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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
This podcast is designed to help with suicide prevention. That is the #1 goal! This is also a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
The early podcast episodes are a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Discusses my own suicide ideations and attempt that I struggled with for most of my life. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures.
Hosting guests who have overcome suicide attempts/suicide ideations/trauma/hardships/difficult situations to fight through it, rise up, and live their best life. Real life stories to help others that are going through difficult times or stuck without a path forward, understand and learn there is a path forward.
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 52: Liquid Courage to Real Courage: A Sobriety Success Story with Ron Reich and my Special Co-Host Lannette West
Ronald Reich shares his powerful 32-year sobriety journey, revealing how admitting he needed help transformed his life from rock bottom to becoming a successful keynote speaker with a fulfilling family life.
• Growing up as the youngest sibling with low self-esteem and severe acne made social situations uncomfortable
• Discovered alcohol provided "liquid courage" to overcome social anxiety, especially around girls
• College drinking escalated as he used alcohol to mask feelings of inadequacy among high-achieving peers
• Early warning signs included planning drinking schedules and breaking self-imposed limits
• Hit rock bottom after assaulting a police officer during a DUI stop and drinking vodka straight from the bottle while driving
• Entered treatment after finally admitting to his mother: "I need help. I will not survive if I don't get help"
• Learning to face challenges sober required using AA meetings and support networks instead of alcohol
• Realized he could laugh, have fun, and handle professional setbacks without drinking
• Now happily married for 25 years, travels extensively, and works as a successful speaker
• Lives by the principle: "The only person over whom I have control is me"
If anybody wants to talk about leadership lessons learned through AA and life experiences, please reach out through LinkedIn or Instagram. People were there when I needed help, and I promise to respond if anyone needs support.
Follow on IG: Lanette.West and BH_Life_Is_Crazy.
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
BrandonHeld.com iPad drawing for Life Coaching clients
Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy and today is a super special episode. I don't know if any of you actually look at my monthly newsletter that I sent out over the weekend, but Lynette West is going to be a co-host with me today and I'm very excited about it. It's our first time co-hosting together and we're going to be talking to a young gentleman Ronald Reich is his name and we're going to get his story of his life and it's very interesting and I think you'll enjoy it. So first of all, Lynette, say hi to everybody.
Speaker 2:Hi, thanks for having me, and this is my first co-host gig ever, by the way. Yeah, awesome, y'all go easy on me.
Speaker 1:I'm so special. Yes, you are and Ron, you please say hi to everybody.
Speaker 3:Hello everybody, good to be here and for both of you, truly thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're excited as well. This should be fun, so let's just sit back, relax, have a good time. All right, ron. So I know that you've had over 28 years of experience in leadership and management, development and coaching and all that, and we're going to work our way down that road. But this show, life is Crazy, is about life stories, it's about journeys, and that's what we want to know today. That's where we're going to start with your journey. So if you could just start off by telling us a little bit about your childhood and what your childhood life was like.
Speaker 3:Sure, I think for me as a young kid growing up, pretty normal, it really was. I was the youngest of four. Seven year gap between my sister, my youngest sister and myself. 13 years. Between my oldest sister, me and my brother we have a 10-year gap and again, it's just pretty typical. I was always interested in sports. I was always playing, running around and just all of that other stuff, and to get to the life is crazy stuff. Fast forward to high school and as I got there I began to realize okay, I'm a decent athlete, not a superstar, I'm decent, I'm a good student, I'm not a fabulous A student and top of the class and everything else. And I started to wonder where do I fit? Where do I really fit in here? Cause I wasn't a jock by any stretch of the imagination. That's what we used to call them back, way back when.
Speaker 1:Sure, me too.
Speaker 3:And I wasn't part of the burnouts either.
Speaker 3:And I was like man, where's my niche? Who am I? Who am I, who am I? And I never I had a circle of friends. I also had terrible acne and I was so self-conscious and I was very, very insular. I think because of that I was very scared around girls. I didn't know what to say or anything like that, and that added to the problem and part of that became and I started to realize even way back then, that whenever I had a couple of beers you know what I'm starting to relax, wow, maybe I can talk to girls a little bit, and just that kind of stuff. And Brandon, as I look back now and obviously we'll get into this in a lot more depth as the show goes along One of the things I look back on now was me saying to myself, often friends of mine, we'd be going out.
