked my way up fromstepping bills to that it was a massiveachievement but even through then Iwasn't happy I was like you know I'mstill not me I don't know who I am Idon't know he was you know I know I'mnot the vision of what I want to bemyself I don't know who the vision Iwant to be of myself it should be what Ishould look like I always had a dream ofgetting into property on it so because Idid is I do remember Matthew told meyounger we didn't really make much moneyon it because we didn't really know whatwe were doing it we don't got all thespaceproperties we need you know we turn theminto amazing homes but didn't reallythink about in terms of the cash flowand and how much would make from theproperty so yeah he's always in the backof mind because like not having a hardto feel home as a young as a child youknow I never felt like my home was homealways had this vision that I would oneday create amazing homes for people tolive in so he's always my vision andalways something I said to my wife and Iwhen I got married and said does it onagain to property or Nicholas say allthe time she probably got better put mehere here with me saying it to be honestand then the other thing going to sayI'm one day I'm going to go to a thirdworld country and I'm gonna build a welland I'm gonna build a school forchildren I'm gonna do so I'm gonna dothatdreams and I was doing nothing thatwould ever get me there my dream wedidn't have a fighting chance everrecording reality because I wasn't doinganything to get there so just I'm justtalking about them and then I kept it soby doing that as time goes by and youstart talking about these dreams andthey're not happening you lose the dreamstart fading and you start losing faithand you you just falling into a routineof work and doing things that you don'twant to do and life's passing you by andyou know you kind of start losing a lotof life and you dreams fade you startfading as a person so I kind of alwayssaid one day when I get married underI'll start doing all this I'll get mydad wouldn't it from a company one dayand I'll start using that money to doall this stuff and you know any focus onsomething I'd say thank you folks it'llbe a comedy well is yeah I think that istrue because I focused on becomingredundant I boxed in the wrong thingsmy folks I made redundant and I got maderedundant which is an unusual thing foranyone to kind of focus on his foes yeahand he's focused on that because of alump sum of money I put that lump sum ofmoney out then I couldn't start doingwhat I wanted to do okayI don't like us but like I speaking toone of my friends when I was a I hadn'tseen him for about twenty years and andhe said are we so you brought BMW in theend I said yeah and he goes I go why whydo you say thatI used to always say I'm gonna BMW and Ikind of laughed three months ago I wishI said I was gonna buy a Lamborghiniyeah so I think being made redundantkind of was just the start of my newlife really kind of all kind of mr. partbe up more logically just as a FinnishUniversityI just finished and I got news that mydad had fallen over and bumped his headaround by the same time as my sisterjust got married she got off on ahoneymoon on a honeymoon and then andthen we got a call sign for the hospitalsaying he'd you know he died in hospitalhe formed his head and we when I've beenin hospital and when I saw him there Iwas not really angry I am and I saw himyou know probably wanted to give him ahawker today you know because he justyou know he didn't look he had a big alot of bruising on his face I know thatbut those are part of me is like whatare you doing to yourself or what youknow take control of your locals andnothing and that came out I just said tohim like you know I'm ashamed of you youknow you need to you need to sortyourself out and then I just turned upturned away and walked at the hospitaland that turned out to be the last wordsI ever said to my dad we got a call thatnoise saying that a fellow in hospitalagain and it is in a coma basically Heyand this basically just miss missed meup totally for years you know not notjust short-term he just played on mymind and I started drinking a lot moreand every time I drank a stick like cryofriends and say hey look you know thisis more last words I said to my dad thiswas said in the law you know it's notyour fault you know I just I justwouldn't go awayand it wouldn't go away I like I saidwaiting to come into my work wentthrough a company and just another doingall this dope never it always be in theback of our mind and then being maderedundant I kind of that looks like thatwas start to my new life and I got maderedundant in January 2017 so I'm nottalking long ago but at that point Ikind of wouldkind of introduced to the property worldwell you know property cause but wasn'tthe property broader so I got introducedbut when you got into property coursesyou started you got you you're basicallygoing to room full of people that's theyhaven't lost faith you know this dogdreaming and still turn out action thatdreamI mean you surround yourself with thosepeople you start believing again y'allstart believing again and that changedme totally I said I believe in my dreamsagain but it wasn't just that they staytold me to read books right and okaywhat books is it oh god we should readRich Dad Poor Dad start yourself off soI did that okay this is good I enjoyedreading that book I'm from then I justthought I'd read and self developmentbooks all the timeand I've never done anything like thatin my life and this won't help youunderstand me he was why I felt why Idid you know I thought I began torealize there's a book out there forevery single thing in your life so tohelp you and things and so I was likereading and reading a lot of books andthey've had a massive impact me it's gota strange thing every time I pick up abook and read itI somehow apply that into my life and itmakes a massive difference so and howthe first book was like Rich Dad PoorDad showed me the property but then Iread stuff like the five-second rulewe talked No yeah I said a massiveimpact on my book and what I'm alive forearly the slight edge was an excellenttaught me about you know I taught methat I've keep saying that I'm gonnahave this much I'm gonna go and build awell I'm gonna go and do something thatbecause it's not like that that thingsnot happen like that you you know startoff by doing a little bit at each timeand building yourself up there I thinkwhat you just said there is a very goodpoint I think this is where a lot ofpeople they probably get the wrongmessage because a lot of people read thesecret or they hear about the secret andthe thing just wishful thinking alone Iwish I could win the lottery for exampleI wish I get a Lamborghini for exampleand just by solely wishing that theirdreams come true but I think youobviously explaining now you've realizedthat that it takes a little bit morethan that it takes that whole mindsetthe whole self-love the self-worth andstuff which you spoke about earlier inrelation to tell you you know and Ithink more important that is action andI know youand I think we met around the same timeyou were redundant and yeah you openlyadmit those times you were taking actionI think a very honest and that but now II see you and I think people that seeyou on Facebook who are following yourjourney I seen you I think you'veadopted is it a miracle morning which ithink is probably propellant to yourstory but there's action being takenthere now now it's not just like fluffyaction like I'd certainly urge people tojust head over to your Facebook there'slike it's almost like a daily thing thatyou're doing and you're beingaccountableI know no he knew it's more for yourselfbut at the same time people are seeingthat and people are thinking hold on aminute this guy's out there now he'sactually taken action he's world startedto changemaybe I should implement it and I knowthere's a couple of other friends whoI've spoken to her actually adopting thesame thing so fair play to you for thatme yeah I think it's a to me readingbooks is been a massive thing to mechange came alive meeting people thathaven't lost in lost faith in theirdreams is one big thing and anotherthing we just read him books and readingyou know if you haven't got a problemfind a book for it I know that's that'swhat I've found like I said I said themiracle morning that's something Istarted as well which has a lot ofmassive impact on me that's basicallyjust having the morning routine spendingtime on yourself so with me he's alwaysabout doing stuff for the people nowmaking other people happy with you knowtrying to do everybody kind of controlanybody's life and making sure everybodygets on everybody's happyand I looked when I struggled to do thatI used to feel hard on myselfbut then I realized that you can'tcontrol anybody else in life you have toyou don't think you really have controlof yourself yeah and if you don't spendtime when you saw then and trying togive yourself to everybody's pretty selfyou'll never helped anybody starthelping you start become a strongerperson and then once you're in thatposition then you could have thoughthelping other people and I think that'swhat I realized from the miracle moreand I started spending time myselfreally you know I'd go out for a runcome back for my run do affirmationsmeditation you know things I found hardto forgive me ways a bit fluffy but nowI love it and I were just doingnaturally in our meditation I like Idon't sit there and sit in silence boyminutes I can do that I found it hardhaving my own timeI never done it but now it's something Ihave to do it's like a it's like amedication for me in a way if I don'ttake my medication daily I'll be startbecame depressed again and I think ifyou wouldn't mind just elaborating onthat actually because I'm a big believerthat we are a result of not only ourthoughts and what we tell ourselves butour daily habits and I've seen yourworld transform which is fantastic tosee as a friend so much since you'veadopted these habits so if if for thelisteners if you could just kind ofexplain your daily routine so I knowyou're very earlyyou acted up earlier than me one of thevery few so kudos to that but if youcould just explain from the moment youwake up just very quickly kind of likehour by hour or what you kind of do andmaybe people who have got a similarsituation to yourselves can kind of gettheir medication fix and get their dailyroutine similar to yourself okay so forme waking up at 5:00 a.m.most days I don't always do that hard onmyself as I always wind up again no I'min a late annoyed or make sure it's dogit must leave but make up a bit laterbut most most days are like 5 a.m. andseen as a wake up brush want to get downstairs I have a glass of water and thenI'll just cause it'll get at the houseas fast as I can get out do a 5k runduring that run sometimes listen to anaudio book or sometimes it just besilencing my own thoughts and I'll justthink about things and and then thinkabout life think about ideas and then bythe time I get back I'm quite fresh nowthe cold air outside quickly at themoment hits your face and it just wakesyou up and then what time I get homethen I go straight into meditation I maysay for five minutesI'm from there I'll go new look at mygoals which I've got on the wall fueland then do some affirmationsI'll talk to myself about what mypurpose in life is and and what I wantto achieve that's bigger than me andthen I'll write down three things thatI'm grateful forand then you haven't done an audio bookwell of Brian Oldham audiobook at theend and then by then I'll do othersocial media updates which I've startedto do not just do you knowpatelliday of America morning that'spart of it trying to inspire people tothe point for me it's a massiveaccountability tool so by me having topost every single day that I've justdone my miracle morning gets me up andit gets me doing itI know another gonna finish it off byposting my miracle morning tellingpeople Barry it's 20 inspire peopleif I've got a four to the day while Iwas running that came to mind or shareat that points and that starts me oftenand not that way then it's right youknow it's around about seven o'clock andmy day's going to start there and we'rebut kids wake up several kids to schoolget back home around about nine o'clockand then when I'm a real apartment thatday is in the impetus my propertyinvestment business that's when I startdoing that so you know like to beputting offers in going see propertiesgoing to see reefers been doing you knowbut by then I'm ready to gowhereas before or probably wake up atnine seven o'clock right with the kidsTeddy come to school running aroundstraightaway not no time to think gethome nine o'clock have breakfast go tothe gym at 10 o'clock 10:30 11 o'clockand start doing some work because thekids because the kids are free o'clockabout about two hours to do ready workon my property business how am I goingto do anything and make my propertybusiness work I'm just spending twohours doing more doing that you know andthat's what I realized you know by doingeverything all that stuff in the morningget you going and in it when you getgoing you're going you know you knowit's been you know a day just even likedoing stuff that you're really focusingon during the day absolutely I think Ithink it's key also as well especiallylike with social media and emails andstuff that that key part of the day thatyou've taken out for yourself which aswe talked about earlier it's reallyimportant to look after yourself inorder to be able to look after otherpeople it's it's done in a time wherenobody's really going to be emailing younobody is able to take away your energyor control it so I I do a similar thingI'm not shy away from the runs a littlebit more than yourself but I get myselflet's call it medication I do the stufffor myself first so I've kind of hitthese small wins so when the day doescome and your throne with curveballs asyou probably know as a property investoryou're kind of more resilient towards itplus if the day goes tits up shall wecall it you've still got so many thingsdon't let you've stood on your ownyou've been the affirmation you'veinspired people online you spent time inyour daughter's you've took them toschool so you've still got a fair fewwins if that makes sense so I think yeahit's fantastic yeah and it changed mylife and like I say I have to do it nowbecause I know I've spoke to you beforeabout this and and I look like myproperty journey in January 2017 and inthis mindset stuff but then you kind ofcame my whole life I became a differentperson everybody around me so I knowgenius you've changed you know it wouldseem like really confident you knowpeople and people started coming to meand saying now people that I used tolook up to you so I coming to me andsaying you know tell us about this bookyou reading tell us about this you knowhow how have you become this differentperson and I was telling him like youknow I was inspiring people and Ithought wow this is amazing and thefirst time ever I could really say thatI lost anger lost the you know the way Ifelt about the past and I let it all goCourtley and I forgave my dad andappropriate up and I forgave myself andmore importantly and I started moving onand I thought wow this is amazingand then November time my sister got itall and you know to begin me we know wedidn't think he was that bad you know Isaid he's off right we were told offReuters because people you know have butthen it kind of then it we got told he'scoming called mixed tissue disease I andthen she went in for a routine checkupor mid-novemberand he just kept just kept betweenhospital I meant being on a propertycourse that weekend and getting back upone of the day and my brother-in-lawcalling McKnight a nap he knows he'sjust not well and she's gonna keep herring and you know she's annoying I seeyou know and it just like crazyI thought what what what they just saidit was you know mix tissue disease andit goes a bit more serious and I thinkit might be you know a raven where arare case of this so we're kind of youknow I went there straight away I knowstage of a hospital for two and a halfweeks and you know that's another thingwith property and stuff that you knowallows you to do that if possibly my jobI wouldn't be now just gone and do thatthat's what I see being could made nomake me realize a limp or two thateverybody's having some kind of partybeing salutely wait but kind of goingback to this door you know but whathappened he's like it just it just itjust like my whole life has changedand you know we've been I mean Iremember this what we've seen theconsultants one of the points and hegoes that we've never seen a case ofthis in the UK it's only been a handfulof cases in the worldright you know we've got nothing torefer to and you know he says you knowit's it kind of didn't look good at allbut if you know if you heard whatthey're saying you think that's it butwe never left we never lost five youknow we have to believe in no she'sgonna make it when my sister was talkingyou know she's the best person I everknew and I feel quite decent George willget furious and you know at thebeginning she was you know obvious thefirst few days you know she's on abreathing machine and that was told itwas like she's doing American everysingle day right that's how the pressureit was on her lungs and she's justfighting it and it's unbelievable saysshe I don't have to put her in aninduced coma you can't keep doing thisand then to Cuzco more you guys laterand you know she never I won't quotefrom that and it's just like it's just acrazy time you know obstinate you knowwhat points that we fought she's gonnabe okay and at those points you knowyou'd lost the news it or favor gettinglike along this collapsed and stuff likeher and you know I was I was able to bethere from the right from the beginningyou know I stayed there every single dayI slept there a hospital talk to herread books to her you know I read a bookThe Alchemist the first time while I wasthere and they talked about no purposein life and stuff and then kind of mademe think and I said to her then does itlook you know I said as a child thatwhat I know that my purpose in life isto make sure that every child has thesame opportunity in life that everycharge of her and that's what I'm gonnado and I'm going to complete thattogether and you know of course she'sgonna make it's gonna change your lifeand we're all gonna you knowleave our life's to max because kind ofjust before she went on reading thefive-second rule and I said like I saida book always comes to me at the whitepoints and you said in there she talkedabout a story of a better dad had a headhead tumor and she didn't want to askhim directlyhow are you afraid because she didn'task him that question but you could putthat you poor white 5 4 3 2 1 just askhim I might see your sister - it was twoor three days before she went intohospitalsat there just sitting in a chair and Isaid you know for about you know whatI'm gonna say I'm gonna say 4 3 2 1are you afraid and she goes she goes nonot reallyshe goes you know I know this is gonnachange my life but I think I'm gonnadeal with me she goes you know I've beenworking too hard and and I already knowthat I'm gonna from this it's made meI've had to sit down it's made me stopand it made me think about things in alot more detail and you guys gonnachange my life now and it spent a lotmore time with my family and they're thefolks and the things that really matterin life and I thought yeah maybe this isa blessing these guys it's like awake-up call for him he's gonna changeyour life completely and you know kindof she never had that opportunity to dothat and that was the hardest thing forme that she she knew what she wanted todo now you'd change in life and shenever got to do that I think that's oneof the key things have changed me sayingthat you know you don't know what'sgonna happen in life you know how peoplealways wait wait for this wake-up callas such you know he's gone propertycauses in and let the first put theperson at the front you say to you tellabout a story of their life and used tobe about hardship and somebody barbercam came and how he changed your life anice to think oh they look in a way thatthis they've had something happen intheir life that give him a wake-up calland they've got some new power thattransformed him as a person and madeeverything happen for them but itdoesn't happen like that you know I lostmy sister I mean it didn't automaticallytransform me into this person that's hada wake-up call he knock mesix two six four six to be basedbasically I I tried to deal with it youknowby keeping busy first and I just freemyself into my property in the gettingfinished anything else and I didn't getmuch time to himself grieve to grieveand and you know to get over it and thenit wasn't until about April so I didn'teven 18 the wife said look we need toget away and putting a bit of timetogether as a family abroad okay let'sgoand so we get to Egypt and I had a fewdrinks and I kind of got back to theroom and I just got his crushed totallyand all this anger just flew out and Iwas like God and I just shouting inevery way we've done this to us whileplaying games of us you know tragic hardlife just as a point where my sister'shappy we're all happy mom's you knowI've settle down we've what we've allgot you know we were married about kidsmoms relax for the first time in her armlife in an alive why are you playinggames with us and why you doing this andalways anger came at it all all totallytowards God and you know I came back andI just crashed I uh I thought green keyI was watching the World Cup under thefirst time you know our drinking onmyself and I've never done night my lifeand I just totally burned all that stuffyou know from just before having thisbook and changing our minds in openhouse all went out the window back to aworse place and I've never been horribleI froze in the dark hole and angryfriends I was angry angry everybodycovenant just angry personhey you know I was angry friends for notalways asking me how I felt about mysisterI was angry about you know people nottotally understanding how I feel and youjust I just started going out of controland expecting some everybody's to helpme and get me out of this hole and itdoes enable you to do something for meand when they weren't able to hang withthem and then and then it came to apoint when I said look Jin you need tocontrol of your life what did you do atthe beginning this year to change you asyou person as a person you need to goback to the basics and start doing thatyou know I can't you can't lady sisterdown that's what I basically didand they're kind of it back to thebasics Nora okay first of all I need tofind a book I find a book that helps youdeal with grief and it's specific to meso I went out looked on found and Imanaged to find a book about how to dealwith the loss of a sibling as an adultis that the exact title because I'm justconscious if anyone's gone through asimilar situation to yourself yeah Imean that's cool because there's manybooks that talk about losing as a childlosing somebody but it's not many booksas losing your sibling as an adult andthen the book that is the title of thebook and I read through that helped meunderstand why I thought were a way Idid how the relationship between my andmy sister is totally different toanybody and how friends and everythingelse wouldn't understand and that's whyyou know your sibling is the only personthat knows you better than most peoplecould I seen you as a child growing upand every stage of your life and that isan amazing relationship that no not manypeople others death understand I call myfriends brothers and I say all the timeand when I say my friends and mybrothers I really mean it and you knowthat was part of my sister's wedding myclose friends that part of my you knowpart of everything I bring them aroundmy house that I'm making part of myfamily and I do everything with them butwhen they didn't feel the loss of mysister the way I felt II always angry atthem was it well she's your sister tooI get they're not how come they're notmorning with like I'm mourning and thenit wasn't until I read this that port nothey're like are having my sister wasdifferent was different yeah and thenshe's special and you know obviously I'mgonna feel that because they didn't theyweren't they didn't grow the way I didwas they did everything that me or mysister went through together and I thinkthat kind of optimize really does a starand then then I started thinking aboutmore about God and my relationship withGod a lot more and then another thing alight bulb came and he said and it waslike okay all my life I've said God didthis god help me with thatI did this God you've got about a hardlife so you owe me you owe me cuz I hada hard life you need to make this happenfor me this happen committees happenedway and and because I've done that I'vealways gave control to God an externalforce and then somebody clicked in mymind that Jin you need to take controlyourself in your own room life and thenI seen a world Smith video and WillSmith said there's a difference betweenFault and responsibilities yeah and itjust clicked in my head again and Ithought okay you know I'm blamingeverybody blame murder blaming everybodyelse their areas yeah okay it wasn't myfault that haven't happened to me it'snot my fault I lost my sister I thoughtthat a lot of what I said to my dad youknow happened but he's moreresponsibility start control takingcontrol of my life that is moreespecially those with my you know that'ssomething I need to do and that's what Istarted doing by taking control of mylife started running again so I did mymiracle morning again I started writingthe book onlineanother thing I've always fought is Ithought I'd seen social medias adifferent tool Sydney totallydifferently I thought okay these areamazingaccountability tool and if I post mystory online every single day it'll makeme do it and I'm just I'm writing mystory so I'll do my miracle morningsenior Timmy oh good morning spend halfan hour to an hour just writing one ortwo pages of my story and I continuedoing that and then you know pleasedon't always want to do I had all thesedreams I think I wanna do I'm gonnastart doing them now I know I could'vequit talking about him I'm gonna stopdoing them so before I know I've writtenmy book your forty thousand wordsyou know next year I'm gonna publish itand 2019 I'm gonna sit down again putinto chapters you know and the bookgonna be called the beikokubecause I bet that's where he's been forme you know there's been lots of wake-upcalls in my life and you know it's it'sgonna be of a twist to it because youknow people always wake white withMichael Corbitt run tell you that youdon't need the wake-up call to changeyour life and the white book or does notnet mean that you just change life mydad had lost his brother that could havebeen his wake-up call but my dad was hea victim you know journeys on lifeupside down even more so you know thatdon't worry learn that Michael Cordes Iknow I think this was one of the mainreasons I kind of want to join the showas well is because okay you've hadplenty of wake up cause I'm sure peoplewill understand you've not had theeasiest of lives but I always myself aswell I almost trying to tell people donot wait for something bad to happenI tend to find that if there's a badevent or something happens in say forinstance a family for example then allof a sudden everyone's live in a life ofgratitude for the next week and you knowthey're really grateful for the littlethings in life but then very veryquickly we kind of just get consumedback into like normal reality I supposeor like the rat race or whatever youwant to call it and we just forget youknow and then in priority start changingwhereas I'm very conscious becausesimilar to yourself I mean I can't saymy life the same as you all we'll haveour own trials and tribulations but I'vealways just tried to live with gratitudeeven in the good and bad times and Isuppose it's come from reading and stuffbut your book sounds fantastic I know Iknow you would do something I didn'tknow you had written 40,000 whereas andI'm sure it's gonna be a big hit matebecause you're not just you're not justdoing a course or reading something andI'm writing a book about it like a lotof people out there do today you'velived it and one of the things which Ithink people will