Ever wondered how life’s greatest challenges can become the driving force for personal growth and resilience? Hitch a ride on the journey of Rick Psonak, a beacon of hope in the world of orthotics and prosthetics, as he helps us redefine the narrative of our lives. On this episode, we delve into the raw essence of what it means to be human, to be vulnerable, and to rise stronger in the face of adversity.
Rick, with his innate wisdom, nudges us to flip the pages of our life’s story and explore the potential for a new life beyond the darkness of our past. Together, we unveil the magic of inspiring stories, the strength in being our own heroes, and the power of presence in the lives of others. As we walk in the shoes of those who have lost limbs, we face the heartbreaking misconceptions around prosthetics, and place the spotlight on the real hero – the indomitable human spirit.
Finally, we unravel the strength found in unity, the importance of a supportive community, and the transformative power of being truly present in the moment. We share the stories of individuals who have battled against the odds, and shine a light on the vital role of a supportive network when the going gets tough. So, “brace” yourself for an enlightening conversation that invites you to embrace your journey, find strength in your story, and redefine the way you view life’s challenges. Tune in, and let’s redefine resilience together.
Ever wondered how life’s greatest challenges can become the driving force for personal growth and resilience? Hitch a ride on the journey of Rick Psonak, a beacon of hope in the world of orthotics and prosthetics, as he helps us redefine the narrative of our lives. On this episode, we delve into the raw essence of what it means to be human, to be vulnerable, and to rise stronger in the face of adversity.
Rick, with his innate wisdom, nudges us to flip the pages of our life’s story and explore the potential for a new life beyond the darkness of our past. Together, we unveil the magic of inspiring stories, the strength in being our own heroes, and the power of presence in the lives of others. As we walk in the shoes of those who have lost limbs, we face the heartbreaking misconceptions around prosthetics, and place the spotlight on the real hero – the indomitable human spirit.
Finally, we unravel the strength found in unity, the importance of a supportive community, and the transformative power of being truly present in the moment. We share the stories of individuals who have battled against the odds, and shine a light on the vital role of a supportive network when the going gets tough. So, “brace” yourself for an enlightening conversation that invites you to embrace your journey, find strength in your story, and redefine the way you view life’s challenges. Tune in, and let’s redefine resilience together.
You know, we kind of kicked off last week with Thanksgiving and Joy and the holidays and you know people getting together and all the positive things that I wish were happening more. I mean, I think that we just needed yeah, I like it.
Speaker 2:Take that on. Run it.
Speaker 1:So this week Carden and I are sitting down with Rick Pisonic. He is the main man at Brugner Orthotics and Prosthetics on Lakeland Drive. Rick and I have known each other for 26 years. He's been a part of my journey since I got hurt, I think. Rick, I remember the very first time that you and I did anything was when y'all had me in the brace from the hip down, remember.
Speaker 1:And we had the black shoes that old men wear attached to it and the pieces of metal that held the shoes on and I couldn't do anything, just kind of kick them out. And, yeah, just gave me a reason to stand, because I was so mad at life and everything and I just didn't want to sit down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, I remember those days and it's hard from, I think, from a practitioner's perspective, that we see people, especially young people, and when you know what you have to offer them, especially back. I mean, technology has really advanced quickly, but back in that day I knew what we were giving you. It was actually not going to provide you with that new life that you were entering into, and that's the problem is that folks face a trauma and when that happens, you enter into a new life, don't you? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I didn't know where I was in 97. I don't recall that year very well, nor the two years that followed. Oh no, I don't have a good memory of anything. I was telling Carter in the very first podcast that we did that pretty. It was just focusing on my wreck, just kind of letting people know what happened to me, you know and then we kind of brought it together.
Speaker 1:But I told him that when I was in the children's hospital initially because I was 14, I didn't remember being there. I remembered the food and I remember people's faces, remember, yeah, and then I moved to Methodist Rehab to start therapy and I have no idea, no recollection at all of being in the children's hospital at UMC. But my mom took me back to visit and I remember the faces. I knew all the faces of those people that took care of me and I remember eating McDonald's, but that's all I remember. I don't remember what the bed looked like, I don't remember. And all those rooms are like decorated for kids and you know happy, spunky, cool stuff for children to, but I don't remember any of it until she took me over there. I was like I know that person, but I don't remember being here and it's kind of been that way.
Speaker 3:There are parts of my childhood that I probably should remember that I don't, but I had a head injury too with my wreck, so you, know, yeah, you went through more than any young girl should have to go through, and I think that's the thing that I liked about what I do is that I get a chance to enter into a person's story and I love, I love, I love the concept of story. And then there's a poem. Right now I have a company called Second Life and it has this idea that there's another life than what you're you're living now, and it's based on this poem.
Speaker 3:This Austrian guy writes this poem and it's called I love the dark hours. The dark hours is a metaphor for dark in the morning, but also traumatic time in your life can be a dark time. And so he says I love the dark hours and he was a naturalist. So he go out in the woods and he goes. I'd go out there and I think of my life and I open my life up like a book. And he goes and I start going through the pages of my story and I see the good and the bad, and but he says then he says this he goes and then I recognize there's margin for another life, that the borders are wider, and I think sometimes we have a season in life and we may think that's a good season and then something happens and we think then from here on out it's going to be a lesser life and it's going to be this, you know, the thing is, is that some injuries I mean, look at this, I broke my finger, that's not getting straight again.