Speaker 3:I said do we have enough you guys? Do we really have enough beer for all of us? That's only three apiece for us. And just those early signs of I wonder and fast forward.
Speaker 3:I graduated from high school, I got into Gettysburg College, which surprised me, frankly. I got an early decision and I was thrilled, except I was also so nervous and just oh, my God, oh my God, can I do this? Can I do this? This is a good school. I got there, brandon, and I realized instantly everybody here was captain of the basketball team, everybody here was in National Honor Society, everybody here and I felt so less than it was just I don't want to say it was awful, except that it impacted me because I already had low self-esteem and that just tended to add to it. And what helped? Imagine that drinking again. The drinking just helped me to feel comfortable and just helped me to talk to people and just everything that goes along with that.
Speaker 3:As time went on, I joined a fraternity and we all did crazy stuff, just loony tune stuff.
Speaker 3:That, looking back on it, yeah, okay, some of it was nuts, some of it was probably pretty dangerous and yet again, in context, it's what college kids do. Except I was also starting to realize that you know what I drink, more than a lot of my fraternity brothers here. We had a woman one time come to the house. She was part of the college administration and I don't know I don't remember if she was part of alcohol awareness or whatever it was, it doesn't matter she was telling us. She was like I'm going to ask you guys 10 questions and you need to answer them for yourselves and just to see if maybe any of you might have a problem. She's going through these questions and I'm like, uh oh, oh, oh, and you're just adding up and again, they're just realizing that, yeah, I do drink more than others and thinking to myself. The classic thing though, the absolute classic is that you know what, once I get out of school, I'll be fine, I'll get out, I'll be fine, I'll get out, I'll be fine, nothing to worry about here.
Speaker 1:All right, so yeah, so that's a great start. I'm sure everyone has heard the term liquid courage before, and that was certainly the case for you. Now, I didn't go to college straight out of high school, but, lynette, you did. So how can you identify with what Ron's saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of what you said, Ron, resonated and I think what is particularly interesting to me is how the alcoholism or the substance use and abuse really is secondary to what's really going on.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:Which is your anxiety, your? Gross discomfort in your own skin.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then?
Speaker 2:you chose that substance to help you deal with that.
Speaker 3:That's right and Lynette, one of the things that's so significant to me now and I didn't understand it Again for the people listening. I've been sober for to me now and I didn't understand it Again for the people listening. I've been sober for 32 years now.
Speaker 3:And when I first came into AA, people, so many people, were all saying, oh, the alcohol is a symptom. The alcohol is a symptom. What are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense to me. Now I get it completely, and it's exactly what you said. It was covering up the deep-seated issues, problems that I had, because the problem was not the other people, the problem was not anything else. The problem was Ron. Look in the mirror.
Speaker 1:There's your issue, our way towards that revelation, ron, so you're in college, you're starting to recognize that you drink heavily and more than your peers and everyone else around you, and are you saying you just didn't know why at that point? Or are you like you, just because clearly you know why? You started? It relaxed you, it loosened you up, it gave, gave you confidence, but at that point were you just so dependent on it. It was like water to you, or what was going on there?
Speaker 3:Not yet, and I think I was still so young and I just had no. I had no exposure to anything else. I didn't know anything about the disease itself. I just knew that, yeah, I drink a lot, and a lot of times I drink more than I want to, and just kind of everything that goes along with that.
Speaker 3:As things progressed and I got out of school, I started, got a job, got an apartment, and again, I'm fast forwarding fairly quickly through this. One of the things that really hit me hard, though, was I made the commitment quote unquote to myself when I got my apartment I'm only going to drink Thursday, friday, saturday and Sunday. Thursday's okay, cause if I'm a little sluggish at work Friday, who cares? Friday and Saturday is the weekend, and Sunday, yeah, okay, I won't go crazy. All indicators of, yeah, there might be an issue here.