resonate with this yesyou understand the whole aspect ofcontrol in your life and takingresponsibility and accountabilitybecause only you can do that but you'realso showing your vulnerabilities inthat you had it under control then youwent away I think it was in April 2018and you lost it againthen you grasped it again and it'salmost like you know the answers butthen even even yourself with all themindset and the reading and all thehabits you still fall off a little bitand I suppose it'll get easierand I suppose sooner or later you willnail it down and you have less of thesekind of falling off the wagon shall wecall it moments but it's inspiring it'sit's something I'm sure a lot of peoplego through and a lot of people have thatkind of is it the victim mentality asopposed to the victim as you you've gotin somewhere in you I can feel this youdon't wanna let your sister down and I'mconfident you're not letting her downknowing the person that you are seeingyour transformation I just want to addone more thing I remember seeing yourfirst Facebook live videos and we werefriends at the time and nice to watch itI used to think this isn't the gin oh nolike did you know I know you know whenwe sit together and we go out you're funyou're laughing you're smiling and therewas almost like an element of hurt andanger or it could just be that was fiveo'clock in the morning I'm not sure butit was weird because I was like peopleneed to see the real gin and it's onlyrecently and I'm very proud of you forthis because in the last two or threemonths especiallyyou've kind of come out your shell andyou're almostgetting a bit of a following now whichis more than well deserved becauseyou've been through it and one of thethings I knew you always wanted to do1224 months ago was to help people andjust generally inspire people and Ithink you have in those in thebackground I'd always keep him there abit like my first YouTube video as Ikeep him there because I want people toknow listen myself and Jin for examplewe were naturally shy introverted peoplewho didn't know what was going on almostlooking around the world thinking do webelong here should we be telling peoplea story and this is one of the reasons Ireally wanted you to kind of tell yourstory because it's only gonna expandyou're only gonna inspire more peoplewith it so the question was gonna askwas about adversity first he's been amassive part of your life with like yoursister and your uncle and your dad soI'm gonna just kind of bypass that justever so slightly but if you could justquickly just give it like one tip so Iknow you use the book as an examplewhich really helped you overcome thegrief aspect but if there's somebodygoing through something now or ifsomebody out there has a friend orfamily member who's going through whatwould you recommend to them because Iknow I spoke to you briefly about thiswould you want people to come and speakto you about your sister or your fatheror would you prefer it was just kind ofswept under the carpet like the elephantin the room yeah that's a good pointreally because a lot of people likepeople that even speak to me it's allabout ityou know the never said a word and forme that that that that was worse Ibecause you know it's always there nowpeople might be daunted peak to about iton a racy or I don't have heard thatperson by bringing a memory back up butyou have to remember when you losesomebody you never always always thereit never goes away saying you're notgonna bring that memory back up you'renot gonna hurt me in any way you knowit's there he's not hasn't gone away sojoin me and asking me how I feel youshowing me that you you know it's notgoing away and you you're interested inhow I'm feeling and I'm thinking okaythank you for that I think that's usefulbecause myself as well I'm guilty ofthis myself is that you kind of feelshould I bring it back up again but Ithink you've hit the nail on the headthere this is a part of you now likeyour sisters loss is always going to bea part of something like you just saidyou it's a daily thing isn't it soI'd tell you eight people who areperhaps going through the same kind ofemotions or seeing someone they'restruggling with to kind of try maybetake that advice on board I'm not sayingit was the same but it would certainlyhelp most people okay if I test it thankyou for that Jude I just want to justmove this over a little bit what is yourbiggest fear I know you're a father andI've seen your daughter's they'readorable and you might say somethingabout them I'm gonna cheat here andyou're not allowed to mention your wifeor your two daughters so what is yourbiggest fear I think I'm always beenscared of heightsokay I'll get really nervous if I'mgoing to a certain height oh I said mywife and I we get too happy about it Isaid I'm really scared of heights I'mgonna gon do a parachute drop next yearand I go if I do that and that's one ofthe biggest gay things I'm scared ofthen I won't get on be scared on mychest so let's not run persuaderbut going a bit deeper you know thatthat's one thing I think a lot of peopleare scared of heights and what's otherthings yeah but going a bit deeper pinkfor me I don't want to wake up you knowone day when I'm you know 60 70 yearsold and say I wish I didI wish I did this or wish I did that weshould do this oh that's that'd be theworst thing for meI thought our druthers I'd rather wakeup at that point I you know I did thisbut he didn't work or it did work butyou know at least Detroit yeah I'drather be in that position and you knowI want to be I want to be an integrationtomorrow you know I said don't mentionyour wife and children is much worse youknow I wanna inspire them is what muchas anybody else and I won't be much ofan inspiration if I'm sitting there 6070 years old saying I wish I did thisalways I did the poor didn't envelope Ohfantastic great points okay so thereyou've heard it that is the buzzer thisis the fun part of the show so if you'restill with us thank youwhat I've got is a whole heap ofquestions that I'm gonna run through forthe next 60 seconds and it's up to Jinto try and answer as many as possible soJen are you ready ready three two oneokay the ability to fly or be invisibleinvisible when are your fame fameNetflix are YouTube they play coiling ortexting take it in Coke or Pepsi Pepsiwould you rather know how you would dieor when you were dying how Christmas orbirthdays their plays your coffee takesummer or winter summer your favoriteplace in the whole wide world Hong Kongspeak all languages or be able to speakto animals whole languages if you couldabolish one thing in the world whatwould it bepoverty Facebook and LinkedIn Facebookwould you be able to read minds orpredict the future predict the futurehave you ever been in a fightoh we are actually coming towards theend of the show now there's so much morethat I could speak to gin about andhopefully I can get him back on thepodcast just to kind of maybe delve alittle bit more into the whole theadversity side because if you could takeanything away from this podcast is thatwhatever your current situation iswhether it's worse or whether it's thesame or slightly better than Jin'scurrent circumstances is that there islight at the end of the tunnel and Ithink gin shows that 1/3 isaccountability in moving forward in hisactions but two he's now becoming a verysuccessful property investor he's nowattracting a lot of investors so we'redefinitely gonna move it over to thefinal question so the final question Ihave today is if there was a book and Iknow actually you're gonna be creatingyour book next year but let's just saythere was a book written by somebodylet's call it your guardian angelsomebody looking over your shouldershe's seen everything you've been throughin life and they've written a book aboutyou unless say in 150 years time sciencefails to save us or and people are stillreading books what would the blurb ofthe booktell us about Jeannette well so I hopeit would take him in like this I wouldsay that Dean was a man that had mychild keeping his lifehowever never-never net life beat himdown he always got up and dusted himselfoff and kept moving forwardshe was an inspiration to us all that youonly have two choices in life really toget knocked down and stay down or get upand keep going he chose to keep going Imean lady did do that because it wasn'tonly a great husband father brother andsonhe's also a great human being he knewhow easy purpose was in life and thatwas to help young children sufferingfrom hardship have a better life and hestuck to that and he made many a manmade that crew for many childrenyou understood Roy's purpose was he'sbigger than him so he couldn't stopgoing Wow I'll tell you what if I seethat glyph I'd certainly pick it up andI just want to add to that he was also agreat friend as well so truly from theheart so there you have it guys that'san unbelievable story one riddled withups and downs which is still beingwritten and I think that's the mostexciting thing because Jin is stillwriting his story and I hope many of youfind that inspiring enlightening and I'msure Jin wouldn't mind I'll put you onthe spot here a little bit if youreached out to him if you ever want tospeak to him so what I'm gonna do is ifyou could just Nuttall just for theviewers if they want to reach out to youwhere is the one best place to find youand just personal message me on FacebookI don't like them definitely alwaysepital if I can inspire somebody andhelp them in any way I can on theirgreat way fantastic there you go guysJin well find him over on Facebook thankyou Jin for your time and as alwayspeople thanks for listening thank youand remember this podcast is absolutelyfree so all we ask in return is for youto share this with a friend and drop usa five star review over on iTunes havean awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 3 - The Art Of Connecting With Ourselves by Theodore TreveilTheodore Treveil also known as Theo, knows what it is like to hit rock bottom. He has had a life of so much adversity and hardship that rather than killing him, it has only made him so much stronger. Determined to find his voice and show the world he was more than his current circumstances he often lay there visualing."Visualise, visualise, visualise" - TheoFrom sleeping on the streets of Victoria Station to ridding himself of his drug addiction Theo has now taken a stand and truly connected with himself. In doing this his passion now is to touch as many lives as possible, with a 50,000 target next year. Titans Mastermind is his movement and is about becoming a Titan of your own life!Let me assure you, this is one guy whos story you want to follow, as it has only just begun..."Our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings influences our actions" - Theodore TreveilFollow it below:Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mohamed.abdulrahman.54540#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people yes that is correct myname is Aren and I am the host of theshowso today's interview was a fascinatinginterview it was I'd say certainly forme it was definitely a game-changer andthe reason I say that is because inhindsight there was so many moments whenI listened to it back where I kickedmyself I kicked myself for my poorpodcasting skills I kicked myselfbecause I never asked the right questionI kicked myself because I never acceptedsilence and I kind of rushed it becauseI was panicking about the recording andthe time and all of that stuff that youprobably don't think goes into a podcastNo one thing I will say is that I hopeyou find that in some way motivationalor inspiring because you do not have tobe perfect to start a podcast you do nothave to have all your ducks in a row soI kind of want you guys to take that onboard as well if there's something youtruly want to do just go out and do itgo ahead and do it pivot adjust and thengo forward again and that's what it'sall about but there's certainly times inthis interview and I'm definitely eagerto get him back for a second podcastmaybe in about six to twelve months timewhere we really gonna hone in on some ofhis answers because I think theemotional intelligence that he showedfor being such a young man wasincredible and I hope you could takeaway some of the insights and some ofthe lessons that he displays andhopefully you can follow him on hisjourney as well because he is absolutelyright in his own story right now he hasfound his voice and there's gonna be alot of good things coming from thisindividual I'm very confident of thatand hopefully I say hopefully as I'vecrossed my fingers right now which youcan't see my podcast goeswe'll improve as well so without furtherado let's get this podcast over the wayhi good morning Theo how we doing todayand fantastic today really excited to beon this podcast really excited to haveyou just for the listeners who arelistening me and Theo we exchanged a fewmessages via I think it was Facebookinitially and just hearing a summary ofhis story was I was quite amazed to behonest it was so interesting it wasalmost like a film created and then tofind out your age as well I think thelisteners are in for a treat so we'rejust quickly I just want to get yourfull name so it's Theodore travell isthat correct yes yes Theodore Wong okayfantastic so so that's the name you'reall gonna look out for so we're gonnaliterally start this for the listenersat home just to kind of get to know youa little bit so if you wouldn't mind ifyou could just please explain how youprogress through life and ended up whereyou are similar to kind of the story youtold me well it's been quite afascinating journey and it's a journeythat I have never anticipated it willtake me where I am today so it was onlyquite a few years ago when I came acrossnetwork marketing from a friend I'vealways been the passionate type and theenthusiastic type even when my life wascompletely the other way aroundI've always felt a sense of I want tohelp people I want to serve people Iwant to do more for people and this wasmy why and this driver was was what wasguiding me through a lot of challengesand obstacles in life and so what hashappened was this drive that I had thispassion that I had it took me from alife of crime a life of drug a life of alot of negativity and it brought me intopositivity but just when I thought myjourney was beautiful and it ended soperfectly this was when I was reallytested and this was when I was reallychallenged so my parents they were froma very religious background and they'refrom a very cultural background andpersonal development wasn't somethingthat they really entirely got orunderstood so I was going through thismental transformation there's spiritualtransformation and emotionaltransformation and they started the theystarted becoming more alien to me and Istarted to become moreinto them and this trip into bought mefrom network marketing into wanting tostart my own business coaching andserving people and as this progressed onone mindset just constantly justcontinue changing changing changingchanging and then came a point where Istarted to really question my identitythe person that my parents have broughtme up to believe I was the religion Iwas brought up in the name that I wasbrought up in I just challengedeverything because I just thought Icould not be a hundred and twentypercent myself as I am beingindoctrinated with other people'sbeliefs and volumes and rulesso first came okay I'm reallyparticularly believe in this religionand I don't really think it's a religionfor me to be following and that was onething that I've let go off and then camemy name and then came he just everybelief every rules that my parents haveever brought me up on I just questionedtheir one at a time and the ones that Ilike yes I okay you know there's acompromise I can make that but the onesthat I thought was absolutely no thiswas not going to serve me on my journeythis wasn't going to help me create areality that I want to create impactlives how I want to impact are not letgo of them and this was quite a shock tomy parents because you know if someoneraises you want to be a certain way andyou want entirely the opposite way it'sa pan interrupts it's an interruptionmark so they were just very shockedemotionally shocked and if just shockedeven it just even affected their healthto the point they had to go to hospitaland you know we raised our son this wayand now he's telling us he's entirely adifferent way and they couldn't reallyaccept it they couldn't really tolerateand soon enough I found myself outsideon the street homeless for three monthswith nothing but just faith nothing butbelief and nothing but vision that youknow I was going to overcome this I wasgoing to continue believing and continuehaving faith and continue going onforward no matter what anyone says nomatter what anyone does and no matterwhat anyone throws at me this is what Iam about this is my vision this is mypurpose Ireally believing it and I'm willing tomake any sacrifice to run with it andsee it till the end Wow just in thatshort little bit what you just saidthere there's so many nuggets ofinformation that I think I just want toquickly point out for the listeners ifyou don't mind firstly your emotionalintelligence could you just let everyoneknow how old you are23 23 okay so anyone listening to thisthis guy is 23 now if you're anythinglike me at the age of 23 I had nowherenear the level of emotional intelligencethat you you've just displayed there anda couple of things you've you've justpointed out there so religion obviouslyI'm not here to talk about religion it'snot what this podcast is about but mypersonal opinion is that obviouslypeople need something to believe in sowhether they choose religion or not onething you managed to find in that bitwhich I just kind of highlighted I madea note of list when you were homelessfor three months which we will elaborateon shortly if that's okay with yourselfis you had the belief in something andthat's something I believe is yourselfis that is that right would you wouldyou agree with definitely a hundredpercent and the reason why was becausewhen I was first homeless I was lookinginto some false or some energy and somecreator outside of me and now again likeyou said I'm not here to talk aboutreligion or any of that or cover any ofthat however the other part of when Iwas homeless so for the other two fromthe second month and the third month Istarted believing more in myself I'munderstanding that I had the resources Ihad the tools and I was forced withinmyself Wow Wow just just there as well Imean for anyone that follows selfdevelopment personal developmentresourcefulness I think Tony Robbinshe's probably the Guru of personaldevelopment that's something he speaksabout and I'll put my hand on my heartand be honest here I'm 32 now and onlyrecently have I understood the power ofthis sauce fulness which you'redemonstrating at such an early age isservedI'm excited me I'm actually exciting orwhat you're going to bring to the futureI think because you've got real-lifeexperiences as well that I'm sure manypeople are going through or may gothrough that hopefully they canobviously resonate with your story likeI said after free month of experience inhomelessness it was just the mostpowerful period of my life and why I saybecause I've been indevelopment for three years it was onlywithin just a short period of threemonths that I had to condense everythingreally put it into practicality and soat first when I was homeless it was Iwas just so self-destructive I startedmy old habit of smoking I had a veryquick mentality I had a very wise Godagainst me kind of mentality but thenlater on and it's crazy like it's crazylater on in the second third month Ijust started meditating more and thiswas when I was literally when I had noidea where I was going to sleep or wherewould wind up and I always winded upeither in hostels or strangest placesbut I just I just had no more fear I wasjust meditate and I was really connectedI was really like this is going to turnout as it's meant to turn out and Ibelieve everything happens for us andnot to us and now after free month Imanaged to find my own sharedaccommodation and from there always justgoing on to building my dream which I'mcurrently right now in Wowoh haha I'm actually getting goosebumpslistening to this is it's fascinatingjust emulation to the drugs so I've hadexperience of family members using drugsa lot of alcohol abuse especially couldyou elaborate a little bit on that wasthat a dark period or was it justrecreational it was a very dark periodbecause when I was taking drug it wasalso a period of my life or time where Ifelt suicidal okay I felt like I justwant to kill myself but I didn't havethe courage or the determination to gothrough with it so I thought what otherway can I you know slowly in my life andI slowly and my dream cannot slowly justend all these pain away and you knowit's very it was very II it's very easyfor me to judge myself and be like ohthat was a very bad action for me to doin but the reality is I knew at thattime when I was taking drug I was doingwhat I was doing to the best of myknowledge and so therefore I always sayyou do better when you know better andthat was what I knew at the time andthat's what I was using at the time torelieve my pain but I felt like it was avery important period of my life to Ineeded to experience that and to gothrough that in order to be where I amtoday life is all about balance andduality you know you don't knowif you don't know good if you don't knowbad so you don't know a terribleexperienceyou don't know a great experience unlessyou know a terrible experience so I'mgrateful I think you just touched onsomething fantastic there as long you dobetter when you know better and one ofthe traits that you've you've definitelyhighlighted in just this short amount oftime so far is a growth mindset and I'mnot sure how far your personaldevelopment goes but growth mindset wascertainly something for me that Isuppose it affected my ego initiallybecause we think we've got it allfigured out and you know having thatfixed mindset and you're demonstratinghere that you needed to know betterin such a short amount of time and youalso touched upon something how yourhabits was a congruent say for instancewith your vision but one thing I wouldpoint out and this is more for thelisteners as well is that just becauseyou do something I if you an extra sliceof cake or something for example itdoesn't necessarily make you a badperson that particular action I thinkthat's the problem with society we kindof beat ourselves down almostunnecessarily that's such a powerfulthing for you to say because I was onlysharing it on my social media friendsthe other day that look there's no suchthing as stupid peoplethere's only people that do stupidthings our actions should never defineus and this was a huge lesson that I hadto learn when I was homeless thatwhatever I'm doing right now andwhatever I'm experiencing right now itisn't me it shouldn't define me yes I amdoing this and I should just enjoy itwhile I'm doing it rather than feelguilty and beat myself up about itbut once I'm done let me beself-reflective let me say was thatreally a wise decision why was I reallydoing this what emotion what deep-rootedemotion is there into this and how can Iheal that and love that so I can moveall of my lives just give me a momentthere it's fantastic um I want to thisis more for myself my own curiosity herejust one day of living she would call ithomeless or on the streets or whereveryou were living if you could justexplain that to people because I thinkin society nowadays we kind of we see itwe feel bad for a few seconds but wedon't actually know the extent to whatit takes from a person if that makessense so if you could just pour uponthat a little bit please okay well oneparticular and this was a period thiswas a particular day whereI just felt like I hit rock like one andthat was where now when I went to thatnight I thought I had a place here tostay which I didn't and I only hadaround a pound or so on my debit cardliterally and my credit card I knew Iwasn't going to be able to book any roomand I know I'm going to be able to goanywhere so I thought okay where can Igo and it seems like Victoria Stationseems to be the spot for a lot ofhomeless people so I went to VictoriaStation and I was really tiredI was extremely exhausted bowels alsocold I was really cold so I couldn'tjust sleep anywhere because I needed tofind somewhere which I couldn't so I goon to Victoria Station I go in therewhere all the coaches are and I'm justpretending like I'm there sittingwaiting for a coach to arrive an hourhas went by two hours went by threehours went by and I thought okay I can'tdo this anymore so I found a big bannerand one of the places two big bannersand I put it together to hide myselfbecause there's a security guard therethat constantly checks around to see ifthere's any homeless people sleeping andthen she kicks them out so I found twobig banners and then I put them togetherto hide behind this corner and I wassleeping there I was cold but I couldn'tfeel my feet and it was really reallycold and this was a time to like can iare now sleeping on the floor I wasn'teven stealing you know anything I wasrock floor to myself is there any morerock bottom I can hit them this I haveno moneyI've asked all my friends if I couldstay over their place and nobody reallyhad you know has that opportunity to letme stay in a place and I'm here sleepingon the floor and this was a time where Iwas also working in peds Express so Ihad a jaw I was sleeping in VictoriaStation and I had a job at the same timeso the next day I had to go back to WestWestville Center to go to my job wearingthe same clothes sleeping in the sameclothes and doing everything in the sameclothes and my mentality was literallylike okay this is it I can do it is Idon't want to do this anymore I want toquit my job I just want to quiteverything I just want to quit my lifebut it was also a beautiful period oftime because and this is what I say guysvisualize visualize visualize this was aperiod of my time well sleepin on Victorstation I was sleeping on the floor Iwas called but I closed my eyes and Ijust visualized my future I just thoughtokay you know what maybe I may not beable to change my outside circumstancesand situations but I can most certainlychange out what I'm internallyprocessing him right now I do nottolerate any of this to internally be apart of me so I just closed my eyes Icould see myself standing on stagespeaking to people coaching clientsone-to-one be in a business doing whatit is that I'm passionate about and loveto do you know without any of theseobstacles becoming an obstacle and itwas so amazing because even at that timewhen the security god came and she foundand she was like get out she shouted atme I'm still okay with the house I cameto accept my reality knowing that thisone wasn't going to be my last andreality and I just got okay okay let mejust go along with this and let me justlook brighter for him yeah let me lookto the next day and then the next daycame I went to my friend and anopportunities just came networkmarketing came and a lot of things cameand my friend actually allowed me tostay over her place for a month so thisis the power of visualization WowI think I think you're a true exampleand this is why I really wanted to kindof get you on this podcast is that youliterally took control and you picked upthat pen and you started writing yourown story and this is kind of one of thethings that I always try and bring outof other people is that throughout lifewe kind of pigeon-holed into certainways for example do this because you'regood at it what you've kind of done isyou've sat back and you thought hold ona second Who am I who is theall andyou've picked up that pen and even we'reprobably a lot of people because I'lltell you somethingI mean I'm I can't handle any sort ofcold people that normally I'm constantlygot a hoodie on and I'm struggling so tohave that resilience and still have thevisualization like you said visualizevisualize visualize to believe that oneday you will achieve what you're doingand now I know looking at your story nowyou're there and that's fantastic so Idon't want to give too much away to thelisteners because I'd rather hear itfrom yourself but what you're whatyou've said there what you visualizedthere is kind of what you doing nowisn't it