Speaker 3:I broke my leg, I have a crooked thing in my leg, I broke these cheekbones and it's not going to. But but those injuries, that your injuries haven't stopped you, and I even sometimes wonder if a person's injuries don't make them stronger.
Speaker 1:I know that they do. Carter knows that they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that that what you talked about. You know the dark, opening up your book in the dark side. One thing that I've struggled with is wanting to really stay in that dark side of things, because it's you look at it and to the average person it looks, it appears that it's it's bad, but it was good to me. So I always try to get, get, try to get back to it and that's not. You know, my story is my story, but sometimes I don't need to go go back as much as I go back into it, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 3:Well, you don't want to. There's something in your first story that you don't want to leave. There's. It's not all bad. There's something in there that's good and it's hard to leave. And even with me, I had a crazy childhood and I'm still I. I generally can manage it and I work on managing that's part of my second life, but I still sometimes fight demons that don't exist anymore from my childhood. I'm fighting challenges that I don't face now and yet if I let my guard down, it comes up again.
Speaker 1:Well, we find ourselves in my life comparing, you know, what happened back then to things that are happening now, which are two totally different things, and they just don't. They don't mean the same thing, they aren't the same thing, but I do that, I go back and I relive it, what happened to me and and I think, man, I've accomplished so much. So why am I doing that? Why am I here with this scenario that has there's so not as bad as that was. Get out of it, meredith, snap out of it you. You did that, you can totally do this, but as humans, we do that to ourselves, you know.
Speaker 3:Well, I think I love the, the, the metaphor story. Our life often can be like a story. When you look at what, how a story goes, the story always starts off with somebody unexpected. They they're they're generally not their full self Rocky, the story. Rocky, he's not. He's actually. He's actually not living up to his best self. And and in any story, luke Skywalker, he's not living up to his best self. The Hunger Games, the girl with her name she's not living up to her best self.
Speaker 3:And so what happens is that what makes an interesting story is that there is a significant challenge in your life. Nobody wants to read the book about the guy who wants to buy a BMW. That's not an interesting story. Or the person who quits the person, he gives up because something bad happened. That's not an interesting story. What's an interesting story is, as a matter of fact, the worst that happens to the protagonist makes that an interesting story, and we want to see what happens.
Speaker 3:I think we talked about when I first came in, about underdogs, a come behind story. People love that, and so my question to myself as I thought about this is that are people watching my story thinking when's he? When's he going to, when's he going to be the main character in his own story. Because sometimes I found, if I look back my life, I was a second rate character in someone else's story. I wasn't even the lead character of my own story. And so then finally, I thought you know, as I thought about this, I said I want to be the lead character in my story, and in order for me to move forward, I'm going to have to face some challenges.
Speaker 1:Yes, and when you, when you do accept that you are the lead character in your story, you want to be center stage. It's not about selfishness, it's not about a right of passage, it's not about this is all about me, but it is about people see you overcoming things and they are, Um for lack of a better term in Namard Carter and I talked about um this in the first podcast when people are like you're an inspiration and it drives us crazy. It kind of drives us crazy that people they pointed out and they make you to be like this, this leper person, um, that's different from everybody else just because of what you've been through. But then, as your story develops, you know, and you do take center stage, you're like people do want to see what happens to me next, because they're watching you plow through this um, very emotional, very, uh, difficult time in your life with everything else that piles in, all the dishes, pile it up, you know, around you and family and all that stuff. They want to see what you're going to do next.
Speaker 3:Well, people want to know this possible. So when, when you're watching the movie, you're not hoping that the protagonist is going to suck. You know, if you've ever watched one where it ends up having a uh, a sad ending. You're thinking, oh, you feel emptiness.
Speaker 3:I can't believe I wasted my time watching that it may have been a dramatic movie where you thought that was good art, but you feel somewhat empty. And that's the thing is. I think people are pulling for you because they want it's like answered prayer. People want prayers to be answered because what that does is it gives them a hope that maybe my prayers can be answered. And so they want to hear these stories of a, a a great second life, if you will, because that gives you hope to think, wow, maybe the death in my life, maybe the trauma in my life, maybe the, the fact that, um, you know, I was kicked to the curb, maybe I can actually still have a wonderful life.
Speaker 1:I can do something. Yeah, yeah, I've watched her do it with her life. I've watched him do it with his life. Maybe I do have hope.
Speaker 3:That's right and you're. I think the thing is is that you will be an inspiration. You know, um, and I know that's weird to hear, because a lot of times as we're in that journey, you know we're thinking I got a long way to go, but to the average person, I don't know. I don't know what you guys think. I think there's a lot of people. I see that because I make. I make artificial limbs for people who have lost their limbs and that's a traumatic time of life. I make paracels. I don't do a whole lot of braces You're like one of the few people I do, um but I think that there is a lot of folks that have tragedy give up.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, they give up yeah.
