His & Her Life Hacks
Dawne and Larry were former high-achieving corporate executives both living outwardly successful lives. Internally, they were spiraling. Life circumstances had brought them to their knees. Rather than giving up, they leaned into their faith and did the hard work to make themselves whole again. Now thriving, they are on a mission to lead others to find their true purpose so they too can live a life of joy.
Creating this podcast is part of our mission.
We will be sharing life hacks from a His and Her perspective from our combined experiences that include: Raising 10 children, Overcoming significant loss to thrive again, Navigating 30-year careers in Corporate America, Falling in love, Building a relationship in our 50's, and much more!
We keep it real, offering inspiration and hope, and creating a community where you can sit back with your spouse, partner or best friend to listen, laugh or cry, and learn. Most of all, we want you to leave our podcast feeling uplifted and empowered to take action!
The His & Her Life Hacks Podcast is part of our company, Grit2Grace, designed to offer hope, inspiration, and real-world solutions to those in need. Through our experiences and transformative process, we teach you how faith, resilience and hard work can help you:
- Get unstuck and find your true purpose
- Overcome and heal through loss
- Remove limiting beliefs
- Navigate single parenting challenges across many different ages and circumstances
- Double down on your faith to find true joy.... and much more
His & Her Life Hacks
Episode 14 - Suicide Awareness & Prevention Through Connection & Compassion
In this episode, Larry & Dawne focus on the difficult topic of suicide awareness and prevention. Their community outside of Philadelphia has been devastated by teenage suicide over the past six years, and they would like to bring insights and tools to anyone who feels they are at risk or those supporting them. They are joined by special guest Dennis Gillan, founder and executive director of the Half a Sorrow Foundation. Dennis turned his tragedy into purpose after losing his two brothers to suicide. He is a highly sought-after speaker and mental health advocate. His candid story of perseverance creates connection, instills hope, and helps break the stigma of talking about mental health.
Dennis shares the heart wrenching story of his brothers Mark and Matthew, and how that ultimately became the motivation to turn his misery into his mission to help others avoid the same heartbreak that he has endured.
He talks about the 15-24 age group and the work he does in schools and on college campuses, including a hopeful story about one student who had the courage to raise his hand to say "that's me" as Dennis was going through the warning signs, and how his friends surrounded him and wouldn't let him go anywhere. Dennis also addresses some of the other demographic groups and their challenges.
Dennis discloses some of the warning signs to look out for across three groups - talk/text, behavior and mood. He also shares a very direct way to approach someone who you suspect may be considering suicide.
He explains the genesis of his "purple file" and how it made it into Entrepreneur magazine. The size of that file tells you everything you need to know about the impact that Dennis is making in this world.
Dennis closes with information about his foundation, Half A Sorrow. We would encourage all of you to go to his site and review the information and services that he provides, and if you are leading a school, organization or company and want to provide your students/members/employee's with critical information in the area of Suicide Awareness and Prevention, please consider bringing in Dennis to give a Keynote or lead a workshop.
More information, including his highly impactful TEDx talk on combating loneliness, can be found at:
halfasorrow.org
You can reach Dennis directly at:
dennis@halfasorrow.org
If in crisis, please call or text 988 to the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline