A monumental moment is upon us as we celebrate our 100th episode with a special guest, and cherished friend, Fred Schuldt. Reappearing after his initial debut on our 30th episode, Fred breathes life into his story, providing not only a glimpse into his past but also an update on his empowering journey since then. This episode holds a treasure trove of wisdom from Fred, insights into our show analytics, a heartfelt letter from a listener, and a cheeky hint about an upcoming special episode with my kids, Ashley and Dawson.
Fred's story is not for the faint of heart. Encountering a prostate cancer diagnosis at the tender age of 39, and grappling with the volatility of the Global Financial Crisis, Fred's tale is of resilience, strength, and the indomitable human spirit. His secret weapon? The power of human connection. Experience the ripples of his journey as he shares the vital role his family and others played in his climb back to health and happiness.
But Fred's tale doesn't stop at personal triumphs. He also takes us through the impactful aftermath of a catastrophic house fire, the heartache and despair that ensued, and the surprising treasures found amidst the ashes. His experiences serve as powerful reminders of the importance of perspective, patience, and the power of words. Fred's transformative journey, laced with nuggets of wisdom, invites you to see life's challenges in a new light: not as setbacks, but as fuel for growth. So, prepare to be inspired, moved, and maybe even find a bit of yourself in Fred's story.
https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Showing-Up-Seekers-Thrive/dp/1940278287/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SO1ZYO7HXQLM&keywords=fred+schuldt&qid=1693844186&sprefix=%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-1
https://bamboolab3.com/
A monumental moment is upon us as we celebrate our 100th episode with a special guest, and cherished friend, Fred Schuldt. Reappearing after his initial debut on our 30th episode, Fred breathes life into his story, providing not only a glimpse into his past but also an update on his empowering journey since then. This episode holds a treasure trove of wisdom from Fred, insights into our show analytics, a heartfelt letter from a listener, and a cheeky hint about an upcoming special episode with my kids, Ashley and Dawson.
Fred's story is not for the faint of heart. Encountering a prostate cancer diagnosis at the tender age of 39, and grappling with the volatility of the Global Financial Crisis, Fred's tale is of resilience, strength, and the indomitable human spirit. His secret weapon? The power of human connection. Experience the ripples of his journey as he shares the vital role his family and others played in his climb back to health and happiness.
But Fred's tale doesn't stop at personal triumphs. He also takes us through the impactful aftermath of a catastrophic house fire, the heartache and despair that ensued, and the surprising treasures found amidst the ashes. His experiences serve as powerful reminders of the importance of perspective, patience, and the power of words. Fred's transformative journey, laced with nuggets of wisdom, invites you to see life's challenges in a new light: not as setbacks, but as fuel for growth. So, prepare to be inspired, moved, and maybe even find a bit of yourself in Fred's story.
https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Showing-Up-Seekers-Thrive/dp/1940278287/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SO1ZYO7HXQLM&keywords=fred+schuldt&qid=1693844186&sprefix=%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-1
https://bamboolab3.com/
Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab podcast with your host, peak Performance Coach, brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you, all of you strivers, thrivers and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at wwwBambooLab3.com.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone to this week's episode of the Bamboo Lab podcast. I'm Brian Bosley and I want to welcome all of you to the 100th episode of this show. We've got an amazing guest on today and I can't wait to reintroduce him to the Bamboo pack. But before we do, I want to share a couple of things Quickly. I want to just give an update on the analytics.
Speaker 2:We have not been, as you know, putting out a show every week, as we were before. I had decided that I was not going to keep up the streak just to put out a show. I'm going to make sure our shows are quality content as often as possible, if not always as well. I do think we'll be back to a show a week here very soon because we have a lot of amazing guests lined up. Anyway, I want to thank all of you for subscribing, smashing that like button, rating, reviewing us and, really more importantly, for sharing us with three people, because, as of this morning, we are now being followed avidly on six continents, 62 countries and 1,776 cities around the world. So thank you so much, man. I would not have expected this, never really expected to make it to 100 episodes, to be honest with you. But I want to read a quick heart letter. This is from a previous guest we had on the podcast and he emailed me or texted me and said hey, brian, I wanted to share with you. Yesterday, while I was dropping off my car at the dealership for repair, I saw a friend who works there and she shared how my story on your podcast motivated her and she is now an avid fan of the show. She's binge watching all past episodes. Your 100th episode is coming up. I pray it's only the beginning and there will be 500 more, plus more in the future. That's the kind of stuff I love to hear. I wanted to share that one today because I want to let you know the guests we bring on change people's lives and if you or you yourself you know of anybody who thinks, hey, I'd like to be a guest in this show, I've got a really cool story this year, please reach out. That's how most of the guests are now coming on is due to themselves, or an agent or a friend or a publisher reaching out and saying, hey, I think this person's got a good show, a story to tell. So you know where to reach me, brian, at bamboolab3.com. All right, speaking of amazing guests.
Speaker 2:This one did not come on. This guest today did not come on because he reached out to me. This guest was on last July, 19th of 2022, in an episode number 30 called Keep Showing Up. We have Fred Schult on today. Fred and I have been friends now for several, several years. Even though we have never met face to face. We talk consistently over the phone through text, to the point now where we consider each other brothers and every conversation ends with I love you. And Fred shared a story back in on the 30th episode, but he's going to continue with that story today. So, without further ado, my brother, fred Schult, welcome back to the 100th episode of the bamboolab podcast. I can't imagine a better person to share this with. And before we even go to that I'm sorry I should have said this before.
Speaker 2:When the 100th episode was coming up, I thought what can I do, man? What can I do? It's got to be a special show and my I don't know if it was me or somebody mentioned why don't you have your children on with you? Have Ashley, who's 36 years old, and have your son, dawson, who's 20 years old, and I mentioned that they are both game for it. But, like I do sometimes, I dropped the ball, I didn't schedule it and they're our heart to schedule. Ashley is a is a is a mother and a wife and a professional woman. Very busy schedule. Dawson is a 20 year old junior at Northern Michigan University, going to class, working and as well as playing lacrosse. So it was really hard to get their schedules and my schedule lined up, but that's going to come in the near future.
Speaker 2:So last week I was talking to Fred Schult on the phone and we were going through our kind of you know, luca Grigori music, corel Music or I don't know seven, eight times, ten times a year we're talking the phone, just going through, catching up, sharing wisdom, and I always take notes when Fred talks and I thought this is the hundredth episode. I can't imagine a better hundredth way to celebrate or hundredth a show. They're bringing this guy back on because he clearly made an impact last year on the audience and on me, so that's why he's back on. He is the special guest on a very special episode of this podcast. So I'll say it again my brother Fred show, welcome back to the bamboo lab podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you, super happy to be here for the hundredth for the hundredth time, the hundredth episode Crazy, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Those that was 70 episodes ago when we last talked on this show.
