Peace Love Moto - The Motorcycling Podcast
Welcome to Peace Love Moto, the podcast where motorcycling meets Mindfulness! Whether you ride to clear your mind, explore scenic backroads, or embrace the thrill of adventure, this podcast is for you. Hosted by a Passionate Rider and Professional Colorado Rocky Mountain Tour Guide, we discuss mindful motorcycling, connecting with Mother Nature, and the joy of riding with purpose. Tune in for inspiring stories and tips finding your Zen on two wheels. Contact: Ron@PeaceLoveMoto.com
Tags: motorcycle therapy motorcycling self-discovery motorcycle metaphors riding through uncertainty life crossroads motorcycle Motofreedom on the road emotional healing through motorcycling solo motorcycling
Peace Love Moto - The Motorcycling Podcast
Motorcycles Change Lives (Part 2) - Kiki Azim and Kirsten Midura
Now for the conclusion of my two part conversation with Kiki Azim and Kirsten Midura. In our previous episode #80, you could hear it in their voices. A passion for empowering our motorcycling community to find peace of mind by demonstrating a love for others. The poor, the innocent, those who believe that no one cares for them.
So how do you demonstrate a love for others? Volunteer, donate or both! You’re blessed with the opportunity to find joy riding your motorcycle. Now you can bring that joy to others who really need it. Click the links in the show notes for details or feel free to email me at ron@peacelovemoto.com for specific information.
You can help! Make your tax-deductible donation TODAY!
Engines for Change: https://www.enginesforchange.org/
Rebels with a Cause: https://www.rebelstour.com/
Rebels donations: https://givebutter.com/E4C-Rebels-With-A-Cause
SUMMARY:
The conversation revolves around the Peace Love Moto Podcast and the personal stories of the hosts, Ron, Karen, Kirsten Midura, and Kiki. Ron discusses the podcast's growing audience of 1,200 monthly downloads, focusing on mindfulness and self-help within motorcycling. Kirsten shares her background in international development and her work with Engines for Change, emphasizing the altruistic nature of the motorcycling community. Kiki, who founded Rebels with a Cause, talks about her efforts to support communities in Pakistan, including providing wheelchairs and educational opportunities for girls. The discussion highlights the importance of community, gratitude, and the impact of motorcycling in fostering connections and positive change. The conversation revolves around the Peace Love Moto Podcast and the efforts of Kiki and Kirsten Midura to support under-resourced communities through their nonprofit, Engines for Change. Kiki discusses the impact of donations on providing wheelchairs, books, and solar panels, emphasizing the role of individual contributions and corporate sponsorships. Kirsten highlights the importance of community involvement, including a men's mental health program and a community motorcycle program in Pakistan and Guatemala. They also discuss the potential for corporate donation matches and the need for volunteers and bike suppliers. Ron shares a personal story about the joy of giving, inspiring others to contribute meaningfully.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
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Speaker Names
Ron FrancisHost
00:05
A brief look back at episode 80 with my interview with Kiki and Kirsten.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
00:09
Because I have something I'm passionate about and working toward and I can see how I'm bettering other people's lives. Like that's what fulfills people. And when I hear, when I talk to people who, like, feel like something's missing in their lives, my first response to them is go volunteer. Like that will fix so many of your problems. If you volunteer with someone, it can be anyone. Go to a food bank, go to a homeless shelter, go you know whatever. Go foster kittens. Like do something that fills your soul and your cup and inspires you to do more and that's gonna help you. So, like that helps your mental health, your physical health, like everything you know, and it helps other people.
Kiki AzemGuest
00:44
Ask for help. If there's anything I can even say on this podcast today is ask. There's people, just let yourself be helped. You need to just do that. Put your ego away, put your insecurities away. People are dying to help. All you got to do is ask, and I don't think enough of us do. And when you do, oh my, my goodness, it's like the floodgates of a damn drop and all this support comes pouring through and all this love and you're like where have you been my whole life? And why was I so stubborn and why was I so adamant about believing that nobody's got me? Everybody's got you, especially in the motorcycle community.