Speaker 1:But the braces you make for me are essentially my legs, rick, and people don't understand that when they see me and they, they ask questions because they are not knowledgeable. They don't know, and that's okay and I respect it completely. You know, when they they say, did you hurt yourself playing soccer? And I'm thinking I'm 41 years old, why would I play soccer, first of all, but they don't know that that nothing from my knees down works. They don't know that the, the piece of plastic that's super thick and awesome that you put on my my lower, from my knees down, holds my foot up and makes me walk. They don't, you know, they're just cause people don't understand that they're not, um, I don't know, because they walk every day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the truth, truth be told, the brace is not the star of the story, you're the star of the story. You make those braces go by any right. You shouldn't be walking like you are exactly Like you are matter fact that that long high brace I made you it's textbook. That's what you should be wearing right now, and so it's part of it is that you know. You heard the story.
Speaker 3:You heard this saying possibly the people who believe they can and the people who believe they can't are both right, and you believe you could yeah you believe you could walk yeah, you still do, and so and so that's an inspiration to me, if you don't like being an inspiration, but your inspiration to me to say what can I do to help you go another level, and it really. It's not like I'm some great guy. I want you to be successful because I have challenges in my life and I want to believe that the, the Protagonist of their story, can't overcome Significent, not little challenges, but significant challenges, because if you can, that means maybe I can.
Speaker 1:But that does make you a great guy because you want the the best for somebody else.
Speaker 1:When you, when you take out all of those negative thoughts and just horrible things, and you, you genuinely want someone to better themselves and whatever form or fashion it does make you a good person like I genuinely want you to be happy, carter. I want the rest of your life to be amazing. You know, I want, I want good things for people and there's some people that we talked about this every podcast that don't want that and we don't want those people in our lives.
Speaker 3:It's like we don't see ourself as teammates. The thing about it Is that. So I played sports and I was in the military. If a, if a teammate or a fellow soldier needed help, I helped them because it was helping me. Yeah, how do I benefit if my teammate sucks? I know how do I benefit if a fellow soldier is not prepared, and so when I help them, I help me. And then then the other thing is, I know it reciprocates they are going to help me. So the problem is is, right now there's so much division. We don't see ourselves as teammates, and that's what one of my goals and I tell people I'm.
Speaker 3:I may. I May appear like I'm an extrovert, but I'm really introvert. I really like my quiet time. However, the problem with the person like me is sometimes I don't have the opportunity to team up with people, and I love and I want to be particular, because if you, you don't, you got to watch who you team up with. There's marriages where People have teamed up with the wrong people. There's business partners and people have teamed up with the wrong people. So I think you want to be careful you team up with, but once you team up, you want to team up with somebody who realizes If I help you, I'm going to be better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not just helping you, I'm helping myself, and and I think we're designed to do that- yeah, I mean, I think that that's what we're kind of trying to get to in like in our communities is Is if we can do some railroad pizza, but. But but I look at my communities. I think that you should look at multiple communities, as yours, you know, I think, central Mississippi, brandon's mine, clintons mine, madison's mine.
Speaker 2:I'm not as mine, because if we are trying to better our you know the lilas of the world, we're gonna be wanting to To to help out. Like you said, if we are helping out and helping those people, we're helping ourselves to, that's right. We're helping our community where, which is, in turn, helping me and my community, so that's, that's cool, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean you take, you take this restaurant when it comes to scheduling, and nothing against any of my staff, because they are all awesome, but everybody has good days and bad days. You know, everybody's story is different and when we all come together on a busy day and there's people that are not pulling their weight, it makes it harder for the other person because the other person has to pull more weight. Their weight the same and and the the joy of all, the people are not on the same team. They don't all want to be there, knowing that this is a busy day, knowing that if they do give their all of themselves and a hundred percent, that not only will it make the restaurant run very smoothly, but they could be working towards raises. You know, if, if you just I Just wish people showed up and showed out all the time, but it's hard.
Speaker 1:You know it's hard to be a team player all the time.
Speaker 2:You know, going back to you, like talking about your store, the store, the story and all that you know, in our hardest, darkest days, I realized that I had to break it down into. I knew I was creating memories that would last forever. In that moment, so you just and if you, if you imagine your, your life as a story, you can literally write your book. You can literally write Okay, we're gonna go on this vacation and I'm gonna get up an hour or two hours before my family and get my mind focused and ready to go. So when that went, so when they get up, they are gonna benefit because I'm got myself ready to go.
Speaker 3:You want to be in control the story. I think sometimes if it gets out of control, the thing about is we can edit our story.
Speaker 3:I know we can change it and I love the, the definite. Somewhere I saw the definition of a hero, and the definition of a hero is someone who is strong enough for two. The idea is that the hero, the, the hero. If this place catches on fire, they have the skills and the ability and the knowledge of here's how I'm getting out, but they also have an innate ability and a desire to take someone with them so I can get out, but I'm gonna bring someone with me and so if you, if you're on a team and you create this idea that we're all heroes and heroines and let's all be strong enough for two, okay, you know the. They say this the.