Speaker 3:It doesn't seem that long ago to me.
Speaker 2:It doesn't seem that long ago.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I'm so excited to be back and and I hope your audience can get a little something From what I have to say today. Maybe some little nugget for somebody would be also.
Speaker 2:You will definitely provide some grand nuggets on here. So so let's just start. You know I'm just gonna have you share, if you want to recap what you shared last year, fred and Audience, this is gonna be a completely different episode. We're not gonna go through my standard questions because we did that last year. We're gonna take that and go to the next level with it. So, fred, I'm gonna ask you to kind of recap the your life journey and then we'll start, we'll go. Once you go through that, we'll say, okay, where are you now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so well. It was exciting to share my story with you and your guests last year. Your hose, I mean, I'm sorry, your audience and but one I was disappointed with myself afterwards. I'm so, I'm so glad you had me back on.
Speaker 2:Disappointed with yourself.
Speaker 3:Well, because I shared my story and I forgot the most important part. So I was like, oh my god, I wish we could rerecord that, because I forgot the most important part. But we can get to that today. So thank you for having me back on and letting me Share the most important part.
Speaker 3:But what I shared last time was just my journey, as my they call, when I was coach Fred, when I was 30 years old, I was just a regular guy starting my financial planning practice, had a beautiful wife and we had a beautiful daughter at home. She was just over a year or so and Year and a half and I went through a major physical you know Crisis I had. Basically I wasn't taking care of myself. I had doing a lot of stressful things all at one time right, start a family, buying a home, start a business and Wasn't taking care of myself, was burning the candle at both ends. And I had my intestines rupture which is kind of unusual and and I went to the hospital. But they didn't do the right thing. They sent me home because I was already scheduled for a CAT scan a couple days later. And a couple days later, when I went in for that CAT scan. They were scarring around trying to quickly get the admitted because I was, you know, shock and Sceptic, poisoning, blood poisoning and from the infection, and had to go through. They had to stabilize me for about five or six days Until I could even have the surgery. And then I had a 14 and a half long surgery where they opened me up from my sternum all the way down to my pelvis and and had to clean out my entire cavity and all my organs, pack them all back into me, close me up and give me a temporary colostomy bag because they couldn't complete the surgery.
Speaker 3:My intestines were too messed up and needed to heal and and three times that night I stopped breathing and there was a confusion with medication and a nurse gave me something she shouldn't have and next thing, you know, it was like a yelling and cursing between a doctor and a nurse and and they were telling me that I had to fight to breathe. You have to breathe, mr Schulte, you have to fight to breathe. And I thought, well, my dad's Mr Schulte. And then I was like, oh, no, wait, I am, I have a family now and, oh my god, my wife's full weeks pregnant. We haven't even told anybody she was eight weeks pregnant baby and, yep, my poor wife threw it in the 14 and a half hour surgery. She had to tell my mom and dad, by the way, we're pregnant and and yeah, I was woke up the next morning, thankfully. I made it through the night. I fought for each breath and and got up the next morning and saw the record of my body and and are we shocking? And.
Speaker 3:But I didn't have a lot of choice. You know, we had more is to pay and mouth to feed another one on the way and I spray my own business. So I had to go back to work, went back to work and did the best I could for six months, kind of limping and holding my stomach and making my way into the office each day and a little bit better each day was able to do a little more. It's able to make it through those six months somehow. And and then six months, I went back in for my second major surgery and that was another really really long one, as they reconstructed my intestines and put everything back in place and I had to go right back to work and, you know, in the hospital for a while, at home for a few days, but then it was time to go back to work.
Speaker 3:And I went to work on a Monday in September and I was all excited and I had a good day, got a couple referrals, talked to some clients and the next day it was gonna be a great day. I couldn't wait for Tuesday. Well, that Tuesday was Tuesday, september 11th. Yeah, not the day I thought it was gonna be right. Oh, not the day anybody thought it was.
Speaker 3:And I live right here. I live eight miles from New York City and I was driving my daughter to my parents house and you know, I heard that a plane had hit the tower. I looked up at this beautiful blue sky with just a couple clouds. I was like, well, that's on purpose. Yeah, you can't drive a plane into that building by accident the world trade centers. You can see him for miles and miles and miles away. And yeah, it turned out to be the worst day.
Speaker 3:Right, and yeah, I was worried about growing my practice. And then I was just worried about my clients. Were they okay? And and? Yeah, but we went back at it but, unfortunately for me, I had knots and a lots of scar tissue because I was young, and and and the next two or three years I had a really tough time digesting food. Some days I could eat, some days that couldn't. I was always really skinny, you know.
Speaker 3:Eventually I decided that, even though they don't want to have to do more surgery on me because it's likely to just cause more scar tissue, that they were gonna have to and I went in to have my third major surgery and it was just a few days around Christmas. I wanted to have it done then so I could get back to work in the new year. And I went in that day a little angry and Turned the TV on. I was delayed and I was pissed off and and there is, there's a tsunami in South Southeast Asia and there's thousands, thousands of people dying. Now it was a really big wake-up call from me, just like 9-11 was. If you think, you better be afraid and you're alive, you know, and and fortunately that's the surgery was a success and I started to get healthy and eat food. So the coach and kids in town I love coaching my dad was always a coach inspired me to want to coach and Everything was going good and I was back to my skiing.
Speaker 3:That's which I love to do and everything was going great my life and I went away on my annual ski trip to do over here with my best friend kind of recharge, and I got home and my wife's like hey, the doctor called about your blood work. I wasn't really. She never calls, so call the doctor back and I was like doctor, test you did on my prostate? She had wanted to do a test for the blood work for prostate because my dad had had it, and so she did and saved my life, because a year and a half later, after three negative biopsies, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 39. I was walking down the hallway holding my wife's hand and she was crying and and Lisa doesn't cry that much and man, I have prostate cancer. Now I got two kids elementary school. What's gonna happen? And I know a lot of time to deal with that, though, because you know, have another major surgery. So into Disney World, because that's what you do, you make some memories.