Ron FrancisHost
01:31
If you have not already heard the first part of this episode with Kiki and Kirsten, that's episode 80. I highly recommend you listen to that one first, but you're in for a treat for the conclusion of my conversation with Kiki Azeem and Kirsten Madura. Thank you for joining me today. Recorded in beautiful Loveland, colorado. Welcome to Peace, love Moto. The podcast for motorcyclists seeking that peaceful, easy feeling as we cruise through this life together. Are you ready? Let's go? I've been getting feedback this past year and a half from this podcast. I haven't known really where it's going to go. It kind of all started with the theme of hey, I like the Distingu, like the distinguished gentleman's ride, and what it's all about. I love riding motorcycles. I loved it. Try to be helpful too. And um, there's a lot of people just drowning in silence out there. They just don't have the courage or or just uh, you know introverts or whatever it is to I don't know where to look Like it's not it's not necessarily obvious.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
02:44
I mean, especially with like algorithms and stuff these days, like it's hard to get the word out, like we don't have we're all volunteer run. Um, you know it's hard to do marketing. I'm so right now I'm launching a community motorcycle program in Guatemala. So I'm going out to Guatemala in February to roll this out and I desperately need to be fundraising for this. But I've been burned out from other things and I just haven't had like the capacity to to build a pitch deck and send it out to sponsors and build a donation page and all this kind of stuff. And it's like it takes so much work to just get the word out and it's it. I I feel like it's a disservice to the community because there are things going on. And kind of to your guys's point about fundraising, like I too hate. I hate asking for money, but I also realized that I need to start really leaning into it a little bit more.
03:38
And one thing that I heard recently from um I'm going to do a plug for my friend Calliope, who runs, runs Philanthropy Without Borders. She mentioned that fundraising is. You should shift your perspective to thinking about it as inviting people to go on this journey with you right, as like inviting them to, like giving them an opportunity to have their own impact, like maybe nobody's going to be able to come down to Guatemala with me, maybe you can't go to Pakistan for whatever reason, but like you believe in the cause and you want to support it, and so you're like, hey, I understand if you can't come on the trip, but like, if you still want to support, like here's your way to get involved. And kind of looking at this, looking at your donors, more as partners than, as you know, pockets, is probably is the best way to approach it. So that's what I'm trying to focus on next year is really like, honestly, the fundraising side of things, because we are like bootstrapped all the way and I mean we've had individual donors for certain campaigns and I am so grateful to those donors who have been able to support that.
04:42
But you know we don't have like regular subscription donations, we don't have money for overhead, like that kind of thing. So it's all out of the kindness of our hearts. So being able to, you know there is some responsibility on people to go out and try to seek out the opportunities to get involved, because if it's just coming on a one-way street from the volunteers who just care like it's the word is going to be difficult to get out. But but that's also why I'm really grateful for things like this podcast, because you do have subscribers in an audience that Kiki and I might not have already. So being able to do stuff like this is not only fun, it's also super helpful for us.
Ron FrancisHost
05:22
Well, that's exactly what I wanted to do, and if I like to shift gears, to get specific, because, like I said, there are listeners that I have gotten feedback from who have been helped through this podcast, and I'm absolutely convinced, too, that if they have an opportunity, a clear, relatively simple opportunity in front of them to enjoy your motorcycling hobby, if that's your thing, but also to be part of a greater good that could change your life forever by going, experiencing that, maybe something they need to do, and that's why I'm going to have it in the show notes, all the details that you'd like me to share, and stuff too. We here at Peace Love Moto, we my wife and I we've tried to be contributors to both of your causes too. We, we, we, we try to be involved in all that stuff too. But, uh, there's a lot of people though that, again, you know, may have just tons of money and just tons of time on their hand and a whole garage full of bikes and so sad every day, and they don't know why.
06:21
Well, try this. Well, try this. That's what I'm thinking. You're hearing from people you can trust, who you're getting to know. Now, give it a try. What specifically could the listeners of this podcast do to support what your cause is and make something possibly magical happen in their own life.
Kiki AzemGuest
06:56
There's something very special about what I have been able to do for the past four years which I've not seen in a lot of nonprofits is that still to this day, four years later, 100% of my proceeds go to the cause and it's like real life. Like Ron, the money you donated you saw me donate a wheelchair to a person it's full freaking circle. You get to see your donation, your participation, full circle. We don't get to see that anymore because of everything. We're just losing everything. Now. Everything's like being bought up by bigger corporations. Mom and pop stuff is disappearing. Small tradesmen and craftsmen are disappearing. We see it every day. We don't even have to go far to see, like our own friends who are metalsmiths, fabricators, are out of business and who's making the big money, the big corporations and who are buying out all these people. But you get to see on such a small scale, but such an intimate scale that even if you're not on my trip, you're a part of it, because I show you from beginning to end where your money went, babe, and that is that's worth all the gold in the world and that makes you want to like a friend who sent me like a Venmo. He's like here's a hundred bucks, kiki, do whatever you want.