Speaker 3:In a in a story, you have the protagonist and antagonist. The difference between the, the villain and the hero is that the Hero typically something bad happens to him and they say I don't want anybody else to go through this. I'm gonna do all I can to prevent this from happening anybody and if it happens to somebody, I'm gonna be there for them. The villains the other side something bad happens to him and says I want everybody to feel the pain that I feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah and so I think that that's where, and sometimes we're like that. I mean, sometimes we play all the characters. Sometimes I'm a victim, I don't want to stay. They the victim in my story, and sometimes I'm the bad guy when I'm driving down Lakeland. Oh yeah, sometimes I'm the villain.
Speaker 3:You know, I want everybody to feel what I feel, because I'm having to drive 10 miles an hour. But you know, I think what we want to do is recognize I'm leaning that way and I want to be Well, you want to be the hero for your daughter. I want to be the hero for my family. I want to be the hero for my friends. I want to be a hero for my patients. You know, you don't. The same thing is food, food. The same way here, I'm sure is it. You're not just giving somebody a pizza.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:I'm not just giving somebody a device, any services it's, it's more than that. No one feels good about that. Nobody says I'm sure glad I would gave a book McDonald's not to knock down, but what do they brag about? A million burgers, they had that on their sign. We, you know whatever. 100,000 burgers or whatever, that's what they're happy about. They didn't say anything about the quality or the type of service they're giving. And so In in in our story. I think we feel the best when we play the role of the hero. The hero is going to face challenges, the hero's going to overcome challenges and the hero is going to bring people with them, and that makes very good story.
Speaker 2:It does so. So, rick, to us, when you meet somebody for the first time, that is has that their life is changed and you're having to create a limb for them to be able to what? How do you approach that situation?
Speaker 1:Well, he sits on the floor right in front of him. Yeah, my wife is always like you know where.
Speaker 3:Because my butt is full of dirt, because generally I'm sitting down.
Speaker 1:It's like you're on your knee oh yeah, he's in it, it's his heart, his heart's in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think I have to be. This is what I tried to learn. This was hard. I need to be present. I want to be present in this moment. This is the most important moment for me right now, and it used to be.
Speaker 3:I thought about how to put early on I fortunately I had mentors that that were really they knew how to do it right.
Speaker 3:But if I'm not careful, I can be wowed by the 3d printer, by the microprocessor knee and stuff like that. I can't wait to get this thing on you, but I found that there was no happiness and there was no joy in that, and so what I want to do is I want to sit down and I want to give you an opportunity to tell me how did you get here? How did you get here? What do you think is going to happen now?
Speaker 3:And because a lot of times you can be overwhelmed, you can show up at our place and you can see all this stuff and you can just be overwhelmed and may even have the false idea that somehow I'm going to provide you something better than you were born with, and that's not going to happen. What's going to happen is that you're going to be courageous and you're going to take what I Provide you with and you're going to excel and you're going to communicate to me. How can I make it better? I mean, that's one of the things that Meredith and I are talking about now is how can I make what we're doing better?
Speaker 1:and case in point when I met Rick when he was Earlier, talking about how I was, I was not a happy person and I wasn't. I was very mad and I had the audacity to think that you you know, this happened the summer before my ninth grade year, before I got into high school I had the audacity to think that I was going to be cheerleading and playing basketball by my 11th grade year and I was all about it and I was like I need you to make me walk in. Literally, I would have done anything in the world Put me in something I don't know, but standing frame, we need to get the blood flow and something's going to make my legs work again. And I had the misconception that these people could fix that for me. And it was that a misconception. Like a spinal cord injury just doesn't work like that and people, you just can't show up and be like all right, I want to walk in and you're going to make that happen and it doesn't.
Speaker 2:So, rick, your main job is really to manage expectations at the beginning. Yeah, you know what?
Speaker 3:It's way more psychological than I thought. When you go to school, let's face it the computer foot, the computer ankle, computer knee, that's your whole focus. But then you realize you're taking technology and you're putting it on a human and that human is going to make it work. And you have two people, one, and they both have the same technology, and yet for one person it works incredibly well and another person doesn't work. And what you do is you realize it's not the technology.
Speaker 3:There is some skill, there's some people better than other people of applying the technology. But a lot of listen. I saw a guy in Africa with belts tighten a stick on his leg and run and you're like, and you're like. Then it's not tech, it's not just the technology. It's not just it's a lot of it is who you are and where you're at and how you're managing the trauma in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's about running with it. Literally. I have wowed so many people. They're like well, I don't understand. Like you shouldn't be walking, you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be walking with just hip flexors and a little bit of quads and barely any hamstrings. That makes no sense. And we learned to compensate and I did, and just to whatever degree that I could strengthen and stand up. Then I just took it from there and a lot of people do and a lot of people don't, and that's very sad to see the people that don't. They just completely give up.
Speaker 2:You know earlier you said being present. I think that's what I wanted to say a few minutes ago is that when I get it got up early and before my family, I would always, you know, put my family to bed and then go process, do that and get ready to get up the next morning to do it again. And I think that when you, when you really look at everything, it's just getting your mind focused to be present and and these days I mean we speak this and it sounds like we're like, oh, we're, you know, miss, I miss being present hourly in my life.