Speaker 3:One of the things that set me off, though, I was dating somebody, and I still remember this clearly. We had a rip-roaring fight, rip roaring fight on a Monday, and she left my apartment and the liquor stores closed in 20 minutes, and I was thinking to myself by hook or by crook, I'm getting there, I'm getting something to drink and I'm going to get wet and from that night on I started to drink heavily almost every night, and that was probably the I'm not sure if I want to say turning point, or whatever it is you want to call it. That's where I realized, oh yeah, I got to there's a problem here and I was so far away from being ready to do anything about it. You know.
Speaker 1:I would recognize that as a turning point, by the way you describe it. For sure, it definitely seems like it catapulted you from one place to the next. And I had uncles and I've said this before in my other podcasts. Their philosophy, their mantra, if you will, is if I'm not working, I'm drinking, I'm drunk. So they lived life that way until they died. That's literally how they lived life. I know some people are like that. Lynette, what do you think?
Speaker 2:I relate to that a lot because my drug of choice was cocaine and I would be sitting there chopping up a ball, looking at people going. Do you think I have a problem? No, I wanted to, and it was between me knowing I had a problem and me doing something about it. So what helped you do something about it? I don't mean to jump ahead, but I'm so curious to understand what that transition was like. It's good.
Speaker 3:I mean it progressed and, before I get to what I did something about it, met this woman who became my first wife, and my self-esteem was still so low. Kathy was absolutely stunningly beautiful and my thinking was how the heck could she want to be with someone like me? I don't understand that. I just didn't. I really didn't, and one of the things I used to do. She lived pretty far away from me so we didn't see each other during the week at all. So I actually reversed the process, if you will. We talked on the phone, usually Monday through Thursday and I would see her over the weekend, usually Monday through Thursday and I would see her over the weekend. So I would have a couple drinks before I would call her.
Speaker 3:And, going back, brandon, to the comment, you made the liquid courage to give me the ability to talk to her, to have something to say, and then I wouldn't drink much at all while I was with her because I didn't want her to know I had a problem and, long story short, the marriage was a disaster. Whose fault was it? Both, I believe. Any time a relationship ends, both people have some culpability. If anybody has more culpability in this one, oh goodness gracious, it's me. Let's be clear about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wasn't there, but you would almost certainly say it has to be. And I think it's funny because the contradictory between yours and Lynette's lives like you were using alcohol to give you self-esteem, to boost you, and Lynette you were just going for that dopamine rush. You were using that dopamine like fire. So oh man.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But fundamentally we were doing it for the same reason, which was to numb our discomfort, and I think the word discomfort is so grossly under representative of what the feeling is. It's more of a torturous uncomfortability. It's a pain that doesn't go away.
Speaker 1:And it's that imposter syndrome. Right, and Ron, you were clearly feeling that with this woman you felt that was way above your station and I think we all go through that at times, Like we look at our partner and think maybe not all, but a lot of people and think, wow, they're so amazing. What the hell are they doing with me? I think most people go through that at some point. So you go through this marriage. It's a disaster. Did you have any kids? Did anything?
Speaker 3:No, no, thank God. And how long did that last? About three years, three years. I'm surprised it lasted that long.
Speaker 1:Pretty quick marriage and no kind of physical abuse or verbal abuse or anything. No, okay, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 3:Nothing at all.
Speaker 1:Because Lynette and I have talked about that stuff extensively as well, and Lynette has gone through some physical abuse herself. Yeah, all right, so that ends, and obviously you're devastated right? So where do you go from there?
Speaker 3:I'm going to. I'm going to pick up on what Lynette asked before about what was the turning point or what happened. Things were getting worse and worse. I had nowhere to go except back to move in with my mom and dad. I had just nowhere to go. Long story short, I was supposed to go on a date. I was drunk out of my mind and I was just. I was like there's no way I can pick her up. There's just no way. That's not going to happen. I'm driving around just trying to. I don't know what I was trying to do. I parked the car because I knew I shouldn't be driving. I'm just in a residential neighborhood.