so if you could just give us aday in the life of the or now pleasewell I believe right now I wear on mylife it's ever-growing it'sever-evolving but it's goingexactly in the right direction it'smeant to go out so alive for me today isjust I'm currently running programs andcourses 21-day programs and coursesteaching people exactly the step to stepthat I used when I was homeless and whenI didn't have a place and even when Iwas going through my struggle and how Iovercame that mentally because I reallybelieve it's our internal wall thatcreates our external world and whateverwe are able to conceive within us we'reable to create outside of us so we onlyhave a lot of 21 day programs right nowthat I'm doing and I've just actuallystarted running a mastermind group onlyquite a few days ago called Titansmastermind creating leaders that areheart centered and that really want togo and travel and inspire people tobecome a more heart centered and tobecoming more authentic and genuine intheir work in their field of workwhatever that work may be and you knowdoing these podcasts being able to sharemy story and being able to be invited tospeak in on stage so I'm really reallygrateful and I never take thisopportunity for granted because I knowwithin me I have experienced a lot andI've learnt a lot and now I feel it's myresponsibility and duty to go out thereand to share with other people in orderfor them to unlock their potential andgift and create a reality that isbeautiful for them that is fantastic sofor anyone listening you've just heardtheir and obviously at the end of theshow we'll give you direct access toTheo but there's a there's programs outthere as masterminds but what I alwaystry and shy people away from is not justgoing on the internet and looking atsomeone who's paid a couple of thousandpounds for a Facebook ad and he'sdressed up in a nice smart shirt whatI'm trying to find throughout thispodcast as well myself he's authenticgenuine people like Theo here who'swho's actually been there who canactually tell you listen this is exactlywhat you need this is the blueprint so Iurge anyone who's in that position toreach out and can I be honest there andI've done that I've tried I've tried thewhole because when I first started thisit's very easy to get into the idea thatwe need to wear suit we need to sound acertain way we need to look a certainway we need to be a certain way in orderfor us to be successful and that's why Isay yeah my personal growthand your preneur journey really startedthis shit because the past two years itwas exactly the same way I used to lookat people in suits and I used to thinkokay let me wear soon let me cook youwhat they're saying let me do whatthey're doing and letting you go outthere and you're getting a client andthen I realized people really just buyinto hearts they don't buy like yesimage may play a contribution and makeplay a little factor but really andtruly people buy into hearts absolutelyso that's what I'm really about in mymission I'm not here to create 21stcentury business people I'm here tocreate 21st century heart centeredpeople I love that I love that messageand I appreciate your honesty there aswell and showing how you thought aboutit initially so I've got I've got nodoubt and I'm sure people listening tothis have no doubt that you will achieveall of this and create some amazingpeople well I say create I thinkeveryone's already got it in themselvesyou'll help them bring it out or supposeso from the moment you wake up in themorning are there other things or habitsthat people could say copy for exampleto kind of get that right mindset sowe've had guests previously who follow amiracle morning or we have certainpeople who anchor themselves to the gymor a long run meditation I mean I knowyou briefly touched on meditationearlier if you could just give a coupleof key things that you make sure thatyou get done in your day in order tokeep you moving forward before I sharethat can I share something absolutely soI'm gonna be sharing what I do in everysingle day regularly in my morninghowever as you listen to this really andtruly what I want is for you to findwhat suits you what really resonateswith you and what really connects withyou it's not I might suggest a lot ofthings like share I'm gonna be sharingright now but you find what suits andconnects with you because I've triedcooking in many other people's routineand you know on a superficial level Iwas starting to feel the difference buton a deeper level I still knew it wasn'treally connecting with me and it wasn'treally making a lasting transformationand ultimately that's what you should beseeking for isn't a temporarytransformation it's a lastingtransformation sustainability yeah sofor me I tried the morning routinemorning miracle routine and only a weekago I actually spot twoto go stop so what my morning routineright now really consists of is and it'sjust so simple but I actually reallyfeel the difference when I don't do itwhen I do do it which is I do one hourmeditation but these meditations areactually split into frees one meditationis for forgiveness and love so anyonethat I've been holding on to that I feellike I can't forgive just use that timeto forgive them and to let go of themand just send them as much love aspossible but also send a lot of planningand send forgiveness to the planet and Ifeel like as I do that because as I dothat I just release whatever needs to bereleased within me every single day is anew day every single day is a newchapter so for me it's an absolute thatI'm not taking whatever happenedyesterday or two years ago three yearsago even three months ago into mypresent life into my present moment soforgiveness and love is my first selfmeditation the other second set ofmeditation is visualization what do Iwant my day to be like feel like what doI want to accomplish today and I justvisualize it so vividly I don't mean ona superficial level like hey I'm gonnamake a thousand a thousand a thousandpounds I mean really coming from a placewhere I know I'm I am right now I knowI've got the resources and tools inorder to make this a real day and mylast set of meditation is reallygratitude what am i grateful for I lovea quote that says here as you go on topursuing what it is that you want topursue don't forget to be grateful forwhat you have today so my finalmeditation is just great gratitudegratitude not even just for the greatthings in life but also for the thingsthat I have heard for the things thatkind of taught me a lesson because likeI said I wouldn't know joy had I notknown pain so I just take it all in asone and I'm just so grateful for andthen after that when I finish all that Ido yoga I'm half an hour of yoga reallyconnect with my breathing because mygrieving is navigating me through lifebuddies navigate through life and mylast thing I do is just join in it sowriting down what the experience waslike in terms of my meditation my yogawhat I am what I'm gonna enjoy about orwhat I enjoyed about yesterday were I'mgonna enjoy about today and justanything journaling anything tostructure my thoughts to structure mymind because you know we have twelvethousand to seventhousand thoughts a day so if we're notable to structure a piece of paper we'regoing to be confused about what it isthat we want from our life we're goingto be confused in where it is what we'regoing and we're gonna make a veryindecisive decision Wow okay so just torecap on that then so we've got the ourmeditation which is looking atforgiveness in love they move up thevisualization on a deeper level and thengratitude followed by yoga journaling aswell okay fantastic and it's a greatpoint that you just said actually therebecause and I should have picked this upmyself was not to just copycat someoneelse because I've done it I've had allthese routines and I've sinned likesuccess for entrepreneurs that maybe IHoward in high esteem and I've been likeokay if you can do this I can do thisbut then you've got to look at your ownlife and it's got to be sustainable foryour own life so if you're if you'rewaking up at par 4 for example or the 4a.m. club but then you're half asleep by12 o'clock it's not really sustainable Ithink that's a great point that peopleshould find their own stuff but I wouldcertainly recommend I mean most of thestuff you mentioned there the greatleaders of the world all sort ofimplement in their day so thank you forsharing that I appreciate it so we'vetouched briefly on your past and I thinkadversity comes as one of the firstwords when we think about your strugglesand how you've got to where you've gotto in this particular time if we canjust sideline the homelessness just fora second and if you could just point outone other particular time where you facegreat adversity but you perseveredthrough it and what I want you to do isif you if you wouldn't mind just take afew seconds to really try and putyourself back in that moment just tokind of give the listeners some realtrue authentic feeling of what it waslike and then how you got through it andthen obviously we can move on and seewhat lessons you learn from that and youknow as you ask that question now I feelreally connected to my my emotionbecause the reason being is I want toshare a quote with you that I cameacross which is so powerful until thisday I live by this quote it's aphilosophy it's a way of life for mewhich is I am not who I think I am I amnot who we think I am who I think youthink I am and so for me it's we we liveour whole life through other people'slenses other people's perceptionyou know it's like really how much ofwho we are is it really who we are andso for me the greatest adversity I guessI faced was when I was in that period oftime where I just thought okay you knowI can quit all this and this was when Iwas at my friend's place you know shewas allowing me to live with her for amonth and then now I had to go out thereand I had to find my own place and Ijust fought can't do this I really can'tdo this what on earth was I thinkingyou know really coming on my truth I'mreally living in my truth I'm still akid I still won't know what the hell I'mdoing I'm still young and I felt at thatperiod of time I just felt like I couldjump off a train track and I felt like Icouldn't care less that was when I wasunder I was on the ground and I thoughtlet me just jump off there as you canclearly see the pattern when I washomeless there was a lot of times I feltsuicidal a lot it wasn't just once itwas quite intense quite a time so thatwas my greatest adversity it was reallyI knew what I wanted to do I knew whereI was going with this but then my egojust started coming out of nowhere andstarted challenging that and this iswhat I'm going to tell you when you havethe courage and the determination andthe faith to go out there and to pursuewhat it is that you believe in it's noteven what other people are telling youthat is the greatest challenge is whatyou're telling yourself you know thatdull part of you that that self and Ican't do it I'm not good enough andreally intuitive what you need areShort's office where did this come fromit didn't come from you it must havecome from somewhere else because reallyand truly we are light we are love weare all that is good you know we are allthat is courage and faith and otherwisehumanity wouldn't be out where it istoday so anytime that I was experiencingthat I just asked myself is this reallymy voice or is this just the voices ofpeople outside of me or the naysayersand so there's a great quote that EricThomas once says if the enemy withincan't attack the enemy outside could doyou know how so that was my greatestadversity it was my own soft or my ownown own disbelief but I overcame that Iloved that is this really my voice and Ithink so often all our limiting beliefsthroughout life is mainly is peopleteachers it could be your parents itcould be your friends your family yourpeers and I'm guilty of it myself to behonest I think I am where I am now in amuch better place but the last seveneight years with just me followingaround what other people wanted from meI suppose and trying to trying to pleaseother people I suppose and that's kindof the world we live in especially withsocial media being so so prevalent ineveryone's daily life that you're almosttrying to keep up with the Jonesesyou're almost trying to have a highlightreel as opposed to writing your ownstory if that makes sense and you knowwhat the hard part about that all is iswe can try to lie to ourselves and thisis a great insight that was given to melet's just say for example right nowfear is bigger than your dream let'sjust say that let's just say you knowyou you know it is that you want to dobut you're just too scared to do it soyou'll just give away you will just giveit away and you'll be like no I'm notgonna pursue this I'd rather stick to mycomfortable life a year from now you maynot experience the difference two yearsfrom now you may not experience thedifference three years maybe not butultimately there will come a time wherethat voice what if comes and I reallybelieve resistance then turns intophysical illness so that means that youhave a lot of people that are successfulthat have accomplished so much in lifeyet they're sick they're spirituallysick they're mentally sick they'reemotional in you're sick they're notfulfilled they're not content they knowthe art they know the mechanic tosuccess but they don't know the art offulfillment they're not experienced inthat so I always say like you know whatyou can risk ityou can try and live all comfortable asyou want but how long is it really gonnalast and how deep is it really and Ibelieve a lot of our successes and a lotof the happiness that comes from oursuccesses is very superficialfor me what I'm interested in is reallycreating a lasting fulfillment andhappiness in my life that comes fromwithin my soul not just for meaccomplish and achieving mechanicsuccess based things I love the answerbecause I had a debate with somebodyabout this previously so I'm not gonnaspeak about myself too much here but oneof the things my mom who's like my bestfriend always taught me was always aboutgiving and like the importance of beinggrateful and just helping as many peopleas possible and I remember as a childwhilst a child was about 15 I got myjob and I was working as a salesassistant and I had something like 42pounds or something I think it was andstraightaway I went home and this waswithout any sort of guidance or anythingI and not many people know this and Isponsored a child straightaway and I andI donated the about four pounds to likeWaterAid and I think it was cancer Ididn't have much we come from humblebeginnings and throughout my life I'vealways whatever I've had I've tried togive as much as I possibly can and thereason I say this is because youmentioned something there about thesuperficial part and you mentioned aboutfulfillment because I believe there'stwo different types of people on a macrolevel and what I believe is you havepeople who genuinely just have a desireto help people and then you have peoplewho achieve all this amazing successfeel somewhat unfulfilled feel unhappyand then what they do is in return startdoing charities getting a sense offulfillment now I'm not here to sayone's right and one's wrong and one'sbetter than the other because I believeanyone who helps anyone in any way isdoing a great service but I can trulysee within you for somebody who's beenat the bottom who's still there with youknow trying to be positive a positivebeacon to the world you've got thatfirst trait you're the person who'salways wanted to help you're not theperson who's I when I when I make amillion pounds and I've got the car inthe house then maybe I'll take a bit oftime at and it's like my friend saysthough my personal development is ourpersonal development the work that Ileave today will be left to futuregenerations yeah so that's why it's evenmore important that you know at the endof the day yes enjoy life yes you knowmake the most of it but make sure thatif you're going to leave this planetneither we've leave it in a great wayleave it in a way that's so positivethat future generations where they cometo come alive and grow up here they canpick it up from somewhere positive I'msure the listeners I get in plenty ofnuggets see I'd even recommend pause inthis just to kind of take in some of thesome of the stuff you say and there'ssome fantastic quotes there as well byThomas somebody who I have a lot ofadmiration for as well deal we're gonnawe're gonna just switch gears a littlebit here I wanna I want to ask you andagain I mean I don't really need to saythis to you because you're very wellthought out but if you could just tellme what your biggest fear is not notliving up to my full potential and giftlet me share a story with you actuallyand this is what really scares me when Iwas born I was born and this was 1995and I was a civil war going on and youknow there were a lot of soldiers firinga.k rifles and ask where you were bornsorry to Tamale so there were they werefiring aka rifles and there was onebullet could have potentially really hitme in the head and I could have died andas a child so I really I don't take mylife for grantedI believe every single day is a miracleand my biggest fear is not living up tothat miracle and that opportunity andchance that has been given to me Wowsee that's a remarkable story and it'ssomething that I even now I take I'm sograteful of my circumstances when I wasborn and I'm sure everyone listening tothis as well never came from such a sucha difficult start it was almost like theodds were against you from the start butyou kept persevering so I'm confidentthat you will destroy that fear shall wesay and you will live up to yourpotential and if I can help in any wayor if anyone listening to this can helpin any way then certainly reach out toTheo thank you for that I appreciate itwe've kind of spoken obviously aboutyour wire your inspiration yourmotivation and I suppose I don't want tokind of repeat the same question againbut do you have days where you justdon't feel like doing anything and Iwant you to be completely honest herebecause yes we will ever why we all wantto change our parents lives our wiveslives our partners lives we have a goalto help serve people let them writetheir own story let them find theirvoice and all of that stuff but in thosemoments where you're not feeling quiteup to it because I know it happens to meand I'm pretty confident it happens to99% of the people out there otherwisethey're lying so when it does happen toyou what keeps you going on that day Iwould say it would be alive for me tosay no I have experience and this is noquestion I was just asked me today wasalso asked to me last night and I wouldsay yes I have a lot of days where Idon't want to wake up out of bed and Idon't want to do anything and I justwant to quit and I just want to give upand I just want to say you know what letme justaround and do absolutely nothing becauseit's challenging it's like first yourpersonal growth is the most remarkablethe most exciting the most fun thing butat the same time is the most challengingthing because what it really brings outis triggers what it really brings out isa lot of part of you that you've beenneglecting and suppressing so for medays there where I actually start toexperience these triggers which was likethree days ago where I was supposed togo to this event but I just felt like Idon't want to go to it I don't want towake up our bed I just want to stay inbed I just wanted to be tucked under myduvet and I just want to sleep and whatreally you know I don't push thatfeeling and I don't resist that feelingI embrace it because like I said everyemotion that is a deep-rooted reason towhy we're feeling what we're feelingthere is a reason behind every feelingso the way I motivate myself is I try toget to the 80 grit T of why I'm feelingthat way what is this really about itisn't about the fact that it's just coldand I just don't want to go out there'sa real deep root very concerning reasonwhy and I get into that why and Iexplore every possibility I question inevery way so that therefore is got noway of taking over me because you knowour thought creates our feeling and ourfeeling influences our action so I justask as many questions about this feelingas possible I try to really cover itfrom all aspect of like you know acylinder and soon enough is that oh okaythat's why that's why I'm feeling thisway and then when I accept and Iacknowledge it I just think to myselfyou know what this is my thought this ismy feeling but it doesn't have to be andsomething that I act upon it you know Iget to choose how I want to respond tothis so once I can really get into whyI'm feeling the way I'm feeling and thenI choose to respond and the way I chooseto respond is I just love it Iacknowledge is that and I say to myselfyou know what I can rather act on thisbut I know I'm gonna regret it later onI could just choose what feels hardright now but ultimately later on I'mgonna be very thankful and grateful forit so that's how I motivate myself Idissect and you're very very self awarein order to be able to kind of separatethose things the reason I asked that aswell is becausewhen I went on my entrepreneurialjourney when I used to have those days Iused to absolutely beat myself up and Iused to be like I'm a bad husband I'm abad businessman I used to just basicallylabel myself based on my mood that dayand then what one of the quotes I thinksuch a from a song and it says it's okaynot to be okay and I love that becauseyou can use that across all walks oflife but when I say that then I'd thenadopt a similar approach to yourselfokay so kay not to be okay today andmaybe I don't feel like working out forexample or going to a conference eventbut what I will do is understand whythat is happening and you hit the nailon the head there because really trulyunderstanding the deeper reason behindwhy you do what you do if you can masterthat then you can almost I suppose nexttime it comes handle it much betterwould you agree with that it is it isbut this is the biggest problem thebiggest problem is people are very muchfocused on outside in rather than insideout because you know we can't resistinstant gratification so we can't resistinstant result but what people need toreally understand is that it's when youwork from within you take ten stepforward rather than just taking one stepforward so yeah it really really is Ithink it's just you have to reallyunderstand why you're not feelingmotivated when you're not me feelingmotivate don't try to suppress and I'mforce yourself to do something that youdon't want to do if you don't feel likeyou're going for a run today don't gofor a run today then you know but thenpeople is that you've gotta push you'vegotta push you've gotta push there'swhat happens when you push the sameproblem repeatedly shows up in your lifeagain and again and again and today itmay be very subtle but tomorrow's gonnabe very big and very overwhelming andyou'll find it even harder to overcomeit okay guys you've heard the buzzer gooff and that means it's the most funpart of the show so what I'm gonna bedoing is putting Theo through his pacesand I'm gonna set the timer for 60seconds and I'm gonna be asking him asmany questions as possibleTheo you've got no time to think I wantyour first answer okay okay start inthree two oneokay Theo the ability to fly or beinvisible fly money or fame fameNetflix our YouTubeclicks calling or texting calling Cokeor Pepsi coke would you rather know howyou would die or when you were dying howI would die Christmas or birthdaysChristmas tea or coffee tea summer orwinter summer your favorite place in thewhole wide worldOh Brazil Brazil Brazil Brazil would youknow how to speak all the languages inthe world will be able to speak toanimals and animals if you could abolishone thing in the world what would it begreed Facebook or LinkedIn Facebook readminds or predict the future read mindscats or dogs cats have you ever been ina fightyes did you win no last question yourfavorite movie star Hugh named fromWolverine Hugh Jackman yeah Hugh Jackmanokay fantastic brilliant okay that'stime just that was very interesting Ijust thought I'd just mix it up a littlebit the Hugh Jackman thing I'm not sureif you've sinned he's recent from thegreatest showmen um I wonder what sure Ihaven't seen about how the great thingsabout yeah well it's the musical soinitially I was kind of like under fencewith it I don't know about you but I'mquite an emotional guy saying say Joeand I remember watching that and I waswatching it with the wife and likethere's quite a few scenes that werereally kind of touching and I thinkespecially with your story as wellbecause this without giving too muchaway it's a guy with a dream he's gothis partner supporting him and he's justgoing through all these obstacles andadversities to kind of get to where hewants to get to you know the songs arepowerful but it's a brilliant movie andespecially if you're a fan of him somake sure you check that one out buddydefinitely thank you I only think thefriends between him and me is how I needto find my partner which I'm sure youall sure they'll come running in okay sowe've got two more questions left thenext question is about reflectionobviously hindsight's a wonderful thingand upon reflection we can always thinkof ways to get to where we are currentlyquicker do the things we're currentlydoing earlier or perhaps just movetowards that goals that bigbut I guess the journey also teaches usa lot as well and sometimes I supposeyou could say everything happens for areason so what I want to know is if youcould go back in time to one particularmoment where you really struggled andsuffered with adversity and just whispersomething in your ear knowing what youknow now what would that be it was whenI came back from Slovenia and to go tomy parents house and to finally reallylay out the balls for them so to tellthem okay this is who I am and this iswho I've become and this is my desiresand these are my visions and you know itdoesn't really resonate and connect withyou so what I would have told myselfwhen I was when I made that decision wasthat rather than doing it in a verydefensive way do it in a very loving waybecause a very beautiful quote I reallyenjoy unlike is that love and honestycan penetrate through anything in lifeparticularly when it comes to those hardconversations that you were having withyour family or your friends if you do sowith hate intent or doubt or anger orfrustration or irritation or even asense of fire within you you know it'llnever turn out exactly the way it canpossibly turn out but if you do it froma place of love and honesty no matterhow how great the mistake or how greator how hard the conversation is if youdo it from a place of like I'm justgonna do this in a very loving way andI'm gonna do this in a very honest wayI'm sure things would have turned out abit differently so that's what I willthat's what I would have told myself isas you're having that conversation it'sokay to speaking your truth continuedoing that but change the intent a bitdo it from a place of love and not froma place of doubt anger frustration orirritation love and honesty canpenetrate through anything in lifeokay so sadly we're at the last questionnow if if we fast forward and we move up150 years in time and sadly sciencefails to save us or if there wassomebody who wrote a book about theodoretravel and it's sitting there and thensomebody else walks over and picks upthat bookand realizes there's too many pages toread here do I really want to read thisso instead they turn it over and theylook at the blurb in the back what doesthat blurb tell him so if there was abook what would what it will tell themis who was I really that's what he willtell them the most enjoyable andbeautiful part about the life I'm livingright nowis every single day I'm a differentperson and it's not to say oh the personI am today is you know fake andsomewhere tomorrow person's gonna bereal but every single day I get theopportunity to unravel a part of methat's always being there but it's justbeing shy it's being scared away alwaysbeen frightened away so who was Theodorebecause like I said I changed my name myname used to be Mohammad and today myname is Theodore and I can change thattomorrow so it's just who was I reallyWho am I reallyand I think the person that picks upthat book and see that I