08:17
And I was like, well, I'm going to. And then I showed him. I was like this is my, my assistant over there buying, buying the wheelchairs, these are the wheelchairs being distributed, these are the wheelchairs with the people, their names are so-and-so, and you've changed their lives forever. And he's like here's another $200. And this is before I even had an EIN number. So I was like, babe, I can't do anything for you, you can't even get your tax exemption from this. But, yeah, everyone's donation now is money. You weren't, you were giving to rebels, you're not giving to Uncle Sam. And it's all going to like actually palpably change the life of a child, a little girl, a family.
08:58
You know, you start with wheelchairs and books and crayons and desks and then you become like, oh my god, solar panels, oh my god, computer labs. I mean this is game changer, game changer. And this is all thanks to all the rebels. It hasn't been big people from like ibm and so on and so forth who are like, hey, we want to give you this. No, it's my rebels from past tours and current tours who are finding their connections and making this happen. So if you're out there and you work for anything that you think. I mean we need everything from water filters to money. They don't even care for money. Honestly, I give big, nice, big fat, you know bills to the teachers because I was focusing so much on the students for the past few years and the like, the women of the community, for the children of the community, and I was like, wait, you got to support their pillars as well, like their main pillars. Who are their teachers, who are their, my daughter's a teacher.
10:00
They're, oh, bless her soul. Yeah, oh my God.
Ron FrancisHost
10:03
I was like how do?
Kiki AzemGuest
10:04
I know you have to. They're the ones and they're giving their valuable free time volunteering at these schools to give these kids an opportunity and a future. So you know, I mean a lot of these kids. I mean, suicide is not something wrong, that's normal in my culture or my religion. And we started to see a lot of suicide. And I dig deeper. I asked the community and they're like the culprit is the literacy rate. Kids are going to school, people are going to school, but they can't after they have no resources. After the fact that they've gone to school, they filled up their brains with dreams and desires to like fulfill such wonderful careers and they're so full of life and opportunity, but there is no opportunity. Then they realize they're like well, this was a nice stint in my life and I got to go back to being a shepherd's son. So how do we fix that? That has been racking my brains and then I was like, oh, computers, giving them little windows to the outside world. They speak excellent English. Give them jobs, find them jobs. Guys, I will say it now there are women in the north of Pakistan graphic designers, social media girls, not just girls, children or teenagers, or there's, you know, there's people who want to be hired, but they don't have any way of funneling and finding that person who will hire them. And, guys, if you want to hire someone who you know it'll be, it won't be as expensive as hiring someone here. But you, you know, you can literally sustain the life of an entire family or multiple families in Pakistan by just hiring someone who's freaking IT genius or like graphic design and all of that. Do it. I have the means. I will send you around the, the, the detail.
12:00
Someone sent me this the other day. He's like Kiki, can you help? And I was like I was Kiki, can you help. And I was like I was like bro, leave me alone. You know, cause I was like I'm in treatment. I was literally like I had, yeah, I was having transfusions and all my treatments and I'm like really, really, I already do so much. And then I was like I'm so sorry I wasn't in a good place, but I'm listening and I'll do what I can do and even if I can't personally do it, I might know somebody who can. And even if it's one person, like we said, ron, in the beginning of this, when we were waiting for you, kirsten, we were like, if you can touch one person, you're winning, so yeah, so anyone who wants to help? I mean, I do bikini, bike washes guys, so I'm not really that's another event.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
12:56
I mean, he's got assets, you know, and she likes, she likes to share them and we love that about her.
Kiki AzemGuest
13:02
Blessings from Allah. I use it. You know I'm doing the work Sunday through Saturday, honey.