Speaker 3:A cop pulls up behind me, the light goes on and I remember thinking to myself I cannot talk myself out of this, I can't. He comes up to me. Give him my license, everything else he goes. Ron, have you been drinking? And I said to him yeah, I have. Okay, I need to take you in. Okay, I'm okay with that. And I was. I asked him please don't cuff me, I'll go in with you. Don't cuff me, ron. It's protocol. I have to cuff you. And I assaulted him. Oh wow, out of nowhere I tried to hit him and it's foggy to me because I was so drunk I tried to hit him. And it's foggy to me because I was so drunk. To this day I still do not know the reason he didn't beat. The absolute it's not out of me, because he had every reason in the world, he had every right to.
Speaker 3:And that still wasn't the end for me. I still had another week to go. And again, just to make a really long story short here, I pray, is my last night. I had gone to see a friend of mine and his two daughters and his wife drank on the way out. There. On the way home, I still remember I had a bottle of vodka between my legs and please think about this in context I was drinking from that bottle like 10, 15 seconds at a time and I remember still having the conscious thought my God, I can't stop.
Speaker 3:And the next morning, living with mom and dad, they were furious. Of course, you got drunk again last night. They were just crazy angry, as they should have been. I'm laying there in bed and my mom was like and my dad, particularly my dad you're going to detox, god damn it. You're going to detox tomorrow. And I'm thinking to myself. I'm in a lot of trouble. I got to do something about this. I can still do it on my own. I still can. I said to my mom, detox won't work. She looked at me and she goes what are you talking about? Quote, mom, I need help. I will not survive if I don't get help. And I ended up at the Carrier Foundation that day, thank you God, for 28 days, and that was the start of my sober journey.
Speaker 1:No, I mean that you assaulting the cop was a left turn that I didn't see coming, and obviously, when people are sober, they understand that someone's inebriated and they're not in their right mind, which is probably why the cop didn't beat the snot out of you. So, lynette, what do you think of that?
Speaker 2:I didn't see that coming either.
Speaker 3:My mouth went what you don't seem like a violent guy.
Speaker 2:but that's the interesting thing about drugs is it changes the composition of your brain, so it brings out different personality traits that you wouldn't otherwise have. But wow. That's right, but it's so interesting what rock bottom is for each person, and it looks very different, do you think?
Speaker 3:what it?
Speaker 2:was for you was your parents.
Speaker 3:And that's such an important point, because everybody is different. I had so many different chances to come in and even now there are people I see in and out and in and out, and it's like what's it going to take? And I've had people die Friends of mine and that's one of my leadership concepts, and I learned that in AA, because the principles of AA are applicable in every area of my life. I can't force anybody to do anything. All I can try to do is be a model, show people the way. Here it is. This has worked for me. I hope it'll work for you.
Speaker 1:Do what you need to do. Yeah, so you went to detox and it clearly worked right. And you said you were been sober for what? 32 years? Is that what you said? 32. And you were how old at this point? 33. 33. Okay, still pretty good chunk of time in your life to be living life this way. Sidebar. Did you ever watch the show, mom? No, I think you should.
Speaker 1:I think you should watch it. You'll really enjoy it. It's literally about alcoholism and how it runs through the generations of a family, but in a sitcom comedy style, and they really use AA in the steps of AA, and they show how it works for every part of their life, not just for alcoholism. So I think you would really enjoy it. And that's what I thought of when you were telling me that. That's just what came to me.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you another story about that, though, brandon, because what's interesting is that I'm the only one in our family, in our direct family, that has it, and that's fine. I was at Carrier. I had been there for I don't know, let's say, 10 days, maybe even a little less than that, and mail call comes. Ronnie got a letter, and I was like, oh, I'm sure it's from my mom. And I looked at the return address and I was like that's Virginia, and it was from my cousin. My cousin happened to call my mom and dad just to say hi.