Speaker 3:And then I went and had surgery and it's my fourth major surgery, and when I needed to be my, is that my weakest? And two weeks later I was on the couch again, but this time was the global financial crisis, yeah, and the whole world was falling apart and all my clients and I wasn't making any money and it was like, how are we gonna make it through this? And I have cancer and it's gonna be gone, and I'm wearing a diaper and I don't know if I'm ever gonna have sex with my beautiful wife again and and I just spiraled down and down and down and, as the stock market went down in 2008, summer 2009, when it hit its low I think I hit the low at the same time Spirit, mind, body crushed and yeah, I know what to do. So I decided I was gonna go on a journey and the journey was to find Freddy again. The happy, confident guy was before all this. The guy wasn't looking over his shoulder all the time for the next shoot ahead. You know, mm-hmm, and I went on a journey and started with therapy cognitive behavioral therapy, and then life coach and and I took my process basically from financial planning, what you're saying, where you are and where you want to be and I kind of did that for spirit, mind and body and I Worked, plan and and the next thing you know was 2012 and I had beat cancer, was gone for four years and I went heliskeying in British Columbia with my best friend getting out of a heliskeying here Out of the helicopter at the top of the world, and I looked at the view.
Speaker 3:I thought, oh my god, I did it. I did it. I Went from the worst place ever on the couch again after cancer Destroyed to the top of the world again in every way and I was like, oh geez, I think I need to share my story and People. I had already kind of been sharing my story a little bit with other cancer patients who were getting put in touch with me and I was sharing my little bits of things I learned along the way and every time the simple little stuff I told somebody, the simple little story, I told them. It just seemed to have an impact and I was just doing more and more of that, just sharing a little bit. So what I went through, what I learned, and it was having an impact.
Speaker 3:So when I got back from heliskeying I decided to make like a video. I sat down with this friend of mine who'd work in television and when there's a little basement studio, we wrote, recorded, produced a video. It's about three minutes long. It's like footage of the helicopter taken off the top of the world and that view. I saw and and I shared my story for the first time what it was like for me and my wife, for me and the kids from me and the kids I coached me and my finance with playing pines and and like what it was like as I got cancer, fought cancer and at the end you shared you know, I'm coach, friend and I just kind of put it out there and people that I knew and then somebody that I work with and After they could share within the company that I want to franchise of.
Speaker 3:And next thing you know, I'm getting a phone call from the president of the largest, you know, financial planning company in the world. That's me come give motivational speech for like their top women advisors in the country. So I was like, oh cool, I will do that and I like I. But I didn't just go do it like, I spent a couple months, I'm really working hard on how to share the story, what I'm gonna say and practicing it. And I went down there and and it was amazing, I shared my whole story for the first time and I don't know people were laughing, crying at the end, this little cheered and and Not the wow, it's cool, that's motivational speaker and check that off the bars. That was fun. Yeah, that's all I had planned for it. I'm actually have any plans for it. I just got asked to do it and said yes and showed up and what else? Somebody saw me there wanting me to come. Next thing. You know, I was like a keynote speaker.
Speaker 3:The next speech was a keynote speaker at a national leadership conference. So it is 400 amazing leaders around the country and they do the same thing. They're laughing, crying, stay in the chair and next thing you know, they start inviting all over the country and I started crisscrossing the country sharing my story. You can get back down and get up again, but you can't do without the other people in your life. I know it's the thing I forgot to say the last time I was on the podcast. Brian, this connection yeah, connection is the driving force in our life and with every other thing I was able to do or learn or whatever, none of it happens without connection, without the other people in my life, mostly without my wife and and my children, you know, and so my story is really a story of connection. I never intended to be a motivational speech speaker. I One speech led to 70 something.
Speaker 3:I probably spoke to 25, 30,000 people and and it was amazing, I was having an impact. But I was telling other people to show up for what matters most in your life. And then I was in a Marriott hotel room or something that night and waiting to get home to my wife and my kids. And so after about a year and a half, two years, they just they stopped inviting and I stopped. I didn't have like any kind of business set up to promote myself and it stopped and I Allowed it to and I thought that was awesome. I had a incredible gift given to me where I got to go need all these amazing people and I got to inspire some people, give hope and Make a real difference in a few people's lives. That was amazing.
Speaker 3:But it was time for me to go home and but you know, I started getting phone calls From people who had heard me and it was sometimes years later and my story was having an impact, was resonating. Something I said didn't hit them until they went through something, and then it hit them and and so then I was like you know what, I don't want to go on the road anymore, but I want to keep allowing this thing, that the story, to keep helping people. So I wrote a book and it's called Keep Showing Up and it's everything I learned in that time to keep getting up again, to keep showing up for what matters most in my life and to ultimately go from the couch after cancer back to the top of the world again. And I wrote it. So my friends and family who kept saying, hey, I wanna share your story with so-and-so, that they would have a way to do it Mostly I wrote it for Sydney and Andrew and my two beautiful kids that someday or something and this gets me emotional every time Someday, if something happens bad to someone in my family, that they'd be able to say this is what your grandfather would say.
Speaker 3:So for me it was really about a legacy of everything that I would want my kids to learn or be able to get from my story. But they might not be able to get it till they actually were going through something, and if I wasn't here to give it to them, they would still be a way for them to get it, and so that was cool. I wrote the book and I never really promoted it Like I think I hit the best seller list for one day.
Speaker 2:Well, let me just stop you for a minute, because when you wrote the book, you told me about it, so I got a copy right away. I don't think I got a signed copy, though Maybe.
Speaker 3:I did. Well, you're one. I think I can get you one of those.
Speaker 2:And I read it right away and I absolutely loved it. I still have it on my shelf. It's one of the I have about 30 books that I keep that I really that made an impact on my life that always stay with me, if I travel or not. When I travel, if I move somewhere and it's a lot of books go in the archive, they go into storage units. But and then I immediately, when I read it, I called my sister and I said I think you're gonna love this book.
Speaker 2:So I got I think I don't know if I got her a copy or she ordered it and candidate and when she got done reading it, she told me she absolutely loved it. I believe I sent that text to you, which how she what she's sharing with me back in the day and I'm gonna include a link to the book, the Amazon link to the book, so all of you listeners out there can refer to that and click on that link and order that book. It's a five star rating on amazoncom. So anyway, enough, I want to promote it a little bit.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know I've never really promoted it and I never priced it, I'll never make it done. So but I only bring it up because if people want more of what they just heard, it's all in the book, all right. But we're gonna move forward and talk about something else. Because after I did all that, you could imagine that I felt pretty confident walking through life. Like man can you go a lot Right, like I felt pretty strong and I felt like I'm a warrior and I can go through anything and life is different after I stopped speaking. I for sure missed it and really your heart felt missed it. And my kids that I was coaching for all those years year round, like they all grew up and I learned from coaching to sit on the sidelines Still ends all the games, never missed one, but yeah, it just wasn't the same, you know, and I missed that.