wanted toexcite as they're reading that I wantthem to challenge themselves and askthemselves so if this person you knowwas able to change his name and is ableevery single day he's evolving whatabout me Who am I and that is the mostpowerful question because once you canhave that question which I believe it'san ongoing journeyyou're not gonna fully a hundred percenthack it you know you want to be overfifty percent at least two beautiful itreally is a beautiful beautiful thing tounderstand who you really are and juston the sidelines so Who am I I reallybelieve the way to summarize Who I am isjust divine I love that I love that I'msure they'll pick up the book and readall of it if you said that absolutelyfantastic my friend okay so for anyonelistening that now I'm sure you canagree that was an unbelievable story andone that is still being written and Ithink they all hit the nail on the headthere where he explained that it's anongoing journey and that's the same forall of us even myself even as I gothrough the process of trying to becomea podcaster I'm still learning and evenmy self development in other aspects butthey always certainly demonstratedamazing traits and his story iscertainly one that I urge all of you toreach out and speak to him about so whatI'm gonna do is I'm gonna give Thiel achance now to basically let us know theone best place where you can find himthank you so muchby the way this has been such aprivilege and what you're doing isabsolutely incredible thank you so muchthank youso like I said right now I'm actuallyworking an exciting exciting excitingnew project which is called the Titansmastermind and my vision and passion forquite a while has always been to createa community where we can all supportempower inspire each other withauthenticity integrity love and honestyand just just about anything that ispositive and heart centered so I'vequite recently started this few days agoand already right now I've got six orseven members but by next Jim and that'swhy I don't plan on doing this alone Iplan on touching as many lives aspossible so that therefore they cancreate a ripple effect by next year Iwonder I want that to reach 50 K so 50 Kmembers were all supporting each other'sbusiness were all supporting each otherin personal life professional life soit's cool Titans among us Titansmastermind and it's really about helpingyou become the Titan of your life owningyour life and really running your lifeas you want it to join in you know justand follow me on Facebook and drop me amessage and I will invite you into thegroup yeah it's a very safe place as avery comfortable place it's not justit's not all about just money motivationit has so much more to do with that soany support you need any assistance youneed whether it is business whether it'syour life all there iswhatever struggle you're going throughcome and come along and join it becausethis is the one thing that I wish I hadthree years ago when I was in thebeginning of my personal growth journeyyou know being able to be in anenvironment where I wasn't just kind ofbeing superficially honest I was beingreally honest some people were takingthat in that would they were absorbingit in there with digesting in and theyjust had so much excitement into helpingme so I wish I had that and so today Ihad the opportunity to create that sowhy not so if you are and whateverwherever you are in your journey whetheryou feel like you're doing great and youdon't be there whether you're in themiddle whether you're in the beginning Ibelieve we all need support so comealong join in let's have fun and let'screate 2019 to become an awesome yearthey are is that free to access foranyone in the public yeah it's a freeattack so yeah so it's a closed groupthat's why I message me forso I can invite what number is free yeahwhat I will do is I'll put all the oddsdetails in the show notes as well so youcan direct message him personally I justwant to say thank you to Thiel fortaking time out of his day today andsharing his fantastic story I'm surewe're all gonna hear and see his name alot more I mean this guy is like wisebeyond his years he's he's so young he'sdoing incredible things so I know mynext job after this call is to get onthat Facebook group as well so Theo ifyou wouldn't mind adding me in as wellplease definitely I'd appreciate thatbuddy and for everyone else at homethanks for listening thank you so muchand remember this podcast is absolutelyfree so all we ask in return is for youto share this with a friend and drop usa five star review over on iTunes havean awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Find your voice - Episode 1 - Blind, Drunk a Lions tale by Kev DillonKev Dillon is a man of the people, who refuses to be average. Suffering with meningitis Kev suffered with blindness and his whole world was rocked upside down. His dream of being a boxer was shattered and he turned to a dark place in his life.Determined to never let this get to him however, Kev fought back, in true boxing style and jabbed and hooked his way to where he is today.He is a head boxing coach of Lions Boxing Club ABC in Brierly Hill, UK but more importantly than that he is all round genuinely lovable guy.Alongside this he is a father, a husband, a son and a friend and who would have thought a POET!Kev blindness has taught him more than many of us can imagine, forced to understand his limitations he refused to let them control him or stop him achieving his true desire, to help others.His mindset is unbreakable having been at rock bottom and the most beautiful thing about this story is, his journey is just beginning.He has a vision of a better future where people, no longer doubt themselves, hurt each other and see the beauty in the world.Kev's outro states:"Take care of yourselves and more importantly of each other. May your god bless you and if you don't believe in god, believe in yourself because someone who doesn't believe in anything, will always be lost" - Kev DillonThanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Memb...Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoice & check out our new sponsor: https://www.healthxcel.co.ukLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-...Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.comYouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevlionsdillon/Boxing Club: Lions Boxing Club - Bull Street, Brierly Hill, DY3 3RA#JustDeuIt & #FindYourVoiceYouTube Transcripts:[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into the show today my name is Aren andyes that is correct I am the host of theshow so this is actually my firstepisode of find your voice and if I'mcompletely honest I was a little bitnervous yes I figured I could google andwork out how to do but it was more aboutreally doing when I put my voice outthere do I want to make myselfaccountable and really stick to this butdeep down inside me it's always been apassion to sort of help people now thisis a strictly passion project and it'sliterally about just helping peoplebecause one thing I've realized in mylife is that everyone has a story totell and only when we find that courageand find our voice in order to tell thatstory are we able to have an impact on awider level and I suppose since I'vebeen sharing my story recently withother people and I'm very very gratefulfor some really nice comments frompeople I thought what in a secondthere's a lot more to tell but moreimportantly there's some absolutelyamazing people out there who I reckon Ican get in touch with and then hopefullyit can help you guys as listeners soI've got a whole range of guests on thispodcast which I'm really excited toshare with you bear with me because Ihave recorded some prior to this episodeand with each podcast episode as youknow with anything in life you alwaysget a little bit better so if there areone or two episodes and you're thinkinghold on a second he sounds a little bitnervous here it's probably because I ambecause my first one or two probablyweren't as natural as are supposed theyare now so it's all a learning curve I'menjoying it I mean so absolutelyfantastic people some who already knewsome who are brand new and happened toreach out or happen to reach out to themso anywaythat's pretty much enough of me for nowI'm gonna introduce my first guest nowI'm not joking he was probably the firstperson I've thought of having on thisone of the reasons was this individualhad a big impact on my life duringprobably the two happiest years of mylife if we don't count my marriagebecause that is obviously the best partof my lifeI know a lot and I just had a great timebeing around this individual I spent alot of time with himand it wasn't just so much the wholecoaching aspect from a physicalperspective but it was more about thementor lessons that I was getting themindset lessons I think that sounds alittle bit better and you know I grew alot as a person and we just becamereally really really good friends and Ithink it's been like what seven eightyears now and you know we're always intouch he's a fantastic person he's notjust got a great heart he comes from agreat family he's family a fantastic Iknow his family but he's someone who'shad ease levels of adversity in life andhe's not been doubt the best cards and Ithink some of us sit there and we alwaysthink the grass is greener on the otherside or we have it the worst but let meassure you that's not always the caseand Kev someone who may not have had thegreatest card out to him in life but Iassure you he's certainly playing to thebest of his ability so he's not only awonderful father and a loving husbandhe's also a son and more importantlyhe's one of my very very best friends inthe whole wide world and I'm very proudto have him on this especially as myfirst and I'd love to get him back onbecause I know he was dealing with a flubut bless him he managed to still comeso without further ado let's get thisfirst episode I find your voice on theway okay so I'm sitting here opposite avery good friend of mine kept Dylan whoI've explained a little bit about in theintroduction so I think it's importantnow firstly I just want to say thank youkeVwell coming on the show it's a pleasureso I appreciate you being here but Ithink it's more important that thelisteners get to understand you so oneof the things I always like to start theshow with is tell us about yourself fromthe moment you can remember to where youare now in life I'm 35 years oldI'm married to a beautiful woman calledKateDylan my father to a beautiful girlcalled Jasmine on the head coach for theboxing club in the Black Country calledthe Lions my life hasn't always beeneasywhile tragically lost my audience in 87through viral meningitis back then 32years ago flora meningitis was a bigthing where poor buggers were going inlosing limbs and I lost my eyesight mymom had been taking me in to the doctorsfor weeks and I said if glandular feverof the flu till one day I went to a comaand I well I was completely blind and itcomes a little bit come back in my righteye and it was tough as you can imaginebut life is tough and life gives youoptions you either carry on or you don'tand I think they are the two options oflifeyou carry on or you don't but a greaterGod I had very strong parents lookingbrother and grandparents and they helpedme to do what I could and that has beenmy attitude for life you do what you canhave the best ability did you can do Iwent to a promise called Church ofascension which is in war life and hadto leave there because I had bad eyes inreception when I went to Bromley Hillswhere me and another young lad JohnFrank coming the first blind kids to gothereso I have to travel out the district togo there we're at some fond memories funmembers who I met locked on friends Ihad empowering Shona Quinton helixeducation I'd say let me Darren becauseI had to have a support teacher itwasn't fun being a young lad as well asbeing pointed out you were different andI think that's what education can do badfor people instead of embracing ourdifferences sometimes would forced standout I was a young kid that's the worstthing you can do all you want to dois to be normal oh do you get you thinkwhat is normal and we go out of our wayto not be normal to be specialbut as a child and all you want to do isfit in it's excruciatinghowever I've got through school by hookand by crook aside roams poetry becausewhen I was a young lad I found it veryhard to express what I was feeling aboutblindness and about being different ormade two books except me by giving DylanPope in a vision I went to college domedia studies and then I was lostthrough depression and different formsof coping that psycho pin selfmedication of coping I've lost and wentoff the rails my dad said to me at theage of 17 when I bet you come and coachand because boxing was one of the onlythings I was ever good at see noseblowing got iron at reactions and I'mstrong and he got me coaching I passedmy level one at 18 level two at 19 andthat's been my push through lifeteaching others to do something that Iwasn't able to do wasn't allowed to doanother camp coach and I think that'sbeen one of my purposes in life to helppeople so I can talk to these young boysand girls men and women have beenexperiences I can talk to them aboutreal pain because I've felt pain butlife isn't always a bad pain anyone whosays life isn't tough has it livedenough but anyone who says life isn'tbeautiful and rewarding also as I livedin office yes yes it is tough but bygaudí it's wonderful as beautiful ifrewarding but here we look at itourselvesand seeing these young people of watchto grow up into men it's been greatmy greatest rewards haven't been the ABAchampions and the people who've gone toboxer England is being there for theForgotten well they've been forgottenbut maybe I ever been to them it's saidof pheromone the scrap people build theminto something good hopefully they feelvery proud of because I know I'm veryproud of them absolutely there's acouple of things that I mean um I'veknown Ken for a long time and we spokerecently about how long about you knowNita days it's quite it's quitesurprising but there's some stuff therethat I mean I didn't even know and Isuppose some of it is probably like theelephant in the room so just touching onyou men in joints and stuff you knowwe're very good friends I've neverreally discussed that with yourselfmaybe that's just me not being confidentbut did you findI mean you touched on it a little bitthere but the whole you know beingnormal but what is normal I suppose insociety and all this because obviouslyI've got foster siblings and they've gotADHD autism all that sort of stuff sothey're considered special I suppose butgrowing up with your condition did youever feel sorry for yourself or did youfeel different especially committing tothe cult in aspect where I mean I'vebeen in quite a few boxing gym before Ireally found home here at the lines andgym where obviously everyone'sable-bodied should we call it ininverted commas as a coach with so Ionly threw one I had to how did thatmake it you feeling sorry for yourselfwe all do it they'd have a big footballteam or it's okay to feel sorry foryourself but you shouldn't dwell on itand that's something I had to learn Isay to a lot of people in life you havetwo optionsyou carry on forwards or you don'tand my only option was going forwardsbut occupy falling down but crawlingthere by climbing up but in any meansnecessary toforward a lot of his difficult but it'sdifficult to everybody in anybodyit's like someone said to me fearthere's a rational fear and it's anirrational fearI'm Aladdin little King swim fin onFriday hippopotamuses there's a veryrare chance that he'll optimus he'sgonna come and get meas a young African living on a riverbankthat's a rational fear an irrationalfear Allah spidersin King's room for the Money spiderisn't gonna get me a lad in Australia itmight a rational fear my fears onfighting or embarrassment yes no I'lltake her back embarrassment is a bigfear my fears aren't through fighting orstanding up or telling my story so I'veovercome knows my fears are because I'mblind in my left eye I haven't got depthperception so like going down stairs orwhen I go out at night I'm not sure whatto shadow or is the lamppost or it's astep or said that is a rational fear soI'm not sure what can hurt me however itwon't deter me from doing so fantasticI'd be just to touch on that last bit Imean you said there's two choices youeither move or you don't and I think Ialways try and say this to peoplebecause I don't want people to havesomething bad happen in their lives forthem to really wake up and so moveforward in their lives or take a wholelittle bit I suppose and start writingtheir own story you've kind of maybedrew force initially had to do thatbecause you were left with the cardsthat you were dealt and you have tosolve move forward with thatI say kudos to you because your mindsetis something that I I've read more booksthan I care to remember and I'm alwaystrying to work on mindset because Ibelieve if you can conquer your mind youcan pretty much conquer anything and wesee that in the boxing gym through thegreat boxes and everyone I'm sure youcan probably elaborate on that and Ithink mindset is crucial one of thereasons I really wanted you on mypodcast and you were always going to bemy first episode is because your mindsetis to me at leastit's you know it's made of steel is it'svery it's somebody who could sit thereand feel sorry for themselves there'ssomebody you could always look at thenegative side but man you've been abetter fresher and I've said this beforebut the two years I spent with youpersonally when we were training but Ithink I've seen you more than one missusat the time we're two of the best yearsof my life and in that particular time Ijust want to put this out there to thelisteners is when you really focus onachieving goals and I really really wantto be become a great boxer and be be agreat boxer there's a lot of talk behindand it's sometimes it's from yourfriends your family the closest peopleto you and sometimes it's not alwaysuplifting talk and I think being aroundyou in your presence not just for yourcoaching skills which are fantasticwhich helped me develop so much but as aperson as I sort of as a coach and amentor you were always able to instillthat positive influence in me you'dalways say the right words at the righttime the encouragement and I just Idon't know I'm not sure if there's ananswer to this but what how do you dothat I suppose because I'm here and I'mtrying to do that and I'm obviouslyeducating myself and I'm reading overthe books and I'm following all thegreat lines but you kind of just I meanI'm not sure deep do you read books likehow I read and woody is it somethinginstilled from maybe your dad or justbeing around for people because we areso bad I am terrible at reading terriblyreading and after I'm a very large fontsor tried audiobooks all I'm a man wholoves music from 2pac to try to China toBob Dylan I can listen to any type ofmusic all day but an audiobook I switchoff from so my greatest form ofknowledge is by self experienceexperiencing myself that way I realizedif I like it down like it if frightensme or excited to me I also love talkingto people picking their brains aboutreligion and a better experience andabout what they did and travel isanother beautiful gift don't only livein your district and travel and ithasn't gonna be to Thailand he could beto go to Wales or going towhere every day's potat yourself out ofa comfort zone so if you're only evergoing on autopilot you're only going toat one placeyou've got to be willing to get losteven if it's only in the moment couldyou never know where it's gonna take youand that's the greatest form ofEducation I think life can give you andthat's probably one of the greatestforms of Education Isaac's just heardnow in the last year because everythingyou just said then I'm sure my listenersbecause I know a lot of people who areeager to listen to this episode we'reall habit readers and we listen toaudiobooks oh it's almost become a hobbyof ours and a lot of that the bestaudiobooks they would have the sameinformation or the same Isis fault oursupposed success leaves clues so there'salways the same kind of stuff in thereeverything you just said there and thisis why I find you fascinating is becauseyou normally this but you haven't readthe books it's just something thatyou've developed and this is kind of thepremise of this podcast is to findpeople like yourselves people who arereachable people who you can after thispodcast you can reach out to Kevin youknow it gives you the time of the dayyou can come see him at the lines Jimand I spend time with you these arepeople that we should be around andstaff experience of talking to people Ithink I think it's overlooked we're in asociety now where everyone's stuck totheir mobile phone I say that as I'mholding it up right nowand you know that's that's not the wayhumanity should be it should be aboutexperiencing new things as becoming newpeople and understanding so that's afantastic point mate and I'm alwaysthere's a very few people I come acrossin life who had that sort of emotionalintelligence that you've just displayedthere without having gone through whatI'm currently doing I reading all thebooks that I can possibly do so kudosmate and I do want to just move thisover a little bit because I'm just keenbecause because of the person you areand the impact you've had on my life Idon't know you've had many otherpeople's lives I just want to touch onyour daily routine so I'm a very bigbeliever that we are the resource of thethoughts that we think and our dailyhabits so if you could just give thelisteners a little bit about the momentcapital is alongfrom the morning to the moment yourestaurant no mate my alarm is a littlething called Jasmine Dillon she'snormally White's milk okay then I we getup we could add stairs we have breakfastwe watch some people I'm tellingnormally peppa pig is not I hate bluecoherently i watch penny about myselfand then we go up we have out wash theywould come down then I'll take it toschool they're not normally come up hereto the Lions if but if I have got timeand I'm not in the class then I'll goand pick her up if not many doors wouldnot stay Opia working with peopletalking to people because I'm up hereevery night and then I'm a boxing choiceit's very rare that I get to put mylittle girl to bed off from the weekendso in the day time for me I'vedaddy-daughter time and that's thatsacred to me but when I'm up here youcome in and you become a differentperson and don't think of me it's beenthis almighty confident person becauseconfidence is of the code do you justcome and put on it's a lifetime ofworking at it it's about people only seethe finished results that don't see theprogress they don't see ArnoldSchwarzenegger Jesus Christ he's a bigfella he wasn't born that way it's everylittle dumbbell every little exerciseeverthat's from him to our league to RobertDe Niro to Katie Price don't see thefinish resolved and that's on thepositive scowl exactly that's also haveseen that that drunk will not draw me onthe street you see the finished resultinstead of thinking what happened on hisjourney or her tunic to make them heresorry I went off to that's why that'swhy I think this great lesson is whatyou just said there I'll just I'll justwhining at Danny time less doesn't meanso the next question I'm thinking you'vekind of explained a little bit and wecan obviously jump back into it but Iwant you to think back in your time justone particularly event careif you could and I just want to say forthe listeners Kemp has no idea whatwe're gonna ask him so he hasn't askedfor the questions he's explained hedoesn't lie reading so this iscompletely straight from his heart butyou've been through a lot of adversityin your life as many of - deserve I wantto think of a time where you've justfaced something they really shit day orreally shit time or something Bad'shappened and I want you to if you couldtry and explain to the listeners how youovercome it what kind of practices youtake of one lessons you've taken fromthat you've touched on it previouslylike you've always got the the mind setup we either go forward or back but arethere any sort of key things that youeither tell yourself or you do actionlike work out or we'll be around certainpeople that you do to really try and getyou out of that situation of adversitynever ever be frightened of asking forthe help but when I go to a pub orsomewhere and I don't know where thetoilets are and for me it's embarrassingthere's a lot of people in then I don'tknow don't go it's over there okaywhich way to over there so but you willyou'll find your way I remember when Iused to go nightclubbing 18 17 18 19 andI remember going somewhere and I lost myfriends and it was pitch black thestrobes are going music so I've lost allmy senses are con here or I could seeshadows bumpy and who didn't get angrytalkin front of toilets I rememberwalking over to a wall and following thewall to try and get out and the bouncersthere give me a sword and a whale youcan add the club but starting a fight soI've got from' name because that was theonly way that I could see I've get himout of that situation but the way I'vedealt with things I see one of my goodfriends Nick Davis who's ahypnotherapist and through NLP he'shelped me to get through stuff inhypnosisI did a chemistry course myself yearsago and I didn't like came to me inbottom four metres a minute wrongwasn't for me but NLP and hypnosissuited me changing patterns in the brainand figuring out what is the trigger forsadness what is the trigger for beingangry or searching for and that helpedme but I always say to the lads of theclub your place will twenty pound orthirty pound for a dietitian or you'llpay someone for shredder condition earlybut we won't go and pay someone tofigure out why we're feeling sad and Ithink if we haven't got a a good mindthen nothing else will fall into placeit's something that I probably alreadylearned last year my mindset and Ikicked myself because in hindsight Imean you haven't gotta really be herebut when I was boxing with you I thoughtI had some good physical capabilitiesfor example you know it was okay quitestrong and I was able to lean down quitewell not to blow my own trumpet but thething that really let me down was mymindset you know on the pads and when wewere training got Phyllis Phares anyoneI was doing everything was easy rightbut you stick me in that ring man and itwas like it was like I was holding 20 kgdumbbells and I was or sometimes I wasgetting out of box by people who I wasthinking and that's not no disrespect tothese individuals he was just what - itwasn't right and it it's only now and Isometimes think I wish I could just turnback time a little bit because the way Ifeel now I'm just having that sense ofconfidence about myself I'd reckon I'dbe able to transform why didn't with youand all the lessons you told me whichI'm very grateful for in the ring and ihave had much better success basically Isuppose you work with that on your boxesas well in terms of the mind says wellwell mind is so important and it's thepeople we have around usyou can have someone up here five days aweek and that they're brilliant dreamboxes but then their dad or their uncleor someone puts their nerves on to thatperson not a creative personand it creates an anchor an auditoryanchor answer that's a funny old boogerand sometimes you can feel so good inyourself and that's not just food boxthat's on the pool it's I like her wellshe's too good-looking for you oh you'reright yeah oh I'm gonna get this job Ithink I'm like a Gregory Clare well youcan't lift that much no you this is avery hard thing not too late to get intoyour world all the people's doubts ifyou can try your best to stay strongwith yourself you'll have more successthan any other booger absolutely that'sall powerful nothing I've only startedrealizing that myself now my last sixmonths have changed so much just frombelieving in myself and not to make thisabout me but even this podcast which isit's me coming up become physical youknow me you know we're very good friendsbut on outside of the way I started thegym sorry I'm an anxious wreck what Iused to be and you just touched on a fewthings in terms of like anchors orpeople saying and saying things and Iand I suppose it creates this thingcalled limiting