Speaker 3:Two days after I went into carrier he had been sober for seven years. They didn't know that he sent me a long letter about hey, they didn't know that. He sent me a long letter about hey, I understand where you are right now. I want you to know that your cousin from Washington DC has the same issue. And I got all kinds of help. And yet he just went on and on about how it's rampant through the family, and I was like, wow, I'm not alone. And the other thing interestingly though, too, my late sister-in-law asked me one day we were just chatting. She goes Ron, does it ever bother you that you're the only one of all the siblings who has alcoholism. Does that ever bother you? And I thought about it and I was like, no, sherry, not at all, because it doesn't make any difference. I do, they don't, I'm the one that needs to deal with it. So be it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an odd question. Sounds a little judgmental too, Lynette. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Oh God, there's a lot to unpack there. But your path is so interesting and when I was in rehab I had such compassion for those that struggled with the alcohol. And I've said this once, I've said it a bunch of times it's like with cocaine, like I had three or four steps to take before I could get it. It's hard to procure it, frankly, but I walk in the grocery store and there's every flavor of alcohol you can imagine. I just I don't know, I don't know how you overcome that Like. That to me seems really huge. So I just wanted to say nice job, that's no small feat. What you've done, that's pretty incredible.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that and it has been truly the greatest blessing of my life. Just on, on so many different levels. Wow, if anybody told me, ron, this is what your life will look like at a year, three years, four and a half years, eight years, put it out, it can't get that good. And I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that. So we're talking about the ugly, right, we're talking about everything that you had to go through to get to this point. So let's talk about where it starts turning pretty and starts changing. And one of the first things I want to know is obviously, you used alcohol as a dependency for multiple things alcohol as a dependency for multiple things but I'm sure one of those things was in times of stress, in times of difficulty. When you get through your AA and you're determined this is not the life for me anymore. That's one of the first times, or the first points that people quit and give in is when life starts getting stressful and it starts to become overwhelming. How did you work through those parts of your life?
Speaker 3:I got a job with Toshiba, which was just absolutely a dream job. I had always wanted to get into training and development. I and again, long story short, I ended up getting a job like that with Toshiba. Everything's going well and I'm doing a five-day class and I wasn't as well prepared as I should have been for this class. On the morning of day three, two people from Philadelphia walked out of the room. You don't know what you're doing, we're out of here. About an hour and a half later I get a telephone call from my boss's boss in California. Tony tore me to shreds because I had made a dumb mistake and just everything else, and my instant thought was oh my God, what am I going to do? I can't just pile the alcohol on top of this now.
Speaker 3:I was sober maybe nine months, 10 months. I went to a meeting that night, shared about it and all the people there. You're doing all the right things. First of all, you haven't drank. Secondly, you shared about it. Thirdly, call people tonight. You'll be okay, just don't drink. Okay.
Speaker 3:Woke up the next morning and I was like I got through that and slowly I realized okay, I made a big mistake, I didn't get fired. What did. I learn from this and it is one of my mantras now. I'll never walk into a classroom again unprepared. And my first sponsor made a comment to me too that meant so much to me Very early on. He was like Ron. He said you have never done anything in your life sober Never, you know. He said you've never been on a date sober. You've never gone to a family event sober. You haven't been drunk for all of them except you've never been sober. And he said every single time now, every time you go through something and you deal with something whether it's a work issue, whether it's a family event, whether you're dating someone and just having fun you realize you can do it sober and you prove to yourself that the program works, that you can do these things. And slowly I started to realize, yeah, I can do this. And if I may too, brandon, these things are just occurring to me in the moment.
Speaker 3:When I was in rehab, I still remember going to an AA meeting. We got back from the meeting that night and three or four of us whatever we were sitting around a kitchen table just talking. It was not just the four of us and we were laughing so hard I don't know what we were talking about and it doesn't matter, we were out of control, we were just laughing. The nurse left the station and came into us and she was laughing and she was like you guys are crazy. And it hit me. I was like wait, I can be funny, I can laugh without being drunk. There's something to that.
Speaker 1:You were relearning yourself again and what you were capable of. Lynette, what do you have to say about that?