Speaker 3:And then my kids were going away. They were both going away at the same time they're two years apart but my daughter went to community school before going away to school. My son went away to school as a freshman. He was during COVID, so we're all going through all the COVID stuff. My kids were leaving and I was like holy cow, I'm not speaking, I'm not coaching, I don't have my kids, what the heck am I gonna do? And you know we were just trying to figure it out. Though, figure it out. I got to go through it and I'll figure it out, started thinking about maybe I should get a dog, and but then I went through the worst thing I've ever been through in my life. Right After all that thinking I'm strong and thinking I can hand this stuff in writing a book to try to help other people deal, I went through the worst thing in my life and it completely crushed me.
Speaker 3:Lisa and I had, you know, had the house fire, that major house fire, on a Saturday night. Suddenly, lisa smelled something funny and ran into the kitchen, looked out the back and there was smoke billing around. And I'm a huge outdoorsman, collected a lot of stuff over the years, all kinds of stuff, and I was like, well, I was a refiable, burnable whatever and rushing around trying to stop the fire. And, yeah, we had a major, major house fire and my house was gonna need to be rebuilt from the studs out. But it is really an incredible thing to go through when you haven't been through it, right?
Speaker 3:Because first off, they ask you like they basically start Investigating you for origin while your house is still burning. Imagine that, brian, I'm like dude, I wait a minute. You're asking about my mortgage and my marriage like, and the house fire be put out? I'm not going where, like we could talk, but Can they put the fire out first, sir? And so, and then there was a lots of this organization, unfortunately, with the awesome volunteer fire. We thank God we have them, but they weren't all there because it was a fireman training somewhere and there was another big fire in another town that they got called to and so a skeleton crew was coming to my home and other towns were coming.
Speaker 3:It just wasn't a lot of great coordination and the fire just kept getting worse and worse and worse. It was in my garage. I was begging them to get someone in the basement and try to corral it, not allow it to spread, but it didn't happen. Fire spread through the house, being, you know, arrest, I felt like, by the fire marshal and no, eventually the fire does get put out. Eventually were escorted into the home so we could get our Wallet and wedding ring, and they escorted us into the home and escorted us out and I basically told the guy like look, the garage is mine. My wife only knows where the beach chair is. That's right by the front door and everything else is mine. So if you have any questions about the guys with me, and so they, let they let Lisa go. About midnight and about 4 30 the morning they called back the burden County Prosecutor's Office and said it's not arson and they gave me back control my home and left and yeah, you know that part, Fred, I don't think I ever knew about.
Speaker 2:I knew obviously about the fire and Every I didn't know about the that they were investigating you for arson while a fire was by the way they do it.
Speaker 3:They do it to everybody. It's part of their process, is very natural and normal to them, but it's not very natural and normal to the person going through it on the other.
Speaker 2:No, I can't imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was already freaking out because that's my children's home. I worked so hard to provide that for them through all of the other stuff we just talked about. So to watch my children's home burning up, I, I was. That was. That was the hardest part. That was the hardest part. I worked so hard to give them this home and their, their stuff is burning, you know. So I mean, that was really hard.
Speaker 3:Um, I went my wife had gone to my parents house with the dog, and so it's like five o'clock in the morning I'm sneaking into my parents house. It did remind me of college years. I knew which steps not to step on to make noise, and I quietly made it up to my old bedroom and laid down next to my wife, who was not sleeping, and and we lay there for a couple hours and I went back over to view the devastation for the first time and, um, it didn't get much easier. It's not a very easy process, um, but that's not what was hard right, because initially my perspective was well, wait a minute, I'm alive, my wife's alive. If this fire had happened an hour later, it was right next to our bedroom. The fire alarms never went off because of the way the smoke was pouring and and, uh, I don't know we could be dead, you know. And so right away I was like, well, my kids still had their parents and everybody else. Kind of. Really, to be honest, brian, I felt in the beginning that everyone except my wife Really needed me or expected me, or I was like almost like, why did need to be devastated? Okay, you know, and uh, and I think because they expect them, they're like, oh, friend, with everything you've been through, you know, and it's like, yeah, but my Listen, my kids still had their parents. We're insured, it will be rebuilt.
Speaker 3:And then the most amazing things started to happen. Over the next first couple days I started to find all the stuff that didn't burn and it was like all of the emotionally valuable stuff and a lot of it was coming out of the wreckage. I was pulling all this like treasure Out of the wreckage and everyone else is like, oh, I'm like, yeah, but everything that's destroyed is going to be rebuilt. Look at all this stuff that wasn't destroyed. I've got the kids uniforms, I've got the blanket my grandmother made for Andrew, like I, all this great stuff made it. Oh shit, that didn't down, that's money and we're gonna rebuild it, whatever. So it wasn't that, it was like an overwhelming thing emotionally. It wasn't that I was like, oh Right, wasn't. But it was different and I I went through a psychological crisis because you know, the adrenaline, the adorfans from the fight or flight Really hit hold.
Speaker 3:You know and I got doused with that because you know I really didn't tell people this but I was stupid the neighbor ran up with a fire extinguisher and I twice ran down into the basement to try to keep the thousand degree fire Come from, coming through the door from the garage into the basement. And the second time I was down there, unsuccessfully, trying to keep the fire out. I just got a really bad feeling. Now I started running and as I was running off the stairs, the thousand degree fire and all the things that were in my garage To create flame or heat or cook or whatever, it all combusted and the door burst open and the thousand degree fire came flooding into the basement. And so I was going through my second near-death experience and, with everything I was been through, people just did not understand me at all.
Speaker 3:Right there, I was an alien um to others, because everyone is expecting this devastated person and I kind of had this high Of like I'm alive, but really it was the chemical reaction in my brain. All right it was. It was all those years of trauma and it was the fight or flight, adrenaline and door fins that kick in. I didn't sleep for days and sometime in like the second week, um, my brain took over and took me to another world. It said enough. Lack of sleep is very dangerous.
Speaker 3:The chemical reaction in my brain is a train that could not be stopped and initially, after the fire, I was like, well, I can handle anything and I'm just going to write to my process, right, which is basically spirit, mind and body, and do things that make you feel good in those areas, right. So it's like spirit and we're like the church and I called my therapist and I like the chiropractor. I was like, okay, those are my three things. So it's my core things. I'll just jump right into them. I'm gonna be fine, but sometimes when you go through something that's unlike anything you've ever been through, for everything that you thought worked for you doesn't anymore. It was not possible. There was nothing I could do to stop what was gonna happen.