Ron FrancisHost
13:10
It's all for the good.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
13:11
It's all for the good, it's all for the good, yeah, yeah, and kind of building off of that. I mean a lot of people, especially people who you know in the States. I know a lot of people who are pretty well off or work for big companies or things like that, and of course, we appreciate literally any dollar amount you can donate, like a dollar, and we're like great, we can do something with that. We love that, we're here for it. But there's also an opportunity, like I should say, and there's also an opportunity for people to go run campaigns on our behalf in their company, right, and say, hey, this is a cause I really care about. I'm donating a dollar. Can everybody in this 500 person company donate a dollar? And then that turns into 500, right, there are corporate sponsorship opportunities and donation matches that people should be aware of, right? So if you work at Google, you can donate up to a certain amount and submit it to Global Grid Project. So Engines for Change is a legally registered DBA under an organization called Global Grid Project, and Global Grid Project's mission is to provide basic human resources yeah, I'll send you all this information too but provide basic human resources to under-resourced communities around the world, and so motorcycles is one of those resources. So engines for change and global grid project are the same thing from a legal entity standpoint, just with two different names for clarification. So you can go to your company and you can say, hey, I'm donating to global grid project, I'm donating $500, and your company a lot of companies, especially big corporations will donation match whatever you donate or whatever you raise. So if you get your 500 colleagues or your 10 colleagues or your two colleagues or whatever, to donate a certain amount of money, there are often donation matches that are offered by your organization, and I actually, um, a couple of my friends, helped with that and that is how I was able to fundraise the like $13,000 that it took for me to go to Peru a couple of years ago with Rally for Rangers. A big part of that was being able to fundraise through corporate donation matches. So you can get creative in terms of how to donate and how to fund things and how to sponsor things, and I'm happy to talk to anybody about that if you would like to help fundraise on our behalf. But we have a GiveButter page and we're launching a new website very, very soon, which will make it easier to donate to specifically to Pakistan or to any of the programs that we support.
15:44
But I think your original question was also like what can people do?
15:47
And I know I've been in the position for a long time working in nonprofits where I'm like there's so many nonprofits that I care about but I am financially kind of strapped so I will donate time and what does that look like? Right, what are those opportunities? I mean, for us, sharing information is huge, like sharing our stories, sharing stories, sharing you know a bunch of things. We we're gonna have, um, some organizers that I'm that I'm gonna be working with to roll out a men's mental health program, kind of going back to the dgr conversation, because there are a lot of men especially out there who do feel really isolated and have found some some sense of community through motorcycles but don't necessarily have the tools to create something a little bit bigger and more formal with that, and so we're going to be launching a pilot men's health program that's run by men within our community but then also connecting them with resources like mental health professionals who can give some advice and kind of work through some things with them, and community organizers, like people who lead these types of things professionally, so so that they it'll be like a train the trainer kind of program so that those individuals can then go back to their communities and have more tools to be able to support their communities.
17:06
So that's something that, like we're rolling out this year and, if people have experience doing that, one of the things that's going to be able to support their communities so that's something that, like, we're rolling out this year and if people have experience doing that one of the things that's going to be on the new website is toolkits for how can you be a community organizer and an activist in your own communities.
17:17
So I need help from people who already have experience doing this, or from people who have no experience doing this but are willing to try it and document their experiences so that the rest of our motorcycling community can learn from that and so that I don't have to be the one to go out and organize every single event across the country. Everybody can be empowered to organize their own. So that's kind of some of the stuff that I'm working on right now and I would love help with a lot of these things. So if anybody has an idea of something that they're willing to actually do and try out and trial and error, those are the kinds of people that I could personally use a lot of help and support from.
Ron FrancisHost
17:56
You know what I didn't from either of you? I didn't hear, and this is how I'm going to make a lot of money for myself. That's huge. We've all got to make a living.
Kiki AzemGuest
18:09
Yeah.
Ron FrancisHost
18:10
A couple of years. That takes money, you know, in a savings account and all that stuff and that's. That's hard to attain.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
18:17
But if anybody knows of any, capacity building grants or wants to give us a capacity building grant. We would love to be able to be to pay ourselves to focus on this full time, so it's not just a passion project. You can talk to me about that too.
Kiki AzemGuest
18:29
Rebels Tour will be launching in the next couple of days for next year, for 2025. We were just dialing in like the itinerary and all the kinks and the things that we learned from this summer. You know, it was incredible and incredibly useful to have feedback. Kirsten had, like set up something so that every rider could, every rebel could, give their you know, their yeah, just their feedback from how their experience was, and that was very helpful. And another thing that was really helpful is that, like, sure, maybe you have like no money and you want to still help, because it's usually the people who have no money who want to help. Bizarrely, that's's so true.