Speaker 2:I think it's pretty interesting because it's really you're learning how to feel again, because you spent so many years numbing everything.
Speaker 1:Feeling anything became scary.
Speaker 2:And I get that because I have a mental health disorder that makes my feelings very big. So I'm really scared to feel things. And so now when I start to feel things, I intellectualize it a bit, I say, okay, I'm getting ready to feel something. Here it comes, and I just try to bear down and just get through it, it's going to be okay, it's not going to kill you, and just feel the emotion, whether it's frustration, agitation, sadness, anxiety, whatever it is I'm feeling. I'm trying to feel it because I feel like, just probably like you, I have the distinction of being the only one in my family that's been a drug addict.
Speaker 3:Apparently, I'm the only one that has a good time. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But what I'm feeling is I'm feeling the generations that came before me that didn't have the courage to feel it, and so it's like, when I feel these big feelings, I'm like of course they're big, they're coming from probably seven generations back, because these motherfuckers wouldn't bother to feel it along the way. So now it's all coming on me, but bring it, I'm ready for it, and I think that's really interesting, though, how you really dawned on you. Oh, my God, I can do this, and the absolute truth is you can do anything you put your mind to.
Speaker 3:That's right. There's only one thing in this world, one that can put me in crisis management, and that is if I pick up a drink.
Speaker 1:That's great that you recognize that Really, truly. Probably what's helped you stay sober for 32 years as well is that recognition. Sure, so you get through this and you get reamed at work and you learn some lessons. But let's talk about the other side of this Right, and this is the part we want people to know from everyone's story the other side of this right, and this is the part we want people to know from everyone's story, and that is no matter where you are in your journey at some point. You just do the right things, you make the right decisions and you can still live your best life. Your life isn't over. You're not stuck where you're at right now, and that's the biggest message we want people to know and to get out there to people. So tell Ron everyone how your life has gone in the past several years and where you're at.
Speaker 3:Guys, first of all, I have been Brandon. Your comment is just so spot on there. Number one I've been happily married, for it'll be 25 years in November, which is beyond belief. Some people think it's silly, and it's not to me, because, again, everybody's journey is different. I have been a New York giant football fan ever since I have been a little boy. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I have been a new, I know I have been, I have been a New York giant season ticket holder for 31 years. Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And again I have. I went to. I became a season ticket holder when I was sober, so as a season ticket holder, I have never been to a game drop and that's an absolute joy. Laurie and I just got back from another trip to Italy and I say another trip because we travel a lot, we both love it. We've been Africa and I was keynote speaker for a medical device company at their national sales meeting a couple of years ago. I don't know how many people were there, maybe 300, 350, whatever it was. Took them through the DISC personality assessment. We were getting near the end and they were doing an assignment and I was up on the stage and they're all doing their thing. I've just looked upward and I was like mom, dad, look at where you're the drunk. You used to know who they knew sober for many years. Thank God, look at this. This is where I've come. And, brandon, I'm not kidding. If you want to sit here and talk for another hour and a half about how great my life is, we can.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to do that. The point is, though, however, you were in the place where a lot of people are one way or another. It doesn't have to be alcoholism, it could be cocaine use, it can be anything, it can be depression, even. Whatever it is that's stopping you, and the point is that you come out the other side and you've lived a fabulous life, married for 25 years. I haven't accomplished that, and I haven't been addicted to anything, so that's amazing. And traveling the world, having a great career these are the things people need to understand are still possible, even when you're in the lowest depths of your life, lynette.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We do recover, we do, and sometimes I think you have to know the depths of hell to know the highs of heaven. You know what I mean. It's like you only have context once you experience something, and how do you know what's good, you don't know what's bad, and it gives you such an appreciation, I think, for life and those good moments that it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it's like the more you recognize, oh, this is good, the more good it becomes, and I think that's wonderful for you. Congratulations, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it actually reminds. I was just having a conversation with my 18 year old son yesterday about, you know, he doesn't want to work, he doesn't want to get a job. And I keep, and I was trying to relate to him how, even when he starts, no matter how shitty those jobs are, they're going to build something for him as he moves on. He's going to at least learn something and then he's going to appreciate the good jobs when he gets those, because he's going to remember these shitty jobs and that's going to help him. It's going to help him really appreciate what he has and what you said, daryl, and that is great. That's true for life and many other facets as well.