Speaker 3:And what was gonna happen was some sort of episode, uh, that the chemicals in my brain took over and my brain took me to a place of protection and I it wasn't. It was a place of ecstasy and and weirdness and, um, and the only way I was ever going to come down I had to be put in a hospital, medicaid, seriously medicated, and uh, that was a horrible experience. And, uh, I got out and I was crushed. I mean, I thought I was strong and I felt as weak as I've ever felt. I thought I knew how to go through trauma and adversity and I felt foolish and I felt like a fraud Putting a book out to try to help other people get up again. Um, and I had to learn a very good lesson how to learn a new lesson and that was there's a difference between dealing with the things in our life that are really difficult and healing from the traumas. And everything in my book was valuable. I think most of it, um, it's all simple wisdom on dealing, which is important. Right, like there's a lot to deal with our lives. We've got to deal with it, but, um, this time I think it needed to be different.
Speaker 3:Um, now, I was crushed and that that shock led to embarrassment and Barris about the way I was behaved, embarrassed about what I didn't even know I did and, uh, decisions I made and things that were going on, and, uh, it was embarrassment. I felt like a fool, I felt like a fraud, um, and then that led to fear and when I kind of reality set in like wow, I didn't do that much trauma that that could happen to me, I mean, I was fearful because, brian, this time it was my brain, right, and you know, my brain is what got me through all those other surgeries and all those other challenges. It's your brain that allows you to handle physical pain, which is kind of where it started for me, right. The first journey was dealing with pain and daily pain for years and the pain of surgery and and all that. And I certainly had felt let down by my body right there telling me I had 60 year old intestines. When I'm 30, I'm getting prostate cancer days 39, not 79. So I had felt that kind of let down by yourself before. But I, most of my brain has allowed me to get up again all those times. It was my brain that allowed me to chill up and so this was like a whole new level of fear of myself, um, and that led to a serious phase of anxiety, depression, serious phase.
Speaker 3:And, um, I hadn't even joy skiing. I went skiing the kids a couple times that first winter and I basically looked at my cloth. I was like, okay, three more runs, okay, two more runs. Okay, one more run, okay, I guess it's time to go guys. And uh, I knew that was the canary in the coal mine. Skiing's my passion. If I don't enjoy that, oh, uh, oh, but yeah. So I was really Really shocked that I could go through something so difficult. After everything I've been through, I was shocked that I went into it feeling strong and then was Feeling really, really weak and destroyed.
Speaker 2:Well, I, I I've shared this before, you know, with you, fred is when, as our friendship has evolved over the years, you know, and I don't know if you like this term or not, or and I apologize if you if it's, if it's offensive, but I remember our conversations prior to the fire, prior to, you know, you having the uh being medicated and hospitalized, and it was like there was a period of time there in our conversations, which we're we're less frequent during that time, and when we did talk, they were darker and I always thought my mind, as a metaphor is Fred's coming back?
Speaker 2:He's, he's, he's circling on the dark side of the moon right now, but he's, he's gonna come back and and you know we're gonna he's gonna become stronger through this and all of this, and and I, I noticed that, obviously, and you a great deal, and it was an honor that we still were able to talk.
Speaker 2:You know, I was so excited whenever you'd reach out to me, or I and I reached out to you quite often and tried to stay in touch, and then, every once in a while, you'd say, hey, brother, can we, let's, let's, let's, let's schedule time to catch up, and and it was like I was On the outside watching this journey and I always knew, okay, this is, this is, this is part of his Process in life not to use the term journey, because I know we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but it was part of your journey at that time in your life. Um, oh yeah, and it was so good when I saw you know, it's like there's that, yeah, with this, you know, during pala 13, for those three minutes when everybody goes, there's no silent, there's no radio communication from NASA to the space. This is not the shuttle, but the whatever, the spaceship, and they're coming around the dark side of the moon. I was sudden, you know, three minutes later, and I can hear him talking again. It's like and I remember when you came back around, like, oh my gosh, he's coming back, he's coming back to where he wants to be, so yeah and um, and I mean that's what we were talking about the other day.
Speaker 3:When you asked me to come back on, you were like, fred, you sound different and even then before the fire and how that happened, and so we started talking about. And then you're like, you know, would you come on the podcast and talk about that? And I was like, yeah, that actually really interests me. I'm not really interested in talking about the, the episode, um, but what I do, where it took me, I think is is something that you know, maybe could help some people go through some tough times. Um, and I think the first thing is the first thing is that I learned is that you've got to have the right perspective. But perspective doesn't come without a little space and time and um, so I kind of made a conscious decision in the beginning, and that's kind of when you were reaching out to me. Thank god I have another friend like you, my friend Todd, and um, there were.
Speaker 3:I got to tell you most of those conversations you and I had that were dark, I didn't you want to have, I just knew I should. You know, and and the only reason I had him with you is because I fully trusted you that I could say anything. And my friend Todd lives kind of in the area here. Every three or four weeks He'd be like, hey, I'm gonna be around, let's meet for a beer, and he's like always going to be like at the, at the place it's like two blocks from my office conveniently, and uh, and I didn't always want to go meet Todd for a beer, but I did, um, because I knew that, even though I had made a decision that I I needed to go into hibernation for a while and I still needed to have contact with people I loved and trusted and and they were, they were the people I trusted enough to allow them to hear me in this dark place because I'm not gonna be. Listen, you can't get any better with something you can't go through unless you know how hard it is. Right, you know so, it isn't the wallow in it, but you have to be truthful with how hard something is. If you can get the right help to get out of it. If you don't admit how hard it is, how can you ever get the help you need? You know so, yeah, that was a really dark period.
Speaker 3:It was also a period where I made a conscious decision to a go into hibernation in terms of I didn't have a lot of energy. If I don't have the energy go skiing with my kids, I gotta, I gotta conserve it. Um, I knew I needed time because I wasn't gonna feel like myself again till I came off the medication. It's medication that affects your emotions, so you know and I'm an emotional person not driven by them, but I wanna feel them I like having a full range of emotions. So I knew I needed to be patient with myself and I knew I needed to hibernate for a while.
Speaker 3:And right after the fire, I made another decision, which, before the episode, I made a decision that I was done talking and I was gonna start walking. And everybody knows me knows I'm never gonna shut up, I'm never gonna stop talking. But in terms of trying to talk to the public, be a motivational speaker, write a book, things like that, I just decided that this phase of my life I really need to be done with talking. I'm trying to help other people. And look where I led myself. I mean, I sort of lead myself there, but that's what I was thinking at the time and it's time for me to just walk in life at this time in my life. I just need to find a way to walk again in my life.