Speaker 2:you know this, this device, or you know and and, but when it really the crazy thing about my life is, and so you can speak, the same thing is when it's time to perform, I'm going to perform. I'm going to be there for her, I'm going to. You know why are we doing this podcast? It's really for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I mean, at the end of the day, we want better, better communities, better we don't. We're not doing this just to talk, right?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean we are. But at the same time, back to joy. You know, when you're my menu, my heart's in it. My heart, my heart is all over that menu. You know people are like, wow, that's you thought this up? And I say, yeah, I wake up every day thinking about cool food stuff and I'll wake up in the middle of the night like my heart is in it.
Speaker 1:That's where my joy is, it's not it's not just putting a pizza in front of somebody, it's about putting a. It's about putting an art piece in front of somebody. I can't draw, you know, I colored well in grade school but it's about putting something in front of somebody that I just know that they're going to enjoy. And when I get to see it on their face, or when they tell me they're like that's the best thing I've ever had, don't stop doing that, then it just that's my life. It makes it fulfills me to the nth degree. I can't explain it. It makes me happy.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we are are most creative when we're present, when we're when, if you've ever had this. You've ever driven somewhere and you're like how did I get here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you weren't present. Thank you, you weren't present.
Speaker 3:You didn't even know, listen, you don't even know what you did and if you've ever offended somebody and you're like what? What are you talking about? You weren't present, you, you weren't even there enough to know that some something happened. And so you, you're going to be your best self, and your children and your spouse, that's. That's what they want. My kids don't care if I am on a national committee in prosthetics. They, they don't care. They, they probably don't know if I've ever been. What they want is they. What do they say your kids?
Speaker 3:will say daddy, listen to me, dad, watch this, watch this.
Speaker 3:They want you to watch that and they want you to be present, and I think it's a skill and I think that you're you're best when you're present, when you have moments of clarity. It's interesting there's something called terminal lucidity I don't know if you ever heard of this when somebody is dying, and it probably is a phenomenon that would probably happen more often, except for we give a lot of people an end stage of their life, a lot of painkillers, but what happens is the body recognizes we're getting ready to go down and it tries to make one, that one last ditch effort to survive, and so it maximizes the output of hormones and, um, oh, your blood, your blood pressure and and all this stuff, and people will wake up up out of a coma, or people who has, who have had Alzheimer's or something, will all of a sudden become alert and recognize people and say things that make sense, and family members are like what, what just happened? But you think about it. You don't want your most, most alert moment to be the moment before you die at the end of your life, and so I think we need to have these mo, these wake up moments where you say, okay, uh, I don't want to go mindlessly through this next stage of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, that's really good, because it's I've noticed that too One one, one hard ditch effort.
Speaker 1:you know it's uh so trying to live that every day and radiate that into other people. I've used that word so many times today. I feel like I've said it 75 times. It's so hard when it's not reciprocated, when it's not accepted by other humans around you when we were talking about smiling, when it, when people just don't want to and you and you can't, you can't fix it.
Speaker 3:I think people are impacted more than they let on they because they don't recognize. Sometimes people don't recognize kindness, say. If nobody's ever been kind to them, they don't recognize it. If no one's ever been present with them, if no one's ever sat down and not looked at their telephone, you know they're, they're just not used to that Right. And so I think that people um, you know, for example, your experience at the children's hospital apparently made a bigger impact than you could remember, because when you went there you remembered people and and the thing is again, when you're in the middle of a trauma, it's hard to be completely present there. However, folks apparently made an impact on you.
Speaker 3:And so I think when you're, you know you're wanting to make an impact on the people that you're around. I think you do. I think it's a cumulative thing. Too Rarely do we have that all store moment when we go up the bat and we hit the home run and win the game. But I think we have a lot of little things that we do right A lot of little smiles, a lot of little joys, a lot of little efforts to make the um menu to be appealing and um to not just satisfy the appetite but, you know, warm the heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you are present and you're there and you remember all of it, it makes the biggest difference in the world because sometimes you know there could be somebody that's like you know, tell, tells me. You know I saw you speak at um one of university physicians things um 15 years ago and and I'm like okay you know I mean, I remember seeing a bunch of people and talking to people afterwards or whatever.
Speaker 1:And you know, you don't, you don't realize that you do make an impact on people.
Speaker 1:And it could be the smallest thing, because I was only there to speak about just um. It was to the staff that like, uh, they change um when you're in the the room waiting on the doctor, you know, and there's just like the little padded bench, whatever, and they, they take care of all those things. And they wanted, um, someone that had been at their facilities to come and talk to them and just tell them that they're appreciated just for what little thing they do. There were janitors there. They were, you know, just that, they that they matter to. And I did and I told my story and and I got pretty emotional doing it, because those people, whatever little bitty part they had in my story, in my life, meant so much to me because they were a part of it, you know, and and I'm alive because all those people saved my life, it doesn't matter in what capacity, but to know that they were appreciated by someone that is still living that shouldn't be, you know, and is now walking you know and shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:It means a lot, you know, and and when you remember, when you're, when you are present and remember you know being an impact or an inspiration, you know and people notice it, then it makes my life better, you know, just to know. Okay, I'm grinding daily and people are noticing it and that's good. You know. It's not because I Want it to be about me, but people are, they're watching and maybe they are.