beliefs so I remembersomebody once said to me I mayunderstand your accent and I supposethat's probably why it's taken me 12months to release a podcast because Iwas so scared of putting my voice outthere and thinking who really wants tolisten to this sirbromine black country accent but then Ithought there's people out there thatactually do and then over time thosepeople resonate with my message alwaysbecoming more confident in myself and Ireally know somebody's one opinionbasically outweigh their opinion of somany other people but it's a funny thingisn't it because I suppose it dependswhere that opinion comes from so if itis say for instance your father or youruncle or somebody you hold your highesteem it can take a toll on you sodefinitely I think it's a it's a it's avery good point in terms of be consciousof the people you're around and if youdo happen to have that point ofaround you I'll show ya you made yeahleft okay because even if it is she diedwith you if someone is standing in theway of your goal or their person youwant around you if it's someone who'sgonna say you're gonna hurt yourself andlet they're pointing out as I said ifthere's someone who's pointed out thefear to you the danger then maybe we'vegot the best interest this up to you tofigure out if the painting of is worthit but someone who to put in obstaclesin there well how about if you felt haveit there is nothing at all wrong withour yeah it's just find out another waythat you shouldn't do it saluteabsolutely and I think that's what we'vebecome wrong because we're like an XFactor mr. Graham generation and it's Iwant to be a singer yeahthat doesn't mean you've got to godouble triple platinum don't why whatyou want to do but sit by the success ofit if it makes you happy don't send inyour local Boozer and you're working onschool just because you may never make aliving of eating who cares if it if youare happy to do it absolutely does thatis the reward of your action I'm justfinding happiness in but the silliestthings really finding gratitude andfulfillment I'm not having to go throughshit in life not needing to losesomebody in my family or you knowsomething bad happening it's you knowtheir worlds are beautiful placesbeautiful people out there and it'sabout just finding your passion so mypassion is to always happen is whypeople so yeah I'm going to be the bestpodcaster in the world but hopefullythis message will have all with a coupleof people and they can change theirlives you can then go on and inspire andchange other people's life so fantasticpoint mate I'm going to move it over andI'm gonna asking you another anotherquestion game think about it what isyour biggest fearand you're not allowed to say I'mcheating here you know I'd like to sayanything we listen to Justin okaymy biggest fear at 35 is different tohow I felt fear of 30 were 25 or when Iwas at school if you fast without when Iwas at school it had been asking a girleven have been read in acting class ithad been all these things but it shouldgrow now at 35 and it's as I say mysimple fears there's a big things to mebut nothing to you mmm-hmm I said goingto the toilet went on in in a in a pubmm-hmm an unfamiliar pub or going out atnight when I've got a walk down the roadanother so sad there not to shadow willto step I remember working with her NickDavis journalist subjects only slowlyagain and we did a seminar up here wehave to stoneboxers to super 88 boxes and we all satin a circle and he said to if we wentwhat five things have will frighten offand people went dying in my loved onedying getting hurt public speaking andall these things and then Nick said tome said embarrassment I missing what youmainly because you're all boxes doing itwould rather go into that ring and havethe snot knocked out of them for tworounds than to have to do a bit ofpublic speak you know go and ask thatgirl out too and everyone went in fromput the razor pointy you'd rather putyourself in physical danger than to dosomething that you might feel like aplonker live woman yeah and he said if Icould take you off now to Brazil and youcould fight a lot of super every way tome not your bed would you care whenNoakes it's not the physical thing it'sgood then why cuz cuz I don't know thatdon't caremy mom to see me so it's the fear ofmaking something a little punk wereletting people down and that that fearis the funniest book Raval isn't itwhere there's no feel physical bad cancome from it but the emotional it'salmost like a fear of rape you know it'sI think you've just hit the nail on thehead and I'm and I'm nodding herebecause you mention the physical dangerthing and I remember I was sitting in amastermind and I was letting the emotionthat you just touched on there almostconsumed me as if I was in like thewhole world of trouble yeah if you askme the same question would I ratherstand in a ring it be oh boy you're a bea champion mate I'll do that any day atleast I would have a few months ago andit's amazing that there's there's peopleout there I used to be one of thesepeople who would put myself throughphysical pain just in rod then insteadof looking like a plonker shariq say asa cowboy reference just for a fewseconds and like you said I can't hateyou unless you let it hear you unlessyou let those emotions consume you and Isuppose it's it's about understandingwhen something happens it's not whatactually what happens it's the meaningwe touch a touch to it so if if forinstance you get rejected by a girl ifyou touch and meaning to that such asI'm ugly I'm not worth it I'm not goodenough then obviously you're gonna feelabsolutely crap and you're gonna havesome negative impacts but if you justsay okay fair enoughI had a 50/50 chance there let's goagain hopefully the next one's betterand I think that's something I'mconsciously trying to do much better butI know I speak with a lot of people it'sit becomes crippling because then you'reyou're just hiding hiding in the shadowsand watching the world go by not doingthe things that you need to be doing andI really want people to hear what youjust said then you know stop it and playit back because that's really importantmessages there and also just if you'refollowing my journey however small issee that I'm coming out of my comfortzone as well and I'm trying to do thisyes I'm doing it one for myself becauseit makes me happy but two I'm doing itto let you guysthat if you're shy if you're anxious andyou all those that you've had in yourhead I guarantee 100% I've had it myselfbut I'm here you know I'm sitting hereput myself out there but myself arethere on social media every day becauseyou know we've got one life andtomorrow's I promisesilly as that science-based trip onethink I learned we we all think we'reindividuals will think we are the onlyperson who's ever felt this and yeahit's a load of nonsense gang we all wantto be low fuel get friedgonna have a laugh and anyone who saysdifferent is trying to sell yousomething you're not alone with all thismore you can talk to people about iteasier becomes a promise yeah Iunderstand agree mate and you're notalone we are gonna come to a fun part ofthe show now guys but just before thatjust wanna quickly yeah so I know yourmindset I know you know how motivatedyou are and especially towards thecommunity here you know you're trainingkids and all those women guys you knowpeople of all ages religious backgroundscoaches everything on a day where let'sjust say for instance you wake up inyour in a bit of a funk so anyone whotells you they're super motivated Iwonder percent of the time I thinkthey're lying I've yet to find anyonedoing that so on that day of the weeksay for instance when everything's fineyou know the day before nothing's gonewrong you haven't a damn accident oranything but you just build up a bitshit bit sloppy in that day what keepsyou going on that day as I said there'stwo options you do what you don't thefear of not doing it projector catapultsme into doing it fantastic okay so thenyou've heard it that's the buzzer goingoff and now we're at the fun part ofthis show so what I'm gonna do now isput Kevin through his paces I'm gonnaask him questions for 60 seconds andit's up to keV to see how many he cananswer so keV you ready yes okay buddylet's get the timer ready I'm gonna goin three two oneokay the ability to fly or be invisibleinvisible money or fame fame Netflix ourYouTube YouTube Corner Brook Brook Cokeor Pepsi would you rather not how youwould die or when you were dyingwait Ali or Tyson are like fury or AJ AJsummer or winter your favorite place inthe whole wide worldon the catch would be to girls speakfour languages must be able to speak toanimals or languages if you couldabolish one thing in the world whatwould it bethat's a cruelty skipping or running -burp running the best boxer ever are layor legs lose your favorite song everfastclaw Tracy Chapman and finalquestion would you rather read minds orpredict the future read mind fantasticokay so that was a quick fire right justa little bit of light fun there so youreally think AJ can be fury yeah reallyyeah I'm on the fence there I'm I'm moreof a fury fan but yeah let's not makethis a boxing podcast we can do thatsome other day okay so sadly we arecoming towards the end of the show nowso we've only got two more things that Ireally wanted to try and get from you inthis interview the next one's gonna beon reflection so high so it's awonderful thing and upon reflection wecan always think of ways where we canget to where we are quicker or do thingseasier or perhaps with less money orstress but I guess the journey teachersare so light as well I'm a firm believerthat everything happens for a reason sowhat I want to know is if you could goback in time to one moment where youreally struggled and suffered withadversity kind of like us I suppose whenyou when you're 17 and your dad got youto come to this gym and knowing what youknow now what would you tell your 17year old self that would help them ontheir journeydon't settle being averagenormals are variety and I'll be okay inthe morning so just keep tryingabsolutely I'll be all right in themorning fantastic okay so sadly we areactually at the end of the show now andI just want to gain taste more but justa quick thank keV because I'm sureyou'll agree has been a fantastic guestI promised you it would be good andhopefully I've delivered on that but thefinal question I always like to ask myguess is if in a hundred fifty yearstime we're all deadand science hasn't managed to keep usall in life and there's a book and allthe book has is the title which says keVDylan and on the back there's a blurb asummary and that explains a little bitabout what your life was and who keptDylan was what would that blow say aboutyou first of all want the book to saykeV Dylan blind drunk Alliance - -anything I ever want to be rememberedfor his it was a good bloke who helpedpeople when he could and if I can dothat if I can leave that as my legacya good man who helped when he could Ithink I left a good one absolutely andyour story's still being written nightbut my experience with you is you're anamazing person I'm proud to have you asa friend I genuinely mean that you'vealways improved my life you've alwaysbeen somebody who of how closed closedin my life I mean equal gone oncewithout us talking but it's always likewe just seen each other yesterday whenwe pick up and I think it's important tosurround yourself with people like yourkeV Dylan's in the world because Ibelieve there's any of us out there andsome of us may need to just find ourvoice and kind of come out of our shellsbut if you find a kept Dylan certainlyhold on to him now Ken's not tooinvolved in social media but I knowthere's a lion's Instagram page whichI'm following and I know there's aFacebook page but if there's a one waythat people can contact you keVbecause I really want people to kind ofreach out to maybe 100% recommend peopleof all shapes and sizes and ages to comedown to this gym it's a family communityit's run by a family it would like Isaid it was the best two years of mylife that I can remember being here I'dcertainly recommend it you're you're notonly fitting well enjoy it but you lookgood in the process as well no Icertainly get you through your paces butif there's one place where people couldreach out to you care what would thatone place be Eva as it's only scrapKevin Lyons Dillon okay or at the clubwhich is located Braulio dy5 and free RAand it's the lines Boxing Club fantasticthe Lyons Boxing Club what I'm gonnaalso do is put all of the information tocontact keV in the show notes so you canall have access to that I'm gonnaobviously share this on my Facebook pageso please do reach out please show theboxing club some love and I know havingbeen here it always feels at home when Icome here boxing comes a hard one aswell so if there's anyone that you knowout there who can perhaps help eitherwith funding or equipment or anythingI'm sure they'll definitely appreciateit they'll go to good hands you knowyou're keeping kids off the street anddoing a good service so thank you to keVand as always finished from one noteabsolutely yeah one of T's take care ofyourselvesand even more important to each othermay your God bless you and if you don'tbelieve in God then believe in yourselfthe son who doesn't believe in anythingwill always be lost and remember thispodcast is absolutely free so all we askin return is for you to share this witha friend and drop us a five star reviewover on iTunes have an awesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Rev. Patience Stoddard
Strickland didnot speak for a long time, but his eyes shone strangely, as though he sawsomething that kindled his soul to ecstasy."SometimesI've thought of an island lost in a boundless sea, where I could live in somehidden valley, among strange trees, in silence. There I think I could find whatI want. "He did notexpress himself quite like this. He used gestures instead of adjectives, and hehalted. I have put into my own words what I think he wanted to say."Lookingback on the last five years, do you think it was worth it?" I asked.He looked atme, and I saw that he did not know what I meant. I explained."You gaveup a comfortable home and a life as happy as the average. You were fairlyprosperous. You seem to have had a rotten time in Paris. If you had your timeover again would you do what you did?""Rather.""Do youknow that you haven't asked anything about your wife or children? Do you neverthink of them?""No.""I wishyou weren't so damned monosyllabic. Have you never had a moment's regret forall the unhappiness you caused them?"His lips brokeinto a smile, and he shook his head."I shouldhave thought sometimes you couldn't help thinking of the past. I don't mean thepast of seven or eight years ago, but further back still, when you first metyour wife, and loved her, and married her. Don't you remember the joy withwhich you first took her in your arms?""I don't thinkof the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present. "I thought for amoment over this reply. It was obscure, perhaps, but I thought that I saw dimlyhis meaning."Are youhappy?" I asked."Yes."I was silent. Ilooked at him reflectively. He held my stare, and presently a sardonic twinklelit up his eyes."I'mafraid you disapprove of me?""Nonsense," I answered promptly; "I don't disapprove of the boa-constrictor; onthe contrary, I'm interested in his mental processes. ""It's apurely professional interest you take in me?""Purely.""It's onlyright that you shouldn't disapprove of me. You have a despicable character.""Perhapsthat's why you feel at home with me, " I retorted.He smileddryly, but said nothing. I wish I knew how to describe his smile. I do not knowthat it was attractive, but it lit up his face, changing the expression, whichwas generally sombre, and gave it a look of not ill-natured malice. It was aslow smile, starting and sometimes ending in the eyes; it was very sensual,neither cruel nor kindly, but suggested rather the inhuman glee of the satyr.It was his smile that made me ask him:"Haven'tyou been in love since you came to Paris?""I haven'tgot time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art.""Yourappearance doesn't suggest the anchorite. ""All thatbusiness fills me with disgust. ""Humannature is a nuisance, isn't it?" I said."Why areyou sniggering at me?""Because Idon't believe you. ""Thenyou're a damned fool. "I paused, and Ilooked at him searchingly."What'sthe good of trying to humbug me?" I said."I don'tknow what you mean. "I smiled."Let metell you. I imagine that for months the matter never comes into your head, andyou're able to persuade yourself that you've finished with it for good and all.You rejoice in your freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soulyour own. You seem to walk with your head among the stars. And then, all of asudden you can't stand it any more, and you notice that all the time your feethave been walking in the mud. And you want to roll yourself in it. And you findsome woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all thehorror of sex is blatant, and you fall upon her like a wild animal. You drinktill you're blind with rage. "He stared at mewithout the slightest movement. I held his eyes with mine. I spoke very slowly."I'll tellyou what must seem strange, that when it's over you feel so extraordinarilypure. You feel like a disembodied spirit, immaterial; and you seem to be ableto touch beauty as though it were a palpable thing; and you feel an intimatecommunion with the breeze, and with the trees breaking into leaf, and with theiridescence of the river. You feel like God. Can you explain that to me?"He kept hiseyes fixed on mine till I had finished, and then he turned away. There was onhis face a strange look, and I thought that so might a man look when he haddied under the torture. He was silent. I knew that our conversation was ended.思特里克兰德很久很久没有作声。但是他的眼睛却闪着一种奇异的光辉,仿佛看到了某种点燃起他的灵魂、使他心醉神驰的东西。“有些时候我就想到一个包围在无边无际的大海中的小岛,我可以住在岛上一个幽僻的山谷里,四周都是不知名的树木,我寂静安闲地生活在那里。我想在那样一个地方,我就能找到我需要的东西了。”这不是他的原话。他用的是手势而不是形容的词藻,而且结结巴巴没有一句话说得完整。我现在是用自己的话把我认为他想要表达的重新说出来。“回顾一下过去的五年,你认为你这样做值得吗?”我问他道。他看着我,我知道他没有明白我的意思,就解释说:“你丢掉了舒适的家庭,放弃一般人过的那种幸福生活。你本来过得很不错。可是你现在在巴黎大概连饭都吃不饱。再叫你从头儿选择,你还愿意走这条路吗?”“还是这样。”“你知道,你根本没有打听过你的老婆和孩子。难道你从来没有想过他们吗?”“没有。”“我希望你别他妈的老说一个字。你给他们带来这么多不幸,难道你就一分钟也没有后悔过?”他咧开嘴笑了,摇了摇头。“我能想象得出,有时候你还是会不由自主地想起过去的。我不是说想起六七年以前的事,我是说更早以前,你和你妻子刚刚认识的时候,你爱她,同她结了婚。你难道就忘了第一次把她抱在怀里的时候你感到的喜悦?”“我不想过去。对我说来,最重要的是永恒的现在。”我想了想他这句答话的意思。也许他的语义很隐晦,但是我想我还是懂得他大概指的是什么了。“你快活吗?”我问。“当然了。”我没有说什么。我沉思地凝视着他。他也目不转睛地望着我,没过一会儿他的眼睛又闪烁起讥笑的光芒。“我想你对我有点儿意见吧?”“你这话问得没意义,”我马上接口说,“我对蟒蛇的习性并不反对,相反地我对它的心理活动倒很感兴趣。”“这么说来,你纯粹是从职业的角度对我发生兴趣啰?”“纯粹是这样。”“你不反对我是理所当然的,你的性格也实在讨厌。”“也许这正是你同我在一起感到很自然的原故,”我反唇相讥说。他只干笑了一下,没说什么。我真希望我能形容一下儿他笑的样子。我不敢说他的笑容多么好看,但是他一笑起来,脸就泛起光彩,使他平时总是阴沉着的面容改了样子,平添了某种刁钻刻薄的神情。他的笑容来得很慢,常常是从眼睛开始也就消失在眼梢上。另外,他的微笑给人以一种色欲感,既不是残忍的,也不是仁慈的,令人想到森林之神的那种兽性的喜悦。正是他的这种笑容使我提出一个问题。“从你到巴黎以后闹过恋爱吗?”“我没有时间干这种无聊的事。生命太短促了,没有时间既闹恋爱又搞艺术。”“你可不象过隐士生活的样子。”“这种事叫我作呕。”“人性是个讨厌的累赘,对不对?”我说。“你为什么对我傻笑?”“因为我不相信你。”“那你就是个大傻瓜。”我没有马上答话;我用探索的目光盯着他。“你骗我有什么用?”我说。“我不知道你是什么意思。”我笑了。“叫我来说吧。我猜想你是这样一种情况。一连几个月你脑子里一直不想这件事,你甚至可以使自己相信,你同这件事已经彻底绝缘了。你为自己获得了自由而高兴,你觉得终于成为自己灵魂的主人了。你好象昂首于星斗中漫步。但是突然间,你忍受不住了。你发觉你的双脚从来就没有从污泥里拔出过。你现在想索性全身躺在烂泥塘里翻滚。于是你就去找一个女人,一个粗野、低贱、俗不可耐的女人,一个性感毕露令人嫌恶的畜类般的女人。你象一个野兽似地扑到她身上。你拼命往肚里灌酒,你憎恨自己,简直快要发疯了。”他凝视着我,身子一动也不动。我也目不转睛地盯着他的眼睛。我说得很慢。“我现在要告诉你一件看来一定是很奇怪的事:等到那件事过去以后,你会感到自己出奇地洁净。你有一种灵魂把肉体甩脱掉的感觉,一种脱离形体的感觉。你好象一伸手就能触摸到美,倒仿佛‘美'是一件抚摸得到的实体一样。你好象同飒飒的微风、同绽露嫩叶的树木、同波光变幻的流水息息相通。你觉得自己就是上帝。你能够给我解释这是怎么回事吗?”他一直盯着我的眼睛,直到我把话讲完。这以后他才转过脸去。他的脸上有一种奇怪的神情,我觉得一个死于酷刑折磨下的人可能会有这种神情的。他沉默不语。我知道我们这次谈话已经结束了。“叫我来说吧。我猜想你是这样一种情况。一连几个月你脑子里一直不想这件事,你甚至可以使自己相信,你同这件事已经彻底绝缘了。你为自己获得了自由而高兴,你觉得终于成为自己灵魂的主人了。你好象昂首于星斗中漫步。但是突然间,你忍受不住了。你发觉你的双脚从来就没有从污泥里拔出过。你现在想索性全身躺在烂泥塘里翻滚。于是你就去找一个女人,一个粗野、低贱、俗不可耐的女人,一个性感毕露令人嫌恶的畜类般的女人。你象一个野兽似地扑到她身上。你拼命往肚里灌酒,你憎恨自己,简直快要发疯了。”他凝视着我,身子一动也不动。我也目不转睛地盯着他的眼睛。我说得很慢。“我现在要告诉你一件看来一定是很奇怪的事:等到那件事过去以后,你会感到自己出奇地洁净。你有一种灵魂把肉体甩脱掉的感觉,一种脱离形体的感觉。你好象一伸手就能触摸到美,倒仿佛‘美'是一件抚摸得到的实体一样。你好象同飒飒的微风、同绽露嫩叶的树木、同波光变幻的流水息息相通。你觉得自己就是上帝。你能够给我解释这是怎么回事吗?”他一直盯着我的眼睛,直到我把话讲完。这以后他才转过脸去。他的脸上有一种奇怪的神情,我觉得一个死于酷刑折磨下的人可能会有这种神情的。他沉默不语。我知道我们这次谈话已经结束了。
Strickland didnot speak for a long time, but his eyes shone strangely, as though he sawsomething that kindled his soul to ecstasy."SometimesI've thought of an island lost in a boundless sea, where I could live in somehidden valley, among strange trees, in silence. There I think I could find whatI want. "He did notexpress himself quite like this. He used gestures instead of adjectives, and hehalted. I have put into my own words what I think he wanted to say."Lookingback on the last five years, do you think it was worth it?" I asked.He looked atme, and I saw that he did not know what I meant. I explained."You gaveup a comfortable home and a life as happy as the average. You were fairlyprosperous. You seem to have had a rotten time in Paris. If you had your timeover again would you do what you did?""Rather.""Do youknow that you haven't asked anything about your wife or children? Do you neverthink of them?""No.""I wishyou weren't so damned monosyllabic. Have you never had a moment's regret forall the unhappiness you caused them?"His lips brokeinto a smile, and he shook his head."I shouldhave thought sometimes you couldn't help thinking of the past. I don't mean thepast of seven or eight years ago, but further back still, when you first metyour wife, and loved her, and married her. Don't you remember the joy withwhich you first took her in your arms?""I don't thinkof the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present. "I thought for amoment over this reply. It was obscure, perhaps, but I thought that I saw dimlyhis meaning."Are youhappy?" I asked."Yes."I was silent. Ilooked at him reflectively. He held my stare, and presently a sardonic twinklelit up his eyes."I'mafraid you disapprove of me?""Nonsense," I answered promptly; "I don't disapprove of the boa-constrictor; onthe contrary, I'm interested in his mental processes. ""It's apurely professional interest you take in me?""Purely.""It's onlyright that you shouldn't disapprove of me. You have a despicable character.""Perhapsthat's why you feel at home with me, " I retorted.He smileddryly, but said nothing. I wish I knew how to describe his smile. I do not knowthat it was attractive, but it lit up his face, changing the expression, whichwas generally sombre, and gave it a look of not ill-natured malice. It was aslow smile, starting and sometimes ending in the eyes; it was very sensual,neither cruel nor kindly, but suggested rather the inhuman glee of the satyr.It was his smile that made me ask him:"Haven'tyou been in love since you came to Paris?""I haven'tgot time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art.""Yourappearance doesn't suggest the anchorite. ""All thatbusiness fills me with disgust. ""Humannature is a nuisance, isn't it?" I said."Why areyou sniggering at me?""Because Idon't believe you. ""Thenyou're a damned fool. "I paused, and Ilooked at him searchingly."What'sthe good of trying to humbug me?" I said."I don'tknow what you mean. "I smiled."Let metell you. I imagine that for months the matter never comes into your head, andyou're able to persuade yourself that you've finished with it for good and all.You rejoice in your freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soulyour own. You seem to walk with your head among the stars. And then, all of asudden you can't stand it any more, and you notice that all the time your feethave been walking in the mud. And you want to roll yourself in it. And you findsome woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all thehorror of sex is blatant, and you fall upon her like a wild animal. You drinktill you're blind with rage. "He stared at mewithout the slightest movement. I held his eyes with mine. I spoke very slowly."I'll tellyou what must seem strange, that when it's over you feel so extraordinarilypure. You feel like a disembodied spirit, immaterial; and you seem to be ableto touch beauty as though it were a palpable thing; and you feel an intimatecommunion with the breeze, and with the trees breaking into leaf, and with theiridescence of the river. You feel like God. Can you explain that to me?"He kept hiseyes fixed on mine till I had finished, and then he turned away. There was onhis face a strange look, and I thought that so might a man look when he haddied under the torture. He was silent. I knew that our conversation was ended.思特里克兰德很久很久没有作声。但是他的眼睛却闪着一种奇异的光辉,仿佛看到了某种点燃起他的灵魂、使他心醉神驰的东西。“有些时候我就想到一个包围在无边无际的大海中的小岛,我可以住在岛上一个幽僻的山谷里,四周都是不知名的树木,我寂静安闲地生活在那里。我想在那样一个地方,我就能找到我需要的东西了。”这不是他的原话。他用的是手势而不是形容的词藻,而且结结巴巴没有一句话说得完整。我现在是用自己的话把我认为他想要表达的重新说出来。“回顾一下过去的五年,你认为你这样做值得吗?”我问他道。他看着我,我知道他没有明白我的意思,就解释说:“你丢掉了舒适的家庭,放弃一般人过的那种幸福生活。你本来过得很不错。可是你现在在巴黎大概连饭都吃不饱。再叫你从头儿选择,你还愿意走这条路吗?”“还是这样。”“你知道,你根本没有打听过你的老婆和孩子。难道你从来没有想过他们吗?”“没有。”“我希望你别他妈的老说一个字。你给他们带来这么多不幸,难道你就一分钟也没有后悔过?”他咧开嘴笑了,摇了摇头。“我能想象得出,有时候你还是会不由自主地想起过去的。我不是说想起六七年以前的事,我是说更早以前,你和你妻子刚刚认识的时候,你爱她,同她结了婚。你难道就忘了第一次把她抱在怀里的时候你感到的喜悦?”“我不想过去。对我说来,最重要的是永恒的现在。”我想了想他这句答话的意思。也许他的语义很隐晦,但是我想我还是懂得他大概指的是什么了。“你快活吗?”我问。“当然了。”我没有说什么。我沉思地凝视着他。他也目不转睛地望着我,没过一会儿他的眼睛又闪烁起讥笑的光芒。“我想你对我有点儿意见吧?”“你这话问得没意义,”我马上接口说,“我对蟒蛇的习性并不反对,相反地我对它的心理活动倒很感兴趣。”“这么说来,你纯粹是从职业的角度对我发生兴趣啰?”“纯粹是这样。”“你不反对我是理所当然的,你的性格也实在讨厌。”“也许这正是你同我在一起感到很自然的原故,”我反唇相讥说。他只干笑了一下,没说什么。我真希望我能形容一下儿他笑的样子。我不敢说他的笑容多么好看,但是他一笑起来,脸就泛起光彩,使他平时总是阴沉着的面容改了样子,平添了某种刁钻刻薄的神情。他的笑容来得很慢,常常是从眼睛开始也就消失在眼梢上。另外,他的微笑给人以一种色欲感,既不是残忍的,也不是仁慈的,令人想到森林之神的那种兽性的喜悦。正是他的这种笑容使我提出一个问题。“从你到巴黎以后闹过恋爱吗?”“我没有时间干这种无聊的事。生命太短促了,没有时间既闹恋爱又搞艺术。”“你可不象过隐士生活的样子。”“这种事叫我作呕。”“人性是个讨厌的累赘,对不对?”我说。“你为什么对我傻笑?”“因为我不相信你。”“那你就是个大傻瓜。”我没有马上答话;我用探索的目光盯着他。“你骗我有什么用?”我说。“我不知道你是什么意思。”我笑了。“叫我来说吧。我猜想你是这样一种情况。一连几个月你脑子里一直不想这件事,你甚至可以使自己相信,你同这件事已经彻底绝缘了。你为自己获得了自由而高兴,你觉得终于成为自己灵魂的主人了。你好象昂首于星斗中漫步。但是突然间,你忍受不住了。你发觉你的双脚从来就没有从污泥里拔出过。你现在想索性全身躺在烂泥塘里翻滚。于是你就去找一个女人,一个粗野、低贱、俗不可耐的女人,一个性感毕露令人嫌恶的畜类般的女人。你象一个野兽似地扑到她身上。你拼命往肚里灌酒,你憎恨自己,简直快要发疯了。”他凝视着我,身子一动也不动。我也目不转睛地盯着他的眼睛。我说得很慢。“我现在要告诉你一件看来一定是很奇怪的事:等到那件事过去以后,你会感到自己出奇地洁净。你有一种灵魂把肉体甩脱掉的感觉,一种脱离形体的感觉。你好象一伸手就能触摸到美,倒仿佛‘美'是一件抚摸得到的实体一样。你好象同飒飒的微风、同绽露嫩叶的树木、同波光变幻的流水息息相通。你觉得自己就是上帝。你能够给我解释这是怎么回事吗?”他一直盯着我的眼睛,直到我把话讲完。这以后他才转过脸去。他的脸上有一种奇怪的神情,我觉得一个死于酷刑折磨下的人可能会有这种神情的。他沉默不语。我知道我们这次谈话已经结束了。“叫我来说吧。我猜想你是这样一种情况。一连几个月你脑子里一直不想这件事,你甚至可以使自己相信,你同这件事已经彻底绝缘了。你为自己获得了自由而高兴,你觉得终于成为自己灵魂的主人了。你好象昂首于星斗中漫步。但是突然间,你忍受不住了。你发觉你的双脚从来就没有从污泥里拔出过。你现在想索性全身躺在烂泥塘里翻滚。于是你就去找一个女人,一个粗野、低贱、俗不可耐的女人,一个性感毕露令人嫌恶的畜类般的女人。你象一个野兽似地扑到她身上。你拼命往肚里灌酒,你憎恨自己,简直快要发疯了。”他凝视着我,身子一动也不动。我也目不转睛地盯着他的眼睛。我说得很慢。“我现在要告诉你一件看来一定是很奇怪的事:等到那件事过去以后,你会感到自己出奇地洁净。你有一种灵魂把肉体甩脱掉的感觉,一种脱离形体的感觉。你好象一伸手就能触摸到美,倒仿佛‘美'是一件抚摸得到的实体一样。你好象同飒飒的微风、同绽露嫩叶的树木、同波光变幻的流水息息相通。你觉得自己就是上帝。你能够给我解释这是怎么回事吗?”他一直盯着我的眼睛,直到我把话讲完。这以后他才转过脸去。他的脸上有一种奇怪的神情,我觉得一个死于酷刑折磨下的人可能会有这种神情的。他沉默不语。我知道我们这次谈话已经结束了。
Hi, there, this is Ko Ko.First, I have to apologize. Yeah, I have to apologize again.‘Cause I haven't updated this particular podcast for at least five months…yeah… five months, since last year I went to Las Vegas. Then, we are going todive into today's topic, which is, the Sin City, Las Vegas. Yes, it's the citythat I went to and then stopped updating my podcast.The Sin City, Las Vegas 罪恶之城,拉斯维加斯Las Vegas, normally we just call it Vegas.你去哪啦?I just went to Vegas last week.And a lot of people also call it the Sin City, just as whatI mentioned earlier.Actually, there are many reasons that caused the city to becalled the Sin City. The most accepted reason is because there are so manythings that we can do in Las Vegas, either legal or illegal but ok, but wecan't do them in other places in the US.Legal 合法Illegal 不合法本节目下面的文本请在公众号esenglish输入关键词:罪恶之城;拉斯维加斯跟KO姐学英语,轻松快乐,进步于无形~ 请关注微信公众号:esenglish更多跟读推送以及英语内容请关注订阅号:esposts练习发音,提高听力阅读单词量,请查阅专辑【听力阅读专项提升】咨询课程加助教的微信:t1123530541本节目文本信息请在公众号esenglish输入关键词:罪恶之城;拉斯维加斯
Hi, there, this is Ko Ko. First, I have to apologize. Yeah, I have to apologize again.‘Cause I haven’t updated this particular podcast for at least five months…yeah… five months, since last year I went to Las Vegas. Then, we are going todive into today’s topic, which is, the Sin City, Las Vegas. Yes, it’s the citythat I went to and then stopped updating my podcast. The Sin City, Las Vegas 罪恶之城,拉斯维加斯 Las Vegas, normally we just call it Vegas. 你去哪啦?I just went to Vegas last week. And a lot of people also call it the Sin City, just as whatI mentioned earlier. Actually, there are many reasons that caused the city to becalled the Sin City. The most accepted reason is because there are so manythings that we can do in Las Vegas, either legal or illegal but ok, but wecan’t do them in other places in the US. Legal 合法 Illegal 不合法 本节目下面的文本请在公众号esenglish输入关键词:罪恶之城;拉斯维...