Speaker 3:And so that was sort of the first phase of it all was knowing I was gonna go through different phases, knowing that I needed to kind of hibernate, build up my energy again. We also had stuff going on I had to rebuild my home, I still had my financial planning practice, my kids were away at college, so and I have a beautiful wife, and so that's all I focused on for like that first year, honestly, was my wife, my kids, my financial planning practice and trying to just be patient and give myself the time I would need to A get off the meds, b get the space to have some perspective. And then, with perspective, I feel like that's when I am. Once I have a better perspective, I feel like then I can move forward in the right direction and not just be I gotta do therapy, I gotta get you know like I gotta do this, I gotta do that, like frankly, trying to get better. Just no, let's just hibernate for a while and focus on what's most important in your life and then, you know, get a little perspective on this so that you can then go do it. You know you're gonna have to do it again, brian, which is change Right and because, as we were discussing the other day, these big things change you and you go through something really traumatic.
Speaker 3:You're gonna be changed. So it's a question of how am I gonna be changed? Is it gonna be? Am I gonna be less than I was? Am I gonna be more than I was? Am I gonna be stuck here? Am I gonna move forward? Like change is here and what are you gonna do about it?
Speaker 2:You know, fred, when we met back, when we did our podcast back in July of 22, you told, yeah, I think you quoted where we are today is not where we will be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and I think what you just said reminded me, and we talked about this shortly, not that long ago. You know, I believe this is a quote from one of my friends that used to tell me a lot you know, we are either the thermometer or we're the thermostat, and we, you know, when we're going through change, going through tragedy, going through difficulty or whatever it might be, you know we can either allow we can be the thermometer and allow the environment to control us and dictate us, or we can become the thermostat and make something out of this or become a different person. We can dictate the environment a bit. And I think where I see you is you've always been that thermostat, and maybe not every day. Some days, obviously, you were the right, but overall you're the thermostat. And I mean there's none of us who are the thermostat every day, especially during difficult times. But you are, my brother, you are a thermostat in this world. You are.
Speaker 3:You change things, you know. Let me tell you a quick story, brian, about my grandmother. You know how much I love my grandmother. She's awesome, incredible woman and she was really feisty and didn't really take no for an answer. But I got a phone call one day. She's like Freddie, I need you over here. And nobody said no to my grandmother.
Speaker 3:So I was home from college, I think, and ran over and she was like listen, it's this flower patch between the two apartments and these new tenants, also busy all the time. They're running through the flower patch to get to their cars. And I put up a note nobody stopped. And I went to the meeting and nobody stopped. And we put up a sign and nobody stopped. And so she's like I need you to take me to the Home Depot, okay, so we go. And she's like we got my pavers. I'm like all right, I think I see where you're going with this. And we get back and my grandmother gets out her little knee pad that she would put down. She gets out her little yellow flower gloves and a little shovel and she digs a spot for each of the pavers. She made a path through the flowers for people to walk on. She said you know, freddie, you can't always stop change, but you can redirect it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Grandma wisdom man, that's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and I think there's a lot of simple wisdom in the world and that's what I've always tried to tap into, that's what was in my book nice speeches Simple wisdom that's out there already is, I think, really powerful and you have to tap into that as a source. And so I knew that I needed to change again, because it's one of the other. I've been through enough of these to know that you're going to be changed and it's just a matter of how, and I knew that was going to take energy. So I went into that forced period of hibernation and it was really what I needed at the time, because I needed to learn one valuable lesson at that time, which is I'm not my diagnosis or I'm not what happened to me, I'm not my episode, I'm still just me.
Speaker 2:You're still just coach Fred.
Speaker 3:I'm still just Fred. Yes, fred, and my uncle had told me that when it first happened and I knew it was important and I knew I should let that sink in, but it didn't. It took a while, but I think that was the most important thing from that time was that I was patient with myself and, yeah, that was really the most important thing. And I was patient and I just focused on what was most important. And just remember that I'm like you said, where I am isn't where I'm always going to be, but I'm going to need to get some more energy before I can go at it. But then what happens? Life happens.
Speaker 3:Because I didn't really decide to come out of hibernation until my father had a stroke and that was really a lot going on and I knew I had to put the war pain on and come back into the world, that my hibernation period, my rest, was over and kind of had to come back at it, and that was a year almost to the day after the house fire. So that was a dark year but it was a necessary one. Then I went into year two with a little bit of perspective and understood that patience was still going to be the key that the goal was here at this point. It was a couple of things. The goal was to just expand my comfort zone away from just Lisa. My comfort zone had completely gone away with the fear and the anxiety of what had happened to me and I really called my wife Lisa and she became the extent of my comfort zone and the second van like comfort zone.
Speaker 3:Even back to my children, it was really good that they were away at school for that first year and I was so glad they did not have to see me in that dark place and I was so glad I did not have to try to hide it from them and they were off thriving, making me so proud. So that was really awesome and yeah. So coming out of hibernation, coming back and just saying, well, let's keep it simple, it's because simple is that's one thing I've really learned through all this. Simple is sustainable and happiness is underrated.
Speaker 2:Say that again.
Speaker 3:Fred. Simple is sustainable and happiness is underrated, undervalued. And so year two was really about. The first decision I made was there's nothing I have to do with this. There's no why to ask. I'm not asking why it happened. I'm not asking what I'm supposed to do with this. I'm not trying to turn it into the new thing to do. I have to now share this story. I have to now write a new book. I have to do something with all this. I decided not to go on another journey. I know that sounds weird, right.
Speaker 2:Well, you would share that with me before and I thought that what that's such, it seems so strange. I was like what the hell is he talking about? Not a journey. But then when you, the way you told me what that meant, I'm like hmm, there's some journey.
Speaker 3:The journey is having a destination. The journey is having a place that you have to get to. The journey is supposed to be somehow epic and transformational, and forced transformation is exhausting, right, and I didn't want that. For this I decided this was not for everybody else, that this was for me, and these changes these changes were gonna be for me, these lessons to learn were gonna be for me because I deserve it, because I've been through hell a lot and happiness is completely underrated and being and simple, and if you can find joy in the simple things, because simple is sustainable, that's financially, that's simple is sustainable. If you don't have a lot of expenses in retirement, you can retire early, right.
Speaker 2:You're sounding a little bit like a stoic philosopher right now.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, simple is sustainable and happiness is underrated. So that was kind of what I felt like I'm gonna find. Just make sure I find joy in the simple things again and the happy that's. There's no journey there, there's no destination there. That's the goal, is very simple. I just want to be happy.
Speaker 2:So, and I had asked you this question before. Well, to do that oh, I'm sorry yeah. I had asked you this question before. With that, talking from my perspective, I hear you saying I allow myself just to be present right now, not thinking about where I'm going. I'm not thinking about some big lesson or trying to use just be in the moment with myself.
Speaker 3:Not trying to figure out. I'm gonna be patient and I'm gonna listen to what I need.
Speaker 2:And what did that do for your mindset when you made that choice and started practicing that and experiencing that? What did that do for you? How did that kind of relief for?