19:11
So, if you want to like go to these schools in Pakistan or, um, you know, like, if you, if you, if you do metalsmithing and you're like wouldn't it be cool to go to Pakistan and teach these kids for a month, we will like, we will make sure and ensure to set you up. You won't get paid honey, but you'll get your ass there and you will be able to be accommodated and you will have changed the lives of dozens and dozens of children or women or men. For time to come, like, why wouldn't you right? So I'm calling out to artists, musicians, go for like a one month, you know, teaching opportunity. Go to Pakistan, they will accommodate you. You won't like it'll be volunteer based, but you'll get accommodation and possibly food, because, oh God, everyone's trying to feed you there, honey.
20:02
And the food is so good it's so good, I know why Kristen's actually coming back. Why don't you just tell?
Kirsten MiduraGuest
20:08
us. I'm actually not going to be involved in the tour at all. I'm just going back to eat.
Ron FrancisHost
20:14
So it's going to be great.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
20:16
Oh, my goodness.
Kiki AzemGuest
20:17
Yeah, anything, honestly, anything is welcome. And yeah, just keep talking about it. You know, and it's just wonderful, we're all rebels at heart. We ride motorcycles. That's already made us, and you know, yeah, instant rebel but you know we're doing something good, yeah, so there are.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
20:37
I would love to make a plug for the things that I have planned for 2025 um, just in case it resonates with anybody um 2025 and beyond. So, um, obviously we're going to keep working with Kiki on Pakistan. The rebels tour right now is a lot about going and experiencing the culture and meeting the schools and donating items like wheelchairs and water filters and solar panels you know, personal solar panels to these groups, but I'm hoping to, like I said, do a solar install on one of the schools that could really use it, and I also am going to be rolling out a community motorcycle program. So the idea behind that is you donate motorcycles to, like you know a handful one, two, five motorcycles to a specific community or a specific nonprofit or a specific school, or you know some group who could really use it, or a specific school, or you know some group who could really use it. We're going to go there. We're going to donate the motorcycles. We are going to teach people how to ride the motorcycles.
21:36
So, for example, the women that Kiki was talking about, who are the teachers? They're volunteer teachers at the school. They have to walk up this crazy rocky hill every single day from their houses to the school and back, and so if we could teach them how to ride motorcycles and don't I think there are like 10 teachers there, eight, 10 teachers, something like that so if we could donate, like I mean even a handful of motorcycles, but if we could donate 10 motorcycles to this group, teach all the women how to ride them and then teach basic mechanics like this is how you do chain maintenance, this is how you do an oil change, like that type of thing. That is the holistic program that I want to set up in Pakistan and in Guatemala. That's what I'm going down there in February to scout. Is that program? And I may have some either discounted or donated motorcycles set up for Guatemala, but I don't have anything set up for Pakistan yet. So a motorcycle costs between like $1,400 to $2 have anything set up for Pakistan yet.
Kiki AzemGuest
22:30
So um motorcycle between like $1,400 to 2000,. Just so you know, that is a brand new Honda, so if somebody is, like I need a tax write-off for the end of this year.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
22:39
I don't know when this podcast is coming out coming out, but all of this is tax deductible. So if you make a $2,000 donation to engines for change and you say I want this to go to the school in Pakistan, or the program in Guatemala supporting a nonprofit that teaches community members to collect trash in their area and build sustainably built schools using the waste, and they need a couple of motorcycles to be able to go, do supply runs, like when they need three nails, they can go pick up three nails and come right back, as opposed to that being an entire day of somebody walking and then coming back. So that's the group that we're working with. In Guatemala they're called Long Way Home and then, obviously, rebels in Pakistan.
23:19
So if you wanted to, donate $2,000 and you're like I'm from Guatemala and I want to donate to that bike, or I want to donate to that service, or I love what Kiki's doing and I want to, that's, that's a tax write-off for you, Right, and you get to donate a motorcycle to a teacher who needs it to be able to get to school in the morning, that type of thing.
