The Extraordinary Power of Being Ordinary | Episode 427

The Extraordinary Power of Being Ordinary | Episode 427

What if “ordinary” is the biggest lie we tell ourselves? Justin Alan Hayes takes us from a driveway lit by sirens to the steady work of rebuilding, showing how real resilience appears in the choices we make when life tilts. We talk through the shock of crisis, the weight of paperwork and logistics, and the quiet courage of adapting when nothing feels stable. The house fire story isn’t just a metaphor—it’s a blueprint for how people think, act, and heal when the unexpected hits.

We also pull the camera in closer to everyday life. Small risks—a forgotten stove, a phone left charging, snacks on the couch—teach foresight and humility. By building simple safety habits, we lower avoidable stress while leaving space for grace when mistakes happen. Then we widen the lens to loss. Grief doesn’t follow a schedule, yet people organize, honor, and continue. That isn’t average. That’s endurance. We explore rituals that help, from shared stories to acts of service that transform pain into purpose.

Threaded through it all is Justin’s belief that meaning matters. Prayer, gratitude, and a drive to serve aren’t window dressing; they’re fuel for long-haul resilience. We celebrate the firefighters and the neighbors, but we also honor the parent who stays gentle under pressure, the friend who shows up at midnight, and the listener who chooses to keep going. If you’ve ever felt “just average,” consider what you’ve survived and who you’ve helped. That’s extraordinary. If this resonates, share it with someone who needs the reminder, subscribe for more conversations like this, and leave a review so others can find the show.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Global Mission

0:58 Redefining Ordinary

3:12 The House Fire Test

6:45 Coping, Blame, And Resilience

10:25 Everyday Risks And Lessons At Home

15:18 Loss, Grief, And Endurance

20:20 Faith, Purpose, And Service

25:20 Community, Gratitude, And Next Steps

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Global Mission
• 0:58 Redefining Ordinary
• 3:12 The House Fire Test
• 6:45 Coping, Blame, And Resilience
• 10:25 Everyday Risks And Lessons At Home
• 15:18 Loss, Grief, And Endurance
• 20:20 Faith, Purpose, And Service
• 25:20 Community, Gratitude, And Next Steps