Speaker 3:It's very peaceful to not feel like, oh my God, I've got some destiny. I've got some destiny to fulfill here, and it's very peaceful to just want to be happy. Now would you, and that doesn't mean I don't work hard or have goals or need to save for the future, and happiness is not consumption or right Like I think. We get confused sometimes.
Speaker 2:You know, can I say this for an interrupt? You, as you were talking about happiness and the simple things and being present on my phone you probably heard it everyone Beep, beep, beep. I have my phone on Do Not Disturb as I'm doing a podcast, but my children and my mother and Melissa they bypassed that just by texting. My daughter just sent me a picture to our group text, our family text, of a picture of my grandson. I didn't see it, I just saw it was a picture I know what it is because she sends them throughout the day and it was just like, wow, you're talking about being present, finding pleasure and happiness and the simple things and those things that are most important to you. And then I get this text, which I know as soon as I get, put a smile on my face as soon as I heard the noise. So I know what the pitch it'll be a picture of Jack. So I had to just say that because it was exactly what you've been talking about, fred.
Speaker 3:But that didn't happen right away, right, it was almost like this has been almost three years since the fire, right, the first year was that initial going through all those emotions. The second year was being patient and being present and not going on some sort of journey and knowing what. Now that I had the perspective from the first year and I understood that I did a really good job of dealing with all those troubles while raising my kids and having an impact and all that stuff. Right, I did a really good job actually dealing with it for all those years. But what I never took the time to do was heal. Okay, right, and what I learned in this phase of my life is that there's a big difference between dealing with the traumas and the struggles and the hard times and the depression and anxiety. And there's healing, and I never spend a lot of time focused on thinking about trying to heal. Everything that I tried to do during those first 15 years was about dealing better. And so after the first year, now I had the perspective and the patience to be able to say, well, okay, all that happened because I was not healed and I went through too much trauma for too long. That went on healed.
Speaker 3:And so year two, I specifically looked for a way to get some healing. Okay, and what I did? Well, you know, I listened to my instincts and kind of waited for the right opportunity to come. It's really hard to try to find the right therapist right now Gosh, trying to get mental health help is harder than ever. So I was kind of waiting for the right opportunity and the right thing and I didn't think it was cognitive behavioral therapy again and I didn't really just want to talk, okay, completamenteaquαιaorg.
Speaker 3:But I was on Facebook one day and there was this woman that I knew way back from college and she wrote a book and her book is called unbelievably. My book was called Keep Showing Up and hers was called Show Up for Yourself, and she's a therapist who specializes in helping keep with trauma. And I looked at her book and I was like, oh, show up, but this time show up for yourself. And that's remember. I already made that decision, but this time it was going to be for me. So when I saw that show up for yourself, I just called her. It's like hey, janet, I just saw your book. Her name is Janet Roth, it's an awesome book and she knows way more about healing from trauma than I do, and so I don't really want to try to talk too much about what we did in that trauma therapy. But if you need that, if you have unresolved trauma, her book is awesome.
Speaker 2:Is her name now Philbin?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's Janet Roth Philbin. Yeah, ok, and her book is called Show Up for Yourself.
Speaker 2:I want to steer the audience to the right book. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And this is powerful that book, because it really talks about what I never knew and didn't focus on, which was my own subconscious. And I went through four months of hypnotherapy with Janet where we were able to actually go to the source. It's like speed therapy it's the only way I could describe it because she puts you in a place you're totally in charge. I don't want to describe it too much, but you get to a place where you can basically have your subconscious answer questions and it cuts out the middle man, our ego and all that crap that we bring along, and you can go right to your subconscious and you can basically view things as they really are. And it enabled me to deal with the traumas.
Speaker 3:One of the things I forgot to tell your audience is that my first memory in life is being severely burned as a child, and it's burned into my memory. It's my first memory. I'm about three and a half four years old. It was a horrific weeks afterwards, having peroxide poured on the baby's leg and his dad held him down, kicking him in the screen, and you didn't understand why his parents were hurting him. Well, that little traumatized boy was still in me when the fire happened and I almost burned it in the basement.
Speaker 3:So there's the trauma that's out there in us and I was able to essentially go back and heal from it with her guidance, through a series of rescues, and I came out of that experience a little exhausted but with the greatest understanding of myself that I've ever had and I was someone who was pretty self-introspective and felt like I knew a lot about myself and felt like I really understood me. But taking that experience to go back and heal for the first time that's the long word to go back and heal for the first time from all the traumas, put me in a position of knowledge base about myself that I never was in and it gave me a comfort with who I am and my own skin that I never had before and even more confidence in my ability to deal with the next thing life's going to throw at me, because it's going to throw something else with this knowledge base.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting here with my head in my hand and I'm thinking about the power of. I've been through therapy, Fred, over the years and it started in college. I've seen different therapists. Obviously, I do a lot of self-reflection and reading and things like that.
Speaker 3:But I've never. I've done the books, I've done the meditation, I've done the life coach, I've done the life coach. I've done cognitive behavioral therapy. I've done talk therapy.
Speaker 2:What you've done, though, is you simplified something and you've said this to me before about the dealing versus healing, and I just wonder. I'm looking at my life and I'm wondering if the audience member out there can please do the same the trauma you've gone through and you say we all say I've dealt with it, I've dealt with it, but can you say I've healed from it? And I'm thinking of things in how even just the choice of words we use puts us in a mindset of I can say a lot of things I've dealt with, but when you said that, as I was writing these down, I even thought, when you say deal with it, the word with that means you're still in the You're there. The trauma is there, you're dealing with it, but when you say heal, you say heal from the trauma. You're moving away from that trauma as you heal and grow, and it made me think I'm going to ask the bamboo pack member out there who's going through trauma who has you dealt with it?
Speaker 2:Great man, because a lot of people don't even do a good job of that. But the next, more advanced stage, the real stage, is now have you healed from it or are you healing from it? It's made me question a lot of parts of my life right now, and I'm actually I don't oh go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 3:Just what you're saying about words I think they're so important and what I was saying before about perspective and the words that they use to ourselves. When I specifically said I was in a period of hibernation, I literally that's what I told myself. That was the word I used when people ask me what I meant. I'm like, I'm in hibernation. I'm a bear going away from winter to wait for spring. I think I know spring's coming. I know spring's coming, but it isn't coming now. Right, it isn't coming if I try to force it.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 3:It is transformation, that's another word that you.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I mean perspective, and the most valuable thing I got out of cognitive behavioral therapy back in the day was reframing the idea that you can look at something differently. I mean, I think that's a huge tool in our lives to be able to continually reframe and not have to look at things the way we're told or forced or tried to view, or things how we're supposed to view it. I think the reframing is the most powerful thing of cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm not a therapist but I just did it for a few years. To me, reframing was the most powerful part of that and for me, this new trauma therapy that I did, being able to go direct to the source, direct to the part of you that actually knows everything that really happened, and to be able to help that part. Essentially reframe is kind of what you do in this trauma therapy, because healing, I think, is different than curing.