23:40
So, um, if you have, if any of that resonates and you have the opportunity to connect us with bike suppliers in the areas, if you want to come train people on how to do operate, like how to do chain maintenance and oil changes, right, Like so many of us have those skills, but being able to like teach that to people would be huge. Or if you have ever been a motorcycle like a basic rider instructor and you want to come to Pakistan and be the person to teach them how to ride a motorcycle, those are all opportunities for people to like really get involved and make a difference. Um, yeah, if you have, like I said, bike suppliers, would be huge. If you want to donate gear for you know the women so that they're geared up they have helmets, like that type of thing.
Kiki AzemGuest
24:25
You know we can.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
24:25
We can set something like that up. So the idea is really to like launch this as a template, and there are people around the world who already do this in some capacity. So I mentioned the Boda Girls and the Teba Foundation in Kenya. They already do this in some capacity. So I mentioned the Boda Girls and the Teba Foundation in Kenya. They already do this with women in Kenya.
24:41
There's a group called Free W run by this woman, alison, who's in France, and she does tours through like India and does community motorcycle programs there as well. So this is really taking like programs that already exist, working with the communities. Like you know, the concept already exists working with the communities to roll that out and adapt it to the local cultures and local languages and then hopefully be able to like build that up on a global scale so that we can be like look this and obviously track all the data. I come from a science background, so having baseline data and understanding how it changes things like literacy and job placement and workforce development and whatnot to really be able to show what kind of impact motorcycles make, like all of that kind of stuff is stuff that I need help with, because it's just me and my board and our you know very small handful of volunteers.
Ron FrancisHost
25:29
So two names popped up in my head Charlie Borman and Ewan McGregor.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
25:35
Yeah, I know Right. If you know Charlie and Ewan, send them my way.
Ron FrancisHost
25:39
Long way home. I know, both Sounds like it. Wait you know both.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
25:44
Kiki, why haven't you called Ewan McGregor yet?
Kiki AzemGuest
25:47
He was having brunch at the bike shed like a month ago, we got to talk.
Ron FrancisHost
25:53
Oh, my goodness.
Kiki AzemGuest
25:55
I don't know how to do anything, guys, I just I'm the worst Great.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
25:58
I'll send it my way Just shoot me my, you know phone number. I'll be fine, we'll hang out, well, no?
Kiki AzemGuest
26:05
kidding, but yeah, Rebel Sewer is launching really soon. Guys, I need you to know that, like, the focus is so much on like your immersion in everything and that's why I've made this like a luxury tour, so that I mean, we've got chase vehicles, we've got mechanics, we've got the bikes, we've got everything Like you just show up. All you got to do is show up, like I said, and everything is taken care of. From the second you landed in Pakistan, you were king and a queen, and so that's so wonderful because you can. Actually, you don't have to worry about all the little things that we worry about when we're, you know, riding through places like, oh God, I got to load my bike, I got to do this, I got to do that. No, you are weighted on hand and foot. There is a day you don't feel like riding. Heck, we get to hire locals.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
26:58
I hire people who get paid in those 12 days of my tour like a six month to one year salary. They make in those 12 days of my tour like a six month to one year salary.
Ron FrancisHost
27:02
They make in those 12 days and and that's only like that's not a lot of money. Like, yeah, it's not.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
27:03
Yeah, it's not a lot of money, like the tour is what like just over three thousand dollars for 10 days, or something thirty six hundred dollars and, uh, and everything's taken care of.
Kiki AzemGuest
27:11
There's nothing. 12 days, it's really, and all you focus on is having a blast, focusing on the roads, on the beauty, on the people you meet, like it's, it's really different. So I've done the tours where you have to do everything, your freaking self, and I'm like, ah. So I'm like how can just everyone's focus just be on that? It changes the, it changes the experience, for sure, but, but it's also a different experience. There's people who are like I want to really rough it out and you're like be my fricking guest, I'm 41, honey.
Kirsten MiduraGuest
27:44
Like we can secure a tent for you. You can sleep outside, that's fine, yeah, you're fine, but yeah, it's just, it's really beautiful.
Kiki AzemGuest
27:50
Anyone who wants to help, even just even spending time with you today, ron, has been so wonderful.
Ron FrancisHost
27:55
Same and just even spending time with you today, ron, has been so wonderful. What a way to end the week. The same here. It's been wonderful If I could share with you one thing that happened to me about 10 years ago and I think it fits.