He looked at mewith an astonishment that was certainly not feigned. The smile abandoned hislips, and he spoke quite seriously."But, mydear fellow, I don't care. It doesn't matter a twopenny damn to me one way orthe other. "I laughed."Oh, comenow; you mustn't think us such fools as all that. We happen to know that youcame away with a woman. "He gave alittle start, and then suddenly burst into a shout of laughter. He laughed souproariously that people sitting near us looked round, and some of them beganto laugh too."I don'tsee anything very amusing in that. ""Poor Amy," he grinned.Then his facegrew bitterly scornful."What poorminds women have got! Love. It's always love. They think a man leaves onlybecause he wants others. Do you think I should be such a fool as to do whatI've done for a woman?""Do youmean to say you didn't leave your wife for another woman?""Of coursenot. ""On yourword of honour?"I don't knowwhy I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me."On myword of honour. ""Then,what in God's name have you left her for?""I want topaint. "I looked at himfor quite a long time. I did not understand. I thought he was mad. It must beremembered that I was very young, and I looked upon him as a middle-aged man. Iforgot everything but my own amazement."Butyou're forty. ""That'swhat made me think it was high time to begin. ""Have youever painted?""I ratherwanted to be a painter when I was a boy, but my father made me go into businessbecause he said there was no money in art. I began to paint a bit a year ago.For the last year I've been going to some classes at night. ""Was thatwhere you went when Mrs. Strickland thought you were playing bridge at yourclub?""That'sit. ""Whydidn't you tell her?""Ipreferred to keep it to myself. ""Can youpaint?""Not yet.But I shall. That's why I've come over here. I couldn't get what I wanted inLondon. Perhaps I can here. ""Do youthink it's likely that a man will do any good when he starts at your age? Mostmen begin painting at eighteen. ""I canlearn quicker than I could when I was eighteen. ""Whatmakes you think you have any talent?"He did notanswer for a minute. His gaze rested on the passing throng, but I do not thinkhe saw it. His answer was no answer."I've gotto paint. ""Aren'tyou taking an awful chance?"He looked atme. His eyes had something strange in them, so that I felt ratheruncomfortable."How oldare you? Twenty-three?"It seemed to methat the question was beside the point. It was natural that I should takechances; but he was a man whose youth was past, a stockbroker with a positionof respectability, a wife and two children. A course that would have beennatural for me was absurd for him. I wished to be quite fair."Of coursea miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess thechances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the endyou have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it. ""I've gotto paint, " he repeated."Supposingyou're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have beenworth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life itdoesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably ifyou're just adequate; but it's different with an artist. ""Youblasted fool, " he said."I don'tsee why, unless it's folly to say the obvious. ""I tellyou I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water itdoesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'lldrown. "There was realpassion in his voice, and in spite of myself I was impressed. I seemed to feelin him some vehement power that was struggling within him; it gave me thesensation of something very strong, overmastering, that held him, as it were,against his will. I could not understand. He seemed really to be possessed of adevil, and I felt that it might suddenly turn and rend him. Yet he lookedordinary enough. My eyes, resting on him curiously, caused him noembarrassment. Iwondered what a stranger would have taken him to be, sitting there in his oldNorfolk jacket and his unbrushed bowler; his trousers were baggy, his handswere not clean; and his face, with the red stubble of the unshaved chin, thelittle eyes, and the large, aggressive nose, was uncouth and coarse. His mouthwas large, his lips were heavy and sensual. No; I could not have placed him."You won'tgo back to your wife?" I said at last."Never.""She'swilling to forget everything that's happened and start afresh. She'll nevermake you a single reproach. ""She cango to hell. ""You don'tcare if people think you an utter blackguard? You don't care if she and yourchildren have to beg their bread?""Not adamn. "I was silentfor a moment in order to give greater force to my next remark. I spoke asdeliberately as I could."You are amost unmitigated cad. ""Now that you'vegot that off your chest, let's go and have dinner. "他非常惊讶地紧紧盯着我,显然不是在装假。笑容从他嘴角上消失了,他一本正经地说:“但是,亲爱的朋友,我才不管她怎么做呢。她同我离婚也好,不离婚也好,我都无所谓。”我笑了起来。“噢,算了吧!你别把我们当成那样的傻瓜了。我们凑巧知道你是同一个女人一起走的。”他愣了一下,但是马上就哈哈大笑起来。他笑得声音那么响,连坐在我们旁边的人都好奇地转过头来,甚至还有几个人也跟着笑起来。“我看不出这有什么可笑的。”“可怜的阿美,”他笑容未消地说。接着,他的面容一变而为鄙夷不屑的样子。“女人的脑子太可怜了!爱情。她们就知道爱情。她们认为如果男人离开了她们就是因为又有了新宠。你是不是认为我是这么一个傻瓜,还要再做一遍我已经为一个女人做过了的那些事?”“你是说你不是因为另外一个女人才离开你妻子?”“当然不是。”“你敢发誓?”我不知道为什么我这样要求他。我问这句话完全没有动脑子。“我发誓。”“那么你到底是为什么离开她的?”“我要画画儿。”我半天半天目不转睛地盯着他。我一点儿也不理解。我想这个人准是疯了。读者应该记住,我那时还很年轻,我把他看做是一个中年人。我除了感到自己的惊诧外什么都不记得了。“可是你已经四十了。”“正是因为这个我才想,如果现在再不开始就太晚了。”“你过去画过画儿吗?”“我小的时候很想作个画家,可是我父亲叫我去作生意,因为他认为学艺术赚不了钱。一年以前我开始画了点儿画。去年我一直在夜校上课。”“思特里克兰德太太以为你在俱乐部玩桥牌的时间你都是去上课吗?”“对了。”“你为什么不告诉她?”“我觉得还是别让她知道好。”“你能够画了吗?”“还不成。但是我将来能够学会的。正是为了这个我才到巴黎来。在伦敦我得不到我要求的东西。也许在这里我会得到的。”“你认为象你这样年纪的人开始学画还能够学得好吗?大多数人都是十八岁开始学。”“如果我十八岁学,会比现在学得快一些。”“你怎么会认为自己还有一些绘画的才能?”他并没有马上回答我的问题。他的目光停在过往的人群上,但是我认为他什么也没有看见。最后他回答我的话根本算不上是回答。“我必须画画儿。”“你这样做是不是完全在碰运气?”这时他把目光转到我身上。他的眼睛里有一种奇怪的神情,叫我觉得不太舒服。“你多大年纪?二十三岁?”我觉得他提这个问题与我们谈的事毫不相干。如果我想碰碰运气做一件什么事的话,这是极其自然的事;但是他的青年时代早已过去了,他是一个有身份有地位的证券经纪人,家里有一个老婆、两个孩子。对我说来是自然的道路在他那里就成为荒谬悻理的了。但是我还是想尽量对他公道一些。“当然了,也许会发生奇迹,你也许会成为一个大画家。但你必须承认,这种可能性是微乎其微的。假如到头来你不得不承认把事情搞得一塌糊涂,你就后悔莫及了。”“我必须画画儿,”他又重复了一句。“假如你最多只能成为一个三流画家,你是不是还认为值得把一切都抛弃掉呢?不管怎么说,其他各行各业,假如你才不出众,并没有多大关系;只要还能过得去,你就能够舒舒服服地过日子;但是当一个艺术家完全是另一码事。”“你他妈的真是个傻瓜。”他说。“我不知道你为什么这么说,除非我这样把最明显的道理说出来是在干傻事。”“我告诉你我必须画画儿。我由不了我自己。一个人要是跌进水里,他游泳游得好不好是无关紧要的,反正他得挣扎出去,不然就得淹死。”他的语音里流露着一片热诚,我不由自主地被他感动了。我好象感觉到一种猛烈的力量正在他身体里面奋力挣扎;我觉得这种力量非常强大,压倒一切,仿佛违拗着他自己的意志,并把他紧紧抓在手中。我理解不了。他似乎真的让魔鬼附体了,我觉得他可能一下子被那东西撕得粉碎。但是从表面上看,他却平平常常。我的眼睛好奇地盯着他,他却一点也不感到难为情。他坐在那里,穿着一件破旧的诺弗克上衣,戴着顶早就该拂拭的圆顶帽,我真不知道一个陌生人会把他当做什么人。他的裤腿象两只口袋,手并不很干净,下巴上全是红胡子茬,一对小眼睛,撅起的大鼻头,脸相又笨拙又粗野。他的嘴很大,厚厚的嘴唇给人以耽于色欲的感觉。不成,我无法判定他是怎样一类人。“你不准备回到你妻子那里去了?”最后我开口说。“永远不回去了。”“她可是愿意把发生的这些事全都忘掉,一切从头开始。她一句话也不责备你。”“让她见鬼去吧!”“你不在乎别人把你当做个彻头彻尾的坏蛋吗?你不在乎你的妻子儿女去讨饭吗?”“一点也不在乎。”我沉默了一会儿,为了使我底下这句话有更大的力量。我故意把一个个的字吐得真真切切。“你是个不折不扣的混蛋。”“成了,你现在把压在心上的话已经说出来了,咱们可以去吃饭了。”
He looked at mewith an astonishment that was certainly not feigned. The smile abandoned hislips, and he spoke quite seriously."But, mydear fellow, I don't care. It doesn't matter a twopenny damn to me one way orthe other. "I laughed."Oh, comenow; you mustn't think us such fools as all that. We happen to know that youcame away with a woman. "He gave alittle start, and then suddenly burst into a shout of laughter. He laughed souproariously that people sitting near us looked round, and some of them beganto laugh too."I don'tsee anything very amusing in that. ""Poor Amy," he grinned.Then his facegrew bitterly scornful."What poorminds women have got! Love. It's always love. They think a man leaves onlybecause he wants others. Do you think I should be such a fool as to do whatI've done for a woman?""Do youmean to say you didn't leave your wife for another woman?""Of coursenot. ""On yourword of honour?"I don't knowwhy I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me."On myword of honour. ""Then,what in God's name have you left her for?""I want topaint. "I looked at himfor quite a long time. I did not understand. I thought he was mad. It must beremembered that I was very young, and I looked upon him as a middle-aged man. Iforgot everything but my own amazement."Butyou're forty. ""That'swhat made me think it was high time to begin. ""Have youever painted?""I ratherwanted to be a painter when I was a boy, but my father made me go into businessbecause he said there was no money in art. I began to paint a bit a year ago.For the last year I've been going to some classes at night. ""Was thatwhere you went when Mrs. Strickland thought you were playing bridge at yourclub?""That'sit. ""Whydidn't you tell her?""Ipreferred to keep it to myself. ""Can youpaint?""Not yet.But I shall. That's why I've come over here. I couldn't get what I wanted inLondon. Perhaps I can here. ""Do youthink it's likely that a man will do any good when he starts at your age? Mostmen begin painting at eighteen. ""I canlearn quicker than I could when I was eighteen. ""Whatmakes you think you have any talent?"He did notanswer for a minute. His gaze rested on the passing throng, but I do not thinkhe saw it. His answer was no answer."I've gotto paint. ""Aren'tyou taking an awful chance?"He looked atme. His eyes had something strange in them, so that I felt ratheruncomfortable."How oldare you? Twenty-three?"It seemed to methat the question was beside the point. It was natural that I should takechances; but he was a man whose youth was past, a stockbroker with a positionof respectability, a wife and two children. A course that would have beennatural for me was absurd for him. I wished to be quite fair."Of coursea miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess thechances are a million to one against it. It'll be an awful sell if at the endyou have to acknowledge you've made a hash of it. ""I've gotto paint, " he repeated."Supposingyou're never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have beenworth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life itdoesn't matter if you're not very good; you can get along quite comfortably ifyou're just adequate; but it's different with an artist. ""Youblasted fool, " he said."I don'tsee why, unless it's folly to say the obvious. ""I tellyou I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water itdoesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'lldrown. "There was realpassion in his voice, and in spite of myself I was impressed. I seemed to feelin him some vehement power that was struggling within him; it gave me thesensation of something very strong, overmastering, that held him, as it were,against his will. I could not understand. He seemed really to be possessed of adevil, and I felt that it might suddenly turn and rend him. Yet he lookedordinary enough. My eyes, resting on him curiously, caused him noembarrassment. Iwondered what a stranger would have taken him to be, sitting there in his oldNorfolk jacket and his unbrushed bowler; his trousers were baggy, his handswere not clean; and his face, with the red stubble of the unshaved chin, thelittle eyes, and the large, aggressive nose, was uncouth and coarse. His mouthwas large, his lips were heavy and sensual. No; I could not have placed him."You won'tgo back to your wife?" I said at last."Never.""She'swilling to forget everything that's happened and start afresh. She'll nevermake you a single reproach. ""She cango to hell. ""You don'tcare if people think you an utter blackguard? You don't care if she and yourchildren have to beg their bread?""Not adamn. "I was silentfor a moment in order to give greater force to my next remark. I spoke asdeliberately as I could."You are amost unmitigated cad. ""Now that you'vegot that off your chest, let's go and have dinner. "他非常惊讶地紧紧盯着我,显然不是在装假。笑容从他嘴角上消失了,他一本正经地说:“但是,亲爱的朋友,我才不管她怎么做呢。她同我离婚也好,不离婚也好,我都无所谓。”我笑了起来。“噢,算了吧!你别把我们当成那样的傻瓜了。我们凑巧知道你是同一个女人一起走的。”他愣了一下,但是马上就哈哈大笑起来。他笑得声音那么响,连坐在我们旁边的人都好奇地转过头来,甚至还有几个人也跟着笑起来。“我看不出这有什么可笑的。”“可怜的阿美,”他笑容未消地说。接着,他的面容一变而为鄙夷不屑的样子。“女人的脑子太可怜了!爱情。她们就知道爱情。她们认为如果男人离开了她们就是因为又有了新宠。你是不是认为我是这么一个傻瓜,还要再做一遍我已经为一个女人做过了的那些事?”“你是说你不是因为另外一个女人才离开你妻子?”“当然不是。”“你敢发誓?”我不知道为什么我这样要求他。我问这句话完全没有动脑子。“我发誓。”“那么你到底是为什么离开她的?”“我要画画儿。”我半天半天目不转睛地盯着他。我一点儿也不理解。我想这个人准是疯了。读者应该记住,我那时还很年轻,我把他看做是一个中年人。我除了感到自己的惊诧外什么都不记得了。“可是你已经四十了。”“正是因为这个我才想,如果现在再不开始就太晚了。”“你过去画过画儿吗?”“我小的时候很想作个画家,可是我父亲叫我去作生意,因为他认为学艺术赚不了钱。一年以前我开始画了点儿画。去年我一直在夜校上课。”“思特里克兰德太太以为你在俱乐部玩桥牌的时间你都是去上课吗?”“对了。”“你为什么不告诉她?”“我觉得还是别让她知道好。”“你能够画了吗?”“还不成。但是我将来能够学会的。正是为了这个我才到巴黎来。在伦敦我得不到我要求的东西。也许在这里我会得到的。”“你认为象你这样年纪的人开始学画还能够学得好吗?大多数人都是十八岁开始学。”“如果我十八岁学,会比现在学得快一些。”“你怎么会认为自己还有一些绘画的才能?”他并没有马上回答我的问题。他的目光停在过往的人群上,但是我认为他什么也没有看见。最后他回答我的话根本算不上是回答。“我必须画画儿。”“你这样做是不是完全在碰运气?”这时他把目光转到我身上。他的眼睛里有一种奇怪的神情,叫我觉得不太舒服。“你多大年纪?二十三岁?”我觉得他提这个问题与我们谈的事毫不相干。如果我想碰碰运气做一件什么事的话,这是极其自然的事;但是他的青年时代早已过去了,他是一个有身份有地位的证券经纪人,家里有一个老婆、两个孩子。对我说来是自然的道路在他那里就成为荒谬悻理的了。但是我还是想尽量对他公道一些。“当然了,也许会发生奇迹,你也许会成为一个大画家。但你必须承认,这种可能性是微乎其微的。假如到头来你不得不承认把事情搞得一塌糊涂,你就后悔莫及了。”“我必须画画儿,”他又重复了一句。“假如你最多只能成为一个三流画家,你是不是还认为值得把一切都抛弃掉呢?不管怎么说,其他各行各业,假如你才不出众,并没有多大关系;只要还能过得去,你就能够舒舒服服地过日子;但是当一个艺术家完全是另一码事。”“你他妈的真是个傻瓜。”他说。“我不知道你为什么这么说,除非我这样把最明显的道理说出来是在干傻事。”“我告诉你我必须画画儿。我由不了我自己。一个人要是跌进水里,他游泳游得好不好是无关紧要的,反正他得挣扎出去,不然就得淹死。”他的语音里流露着一片热诚,我不由自主地被他感动了。我好象感觉到一种猛烈的力量正在他身体里面奋力挣扎;我觉得这种力量非常强大,压倒一切,仿佛违拗着他自己的意志,并把他紧紧抓在手中。我理解不了。他似乎真的让魔鬼附体了,我觉得他可能一下子被那东西撕得粉碎。但是从表面上看,他却平平常常。我的眼睛好奇地盯着他,他却一点也不感到难为情。他坐在那里,穿着一件破旧的诺弗克上衣,戴着顶早就该拂拭的圆顶帽,我真不知道一个陌生人会把他当做什么人。他的裤腿象两只口袋,手并不很干净,下巴上全是红胡子茬,一对小眼睛,撅起的大鼻头,脸相又笨拙又粗野。他的嘴很大,厚厚的嘴唇给人以耽于色欲的感觉。不成,我无法判定他是怎样一类人。“你不准备回到你妻子那里去了?”最后我开口说。“永远不回去了。”“她可是愿意把发生的这些事全都忘掉,一切从头开始。她一句话也不责备你。”“让她见鬼去吧!”“你不在乎别人把你当做个彻头彻尾的坏蛋吗?你不在乎你的妻子儿女去讨饭吗?”“一点也不在乎。”我沉默了一会儿,为了使我底下这句话有更大的力量。我故意把一个个的字吐得真真切切。“你是个不折不扣的混蛋。”“成了,你现在把压在心上的话已经说出来了,咱们可以去吃饭了。”
* An app could listen to people talking to you and come up with responses for you to say, so you don't have to pay attention if you're bored. Although, if people like talking to your app more than talking to you, it might crush your self-esteem * An anonymous messaging app could allow disgruntled drivers to send angry text messages to other drivers using their license plate. This would instantly cause a huge spike of deaths from these disgruntled drivers crashing while trying to send their angry texts. But these aren't the best people anyway * An hourly drone rental service for sightseeing at the Grand Canyon (or some other vacation destination). You'd control the drone and watch the live-stream of the drone while at home using your computer, tablet, or VR headset. Afterwards, it would send you 4k video recorded by the drone. * A kit could allow toy drone enthusiasts to convert an attic vent to a "drone doggy-door", and put a grid of wireless drone charging stations in their attic. They could then use an app to advertise their house as a "drone charging station", to create a nationwide "drone charging network", thus allowing people to gradually fly toy drones (which are connected to the cell phone network) across the country * There should be traveling "food circuses" where each food circus is for a specific genre of food (Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Greek, etc.), and cooks and market vendors from that country serve/sell food of every class of that food genre (markets, street food, normal everyday restaurants, fancy 4-star restaurants). It would have scheduled activities, like speeches from famous chefs or cooking lessons. It would be designed to allow walking around, but also specifically designed to enable quick entry and exit so that people can go during their lunch hour at work (i.e. you wouldn't have to walk a half hour to get to your car) What I Should Say (Conversation Assistant App) (@kitiara666 Melanie Gresham 00:45) License Plate Hate (Social Networking App) (@adamwest_ 13:41) Live Streaming Drone Sightseeing Tours (@thomaswalma 25:09) Nationwide Drone Charging Network (and Drone Charging Station Setup Kit) (@thomaswalma 31:26) Food Circus (@thomaswalma 34:35) Recorded at PodcastDetroit.com
In what can only be described as a Daydream come true (see whatI did there?) we got the opportunity to host Transformers: The Movie at the Alamo Drafthouse Omaha!! Transformers: The Movie is one of Eddie's favorite films (if not THE favorite) and being able to take part in hosting the screening of it at the one and only Alamo Drafthouse was almost enough to send him into a state of shock! Josh had actually never seen the movie so getting his take on it was particularly fun to hear, and Billy brought a ton of great perpective and enthusiasm to it as always! Thank you Alamo, and thank you listeners for being awesome! We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed hosting the film!! You got the TOUCH!!!
How would you go about telling a truth, after concealing a lie? What if it exposed, what would you do or say... Tell another lie to cover up the other, or fess up that you did it? What Secret should you tell: Before they find out? I've cheated on youI live a double lifeI got other children on the sideI'm pregnant and I don't know if it is yoursI have Aids, Hepititus or HerpesI have an addiction...explain to whatI have mental and emotional issuesMy family has mental and/physical impariments in our genes When should you tell a Secret? After 3 months of getting to know the basics about someone?Right away?After you have sex?Over candle light and dinnerAll of the above? Who should know about your secret and can you trust them? Whatever it is, what is the COSTof coming clean? What if you kept a secret for a friend, what is the COST for doing it, what is the COST for telling it...what is the CONSEQUENCES? How would one act on something like this: No longer can you be trusted?God will bless you for not standing in an EVIL thing?Using the method that love COVERS the mulitude of sins?lose family members, relationships, and friendships for doing the right thing.??Compassion Use PRUDENCE and JUDGEMENT before you tell anything that will damage your reputation, loyalty, or integrity. Decide if the person is trustworthy to handle your secret with care, supplication in prayer, and come to a mutual understanding if this is something you want in your life.. Give a person a chance to make an EDUCATED DECISION about being withyou! Join me, Miss D and my Co-host Akeelah Ali on this topic 347-884-8684
www.fashionablefinance.comI want to talk to you about service.What comes to your mind when you hear that word? I’m talking about the kind of service that you would render to someone. Service brings all kinds of thoughts to our mind. Sometimes peoplehaven’t had the best experience with service and some people haven’t had any experience serving. Everything that we do has some kind of impact on other people’s lives, whether you’re working at your job, or in a community. Let me ask you another question. Have you ever been a recipient of someone doing service for you or to you? Serving someone if one of the greatest things you could ever do in your life and I can say that because I have experienced it, I have talked to many,many people who give service and have received service. I have found that serving other people is not something most people think about on a daily basis. Now, I’m not talking about the kind of service that you sacrifice your health, family or anything like that. That’s why the word service scares people because that’s what they think will happen; if you serve in any capacity you’re going to have to sacrifice those things. But...I’m talking about the kind of service that would help, uplift, make a difference in someone’s life. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant or extreme that’s not whatI’m talking about. There’s not enough talk about being of service. I know it’s because people are so consumed with their own life that it’s hard to think about being of service to others and that’s a natural feeling, that’s how things are now and everyone is really busy. Everywhere you go, you see people rushing around, rushing to and from work, rushing to take their kids to school and then to their extra-curricular activities and sports practices. Rushing home to make dinner. It’s really hard sometimes to be of service when you’re doing all these things for your family. I get that because I’ve been there too. My kids were young at one point and I was driving them all over the place. But there needs to be more talk of service and there needs to be more “doing” of service as well, you can’t just talk about it, you actually have to do it and experience it. There’s something that you really get when you serve somebody and it’s not even something that somebody can explain to you how that feeling is when you give service. I want to give you one small example of service from my Grandmother, this is what I witnessed growing up that she did. She was the greatest example of someone giving unconditional service and unconditional love, and kindness and caring. When I was little, my Grandmother used to take one of her cousin to work and he worked at the University Of Hawaii, and I live here in Hawaii. She lived only about 10 to 15 minutes away from the University and he worked there in the maintenance department and he wasn’t able to drive. He lived with his siblings and parents, which was only a few minutes away from my Grandmother, so she would go every night - because he worked in the evenings and pick him up, take him to the University so that he could go to work and then she would go and pick him up from work and take himhome. I was blessed and lucky enough that I used to go with her a lot when she used to pick him up and drop him off to work, I was a really little girl - I don’t even remember how old I was when I used to go with her. I know I was in early elementary and maybe even younger, so you’re talking a long timeago(that’s beside the point!). I always remember sitting beside her in the car and it was always fun to be with my Grandmother anyway and I still think about that till this day. I don’t remember how many years she did that. She is no longer here and she passed away about 11 years ago. She was my greatest example of just doing things that would help somebody, something so small and in her eyes it was no big deal, but I’ve witnessed what a great impact it had on her cousin and his family because his family members didn’t drive either. I’m just in awe of someone giving up that much time, now I don’t know howmany days of the week she did that or any of that, I didn’t keep track and I know that she did that for many, many years. But I still think to myself about how amazing that was, where she never complained, she just did it because she knew he couldn’t drive and I knewthere were times when he caught the bus as well. There were many, many times and years that she picked him up. The kind of service that I’m talking about can be something like that if you do have the time and you do have the resources to go and do that. But service doesn’t have to be that big, it doesn’t have to be where you pick somebody up all the time and take them somewhere, it could be taking a meal to the if you know they’re sick or not feeling good or if somebody just had a baby you could go and take a meal and just be of service - it’s amazing, the feeling that you’ll get. Because I’ve had this great example all my life from my Grandmother, I’vedone those things myself just naturally without even thinking about it, and I’m so grateful that I had that example because I don’t think I would be doing or have done any of the things I’ve done to give of myself and to give service to people that need it. Sometime we think that we don’t have time and it’s such a hassle, but if you actually make your first attempt if you’ve never, ever given service to anyone, I would definitely encourage you to try it at least one time. If you know somebody that needs a meal, if they’re having a rough time going through some kind of really stressful event that happened in their life or a death in the family - go and take them a meal, just drop it off and let them know that you’re thinking about them. It’s just so amazing and like I said earlier, I was a recipient of people doing service for me as well, like when I’ve had my children I had many wonderful friends bring meals for me and my family when I got out of the hospital and just little things like that and another friend who offered to take my other children to school because I had just gotten home from the hospital after having another baby. It really makes you feel like everything is going to be O.K. because sometimes you go through life and you just wonder… are you doing to make it? You have times where you feel like… I just feel like doing this anymore! Or you’re frustrated and you have no idea how you’re going to get over that frustration. Life is hard sometime, sometimes it can be harder than others and so you’ll never know what kind of difference you’ll make in somebody’s life. I’ve actually had people tell me so many times - “thank you so much what you did it really made my day, I just was having a hard day.” I’ve done so many things over the years and people have thanked me before and I didn’t really keep track of those thank you’s because it just makes me feel good, so it’s not something that I needed to write down. But those things and those feelings and gratitude from other people never leave you, it just makes you feel really good and it makes you actually want to give more service as often as possible. This is something that I think we need more of and I think it’s something that we need to do more often and the reason that I say that is that we’re so caught up in our own lives, and it’s really difficult to think about other people when we’re stressed out and some-times we think that if we have an idea of doing something nice for somebody, sometimes you’ll have a thought “oh, they don’t need it they’re fine”, “they’re tough” or “they’re a really strong family” or “that person’s really strong they’ll survive”. We have thoughts in our head that we think that when we have that little thought come into our mind about “oh, maybe I should ask them to see if they need anything”. Sometime the automatic response and thought that you would have is “oh, they probably wouldn’t want anything from me anyway”, you might even have thoughts of like “well, why would they even want anything from me?” We always think that so many other people are better than we are andthey don’t need anything from us or they have more money than we do so they can buy whatever they need, but that’s not always the case. Even people that do have more money than you, still need service and love and compassion from others because money doesn’t buy happiness - money just gives you more options. Money gives you more opportunitiesand things like that, but the true source of happiness really comes from service and giving and sometimes I think we need to give more than we take. I’m talking from experience, I’ve had moments years and years ago where I don’t think I was serving very much - I was trying to take as much as possible from others, not in a bad way but because I had things going on or life was stressful at the time. So now I feel like I want to make up for all of that taking that I did, but sometimes we do need to take but we need to view it as receiving verses taking because when you receive, it’s a very different emotion and thoughtand a way of living versus just taking. Taking, is all about just what’s in it for you, but receiving is allowing the other person to feel good as well as - me feeling good for the gift that somebody else is giving me and in the gift of service. So, think about that for awhile. I really hope that you have a desire to serve, and like I said if you’ve never served or done anything like that - I really encourage you to try it at least once. I would really love for you to tell me what kind of service you’ve done and any of you that are listening, I would love for you to share with me some of the things that you’ve done as a service or some of the things that you’ve received when someone has given service to you. It doesn’t have to be anything major, some-times we think our stories are not significant, but you’ll be amazed at how significant they really are. I would love for you to connect with me at janin@fashionablefinance.com and even if you have a comment too, I would love your comments and if you have anything else that you would like me to talk about and create another episode, I would love for you to share that with me.Please share this podcast too with other people that you know who you think would be able to benefit from the things that I’m sharing. All the things that I share is always the things that I’ve learned and gone through in my life and learned by experience and so please share this message with other people, you’ll be amazed at how it could really help someone when you didn’t think it could. So let them know where they can listen to this recording, they can go to iTunes and they can search for Fashionable Finance or they can go to my website at fashionablefinance.com and it’s right there on my website, you can listen to it as well over there. I would appreciate it if you would go to iTunes and give me an honest rating and an honest review, I would really appreciate that and it lets me know what you folks are liking and not liking and what you think is of value. I only want to share value, I don’t want to share anything that’s not worth your time. I want to sum it up by saying that service is one of the greatest things that you could ever do in your life and I know that for sure because I’ve witnessed it and I’ve done it myself and I’ve been the recipient of service as well. I know the countless number of other people who have been the recipient as well and they’ve shared with me the blessings and relief that it’s brought to them. Get creative and think about what is one neat thing that you could do for some-body and it doesn’t have to be a meal, it doesn’t have to be anything extravagant - you can even pick up the phone if haven’t talked to somebody in a really long time, let them know that you were thinking about them and how they’re doing and just wanting to know if everything is O.K. It could be something as simple as writing a card to let them know that you’re thinking about them if you don’t want to call. There’s so many ways that you could give of service and even though writing a card and calling somebody on the phone may not seem like a service but… it is! Trust me, I’ve heard from many people who have felt like it was such a great service to them. Brainstorm on paper, remember I always say “write everything down, get everythingout of your head and on to paper” Just jot down a few ideas that you might have on what kind of service that you could offer to someone. It will make you feel good and it will help you sleep really good at night. I thank you so much, I really appreciate you being here and listening to this episodeand listening to me, I want to send out some wonderful Hawaiian sunshine to all of you listening out there and I appreciate any new listeners that we have. Again, I would love for you to send me a message, you can even go to my website and leave me a voicemail, you just click on the voicemail tab on the right-hand side and let me know what you think! I want to thank you.a hui hou malama pono - until next time, take care You can also find me at facebook.com/fashionablefinance.com andwww.twitter.com/janinjohnston I hope you are enjoying listening to this podcast! Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or Stitcher Radio,so that you'll never miss an episode. Connect with me: janin@fashionablefinance.com Mahalo for listening. Aloha, Janin Johnston Music by: Dennis PavaoSong: Ipo Lei ManuAlbum: Wale NoProduced by: Pilialoha Production