Speaker 2:You got to use your story like they're getting. Fortunately, our stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We can't just roll over and just get back to and not ever talk. It's he gave him, he gave it to us for exactly I know he gave it to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but well, you might be the reason that somebody gets up the next day.
Speaker 2:You know, if you want to make impact, it's it. I think this is real simple. A lot of people you know. If you want to make an impact in somebody's life, just find the people that can't do it. You know that that can't, that need help or whatever, and you just taking them a meal, like you said earlier, like like there's. You don't remember lots of parts of it, but you remember the food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you remember.
Speaker 2:I remember but the people that I remember that impacted my life. I don't care where they are, when they're gonna be there. When it hits them, I'll be there because, of the impact that they made in my life.
Speaker 1:They're in that dark spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, once you get that, once you get impacted like that, you learn how to impact others.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's. I think we all have that. We all have some gift. It's kind of like the love languages we all have that gift and we need to learn how to use it.
Speaker 3:There's some people that are very good with words. There's some people who are good at giving gifts or acts of service, and I remember the story where a guy said that his, his wife, had cancer and People in the church were coming in and some were giving him books yeah, well, here's a book on how to survive this situation and some would pray. And he said one guy just came over and just did this. Just, I guess he just sat there with him and it was his presence, his presence, and he goes. When the people that were giving me books and advice left, I was glad to see him go and he goes. At one point the guy got up and he just again. Pat didn't even say a word to Pat him on the back. He goes, he goes. Man, I cried when the guy left and I think there's, and that's a simple thing. And then the word. You know the words. I try to do this. If somebody talks bad about themselves, I'll disagree with them.
Speaker 2:If they say, yeah, I suck it, you don't, you know and if you keep saying that you're that's right, that's right, you can't say yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I want to be the guy who won't let you say bad stuff. But you know about yourself. You know if you say I can't do it, I'm gonna say you can't. You just haven't yet you can't. Or you know, if I know I never do that right now. You know what never. It means every single time and you do it. In the next time you're gonna do it better. So I try to help people that way, and and. But you have to be again. You have to be present, and and. With that, what happens is what I find now is I have to, you have to quit some people Because you can't be present for your children, for your, your best friends, for the most significant people that are in your circle every day. You can't be present for everybody, and so I've had to quit. It's a hard thing, but I've had to say look, you know you're not helping me and I'm not helping you and I, you know, I I've had to do that too and I don't I didn't.
Speaker 2:I know I know I didn't handle it the right way, but there's like you, like you said, like To me, if you going through something, if your friends are going through something really hard, or you know they lost the spouse or they lost their legs or whatever, you just got to cut them. You got to cut them some slack and you got a. I don't know you got a, you got a. You just got to give them a break. And because it's hard to it's hard to explain what that's like and, like you said, you're mad at the beginning you know, there's some things that you just and, like you said earlier, you, when people are present, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't tell anyone, I don't care if they've lost their kids, they've lost their parents, they've lost their legs. I'm not gonna tell you. I feel sorry for you. I'm sorry, because it just I don't. I don't know how many times I heard I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Because it's the easiest thing to say yeah, yeah it is, it is, but it's like just sitting there, like you said, like being present with them, don't even say anything, like I read when you were saying that earlier. I remember I can tell you exactly the people that came and sat down.
Speaker 1:It just Showed up, listen to you. They want to do one of your advice, did you?
Speaker 3:know the people that give you advice or somebody goes. I know how you feel. No, you don't, doesn't even matter if the same thing happened to you. It's probably not in the same context. And so I think that's the problem is, we're uncomfortable, we don't know what to do, we don't and we don't realize the power of our presence. And so if we understood the power of our presence, we'd realize what we say is really secondary to us, just being there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a Carter and I talked about this last week. They brought people in to see me when I was injured and they were. There were people in wheelchairs and they were totally different scenarios, not the same injury, you know. No spinal cord injury is the same.
Speaker 1:No limb loss is the same. It's just not the same. It's not the same human and it. It just did not help me at all. I'm not knocking those people because they were so kind, the ones, you know, bringing me Bibles and the ones that wanted to sit down and Talk about my future and wheelchair basketball. I think it's wonderful. I think it's great that you're reaching out, you know, but that's not where I was like I wanted to be. I just wanted to sit and talk to somebody, yeah, that had a maybe you know yeah, a crazy future about being normal again.
Speaker 1:I wanted to talk to somebody that you know wanted to listen to me and my crazy Notion of walking and moving my feet again one day. I didn't want to to be. You know, it was like occupational therapy all over again. All right, we're gonna teach you how to make a bed in a wheelchair. I didn't want to do that.