28:06
So I was on an airplane flying from Denver to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, and sitting across from me I was sitting by myself at the time. I was sitting across from me with this lady, with her girlfriend, and we got to talking a little bit and I said oh, what are you doing? I mean, what are you guys going to do down in Puerto Vallarta? And she went on to say oh, this is my best friend, we've been best friends for a long time. We're going to go down to the beach, we're going to have a few margaritas, we, we just can't wait. Then she said what are you going to do? And I said, oh, kind of the same thing, but I'm actually here with eight other guys, so there's nine of us and we're kind of spread out in the plane. My buddies are back there, but we're landing in Puerto Vallarta.
28:46
Then we're going to take a bus down to Manzanillo, because a lady that's a member of our church, she started an orphanage down there to rescue street children. So she also does an outreach to the whole community as well, down there to heal the children, heal the community. So my friends and I, we brought some money with us and we're going to go down there and we're going to give these gentlemen in Mexico give the money to buy the materials to finish a drug and alcohol rehab center that's down there. So we're going to go do that. We're going to give them the money, they're going to buy all the goods. We're going to help physically as much as we can. And then we're going to go out on the beach and have our margarita. And she said and nothing, nothing for the rest of the flight until we landed, starting to get up from our seats, and she looked at me so serious. She said you made me feel so guilty and I said I'm sorry.
29:41
So here's my point, I think you can do it too, lady.
29:45
I think there's a huge difference between happiness and joy. She and her girlfriend are going to have a happy time, they're going to have a blast, they're going to go home. Life begins again. Me and my friends, we did experience joy. I was hugged by Mexican men who had nothing hooked on drugs, had nothing and just hugged and squeezed me and told me in Spanish thank you. And we cried and I've got that joy today and I always have it to my deathbed.
30:18
I'll bring up one other point too, and again I'm preaching there's going to come a day for all of us when people are going to gather around and they're going to talk about you. You're not going to be there Physically maybe that's called your memorial service and people are going to talk about you. And what are they going to say? They can say, oh, ron worked for corporate America, he was a manager and not sure what else he did. My hope is that they'll say he hosted a podcast and he cared about people and hoped that the podcast would meet, would have wonderful people on who would spread their good news too, that there is hope out there and there is need and you can put both of those together and you can fix both of those two at the same time. We just have to spread the message.
Kiki AzemGuest
31:09
So it's. So it's, so easy, it's. It's the easiest thing If I can do it. Like I said, with everything going on, what is everyone else's excuse? Make them guilty Ron?
Ron FrancisHost
31:25
Yeah, I hope is those those ladies. Maybe the lady told her friend about this goofy guy she was sitting across from and maybe that too. Thank you both so much for not not just being on but for being really good people I love, I just love hanging around people like you. I love you both. I don't know you very well, but I feel love for you. I really do. It's people like you I really love, because it's such a hurting world. People are killing themselves and they don't know that there are solutions and the solution sometimes just taking a big step forward, taking a chance and say can I really help somebody? Let me see if I can. And maybe we do it from the seat of a motorcycle too, who knows?
Kiki AzemGuest
32:07
Actually there's a lot of non-riders who come on my tour because I want it to be for everyone. I'm not going to stop someone who wants to do good just because they can't ride. It's like $750 cheaper for someone who wants to do good just because they can't ride. It's like 750 cheaper for someone who wants to just like come in the chase feed. So I have made it like there's no excuse. Like you know, even the people who do come and ride, they're like oh, I'm not feeling it for the rest of the trip and I'm like guess what? That's what we have chase vehicles and trucks and comfortable, you know so, so that there's nothing that comes in the way of it. There is no excuse, there's no, yeah, no, shame, no, nothing, rider or not, man, woman, trans I've had everyone on my trip. It's for everyone.
Ron FrancisHost
32:49
I appreciate you both so much and thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. You can hear it in their voices, can't you? A passion for empowering our motorcycling community to find joy, that elusive peace of mind, by demonstrating a love for others, the poor, the innocent, those who believe that nobody cares about them. Well, how can you demonstrate that you do? Well, volunteer or donate, or both. If you're blessed to have the opportunity to ride a motorcycle and you've got that joy in your heart, well, let that turn into joy by supporting other people. Click the links in the show notes for details or feel free to email me directly at ron at peacelovemotocom. My thanks again to my friends Kiki and Kirsten. You too are an inspiration, as always. Thank you for listening and until we visit again, I wish you peace. I wish you love.
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