Welcome to Lancelot's Roundtable - Episode 23Career Re-evaluation with Shelby SmithShelby 00:00I learned about myself that like with education that... you just realized you have no more coffeecorrect was tea like looked into my mug and like yep, it's pure design on its faceLance Foulis 00:14true Hello everybody and welcome back to Lancelot's Roundtabe. It is getting very spring likeoutside we are early March and we're getting our first little taste of spring, which probablymeans that we're going to get a least one more bout of snow before we get into permanentspring time. So I hope everyone's having a good day. Hope everybody's enjoying the sunshine,wherever you are, if it's sun shining, when you listen to this, but thanks so much for listening.I'm happy to welcome to the podcast, a really good friend of mine, Shelby Smith. Shelby,welcome to the roundtable. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Absolutely, really thrilled thatyou could come on. So why don't you tell the people a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I'm 33mom of one currently.Shelby 01:13Born and raised, Columbus went to o u in Athens and I have a Bachelors of Science incommunication studies, through right out of college went into HR and then marketing where Imet you. That's where are we met? That's where we met a couple years ago. Yeah, well, morethan a couple now. We'll go with a couple. And then when that really just wasn't the greatestfit, I left the corporate sector and decided that I was better fit for the education side. So I havebeen teaching for five years. It's my fifth year. So I'm about to end my fifth year and wild Godyears already. It's crazy. And I have my masters now in education, curriculum and instructionfrom Ashland University. I didn't know you went to Ashlyn. I mean, it was all online. But yeah,that's your mom. Right? Hey, everybody, Kim's here.SSKim Foulis 02:09Hi.Lance Foulis 02:11She's walking around taking pictures and video. She does that. Hey, hey, everybody. Hey, soum, yeah, so like we met at a company that I still work for you left? Correct. And you were oneof the people that was in the infamous row that we talked about on the episode with NatalieBaldwin, Episode 19. Go listen to it. Oh, I didn't realize it was episode 19. Bob, good plug,Marketing, Marketing and Communication Specialist right there runs through the just part ofthe blood you can't get rid of it can't. So let's talk a little bit about those days. I rememberwhen I first started. I was coming from local bank. And I was really excited about this jobbecause it was an actual, like, professional type job. And I remember meeting you, you were 90days, I believe, is that correct? I think so. Yeah, yeah, you're getting or you're getting close toyour 90th day because that was some type of a milestone. Yes. And I remember just being likea deer in the headlights,Shelby 03:09like get like 90 days, I was still a deer in the headlights. Let's be honest,Lance Foulis 03:12it wasn't easy. Which I remember Natalie and I got into that very much. But I mean, lookingback at those memories, it was, here's your clients, here's what you're doing. And when I sayhere's what you're doing, it's more like, here's where you'll be sitting in here's your computer.Here's how you log in random binder of things that oh, you know, the binders, we had a lot ofbinders,Shelby 03:33they did do a great job of pairing you up with a person who had your client before youunfortunately for me, all of my clients went came from a person who was leaving.Lance Foulis 03:46Yeah, and that's what that's that's like the worst situation that you could be in in that role is theperson that used to support it is gone. Because there's, there wasn't a good knowledge sharing,I guess that's the way I would put it. So like that person left with the knowledge of how to dothings. So lots of all of the nitty gritty details. For your day to day you just had to learn byShelby 04:09KSSSShelby 04:09identifier? Well, I think a lot of it for me was learned by not doing and then realize I didn't doand then having to do very, very quickly. Yeah. So that was a thing where like, vendors wouldreach out and say, Hey, we normally have, you know, a program coming through or informationcoming through for for this program are running, but we haven't seen it come through. Are westill running that for you? Yeah, that's the only thing.Lance Foulis 04:31Like, that's literally like a third party and they're basically coming to your rescue. And they'rebeing very nice about it. But it's like, oh, yeah, you know, we typically would expect to get thisform by now. And we haven't done it but we know that you need the this material over hereand it's going to take some days for it to get there.Shelby 04:48Yeah, I think in the beginning, I had to call in a lot of favors for people I didn't even know yet.Yeah. Can you run this for me in 24 hours? I promise you'll learn to love me.Lance Foulis 04:57Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's true, but you were really Good at your internal network. Oh, thankyou. Yeah, you were really good at that.Shelby 05:05I got the hang of it after a while. Yeah. And it just slowly after I kind of had the hang of it andhad been doing it for a while, started to realize it just was not what I was passionate about. Itwas not what was what made me happy. It was not a good fit, I lovedLance Foulis 05:20who I worked with, it's always the people, it's always theShelby 05:23people. And what I learned, and I did learn a ton from that position. Yep. And I'm very thankfulfor that. But the biggest thing, I think I learned was the 8020 lesson, and that in your role, and Itry and pass this on to my students all the time, because I am High School. And for the last fiveyears, the constant for me has been seniors in high school. So I've taught a little bit of nine, alittle bit of 11 some electives, but the constant all five years has been that I have had at leastone one course of English 12. So all seniors and so one thing I try and pass on to them asthey're moving into that next phase of life is that they need to look for the 8020 You're nevergonna find 100% It's just not out there. Right? You're always gonna have some little bit thatSSSSyou don't love to do. Yeah, I gave an example the other day, I could work with puppies all daylong. be fantastic. So much fun, just little puppies running around everywhere, but you're stillgonna have that like puppies have sharp teeth, or you know, they're not potty trained. Orthey're chewing on your shoelaces. And you know, your new Louis Vuitton bag is now coveredin slobber or did this happen to you? Know, this is just my own? Like, no, no, no. lifeexperience? Well, I mean, my dog did eat one of my purses. So that's cool.Lance Foulis 06:36Just not a Louis Vuitton. God loved Piper. Oh my gosh, I forgot about Piper.Shelby 06:40How's Piper She's good. She's getting gray.Lance Foulis 06:42How old is she? Oh,Shelby 06:45nine.Lance Foulis 06:45Cuz you you guys got her before you got married? Right?Shelby 06:50Yeah, I think she's eight or nine.Lance Foulis 06:51Okay, that's awesome. I'm glad to hear about Piper. I totally forgot about Piper. Yeah.Shelby 06:56Yeah, so I try and tell them they're still that that you know, a little bit that you don't love. Lovethe puppies hate the slobber and the sharp teeth. And, you know, and so if you have 80% ofthe job you absolutely love and 20% that you can deal with, then that's golden. If you can find9010 That's like the rainbow. Yeah. out there. Yeah. And so for me, it was when I was at theSSSSmarketing position that I was in with you. It was the opposite. It was the 2080. Yeah. And the20% were the people that I worked with. That was what I loved and what got me in every singleday. Yeah. But it was the 80% of the actual work I was doing was that 80% I hated? Yeah,couldn't do it. And so in education, luckily, I have found the good positive 8020 Where it's 80%of the job I love. And then there's 20%, where you have paperwork, and you know, gradingessays that maybe are not at the caliber, you would like them, or, you know, workLance Foulis 07:54in progress, right. And you don't have to write anybody up. That's, that's also cool. SoShelby 07:59yes, it's very nice. Yeah, I mean, aside from like, sending home email saying, Yeah, ILance Foulis 08:03literally thought about that, after I sent said that. And I'm like, Well, no, there's probably somedisciplinary issues. But high school, there's probably some discipline that needs to happen. Solet's talk a little bit about because I mean, from my perspective, you are so fresh out of college,that it's I feel like for you is probably at least somewhat hard to know and get your bearingsaround all that like now you can look back and be like, Yeah, I wasn't happy, I maybe I shouldhave made my move sooner. And maybe I didn't have to deal with all that stuff that I dealtwith. So do you think that's a consequence of Okay, everybody, thank you. Always fun when wehave these little like interesting cuts, but I had a phone call from my mechanic, and I needed totake it because I need you to see how much the bad news was. So life happens. Life happens.Exactly. Right. So what I was asking you Shelby was essentially, when you win, this was one ofyour first jobs that you started, right? Yes. So I wanted to find out from you what yourperspective was on. I'm trying to remember how many years you were there before you left?Was it like three, four? I was there like a little over four. So a little over four years. So you thinkabout I mean, that's when you're coming out of college things are just like in four year batches,because high school before your batch College is a four year batch. So do you think that maybeif you if it hadn't been your first job, you might have figured out quicker that it wasn't a goodfit?Shelby 09:27I think so. I think I had a lot of pressure on myself as well. Yes. Just to make it work. I had neverreally experienced true failure at something and not not succeeding. Yeah, you know, andLance Foulis 09:44that was hard every day was basically like on some level a struggle. Oh, to not lose my mind.Yeah, yes, it is. And to be successful what we were doing Yes, yeah. Every day was like a battlein that sense.SSShelby 09:57Yeah. And this was before like I was there about Before all of the reorg started, right that themultitude of reorg were at my tail end is when those reorg started happening. So, you know,we kind of had all of those different deliverables that we had to do that were eventually kind ofpushed off to other people. And we had just a core group of deliverables.Lance Foulis 10:21Yeah, so to kind of describe that to people. So in our role, we were like, we were managingmarketing projects, which that that's kind of a very loose definition to get more nitty gritty into,I think a better explanation is like, we were like the gatekeepers to a lot of different things. Andit was our job to work with so many different people across the organization to make surethings happen. So we had to be subject matter experts across across a very wide variety ofthings. So anyway, let's talk some more of just about like that experience for you. So everysingle I mean, we were all in that like, right, every single day coming in, the challenges arereally high, the pressure is really high, you have a date that you pretty much have to meet, youcan't miss any of these dates. When you do you get to have Crucial Conversations. So checkmail date, hashtag mail dates. So talk, talk, just talk a little bit about maybe your journey of,you know, four years you're doing this thing, the people are great. The job is the way that thejob is, how did you get to the point where you understood, this isn't for me, and to make thatcourageous decision to?Shelby 11:31Yeah, so I think it's also really important to understand that that point in my life was also a verybig turning point into adulthood, you know, coming right out of college. When I took that job, Iwas, you know, 23 Yeah. And so still, in retrospect, now, 10 years later. 23 is really young. Youknow, when I when I was in that spot, I was like, you know, I'm gonna know what's ups. I'mbrown. I know what I'm doing. I got this. And in reality, that was not the case at all. But I washanded a one I considered a good title with a good salary, you know, we were looking for Yeah,we were well compensated. And yeah. You know, I felt like if I couldn't make this work, then Iwas failing at life. Period. Yeah. Period. And because also, if you remember, a lot of the peoplethat I went to college with, also had jobs there. It was different department. It wasLance Foulis 12:27an Oh, you haven like people like we really came out. Oh, you and my Oh, my ammo of Ohio.Those were like the two big ones. I think. I don't think we recruit that in the same way anymore.But yes, back then. Yeah. No, you folks. Yes. Can you talk about the comparison factor? Whatdo you mean? So? You're see that's that's the thing. I don't I think that's really important tonotice. Or to note. You mean comparing yourself to the fact that yeah, you went to college andmost people now you're in the professional sector with a bunch of people and there's no endright? There's no spring breaks. There's no the quarters over. SoSSShelby 13:02glad that you brought that up. Because that I've I realized about myself is I am a person whoworks in increments in life in general. So I always knew that about myself in terms of likeworking out, right. If I was going for a run, not a runner. I hate to write terrible. I don't knowhow people do it or why you do it. Yeah, Harrison. Right. Eric, come on our friendLance Foulis 13:22Aaron that we used to work with her and her husband loved to run. Do they run in likeblizzards? Yeah. And we would always scratch her heads at that a little bit. Anyway,Shelby 13:30I mean, they love it. And that's good. Love that journey for them. Not mine. Not my journey. Butwhen I go for a run, I always have to tell myself, Okay, I just need to make it from here to thestop sign. Hmm. Right. And then I get to the stop sign like Okay, from here to the yellow car.Yeah. Or one more block around the track. Yep. So I have to give myself these increments toknow that I have reached my goal. Yeah. And if it is a very short term goal. Yeah. And therewas no end in sight. Like you said, there was no end. It was just everyday rolling over. And yourend in sight was retirement like 35 years down the road. And that was a very dark hole to lookdown for me.Lance Foulis 14:06Yeah, that oh, that's an abyss to look at. Yeah.Shelby 14:09So I learned about myself that, like with education that you just realized you have no morecoffee,Lance Foulis 14:16correct? Well, I was tea, like looked into my mug and like, Yep, it'sShelby 14:19peered on its face. True. So I realized that in education, you have those increments, you know, Ihave to make it from here until Christmas break and then I get you know, some time todecompress. And then I need to make it from here to spring break and then spring break to thesummer and then I get to start all over again. I get to look back and say okay, this didn't worklast year. What did I like that worked? What did I like that didn't work? You know, what can ISSSStweak and then move forward? fresh, new faces, new people? Yeah. You know, new minds tomold. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. So it is very increment driven in education. And that works forme. Yeah. So At that point in time, there was no end in sight. And that was really hard for me tokind of get through. And there was this constant comparison, which I also think is part of amaturity thing. Yeah, I was in that, in that age where everyone else is doing it, everyone else iswinning, I have to do it and when to and so, and these are people that I was close to in college,not just random people that went to the same university as me, but people that I spent timewith in college I was friends with. So there's that wanting to save face not wanting to, youknow, be the one who boughs out kind of situation,Lance Foulis 15:35which is really hard to your point at 23. Because you just you don't know what you don't know.And it just would be so hard. Like, I mean, I can just I can totally just picture that see that in myif that would if that had been my experience. Just Oh, everybody else seems to be doing great.What's why? Why can't I? Why can't I? Right? And that being just a question in your face, rightwould be exhausting? Yes.Shelby 16:01So I think also, like different teams were functioning differently 100% You know, depending onwho you had, in your upper levels, and who I had in my upper levels that were kind of helpingme manage really dictated my success. You know, Laura getting's was one of those people thatwas super inspirational to me and very supportive for me and supportive of me during a timethat it was really difficult for me and so with her support, and guidance, I kind of made itthrough a rough patch. Right. And that's when I was promoted to senior. Yep, at that point,which was kind of the next Yeah,Lance Foulis 16:40cuz remember, there was so funny, you bring that up, and that instantly brings back memoriesthat you just brought up like the, the pressure, there was like, an unwell I don't want to evensay unspoken, but there was definitely a pressure to get to senior. And there was like a, like,you kind of expected to be able to get there within a year, take a couple months. And if he haddidn't, it was kind of like whyShelby 17:05well and not to mention that when I first started everybody in program management had toldme and this was like a direct quote from multiple people. If you can make it in programmanagement for a year you can make it anywhereLance Foulis 17:15that was like well known across the company.SSShelby 17:17I mean in across other companies like they were basically like if you can make it at thiscompany here in this specific role, then you can do you know, you can conquer world peace.Yes. I mean, that's that was a well known fact. So it was to add that added pressure and then toknow that it was something of a feat in itself. Yes, it just conquer the role. But yes, it was youwant to make it to senior you want to get the laptop.Lance Foulis 17:44We talked about that with Natalie's like that way back, then having a laptop was a definitemark of success. For sure in there. Because there was there were a couple seniors I didn't evenremember that that did have laptops and basically meant that you were good to travel. Cuz youremember back then we did. We didn't do traveling. Yeah, on site audits and reissues. Wewould go to the processor and audit things. And that was a mark. Especially like the first timethat you did it. Like that was like, Oh, you've got your own merit badge now. Yep. Yeah.Shelby 18:18So yeah, with with some some good management in place, at that point in time, I was able tokind of make it through, learn what I was doing, get my bearings, people that came in and sawthat things. The way that we had been doing them weren't working, and kind of making someadjustments for us was huge. Yeah. Because I got one client, specifically. And Steve, do youreceive? Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. So Steve, was my manager at that point? That's right. For a veryshort period of time, but he handed me this plan. And he said, This is going to be just, youknow, collateral maintenance is what he said, no big deal. You're just going to send in acollateral order for new issues. Once a month, like no big deal. Yeah. And we had expected tohave 4000 new accounts that first month. And so we only bought enough collateral to issue youknow, four or 5000. Give or take, and we turned around the next month, and we had 40,000new accounts. Yep. 10 times what we were supposed to have, and we had no collateral. Yep.And it was like a four week turnaround for credit cards to be made, which is fast, right?Lance Foulis 19:28In today's terms, that's a very fast turnaround for was for it was usually like four to eightweeks. Okay, I was gonna say that was my point. It got up to like, 12 Yes, there was a supplychain issue and it got to like 12 to 14.Shelby 19:41Yeah, so that became a very stressful client. For me very, very quickly. And it was supposed tobe like my easy peasy.SSSLance Foulis 19:48Yeah. And then it just becomes this monster. And there's it's really hard to pivot. That's a fancyfancy buzzword. It's, it's it's really hard to pivot because you're saying This client? Well, you cantry saying this client is actually really, really, really difficult. And but there's this history. No, it'snot. No, it's all all you have to do is just this little bit. I'm telling you, it's drowning me. Oh, you'llbe okay. Yeah.Shelby 20:15Yeah. So I mean, there were a lot of things that I think not necessarily were like already againstme, but things that made it a little bit more difficult for me to acclimate to the position itself.When I first came in, you know, after about two years, I felt confident, okay, I know what I'mdoing. I can do this. And I think that's really when I started to find myself as a human being andan adult. And you know, what I wanted I liked and I didn't like, that was when my husband and Ireally started taking things a little bit further in our relationship. We got engaged. And it wasright before I decided to leave that role that we got married, right. And so God bless myhusband, he loves me so much. We got married. I locked it down. And then two days later, Iquit my job. I made sure I had that locked down.Lance Foulis 21:13Yeah. Yes, by the way, PS,Shelby 21:17I no longer have income. So I mean, that was a challenging time in life in itself. And I actuallystayed for three weeks after I give a you know, two weeks notice. But I stayed for three, threeweeks. And I really worked super, super hard during those three weeks. To pass Michael, thebinder.Lance Foulis 21:36Yeah, that was your book of business. Yeah, in a really good way, a really good way. You werereally, you were really focused on making sure that you set someone else up for success. Yes,that was a big deal.Shelby 21:48It was a huge deal for me, because I knew what it was like to just be past something that wasnothing when you first started. And the clients that I was passing on, were ones that wereactive every month with multiple programs, they were running, and very specific, intricate, youknow, idiosyncrasies that they wanted, specifically for that client. So I wanted to make sureSSSthat whoever was getting those clients was prepared in what they do every month. And so Iworked really hard in those three weeks. And I remember the day that I left, you all walked meout to my car, Natalie, you Erin, Jen, Ryan, all walked me out to my car, and I was sobbing.Lance Foulis 22:28Oh, it was it was hard. Because we were all so tight. As like we went makes me choke up nowthinking about it. You know, we went through like, because we all like struggled in all of ourways that we struggled with all the clients that we were supporting. And we all like wentthrough growing pains together. We went we did lunches together, we we vented together, wetalked about how we were struggling in our we were close with each other like we would goout, you know, you, myself and our significant others would all get together occasionally. Andlike have a good time. Like we'd go that do happy hours. So it wasn't just like coworkers. It waslike we were friends. We were besties we were work besties Yeah. And so like, yeah, Iremember walking you out and like it felt like a shot to the gut. To all of us.Shelby 23:12It felt like a real, goodbye. Yeah. And you know, going from every day, okay, we're in thistogether, at least I have these people to help me through to really be like, Okay, I'm on myown. And I have no idea what I'm going to do next. And all of these people are not going to beright there. Yeah, you know, a cubicle over.Lance Foulis 23:32So yeah, let's Well, I mean, let's talk about that. Because I don't even think I knew that youdidn't know that you were gonna go back to school at this point. Oh, no, it was like a cleanbreak. You just knew I knew this wasn't for me. Yeah. And you're in a huge life transition. Youjust got married.Shelby 23:46Let's mention that. The week that I got married. I also bought a home. Oh, that's right. I signedmy mortgage. You know, which I've never goneLance Foulis 23:55through a mortgage signing before. You don't you don't know the full extent to what you'redoing when you because it's a it's a giant book of things to sign.Shelby 24:06Oh, yeah. And you're signing your life away. I mean, it's basically saying we will take your life ifyou don't give us our mortgage payment. Yes, exactly. Right. It's really scary as the first timehomeowner you always feelhomeowner you always feelLance Foulis 24:16like I should have I should have like I should have secured myself a lawyer to go through thesedocuments with me.Shelby 24:22I am not smart enough to be looking at this by myself. So that's your first home buyingexperience buying experience. We signed on one Friday and moved in that weekend and thenwe got married on the following Friday. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Which I don't recommendanyone doing buying a home and planning a wedding at the same time. It was the worst itLance Foulis 24:42self folks out there. Don't do that.Shelby 24:45Don't do it. Don't do it. JustLance Foulis 24:46two separate times are your guyses wedding was really beautiful. We got to go to your to yourwedding. Erin was at my wedding. That's right here it was in your wedding. And we had oursecond we were talking about this before we started recording Our second child, Connor. Boy,he he had just been born. So I was holding in less than a month. Yes. I was holding him duringthe whole ceremony. He was wearing a tuxedo onesie. Fair remember? Oh, wow, I never wouldbe able to remember that. That's, that's a mom memory. Yes, it is. Um, yeah. So that was fun.Like, we had that wonderful memory. And then yeah, so So you literally went from job to no jobhouse responsibility. Marriage. Tell me about the transition.Shelby 25:33So it was really hard for me, because it was the first time that I had ever been without a jobsince I was like 16 years old. And I grew up in a family where it was instilled in us Don't quityour job until you have another job to fall back on. And so it felt like a really big failure that Iwas leaving without anything to fall back on. Geez. And so it was really hard. And I admittedly, Ispent a couple of weeks, maybe months on my couch, just kind of wallowing. Yeah, mysorrows. Trying to figure out if I didn't like this, what would I like, and I applied for a lot of jobsthat were very similar to what I was doing beforehand. And I kept having these conversationsSSSwith my husband and with my sisters and my friends, like, why are you applying for jobs thatare the same as what you were doing before? If you didn't like that, then we need to findsomething different. SoLance Foulis 26:24how would you answer that question?Shelby 26:26So I couldn't answer that question. I don't know. That was my answer. I don't I don't know why Ikeep applying for these jobs. Yeah, you know, it's the exact same job I was doing before. Butthat's what I felt like I was qualified to do. Yeah, with a Communication Studies degree. Andthen this experience, this is what I felt I fit into cookie cutter wise. So I decided that in theinterim, when I was trying to figure out, okay, I'm not gonna apply for any more of these jobs,because clearly, I don't like it. And it's not a fit for me, but I need to figure out what I'm doing.And I need to make some money in the process. My mom, who has been in the education fieldfor now, 25 years, had said, you have a bachelor's degree, come and substitute teach, whileyou're trying to figure it out. It's a daily, you know, paycheck, your daily, you know, pay, it'seasy, you can, you know, you can do it. Yeah. And then you can have time to figure out whatyour what your what you want to do. And so, I started doing that. And honestly, when I wasgoing into college, I had thought, I really like education. And every aptitude test I took in highschool said, you know, teaching was one of those Yep. On the list. Yep. And I did JuniorAchievement. When I was working at our organization. Do you remember that at all? So it was abusiness class, essentially, that you went into different middle schools. And you taught once aweek, a class to like sixth and seventh grade, youLance Foulis 27:53did that while you were at the company? I didn't, I don't remember that.Shelby 27:56Yeah. And I loved it. I taught at New Albany Middle School. And one other one, and I could seeescaping me right now. But you taught them about credit. And you know, all these different,you know, economics, just basic and reporting for kids to learn about, they gave you acurriculum, it was the Junior Achievement curriculum. And you just went in and taught the preplanned lessons, but I loved it. And then I started substitute teaching, and I fell in love with it allover again. And I thought to myself, if I love being in a different classroom, that's not my own.With new kids, every day, then I would really love to have my own space with kids that I couldreally build a relationship with. Yeah. And that's what I loved about it, you know, was buildingthe relationship with the kids and joking around with them and, you know, all that kind of stuff.So I tried the elementary school. I subbed in elementary for like, a day. No, this is not for me.The Little People are not my forte. Did youSSLance Foulis 28:59substitute in in elementary, okay. Yeah, IShelby 29:03served a couple days in elementary and it was just not not where it was at for my kid. I wouldhave a hard time too. Yeah. Love my own little person. Mm hmm. And, you know, other people Ido love children, maybe in smaller Yes.Lance Foulis 29:18groupings. You know,Shelby 29:19I just don't do the whole like Tommy's touching me and snotty nose and, you know, hold handswhile we take a potty break. And that just was not where my Yeah, my groove was, yeah,you're Yes, my age. And then I tried middle school, and I was like, Okay, this is a little better. Ilike this, but they're very, like, emotional. You know, one kid had made fun of another kid andsaid that the other kid thought that I was cute. And embarrass him and he started crying. Andthen I felt like I don't know what to do. Because if I let go over and I console him that it justmakes it worse, right? Don't and I feel very cold hearted. So it's just very awkward situation forme. Yeah. And then I found high school and I was like, these are my people. Yeah, they got myhumor, I could tell them to just go away for a minute when I needed a second.Lance Foulis 30:07And this is still just you're substituting stuff, just figuringShelby 30:10it out. Wow. And so then I started looking into programs of how I could get my teaching license.And that's when I found Ashland University's bachelor Plus program. And they worked with mein the classes that I had for my undergrad. Because, again, while I was an undergrad, I took alot of education electives, because it was something that I was interested in interesting. And Ireally felt like, and I think I've told you this before. I feel like looking back when I was in thecorporate role, there were different points throughout. Where God kept saying to me, you're onthe wrong path. You're on the wrong road, you need to turn right. Mm hmm. And there weredifferent points, where it would be very, very clear, like you need to turn and I would just say,Nope, I got to make this work. I started on this road. This is the road we're taking. There are noalternates. Yeah. And then eventually it got to a point where he just put a dead end. Yeah. Andhe was like, Nope, you only go right. Yeah. And so then when I