Transcript

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 0:02

Hey everyone, it's Justin. Here is Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us wherever you may be. Uh 425 plus episodes and counting. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of Voices for Voices. Thank you for your love and support. We couldn't do this without you. If you're able to, can you please reach out to 25 of your closest friends, confidants, family members, uh, teammates, and let them know about the Voices for Voices, TV show and podcast? Uh, we are on our way to helping over 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. We've already reached 100 countries and 1,000 cities across the world. Can you help us reach not only helping 3 billion people plus across the world, but reaching and helping people in 300 countries in 3,000 cities? I know you can do it. Thank you so much for all that you have done and do for Voices for Voices. We uh are just so grateful to have you with us, watching, listening, wherever you may be. Thank you. Ordinary, ordinary is an ordinary word, meaning nothing special, just an ordinary person, just an ordinary baseball player, just an ordinary figure skater. But is that really the truth? Are we are we just ordinary? I like to think, and a lot of people think the way I do, I think, I think nobody's ordinary. I think everybody in the world, past, present, future, and heaven, extraordinary. We're extraordinary. We go through some of the absolute hardest events, times, and somehow, some way we make it through. Is that ordinary? I don't think it is to go through any type of a crisis. You come home from work and your home's ablaze, and fire trucks and firemen and firewomen are helping put the fire out. Those are those ordinary people, the firefighters? I don't think so. I think they're extraordinary. I think you're extraordinary. I think we're extraordinary. So, in that hypothetical example, if you were to come home from work and house would be ablaze, sirens, uh, firefighters doing their best to put out the flames as quickly as possible. You're not ordinary, because we probably may lose some of our possessions, and we may have to work with insurance, we may have to rebuild, we may have to repair what was damaged inside, and depending on how much was damaged, it's gonna be more than just stress, anxiety, stress headaches, upset stomachs, abnormal eating patterns, thinking, oh my gosh, how am I gonna get through this? How am I gonna get through this? And then if we find out what was the reason our home went up in flames, maybe it was something that we did or we didn't do. Maybe we got careless, and we're in such a hurry. We were in such a hurry that we may forgot maybe forgot to unplug a certain appliance or turn off a stove, or or or or we could go down the list. That's not gonna do any help. And so we have to carry that burden with us. Not only that I came home and I'm seeing what I'm seeing. And I'm hearing. Is this your house? Is this your condo? Is this your apartment? Is this your dorm? How many people live here? Is anybody else home? It takes an extraordinary person to just think in that moment, in those following moments. It really does. It takes not an ordinary person, an extraordinary person to be able to think and adapt the best that we can. And that, my friends, is extraordinary. We're getting through a difficult event situation. We may be thinking we don't know how, we don't know why, why us, why me? But one day, one day you will come home from work, and there won't be fire trucks, flames emanating from your home. And so that takes an extraordinary person to get through an event like that that unfortunately happens, it happens to people. It's called life. Life isn't easy, it really isn't. So when we get through an event like that, that's an extreme event, but it's illustrating our point that the person that drove home from work and saw their home up in flames, making decision after decision without thinking that would happen ever happen to their home. And then you go through raising funds, working with insurance, what's covered, what's not what all did we lose? Did we lose that beloved guitar signed by Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry? Maybe I don't I don't know how. I'm sure there's collectible and individual experts that can do that, but going through what is a disaster, really, and coming out on the other side and driving home and there not being fire trucks, flashing lights, water or other flame retardants being sprayed out to get that fire put out. So would that individual be ordinary? I could see an individual have maybe a nervous breakdown, among other things, because the bearing on their shoulders is so so heavy. I lost my home, I I'm the reason why. We don't want them to. Kind of like I shared a my child where we're talking and say, well, maybe maybe put the milk on the table, not on the couch, not on the chair. And the child's saying, Well, but daddy, I'm not gonna spill that milk. And I say we don't always plan for certain events to happen, but yet they do. And so I tell my wife and I, our daughter, that even though you don't want to, it still can happen. We don't want to eat the Doritos on on the couch, and I'm I've done it before, I've done it. It happens, and so I'm just as to blame for things, and I say, Justin, this is why we don't do this, and I repeat to myself what I just told my daughter. Well, we don't plan on this to happen. I don't plan on having crumbs all over the couch from eating Doritos or whatever item I I could be eating. Maybe I have a piece of pizza and and I don't have a plate, or I have a plate, and the cheese with some of the sauce slides off quicker than I can get to it, and then the sauce is on you know the light color furniture, and I say to myself, Justin. It's probably why we should not eat on the couch, but yet I do more than I would like to admit, it just happens, and so the example of driving home and seeing their home up in flames is something that we don't consciously think about, I don't think, on a day-to-day basis. At least I don't. We hope and pray that that would never happen any anybody's home, anybody's dwelling, yet it does sometimes. I know you didn't plan on it, I know it wasn't in the cards today, but it's on fire, so we have to help. So I once again ask, are we just ordinary people? Are we just ordinary people? I don't think we are, I think you, me, and everyone else in the world is an extraordinary person because we go through events and situations at different times, different places where we don't want to. I don't know anybody that wants their house to go catch on fire in flames. I don't I don't know anybody that would want that. I really have a hard time finding one too. So going through a situation like that going through a loss of a loved one it's hard and human body handles situations differently. We don't want a loved one to pass away and go to heaven. However, however it happened. And so to get through the situation like that, an event like that, takes an extraordinary person, extraordinary people to get through that. And it's not that we forget We want to make them happy when they're looking down from heaven at us. Maybe there were conversation when said person was not feeling well and was getting a bit sicker. Finding out there wasn't as much time left as as thought And so events like that happen today. And I would call those I would call that an extraordinary event. Just like a house catching fire being an extraordinary event. However, extraordinary events are matched with extraordinary people. Extraordinary people like you, like me, like our family, extended families, people all across the world that we'll never ever meet. We're all extraordinary. And I bring this up because there's well, there's a song called Ordinary that is out. It's a very, very nice song, I think. And while we may think we're ordinary and think, oh, I'm ordinary. It's it's that athlete that's gonna be competing at the Olympics that's extraordinary, not me. I'm just an ordinary person. I'd like to have a different thought and mindset on that. Where Those Olympians about ready to kick off the opening ceremonies in near Milan, Italy. As well as you and I that may watch some of the Olympic Games. The people we're watching, or we will watch, and ourselves. We're all extraordinary. We're extraordinary in God's eyes, in Jesus' eyes. There's a reason why we're here. I don't know why. I don't I don't know why I've been spared over all these years. And I've talked about it on multiple shows. And I don't know. I I don't know why. But as long as I'm here, I'm gonna try my hardest to help as many people across the world, across the United States, across the world. Some I will meet, some and many that I won't be able to meet in my lifetime. But what's apparent to me is there's a reason why we're still here. I've gone through my laundry list of ways that God could have taken me from Earth over the course of my forty-four years going. I'm into my forty-fifth year on Earth. For some reason, he's chosen to have me still on Earth. So maybe it is to help people with my story, with my events, my good decisions, my bad decisions. Nobody is. None of us are. That I'm sitting in front of this camera talking to you who may be six thousand miles away, or seven or eight or nine thousand miles away from where I am sitting, and that just blows my mind. And I think that's part of why God hasn't taken me yet. I don't know. I I really don't. I'm I'm guessing. I I really don't know. What I do know is that I'm here. And as our uh our recent guest, Kathy Picard, said her age, and said I'm gonna be around and I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing for another 60, I think she said 63, for another 63 years. Or I don't know in history if anybody's lived to be under and 20. But that that is said, Kathy says that in that in that same sense. I'm here because of something. God has me here. That's what I believe. You may not believe, and that's okay. You don't have to believe. But as I've said before, I say my prayers at night. I pray for not only me, my family, my loved ones, but everybody across the world, including you who's watching or listening, or a combination. So I end this with do you think we're ordinary? Or do you think like I tend to believe that we're extraordinary? We'll see you on the next episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Head on over to lovevoices.org. And if you're able to donate, we would welcome and appreciate that very much. Voices for Voices is a 501c3 nonprofit charity, which I know may throw some people off because of how many episodes we have and the drive that we we have here at Voices for Voices to help to share uh just sharing life. Help us continue to do that. We've made it, we've made it to over three over a thousand cities worldwide, over a hundred countries worldwide. Help us take us to help and reach 300 countries, help and reach 3,000 cities, help and reach over 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Folks, this can happen, and it will. It will with your help and your friend and your loved ones and your teammates and your colleagues and your church and wherever you may be on this beautiful world. So we got nothing but love for you, and we'll see you on the next Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Let's celebrate all voices, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need. We'll see you next time, everybody. Thank you so much.