Pain reshapes us; attitude decides what we become

Intro for podcast

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Transcript

Asking for Wisdom, Getting Trials

The Coma and Losing Sense of Self

Purpose, Prayer, and Taking Risks

Building the Podcast and Community

Cancer Diagnosis as a Turning Point

What’s Underneath: Free Will and Choices

The Forging Metaphor Explained

Attitude Determines the Outcome

Turning Trials into Tools

Invitation to Share and Engage

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Well hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and this is another uh special subscriber edition. Um, and I just want to thank all of the subscribers, and you guys are actually helping to make this show possible. Um, today I just want to have another little brief interlude about something that came to my mind, and um it has to do with difficulties in your life and and what we do with them and what I call being forged. Um in my life as a young child, and I've mentioned this several times before, I think I was, I don't know, about 10 years old or so. You know, I grew up Catholic and and uh went to Catholic school and CCD and training and all this stuff, and you know, got trained in Bible stories and all this, all these things. And remember still the story of Solomon, how you know it really rocked my world. I was like, wow, that is the ultimate. So I said, well, if it worked for him, it worked for me. And at very young age, I prayed to God to give me wisdom. And maybe that was wise, or maybe that was the dumbest thing I ever did. But since that time, I've been given challenge after challenge after challenge. And uh when I was 18 years old, I was in a in an accident of sorts. It's a sort of a spiritual story, but uh not this isn't the place for it right now. Um, I ended up in a coma for three days, and that was probably one of my first major challenges at about 18 years old. Woke up in the hospital, didn't know who I was, didn't know anything. Um my brain was bashed, and uh subsequently I didn't have any taste or smell for 10 years, and at that moment, I sort of realized as I was like fading in and out, getting my senses back, remembering who I was. Uh, every time I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up, there'd be somebody else standing in my room. And I realized, wow, you know, people actually care about you. Like you're you're making some kind of an impact in the world. And I realized at that point, you know, I'm here for some reason. I don't, you know, I'm 18 male and stupid as fuck. So I don't know who don't know anything, right? Um, but I knew that somehow, some way I had a purpose. And I think it was around that time I started praying that I would be doing what I was supposed to do here, you know. So praying to God, saying, Hey God, I don't know what's up, I don't know why I'm here, but you know, show me, show me what you want, and I'll try to do my best. Now, I have tried and failed and failed and not tried, I've done every stupid thing known to man. But inside of it all, I've always felt that I really want to do the thing I'm here to do. And as a result, I've taken chances, I've um put my neck on out there, I've I've tried things that seemed highly unlike even this podcast. Like, why do I do this podcast? I've published over 270 episodes of this podcast. I don't get paid anything for this, but I really want to build a community, and I really believe that you know, healthy living, it's more about finding your potential, finding your purpose, doing the thing you're here to do than just you know, being a young-bodied person or whatever. And um, you know, I started it. I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I've done podcasts before, but you know, none of them have been all that particularly successful. Certainly never, you know, monetized anything or or got any subscribers or anything like that. Um, but I just said I'm just gonna start. And I started asking people I knew. Dr. Kenton was my first guest and a friend. I knew she's very wise and and educated, and you know, she made a great first guest. And then I went around and just started asking people I knew that had life experiences or or credentials that would lend themselves to this topic. And eventually I started being a guest and saying, you know, I got a lot to say. I I would probably be interested enough, people might want to listen to me. And so I've been putting myself out there, you know. And then of course I get diagnosed with cancer, and that whole element became a chunk of this podcast and uh my my journey to hailing and to solving this problem and teaching people how to solve their problem. But really, there's always a central theme that goes to everything, and I'm always like trying to find the answer of well, what's underneath it all? Like, what really makes this work? What really is the problem? What really is the answer? And you know, it comes down to free will, the choices we make, um, our attitude, the things we can control, the things we can't. I think those are all really um powerful, instrumental, foundational, if you will. And I think that uh failing and challenges and difficulties in life, you know, I talk about getting outside your comfort zone. That's where growth happens. And sometimes it happens because we push ourselves and make decisions to say, well, I'm gonna try this thing that's difficult, but um I'm gonna try it anyways. Or sometimes they're just things that happen to us, like, you know, waking up in a hospital bed and you don't know who you are, or finding out that you've got uh an aggressive cancer that will try to kill you pretty quick if you don't do something about it. Um, all of these things can happen, or finding yourself um arrested and um having to decide what am I gonna do about it, you know. Um, is this a battle worth fighting? Ultimately, I think what happens, and if you understand anything about metallurgy and um um processing and forging, you realize that with metal, and you know, we talk about metal M-E-T-A-L or M-E-T-E-L, yeah, metal, like the thing that you're made of, the metal. Um being forged is all about getting put into the fire, getting really hot, getting hot to the point where it changes the molecular uh composition, like the way the molecules are organized, and it makes them to where they are uh malleable, able to be changed. And then um through folding or striking, or there's a number of ways it happens. Pressure is applied to the metal, usually pretty violently. And uh the old school is you know, the blacksmith takes and hammers on the horseshoe, just pounds it, or the swordsmith, you know, pounds and pounds on that on that sword, or folds the metal back and over and over again, heats it and pounds it and folds it. Either way, the metal is stressed and stressed and stressed and heated, and then it's cooled in a particular way that causes those molecules to um reform in a way that is uh structurally stronger, but equally as important, more flexible. So forged metal has not only got a more uh pressure to its tensile strength, meaning if you're to go bend it to one direction, it will bend further without snapping, but it also has that flexibility. Um, you know, and I think that that's exactly what happens to us. Every time we endure a hardship and come out with a good attitude, or you know, really the attitude is the thing that determines what the forging does for us, because you can just, you know, beat yourself silly and end up just a puddle of mush that doesn't get better, or you can allow yourself to be reshaped, reformed, and and to be stronger. So I my my message here is anytime you come up with a challenge, uh, whether you caused it or found yourself, you know, in it for whatever reason, just remember it's an opportunity to put yourself in the fire and be forged and come out better and stronger and more capable. And um generally the more difficult the challenge is, the more specialized the tool is that you get. So, for example, my cancer gave me the ability to talk to cancer patients in a way I never could before. No matter what I knew. Even if I learned all the things that I've learned but didn't go through it, people wouldn't listen to me the same. But I can show that picture of a nasty grapefruit sticking out of my neck and say, this was me six months ago. Would you like to hear what I did? And makes all the difference in the world. So just my thought is anytime you're up against a difficulty, um, or you know, if you live in a life that's a little too cushy, maybe put yourself in a difficulty, um, find yourself in a way that challenges you. So, anyways, that's my thoughts for the day. Thank you for everybody that supported this show. I hope you find it enjoyable, entertaining. Please share it, let other people know we have this show, or send me some feedback, let me know that you heard it. Thank you, and uh, we'll see you next time.