turned right, the road was a lotless bumpy and a lot more enjoyable. And it was really hard. Because when I started going toschool, back to school, I was substitute teaching full time, so five days a week. And then ISSSdecided I was going to coach cheerleading. Oh, that's right. I kind of remember that. Yeah. So Iwas coaching some of the kids that I was subbing because I was a long term sub. And I wasalso working at roosters at that time, I was waitressingLance Foulis 31:44back to do, because you had done that I asked life. Yeah.Shelby 31:48So I went back just because it was extra money. And you know, I had a new mortgage and allthat kind of stuff. So I was working effectively like three jobs. Yeah. And then going to schoolfull time for a year and a half. So it was a grind for sure.Lance Foulis 32:01When did you go to classes.Shelby 32:03So it was a lot of like, very self paced. But it was all online. And so I would kind of get thesyllabus and it would say these things are due, you know, this week, you need to read this. Andthen this paper is due on Sunday, and you have a discussion board post and two responseskind of thing. So nights, weekends when I wasn't at a game or at a at a practice. Yeah, that waswhen I was doing the work.Lance Foulis 32:32So what did it feel like? Did you feel like motivated? Did you just get into a little like a grooveand just head down?Shelby 32:38Yeah, I mean, I think I saw the end, I saw what I could have at the end. And that was reallyinspiring to me plus what I was learning, I really loved. Yeah. SoLance Foulis 32:48that was that was you were you were like really enjoying the content of the classes that youwere taking?Shelby 32:53SSSSShelby 32:53Yeah, because I didn't I had so many credit hours for my undergrad in English. Yeah, I didn'treally have to take a ton of English classes, more of it was, you know, my methods andinstructional, like the pedagogy type classes that I had to take. So I was really learning whatthat word mean. I was learning howLance Foulis 33:10to while you were talking, I was searching my brain. And then I realized nope, I'm not going tofind it rotary have Yeah.Shelby 33:16So basically, the the method of teaching, okay. I was, I was learning how to teach notnecessarily what to teach, but but how to go about it, different protocols, that we use activitiesthat you can do with the kids to get to a deeper level of learning, and you know, those types ofthings. So creating lesson plans, and what goes into that, and what is a 504 plan versus an IEPplan and, you know, different things that you need to know on the day to day when you're inthe classroom. Yeah, I will say the best preparation for having my own classroom was being inclassrooms as a substitute teacher that I couldn't get in a classroom on my own. It's just theexperience of being with kids. Yep. So I mean, learning classroom management was huge forme,Lance Foulis 34:08tell me more about classroom management,Shelby 34:11you know, creating an environment where you are the authority of the classroom, but then youalso are creating an environment where students can lead their own learning. Hmm. So I amkind of the facilitator. Yeah, but I'm also the authority of what happens in this classroom. So Iam responsible and liable for all of the 30 bodies in my classroom right now. And I have to beable to assert myself as that authority in that classroom. And so effectively managing thebehavior of my students Yeah, is something that some teachers struggle with. It's somethingthat some teachers come into naturally. And every year it changes and every class period thatchanges my methods for every class change, because it's a different set of students. Yeah, andit can change if a couple of students are absent that day, or you know, I Get students that Ihave to watch for another teacher who's out that day, right? I have to cover a class for anotherteacher. And so I get additional students in. So you have to be constantly willing to adjustbased on what's going on in your classroom. Got it. And not every day is me sitting in front ofstudents and lecturing to them. And they're just silently taking notes, right? It's you're doinggallery walks in your classroom, and you're doing interactive activities, where they're talking toeach other, or, you know, doing group work or reading aloud. And so being able to managetheir behavior along with instilling the content, and developing the content is its own separateskill,SSSLance Foulis 35:42no doubt, no doubt. So when you're substitute teaching, are you only doing certain subjects?Shelby 35:48No, I was in I was in every subject. Most of the time, though, it was they already knew whatthey were doing. Okay. And I was just kind of there to manage, collect everything they weredoing since you know, I wasn't really responsible for teaching content, especially in high school.More. So in elementary, you might be like going through specific activities with them. Yeah. Butit was kind of pass out a worksheet, you know, now when I'm out and I have a sub in myclassroom, everything's electronic. So I say check the agenda on Google Classroom, orwhatever platform we're using. And so for my notes for the substitute, you know, their agendasare on the virtual platform, have them check in and everything is hyperlinked to the documentsthat can turn it in electronically. So they just have to kind of like sit there and watch the kidsmake sure that they're not murdering each other.Lance Foulis 36:40So that's fair, when you were going to school, did you figure out what you wanted to teach?Shelby 36:45I always knew I wanted English. Okay, you alwaysLance Foulis 36:48knew from from day one, but I did have to decide whatShelby 36:51level and I chose seven through 12. Because that was where my niche was my niche, yourniche? was?Lance Foulis 37:00Was it? Well, we can get into that in a second. That's, that's a later question. I want to know. SoI'm, I'm just picturing you. You're newly married, which is his own challenge you have you stillhave responsibilities, house payments, and everything else. Tell me about how the relationshipstuff worked out? Like how did your new marriage? How was it during this time? HowSSSShelby 37:20did it survive? Yeah. A lot of grace, I will say, for my husband, a lot of understanding that, youknow, I Yes, had quit my job and put us in a financial, more of a financial burden situation. But Ithink he really saw and understood that I was trying my best to contribute as much as I could,to our financial goals and our financial situation. So he was very understanding provided a lot ofopportunity for me when he could to have kind of space to get my stuff done. And kind of hetook on a lot more than I was able to at that point in time. So I have to give a lot of credit to, tomy husband, I had amazing support from my family and my friends, whenever I kind of neededsomething. You know, but it was really just time management. And oh, yeah, it was just a grind.So he understood that was very supportive. Yeah, throughout that whole thing, but it was hard.I mean, we had to make some financial choices. And looking back, we both say that it was onlyby the grace of God that we were able, you know, to make it and for some reason, we never, itnever got to a point where we couldn't pay a bill, which was very strange, because, you know, Iwas making a good salary that ILance Foulis 38:42just left that you it's not a it's, it's the type of salary that's not easy to replace, right? It's not,Shelby 38:47it's not easy to walk away from. So, you know, I cut our income pretty much in half. Andsomehow, we got through, we got we got through the period, whether I mean, there were somethings that were divine in those in those months, like, you know, we would get a refund checkfor something that happened to be very similar to a random bill or an increase in our water billthat we weren't expecting. And oh, yeah, those things that we couldn't really account for. But,you know, my husband and I are Christians. And so we attribute that to, you know, just Godlooking out and yeah, and being a part of our lives and yeah, and that kind of stuff. So, it washard. Yep. But I think it actually helped us in our marriage. Major, stronger. We Yeah, we got alot closer. We learned how to manage things together.Lance Foulis 39:41Yeah. So Yeah. When did when did your daughter come? Come into the picture?Shelby 39:47So she came in, I got my job with my current district. And then at the end of that first year ofteaching, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter got it. And then I delivered her thebeginning of my second year teaching. So I always laugh and like joke with my colleaguesabout how I've never had a full actual, like normal year of teaching because my first year, I hadsome wonky stuff going on at the beginning. And then I had, I had gotten pregnant with mydaughter, and I was super sick all the time. You know, from February until May, which was thevery end of that year. And then the second year, I was out for 12 weeks on maternity leave, ISSSwas like waddling around like a penguin, you know, for the first couple of months of school. Andthen I was out for a while. So that wasn't really a normal year. And then my third year, inMarch, everything shut down.Lance Foulis 40:44Yeah. So shut down. COVID. Yeah,Shelby 40:48yeah. So my first year was the 1718. school year. My second year was the 18 19/3. year when Ihad come back from having my daughter was I was like a skinny, my first normal year, right. Igot it together. I know what I'm doing. I know what to expect. And then March happened, and itwas like, Okay, we're going on spring break. And then it was like, just kidding. We're getting anextra week of spring break, who? And then it was like, Can we come back in? Yeah, we have tostill have to be inside. Oh, God don't have to be inside. That sounds awful. And so then westarted teaching the rest of the year, virtually, yeah. From Home, which was hard in itself. Wewere living with my parents at that point, because we had decided to sell our home and build ahouse. And so, you know, teaching from home with my toddler and my parents all in one house.Yeah. And my mom is education as well. She was home all day every day.Lance Foulis 41:42Your mom's at the same school? No, no. What does she teach?Shelby 41:45She's actually the principal secretary. Oh, yeah. So like run stuff. Anybody who's educationknows that? Like the secretaries run stuff?Lance Foulis 41:54Okay. Got it. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And she, she did that your whole life? Okay. Yeah. Soyou I mean, you had like a window into education during this whole time. So that makes sense.So, yeah, I mean, I'm just fascinated by well, okay, so I'm back up, we had a really hard year in2019. And it is miraculous that we made it out of that time. And then the aftermath of that,trying to pick up the pieces of that 2019 year, Kim's house got really bad. And during that year,and then, and then there was a lot of financial impact that happened on the back end of that.So it is really amazing. The support that we had, and however, we made it through that asdefinitely divine, because we shouldn't have made it through that. So it's really fascinating.When you think about the hard times that you walk through, that you go through, you reallyneed to look and see where you're being protected. And where. Yeah, that it could be it couldbe worse.SSShelby 43:00Yeah. Where that grace is being extended? Yes. Yeah.Lance Foulis 43:02Yeah. So tell me more about? Yeah, just the adjustment.Shelby 43:07So then my, my so my third year, we, you know, back half of that year, March to May was allvirtual, and then we started the year, you know, 2020, all virtual. So go, you know, started thatyear at my parents house, moved into our new house in November was still all virtual. When Iwas supposed to come back to school after kind of the work going back, hybrid learning, hybridlearning. My husband got COVID. And so I was home for 14 days, again, still working fromhome. So it was like, Yes, I get to go back to work. No, I don't. So that was a hard blow. Butthen that fourth year of teaching, so my last year of teaching was a hybrid. So I had a handfulor more of kids in my classroom. And then I had the rest of them virtually on Zoom. So I had myclassroom setup kind of flipped backwards, I had a big, what are called clever touch, or SmartTouch boards in the back. And I would have, it was like a giant computer screen essentially, iswhat it is. And so I would have my kids on Zoom, pulled up. And I had my desks for my studentsturn to the back of the room. And by camera at the very back of the room. So I could see mykids on Zoom and my kids in front of me at the same time. Oh my god. So having to manageworking with students virtually online, manage like a chat room that's going on on Zoom. Andthen Manage students in the classroom and trying to give one on one attention to thosestudents in both realms. was incredibly difficult. And there were a lot of districts that even wenton strike because they were like, This is not manageable.Lance Foulis 44:47Right. The teacher sounds like you're doing three jobs. At the same time.Shelby 44:50It was really really hard to do both and but we gave you know, we had to give the kids theoption. They have to get an education and a lot of people it's they still weren't comfortablecoming back into the building. Yeah. And then to do all of that fully masked right now. And itwas it was,Lance Foulis 45:09you guys have the most challenging conditions between peopleShelby 45:12SSSSShelby 45:12know, they had to be every other desk. Sure, at least. And, you know, maintaining six feet, allthat kind of stuff. So it was really, really difficult. It was hard, it was hard for the kids, it washard for usLance Foulis 45:27what's really gonna say what have you? What do you feel like you've noticed the psychologicalimpact on that age group going through COVID.Shelby 45:35It's significant, the psychological and educational. So part of it was that I taught to blackscreens 90% of the time, because they would not turn their camera on. It was hard. You know, Iwould just see their little name. So there were kids that came back to school this year. Andthey're like, Hey, Miss Smith.Lance Foulis 45:54You're like, I don't know who you are, who you are.Shelby 45:57I am so and so. And I'm like, oh, that's what you look like. Wow. So I mean, it was crazy. Themcoming back this year, and, and getting to see who they are. But I couldn't tell if they wereasleep. Yeah, you know, I would have to yell their name a couple of times before they mightrespond in the chat.Lance Foulis 46:13Yeah. But oh, in the chat, so not even in microphone very rarely.Shelby 46:18Very rarely would they?Lance Foulis 46:20Just that just sounds like morale in the gutter.Shelby 46:23Mm hmm. It was it was. It was really hard for them. Because it's a lot of a lot of selfSSSSSMm hmm. It was it was. It was really hard for them. Because it's a lot of a lot of selfmanagement and personal responsibility that they have to take and waking themselves up andgetting themselves to their zoom class and, you know, not having their favorite Netflix show or,you know, there would kids be kids that I could hear when they would unmute themselvesevery once in a while I would hear their video games and the clickety clack. No.Lance Foulis 46:52It actually hear the audio of the video game. Yeah. Would you would you hear the the thecontroller noises?Shelby 46:57Yep. Oh, wow. Yep. And then I would have kids that were really funny. And they would say, I'llbe right back. I'm gonna go cook some eggs.Lance Foulis 47:04Well, hot in the middle of class, middle class. No, I just I mean, like, I can't picture. It's been along time since I've been in high school. I can't. And I was homeschooled. So it was a you hadto do things like on your own, like self initiative and everything. But I, I can't imagine just beingtold Yeah, you're not allowed to come back to school, and then being home every day,especially if you're like in your room or something. So then you spend the whole night in yourroom, then you spend the whole day going to school in your room. And then,Shelby 47:35so I really tried tried to encourage my students to find a different place in their house. Thatwasn't their bed. Yeah. Because when I am in my bed, I want to nap. Yes. Like, my bed is forsleeping. Yes. So a lot of them have that same mentality. So they would wake up at eighto'clock in the morning and join my class, and then I would hear them snoring. Oh, my God, theyjust wouldn't be there. Yeah, at all. Yeah. Or it would come the end of class. And it would betime for them to switch and login to their next class. And they would still be lingering on myscreen because they were asleep and hadn't so then I would have to like, kick them off. Yeah.So it was really hard. It was hard for us to encourage the kids and to inspire the kids and tokeep, you know, on track with them. But there was this, like, social emotional drainage thathappened with them, it just they need to be with each other. They need that social aspect, thatinteraction, right, and they weren't getting it. And it was really, really hard. So we came in thisyear, knowing that we had a deficit of learning to fill, no doubt early on.Lance Foulis 48:37So like, what's the situation now in the schools? Are you still like is it still hybrid is it still masks.SSShelby 48:45So at the beginning of the year, we gave students an option to do a Virtual Academy, whichwas essentially they would be all online, but that would be managed by a separate group. So Iwas only responsible for the kids that were in my classroom got it. However, if there were kidswho weren't doing what they were supposed to and keeping up and you know, after the firstquarter, they were failing, that kind of stuff, then they were removed from the virtual optionand brought back into the building. Got it. So we don't have very many, if any, that are still inthat virtual option. I mean, it's a very small percentage, a lot smaller than it was at thebeginning of the year. Got it. And so we've had full class, full class sizes. And then just this pastweek, we removed the mask mandate, which I'm actually surprised. Yeah, I'm surprised thatthe number of kids who are still wearing masks, I'm also surprised at the number of kids whoare wearing masks like as a chin strap.Lance Foulis 49:42Yeah, right.Shelby 49:43It's like, like, what's the point of that? There's just no point. They're like, well, it's in casesomebody like starts coughing. It's already too late dude.Lance Foulis 49:49So is it is it is it a yes. Is it a situation where they're not mandated anymore? But the kids arestill concerned. And or maybe the family answer could be probably both. It just depends. Yeah.Shelby 50:04I think it's interesting. The ones who just like wear it, you know, as an accent, accessory now?Lance Foulis 50:11Well, I mean, I'm, I'm curious about that too, because at this point, you have people that havebeen doing it for two years at the age levels that they've been doing it and like it. How muchhas the mask? And things like the mask social distancing just become a part of right. Andbecause,Shelby 50:29well, I have found during the day, right or doing it when I went the first day that we wentwithout mask, which was I think, last Monday, kids started coming in my room, and Iimmediately thought, oh, my gosh, where's my mask? You know? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And thenSSSSI thought, Oh, I don't have to have it. Yeah. And so there, you know, it was it's mental. And still,I mean, a week later, I'm still like, like,Lance Foulis 50:51a type of conditioning that almost. Yeah, so even now, like a week later, like, it's still thoughtyou'll Oh, wait. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah. I just said. I mean, I'm just I'm just picturing it. Ican't imagine being 17 years old and like,Shelby 51:09wearing a mask be what your learning experience has been for the last two years?Lance Foulis 51:13Or, I mean, I feel real bad. I think my niece was in this one of my nieces was in this boat senioryear is when it all went down. No graduation.Shelby 51:20Nope. No prom. No prom. Yeah, that means something. That class of 2020. Really, really took ithard. Yeah. And I had a lot of students that were, you know, crying to me on during classes.This isn't fair. Why did this have to happen to us?Lance Foulis 51:39Yeah, like that's, I mean, how could you not think that like every class before us has been ableto do everything in now my class doesn't? For some people, that's a really significant deal. Oh,yeah.Shelby 51:50Because we did have a virtual graduation that they could attend. It was like a drive thru. Sothere, you couldn't have anybody there. But you could show up. You grabbed your diploma. Youtook a picture and it was all live streamed. Yeah, your family could watch you walk across thefake stage.Lance Foulis 52:05You have this idea of what this event is going to be like, and you earned it. Like you spent fouryears doing work and there I can just picture like certain kids that I knew that did really good inschool, and that was like they worked at it. Oh, yeah. And they got good grades and everything.It's like I I did it I accomplished it. I'm going to go walk armor. I always homeschooled so I didn'tSSSdo this whole walking thing. But all my friends went to Dublin sewed or Kilburn. So I went to alltheir stuff. And I just remember like, good gracious Dublin site. I think it was like four hours oflistening the name calls to get through the whole class, something like that. But yeah, there'sjust this, this thing about i i conquered this thing. Yeah. It's a huge accomplishment. Yes.Making it through high school. And then and then No, you don't graduate, even parties, rightgraduation parties. That was a huge event back in the day when you go to all your friendsgraduateShelby 53:00that point. I mean, you it was mandated that you could have not have more than 10 people inthe same time. So noLance Foulis 53:06graduation party. It's so that's so I'm, I'm I've said this on a few different podcasts. We've beentalking about this kind of stuff. But I'm really curious because I don't think we know the totalsocial impact or anything like that, for the generation that went through this, whether it's highschool or college, like just younger people in general elementary school, like what is theimpact? Because two years is a long time very long time at that age. So. So anyway, how muchnow that the mask mandate is gone? Do you feel like what percentage normal does it feel toyou?Shelby 53:41It feels like we're on our way back to a normal. I feels like the whole year that we've beenslowly working our way back to what we used to consider normal. You know, there are newthings in place now that are the new normal. But even that, like the new normal was like backin school, but with masks, so the oddball out was the person that like didn't have their mask onin the hallway. And then I would be asking, Hey, do you have mask? Mm hmm. And they go,yeah, it's right here. And they like put it on lately. And me, I'm always, always the bearer of badnews. You have to be transcon. Yeah, it's terrible. You're gonna have to learn to say I have toplay math. Yeah. So even you know, that shift now has kind of thrown a wrench in things wherewe're just kind of like I tried. I'm catching myself not telling students. Do you have a mathcourse this right. It's crazy. Wild, but it is it's becoming a new normal. And, you know, gettingback to some semblance of what we were before and that's really refreshing. I think, for a lot ofour students. Oh, yeah.Lance Foulis 54:42When's graduation this year? This year? It's the end of May into May. Okay. All right. Yeah. SoShelby 54:47last year, we had it but it was outside. It was beautiful day. I think people felt a lot morecomfortable being outside versus being in a confined space. So that was really nice. YouSSScomfortable being outside versus being in a confined space. So that was really nice. YouLance Foulis 55:01Okay, last couple questions here. I would love to know if you could sit down with your 23 yearold self that's been working where we worked for a year, what advice would you give yourself?Because there's not gonna be you know, there's people in your position, or years to school fouror five years to school to study a thing, they got the job to realize it's not what they want to do.Yes. What would you say to yourself?Shelby 55:26I would say, first of all, I would tell myself, it's okay. Hmm. It's okay, that you're not, you're notgood at this thing. Or it's okay, that this isn't what's working out for you. That's okay. Because Ithink for me, it was really hard to get to that point to know that it was it was alright. And itwould be okay. Yeah. One, I would say that there is something out there that you are meantfor, you know, that is better suited for you. And it's not, there's no point in being miserable. Oh,gosh, you know, what I've learned is that life is supposed to be happy. And if it's not, then thereare things that can change to make it happier for you. And so it takes a lot of personalreflection, and taking a deep look inward to see what is the problem? Is it the job? Is it me? Is ityou know, who I'm with? romantically? Is it, you know, that I'm allowing toxic people to be apart of my life? What is the problem? And whatever that is, it can be fixed. You know, I think arefreshing thought for me when I was in that role was I had to remind myself, this isn't the endof the world. Yeah, you know, and a lot of times in those roles because there was a lot ofmoney riding on some of the programs we were working on and some of the clients that wewere working with, it felt like it was the end of the worldLance Foulis 56:54felt like you were executing brain surgery on some really make it and then you're like, nope,Shelby 57:00right. So what I will tell you, I mean, if you are a brain surgeon or a you know cardiothoracicsurgeon then yes, it is a life or death situation. In my role. It was not it was a making it out tobe and so I needed to realize that it's a job. Yeah. And life should be so much more than a job.Now as an educator, that's a huge part of my life, and a huge part of my life that I love.Because I love working with my kids. I love building relationships with them. I love having oneon one talks where they can come to me and and cry or laugh or joke around or you know, Iused to dance down the aisle ways that at our building and I dance in my classroom just aboutevery day I will put on 90s music and we will jam out why we're doing essay revision.Lance Foulis 57:47What's your favorite song to do this to? Oh,SSShelby 57:49I mean anything Whitney Houston 90s r&b? Can anybodyLance Foulis 57:56give me an example of 90s? r&b That's not my genre.Shelby 57:59Why? Oh, it's not what? I don't know. You guys metalLance Foulis 58:03was my John. Oh, dear.Shelby 58:06That's what eyes. Yeah, I mean, you have Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey.Lance Foulis 58:14Oh, Mariah Carey. Got it.Shelby 58:16You got Bell Biv DeVoe. You got color me badd? All for one? Boys to Men? Shout out to boys. Tome. It looks like you too. Oh, yeah. You know, I had a couple. But like 90s, early 2000s wasyeah, my general feeling. Yes. So my kids are always trying to get me like up on the latest law?Or does something. You know, they're like, Have you heard of the baby? And I'm like, Who?Lance Foulis 58:42Now? Is this on a compact disk to still have a CD collection?Shelby 58:45No, this is like Pandora or Spotify. So yeah, but all jam out my classroom to my kids and justcreating a space where we can have fun. And I like to take what I've learned in terms of how Iconsider what I that I didn't make it or couldn't make it work at my corporate job. Yeah, I like to,SSSSSI'm very open with my students about that. And that it's okay to fail as long as you try to failforward. Yeah, so that's a big buzzword in my classroom is that we try and fail forward, youmay have failed this essay. But let's look at how we can revise it to make it better. Or let's takewhat we've learned from this and move it to the next. The next thing, you're not always gonnaget a win at everything. Even those people who look like they're winning all the time, becausethey failed a lot. It's because they failed a lot. Yeah. Or they're failing and they're just nothighlighting that on Instagram. Yeah, absolutely. You know, this day and social media,everything is, you know, I get to pick and choose what I want people to see. And that can bevery deceiving. Yes, and dangerous and dangerous. So you know, making sure that theyunderstand that everyone has pitfalls. And it's what you do with that. That's most important.How do you fail forward? How do you move on from this to make yourself better?Lance Foulis 59:56And I love that. Yeah, I mean, the Falling failing forward. That's so key, I always such a, I can'tfail. I've got a, I've got to get this thing done. It's like what you're describing is a lot of like whatI went through when I was in aviation school at at OSU when it came to the point where I wasn'tgoing to do it anymore. And I knew it was incredibly devastating. And I did not go throughprobably the next 10 years very gracefully. Because I that was my identity up to that point.Yeah,Shelby 1:00:26I actually used you as an example in my class the other day, you did I did, we were talkingabout, you know, picking colleges and under, you know, figuring out what you wanted to do ifcollege was the right thing, or what major it was it you know, all that kind of stuff. And studentswere asking me questions like, well, if I go in as a business major, but I decide that's not what Iwant to do. Do I have to stick with that? No, right? We talked about all those things. This is yourtime to figure it out. And I said, that doesn't end after college. Right. So I said for me, you know,I worked five years in a genre or a thank you, industry that I wasn't cut out for. And it took mefive years to figure out this is not where I belong. And then I figured it out. And I'm so muchhappier. And you're okay. And I'm okay. And I said and you know, I have this friend that Iworked with in marketing, and he went to school for aviation. And yeah, I said, and then, youknow, I'm pretty sure right about the time you graduated, was 2000 1am i 911. Yeah, it wasLance Foulis 1:01:23that was so I 11 happened probably a year before I went into flight school. Okay, so I was alllike, I can still do this. I'll be fine. It'll be it'll be fine. We'll bounce back. I can go into debt foraviation. I'm going to be a pilot. Yeah, matter what,Shelby 1:01:39right? Oh, well, it'll all work out. Oh, I didn't know. And that's okay.SSLance Foulis 1:01:46And boy, did I need somebody like you to be like, it's okay. Here's how you can fail for x. I didn'treallyShelby 1:01:53well. And I said what we had people who were in our wasn't Starla like a English major orsomething. Did she? I didn't know what she did. I want to say somebody else in that row waslike English education or just like an English major. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And was working inmarketing, you know? Yeah. So I said, just because you picked a path. Right now, when you're2122 years old, and you have no idea what you want in life. Yeah. Doesn't mean that's whatyou have to stick towards. So you were one of my examples as well. That'sLance Foulis 1:02:22awesome. I'm glad I could be and we saw how successful you are. Oh, thank you. I kind of Yes, Imade it. Appr