Speaker 2:You know, you know what I love, that's not a doubt. Lila, watch, watch. You walk earlier and I looked at our watcher and she it's just normal, because she sees me Limp, she sees me do these things and and now it's, it's like where I'm at is like I Just enjoy being around people that have a lump. Oh yeah because what I see, what I'm visualizing is Especially if they're running a business, but if, but, if they are made it through it, that person is so much stronger than a lump Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:The hardest thing for me to ever do was to see myself like walking past a building that had windows. Yes like in the mall or something and I see myself walking. You know it's like a mirror image, but it's not. It's just a window and I would be like this is horrible, but now, Like 26 years post, I'm like. I know I'm like girl, get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's the problem when we compare ourselves to other Images. That's what's happening now and that's a big. There's a comparison, comparison theory. It's really a syndrome and it's I think it's hurting a lot of kids and things like that. Is that it when you look at yourself instead of saying, man, look at the mountains, I have climb to be able to walk, and then, and then, that way, your, your walk is, you're proud, like, hey, I'm limping, but guess what?
Speaker 3:I'm walking when I shouldn't be, and but if you compare yourself to, like, you know, some runway model, you, you can, you know it's. I caught the the Christmas card syndrome. I don't know if this happens, you, but we used to get these Christmas cards and people would put a picture of family and it Would be something like well, my son's captain the football team, my daughter's the head cheerleader and we're doing great, and all this like our dogs and that's over the year, yeah, and that was like the course year.
Speaker 3:And I'd be looking like, hey, we've had tough year, we didn't you know that's. And so then I'm thinking, well, we suck as a family because nobody's on the football team and we don't have any cheerleaders. And but then I realized, you know, if you were to say what happened, is it? You know, I lost my job, but but we're gonna still make it. Yeah, you know. And then then you're not. Yeah, when we compare ourselves, we set ourselves back and we set ourselves up for discouragement instead of saying, man, I'm you know what. Where I'm at now Took far more effort for me to get there than for the person who doesn't have an injury.
Speaker 2:And they may look prettier when they walk, but yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't wish to be around that I mean and I. I think that's why I like Fridays. I love going to shower power, you know, because it's like I'm not around anyone.
Speaker 1:That you're not. You're not surrounded by fake people or what maybe?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's fake. I think it's just.
Speaker 1:I'm not scared to talk about what happened to me anymore. I'm not scared to say you know, I was. I was not nice to people. When I was mentally, physically, emotionally drained, injured, I was angry. I was angry at my life, I was angry at God. I was angry at my parents, my siblings, everybody. I'm not scared to go back there. There's a lot of people that just they come put on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this facade, where this is. These are the good things that are happening in my life and they put they put the bad things in their back pocket and they never talk about it. They never say you know they. They try to make people believe that all that's going on is good stuff, which every one of us know that that is a lie.
Speaker 2:He, there's not one person that has a perfect life. I tell those guys, like you said you don't let people be negative. Those guys are like man, I'm, I'm a piece of you, know, and I'm, I'm, I'm terror. I said, man, you're not, and you got to almost punch them in the chest and say, dude you, I Come here for you, like, not to like help you, but to get joy in my life, to rebalance, refocus, yeah, and you need to wake up and realize that you might not be Accomplishing anything on these streets, but you're accomplishing things in my life. And and if you will start realizing that, don't listen to those demons in the head.
Speaker 1:But see, you're trying to be a team player too, carter, when it comes to those people and there's a lot of people that are not Team players and when you do, when you, when you put your life on a backseat, on a back burner, and you do become a team player for somebody that's going through a lot, it does so much for you and for that person. I mean, you could change someone's life Just by being kind, just by being supportive, just by being a team player, saying come on, we can do this together. I'm gonna help you, even though you say you can't, you absolutely can.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna watch you do it, let's go you. Pretty much it's kind of like football. You know, I'm sure If you're gonna eventually be a coach for a college program, at some point you probably you had to play college. But if you're a division one coach, you're you got to play division one ball. You're probably a planet in the NFL or something to. But when you get in those moments it's you know how to do it because you're past, because of everything that's happened. You're like man, I remember this, I remember this situation. I remember being able to come back and win, win by 30 points, where you are always believing it's like Everything's good, they got us there, but we're fitting to get them right back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, your experience plays a big part of your story and I think teaming up, that's what. That's what you're saying. You think you know, when you're talking to somebody, I want to be a good teammate to you, but that's because I want you to be a good teammate to me. Ah, you Need me now, but I'm gonna need you later. You know it's. If you look at the the, you know that Metaphor, if you will. The quarterback needs the center to block form. The center needs the quarterback to make the right call. You know each player needs players, who, sometimes one, sometimes it's a pass play, but sometimes it's running play, and so If we have that teammate idea, I think we're all in it to win it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're all in it to win it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody has to hold their own and it's like I've got. I've had buddies that I've had to. You know that one over there, she's my number one and that if you can't take care of your house and you're like you got to take care of your home, if you can take care of your home and I can take care of my home, we can work. But if, if you're not taking care of your home and I'm taking care of my home, or I'm not taking care of my home and you're taking care, it's not gonna work. Yeah, it's not gonna work. It's like you said, it's like we're getting a benefit out of here. I can't Sit there and help you when I'm having to. That has to be my. Yeah, I have to cut because she has to stay number one and and that is that is okay.