Speaker 3:I know here we go with the words again, right, but healing is different than curing. I'm not expecting to be necessarily cured from all the trauma I've had in my life, but healing is when you can accept things as they are. And so there's an acceptance that comes with healing, which I could do, because I decided that there's no why. There's no what, there's nothing to do. I'm not going on a journey and I have nothing to prove Making those decisions of this, because if you want to add something in your life, you got to get things out right. There's only so much space, so, by deciding what I was not going to do allowed me to have the space to put my energy beside what I decided I am going to do. I'm not going on a journey, I'm going to heal.
Speaker 2:Damn. I got to tell you, man, that that concept of that and that's that force transformation is exhausting quote you said earlier today oh, it's exhausting, holy shit. I'm thinking, you know, honestly, buddy, I I'm thinking of how I try to do that so often, and I'm actually on a podcast this afternoon. I think I'll put Alberta, canada, my guest, and that's what we're going to talk about. I think something like that, like my experience, and I have to now question in the next two, three hours, and I'm going to talk about this, about the dealing versus healing, and I I wow, I don't know, man, because I think I do so let me finish up with where I went to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 3:Can I do that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you can do it. Yeah, you brother. I know we got to wrap up.
Speaker 3:You're audience has to go on at some point too right, your audience is like life to get to living. Some people want to live. I want to be alive. No-transcript. Actually it's a verse Some people want to be alive, I want to live. So that was the second year, was kind of healing. And here's where I am.
Speaker 3:In year three I decided now I was going to spoil myself, and that doesn't mean like fancy dinners and trucks and cars and things like that. The core thing from my book that I would want people to take is if you want to be happy, if you want to be in the moment, do what you love to do with the people you love. What you love to do with the people you love. I promise you you will be in the moment and you will be happy. So I decided to spend this last year completely spoiling myself by doing everything I love to do with the people I love. And that's how I spent the last year and that's why you heard me the other day sound different. I spoiled myself with connection. Doing what I love to do with the people I love the most brings you right into the moment and allows you to connect to everything that's really important. And then, when you're doing what you love with the people you love, you can't help but be happy, and happiness is way underrated. So I spent the last year just doing what I love with the people I love, and being happy and connected, because connection is the driving force in all of our lives. I don't get through any of this without connection. I don't get through it without my wife, my kids. I don't get through it without my beautiful brother, brian, who made sure to talk to me through the dark days. You know, I don't get through it without connection. I'm not who I am without connection. I've been spoiling myself with connection and love and because I'm in love with the simple things, it's going to be very sustainable to be happy. The other thing and the reason I very specifically used and this will be a real quick point the reason I specifically used the word journey and then I wasn't going on another journey, is because I knew that I was ending my journey. We're all on a journey.
Speaker 3:The reason my story has touched people is because it's all of their stories. It's every great story that's ever been told. It's the human story, right. It's the hero's tale, right. Luke Skywalker has to defeat his own inner demon, right. He thinks he's chopping off the head of Darth Vader, but the head on the floor is his own. King Arthur had to go away on the journey to slay the dragon and walk through the fire. But the end of every hero's tale is they get to go home fully in their power, fully who they are fully able to help the other people in their life. That has to reason.
Speaker 3:My story touched people is because it's their story. It's all of our stories. We're all regular people who have no idea that we're going to go on a journey and we're going to have to face our inner demons. And when we face our inner demons, we slay the dragon, we get to go home. So I'm home. I'm not on a journey, my journey's over, I've come home. I just want other people to be able to go through their journey a little easier and get home.
Speaker 2:Welcome home, brother. I love you man.
Speaker 3:It feels good to be home. It feels good to not be on a journey, it feels good to just be happy.
Speaker 2:It feels good to have you home.
Speaker 3:It feels good to be home.
Speaker 2:I love you man.
Speaker 3:I love you too.
Speaker 2:You just flipping mic dropped. You just mic dropped this podcast. I might as well just hit the record button right now.
Speaker 3:I hope somebody got something out of it. I tried to write some notes on the gumbo that is getting up again. It's not necessarily simple, although I tried to make it, but it is simple if you stick to the simple wisdom that's out there. My simple wisdom is connection is the most important thing in your life, and just keep connecting with others.
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, I do want to say this, and I wasn't going to bring this up but for the audience out there, this is the second recording of this podcast. Fred and I did about 45 minutes of recording earlier today and then I guess my recording system only handles 99 episodes and at the 101, we got cut off and the recording system stopped and we were going to reboot a few things and we redid it and I was so disappointed in myself because, as we took a 15, 10, 15 minute break, I thought, my gosh, I just captured magic lightning in a bottle. I don't think we'll be able to capture it again and honestly, brother you recaptured it with, I mean, there was more lightning in this bottle than there was in the one an hour ago. This is amazing. Love, love, love that phrase. If you want to be happy and, in the moment, do the things you love with the people you love most, what the hell else is there?
Speaker 3:There's nothing. There's nothing. It's so simple, it's so easy.
Speaker 2:Grandma's wisdom man.
Speaker 3:And it's fun, and it's fun and it's fun. It's a lot of fun. I've been all over the country this year. I've roadtripped with my son and my daughter, I've fly-fished, I've skied in a massive snowstorm in the high Sierra mountains and been out to Colorado my aunt uncle's property, tracking deer and feeding the wild turkeys and like into the beach and down the shore. And I've done it all with my wife and my son and my daughter and my dad, my mom, my godmother and my best friend. And, yeah, it's been a great, simple year.
Speaker 2:Well, let's continue on that path of doing the things you love with the people you love most, because it's magical.
Speaker 3:All right, well, listen, I think you know. You just need to do another hundred episodes, or 99 more, and then you can have me on for two more.
Speaker 2:We talked a little bit we might start doing more regular shows together. I know I have to wrap up I do have a coaching session here in about 90 seconds but I want to thank you, my brother, for coming on again. This one was a very special show. You owned up to the hype in my head of what the 100th episode should be and you actually exceeded that, and I can't thank you enough and just know I love you and I love you too, brother, we're.
Speaker 3:I know your audience showing up everybody.
Speaker 2:Keep showing up everyone. All right, I'm going to end it just at that, because I always have my closing phrase, but I think this time it is that keep showing up everyone. I respect and love you all, take care.