Speaker 1:Ron, it's a great story. I love how you've recovered and made a great life for yourself and because, like I said, I had family members that never got out of it. They never made it. They literally drank themselves to death and they were perfectly fine with that. And don't get me wrong, they were miserable human beings. They hated life. Life sucked. That's all you ever hear from people like that, and it's sad. It's a sad life. You only have one, so why live it like that? So what would you like to leave with the audience today. What's your biggest lesson, your most valuable? Take this with you when you leave today.
Speaker 3:I think probably one of the biggest things for me is just I focus on the things over which I have control. That's the one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that the only person over whom I have control is me. I have no control over what other people say or do or what's going on. The only thing I can control is my reaction, what I say, what I do, and I've learned over the years that, yeah, that's what I need to focus on and when I'm wrong and I'm wrong, plenty apologize quickly and let people know hey, it's on me, I'm not perfect, never wrong. Plenty apologize quickly and let people know hey, it's on me, I'm not perfect. Never have been, never will be. I'm still learning, I'm still growing.
Speaker 1:And I hope to continue that till the day I die, and those are great life lessons that I actually teach my kids. At a very small age they would ask me like why does so-and-so do this? It makes me mad when so-and-so behaves like that, and I would say exactly what you just said you cannot control other people. The only thing you can control is yourself and how you respond to other people. That's the only thing you can control. Lynette, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great point. Yeah, life is a journey, it's a process, it's an evolution, and I think what you said earlier, ron, about everyone's at a different place at a different time. There's no script that we all follow, and I think being respectful of each other's place in that process is important, because just because I'm 40 and I own a house and I've got two cars, doesn't mean you, at 40, should have a house and two car. You know what I mean. It's like we're all different and we're all at different places in the process and in the journey, and my, my oldest, struggles with that because he's seeing his friends get married and buy houses and he's not there yet, and I'm like, you're not less than you're just on a path.
Speaker 2:There are different lessons for you in this world. Your priority needs to be learning those lessons and understanding what the world's trying to teach you and tell you, but worrying about what everybody else is doing. It's like you say you've only got control of yourself and your reaction to it. So I think that's wonderful. This has been a treat.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing everything, Ron. Oh goodness, it's been fun for me. So is there anything you want?
Speaker 3:to promote or get out there, ron, anything. Brandon, the only thing I would want to promote if anybody wants to talk about anything about leadership lessons that I've learned over the years through AA and just through my life, please just reach out. Reach out through LinkedIn, anything on Instagram. Ask any questions that you have. I promise you I will respond because and again, I feel so strongly about that because people were there for me when I needed the help, and if anybody needs any help, god, I will be there.
Speaker 1:Great stuff, ron. Do we follow each other on Instagram? We do, Okay, I thought so. If you're going through anything like Ron has dealt with or gone through and you just want to hear his advice or what he has to say and you think he can help, now you know how to reach them through Instagram or LinkedIn. Also, I want to thank my lovely and amazing co-host, lynette. Her Instagram is lynettewest, pretty easy to find, so no excuse to not go find her and follow her. I follow her and she's a blast. I love following her. Go follow Lynette.
Speaker 1:And finally, for me, I want to thank you all for giving us your time and listening to our podcast and helping us try to help other people in this world, because that's really what we're trying to do here. We're trying to help people get through whatever it is they're getting through and let them see that life be great on the other side. And so please go to brandonheldcom and subscribe to my podcast and it's only 10 bucks a month and I also give out episodes that only subscribers can listen to as well. I do a couple of those a month and then follow me on Instagram at bh underscore life underscore is underscore crazy and please reach out to me too, because I like to be available and help people pretty much anytime I can. So thank you all for listening, and until then we'll talk to you next time.