Speaker 2:It's okay for people that are and it doesn't mean that that those are not my friends anymore and I think that the cool thing about it is is Let some time there'll be a place and time that you can be better, be good to get back in those relationships, and I'm starting to enter some of those relationships again, and that's it's cool to be able to.
Speaker 1:But have you ever cut that tie? And I mean this wholeheartedly. It felt so good to Absolutely let that negative person completely out of my life and I don't have to worry about it anymore, because I knew that that person was never gonna change. That person was never gonna Bring one ounce of joy, was never gonna be a team player, was never gonna be on my side. It was always gonna be rooting against me and the fact that I let it go completely Was the best feeling in the world. It was like, okay, I can do this, like for the rest of my life, I don't have to deal with that and it's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it might not be on there free unless unless you know they can.
Speaker 2:Everyone can check. Everybody can Start new mm-hmm tomorrow. You can pick it up. Yeah, you're gonna have to learn how to not be negative. You're gonna have to learn how to get into better routines. You're gonna have to surround yourself with better people, but you know and I can.
Speaker 1:I can run into that person again and I can be extremely kind. Hey, how are you?
Speaker 2:sometimes time will get to see you in if you see that maybe you can be part of their life. So so we usually wrap this up around 52 minutes or so. We're at 48 on this podcast. Rick, what would if you? We always ask what if you could give any any advice, what would it be? I mean anything, I.
Speaker 3:Think the big thing is that your story is not over. There's always that poem, there's always margin for another part of your story. The thing is is that You're gonna have to do something different. If you've been hurt, if you've been injured, married to, you walk differently, but you walk as matter of fact. There's, there's things that you're doing now that if the accident never happened, I guess, if you were to have a choice which way, if you could go back and it not happen, you, you, it would be reasonable for you to choose for it not to happen. But if you were to do that, then there would be some strengths that you have right now that you wouldn't have, correct.
Speaker 3:And so I think if we see an injury, a hurt, a challenge, it hurts, it sets us back. We keep living. We, if we're not careful, will keep living in that moment. But there can be, we have to believe this. There can be a resurrection, there can be a transformation, and the second, the second half, can be a better half. It can be a better half.
Speaker 3:And then what you're saying is that you can be stronger, we. You don't get strong without doing something that breaks down muscle. A coach doesn't get good Unless he's been beat bad by somebody. That's right. You know, a Marriage generally doesn't get good if it didn't go through some stress, and so I guess that's the thing that I would tell people is that Tough times are gonna make you strong. You're not gonna look forward to it. They're gonna make you stronger, but you gotta let them make you stronger. And I think the other thing is that sometimes we need to get together. We need you need to team up so that somebody can tell you this, they can talk you off the ledge. You know when you're wanting to give up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm in total agreement my, my wife is a widow. Her husband committed suicide because life was tough. You know, he gave up and he had kids. It was hard for you know, and it's hard for me to understand, but he didn't have anybody to talk him off the ledge. And so I think One you have to. If you have it's happening to you, you then can't isolate yourself so much that you're trapped with your demons. You want to find that person who is Is either will be present With you and not say anything because they don't know what to say, or somebody who's been through it, who knows I'm not that you're not ready to hear what I have to tell you right now.
Speaker 2:So that's also, that's that's, that's also, that's good stuff you and I talked about that, Carter.
Speaker 1:You know you want, you want to surround yourself with those friends. They're gonna be like hey.
Speaker 2:I'm all about.
Speaker 1:You're not you're going about this the wrong way. I love you, but this is you. You need to. You need to be going the totally different way and I'm being honest, man, You're my friend. You know you don't want the people that are just showing you the good.
Speaker 2:No, you want people that are gonna be your teammate and get down and dirty with you If you can't tell, if you can't pick up the phone or come to me and say hey, man, I love you so much that I need to tell you what you're doing wrong. That's the respect I have, and if you're not gonna do that, then what? What's the purpose of our friendship? What's the value?
Speaker 2:What's the value, and so y'all, if you, you know, thanksgiving, christmas, holiday season, check in on your people, like, even if you don't think that that you think that they're good most of the time they're a lot of times people on faith, social media or whatever they're putting up, they're putting up it's not who they really are, and so that's think that's what we were kind of trying to do here is be present.
Speaker 3:Ask questions check on your people. Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Listen, listen. Be a good listener. That's a Quality that a lot of people don't have, and it should be and if you need us. We're here. We're here absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean you know if someone's gotta.
Speaker 1:It'd be cool if we had a phone line, you know, where people could call in and say, I want to talk about this you know, and and let's talk about it, you know. Lay your burdens on me.
Speaker 3:Let's, let's discuss come get some pizza, let's talk it there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, that's right, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, well, so we're not sure about next week, but this week was awesome.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Love you to death.
Speaker 2:See y'all next week. All right, I'm sorry, I have no idea. How have you been staying here today? See you, I'm.