If it is to be, it's up to me with Jay Setchell

A boy raised on a working farm learns to rise before dawn, help his neighbors, and earn every inch of progress. Decades later, that same boy—now a Marine veteran named Jay—faces three near-deaths, a wrecked body, and a quiet fourth battle most never see: choosing to live when moving even a finger feels impossible.

Jay shows how faith and grit can stand in the same room. He unpacks the framework that rebuilt his days: inch by inch it’s a cinch, yard by yard is very hard.
Over time, extra effort compounded into movement, and movement into momentum. We connect his hard-won lessons to everyday crises—burnout, divorce, diagnosis, dream fatigue—so you can turn “never quit” from a poster into a plan. 

Expect clear practices: choose the smallest next action, do a little more than required, and let consistency outrun motivation.

We also share his ten two-letter words—“If it is to be, it is up to me”—and why ownership does not mean going it alone. Community still saves lives; ownership decides to engage it. 

Jay’s new book, The Strength Within You: It’s Always Too Soon to Quit, distills these tools for anyone who needs a way back from the edge.

If this story sparks something in you, tap follow, share it with someone who needs hope, and leave a review with the inch-by-inch step you’ll take today. Your words might be the extra rep someone else needs.

Meet Jay-https://neverquittrying.com/

Jay's Book-The Strength Within You: It’s Always Too Soon to Quit!

https://amzn.asia/d/0nMGRrE

Meet Deepali- 

https://www.deepalinagrani.com/

Transcript

Set Up: A Life On The Edge

SPEAKER_01 0:00

My guest for today has technically died three times in Vietnam, in a driving collision, and then in a swimming pool accident that left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He has had 73 surgeries, battled infections that almost killed him, watched his life burn down more than once. And yet, here he is, in his 70s, still grinding harder than a lot of 20-year-olds, teaching people that inch by inch it's a cinch, and if it's to be, it's up to me. Today, we're talking about pain, faith, grit, and what it really means to never quit drawing. Stay with us. Welcome back to this Health Health podcast with me, the Pali. I'm your host. I'm a mum, a speaker, a writer, and someone who really deeply believes that the hardest chapters often hold our greatest messages. On this show, we talk about real stories, mindset shifts, and practical tools to help you build a life with more courage, self-trust, self-love, and meaning. One honest conversation at a time. Today, I'm joined by Jay. He's a US Marine Corps veteran and speaker who has spent over five decades turning brutal life experiences into a simple framework for persistence. He has survived severe injuries, near death experiences, over 70 surgeries, partial paralysis, a life-threatening infection, and so much more. And now he teaches people how faith, focus, and consistent micro steps can compound into real change. Jay, what an honor to have you here today. Thank you for saying yes to having this conversation with me and welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Hey Tapali, it's great to be here. Good to talk to you. I don't know if I can live up to all that.

Farm Roots And Work Ethic

SPEAKER_01 2:03

No, you certainly do. And that's why I'm so honored and excited to have you here. When we met last time, I was just listening to your story and I felt like I could hear you speak for on and on. And you remember how we were talking about you need to be on a Ted stage one day. So I'm very excited to bring all the parts of the conversation in here for our listening audience today. Thank you so much. And uh when I first read your story, my first reaction was, How is this just one human life? So that's where what that's where exactly I'm gonna start today. So before we get to the three times that you almost died, I want to meet you before all of that, right? When you were as a kid, like when you think of yourself as a kid, before the uniform, before the surgeries, you know, before all that happened, who was Jay? And what kind of a boy you were on the farm where nothing came free and everything came from the sweat?

Community, Entrepreneurship, And Service

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Well, that's a you know, that's the Polly, that's a good question. I I just, you know, I was raised on a working farm where we had cattle and hogs and chickens, and not so much on hogs and chickens all the time and a lot of them, but cattle all the time. We did a lot of ag spraying, agricultural spraying with airplanes for crops. And uh one of the companies we had a contract for was uh uh and most people have heard of it, was Del Monte. And so we every year we had we sprayed their oh uh lima beans and string beans and sweet corn and so on and so forth. But you know, I it was it was a lot of work. It was uh but I never looked at it as work. It was always fun. It was uh I don't ever remember as a child not being on a tractor or walking with the cattle or climbing a silo, being in an airplane. But a lot of people may say, oh, you had an airplane, it must have been privileged, but they don't realize the amount of work, whether it's chopping weeds out of the soybeans or pulling weeds or shoveling uh pig poop or chicken poop or you know, because they're more local compared to what the cattle were where we could use a tractor, and and it was every morning you were up before dark or before light, you know, it was still dark out, and uh and every night you had well it was always something doing with the crops, the soybeans, the corn, the cattle, the hogs, equipment, but it was fun. It was it was not and it was I never got anything for free. And I think that's where I learned a lot of responsibility and value to time. Um because it it was just my my dad, you know, had a thing of you've got good clothes on your back, you got a good roof over your head, you got good food in your stomach. We raised almost all of our own food uh, you know, in big gardens, as well as butchered our own cattle and hogs and chickens, and we did all that. So you bought very little at the store, but it was a a fun time growing up in the country. You didn't have close neighbors, you had to make do. Uh, you know, in the winter time when it snowed a lot, you know, you got to dig like tunnels through the snow and have snowball fights with your brothers and sisters, and you know, and once in a while the neighbor'd come by or one of your cousins would stop. But it was it was it was a fun time because the 50s and 60s, especially the early 60s at least, you know, uh there just wasn't a lot of uh the political crap going on. There weren't any wars going on, you know, it was before really when Vietnam started really in 65. I mean it been start it it had been going, but we just weren't involved much. So until that point, it was it was a I enjoyed it. I I really did. My parents were I was eighth generation on the farm, so it had been in the family a long time. My grandparents grew up or lived across the pasture from us. Um and it was just it was a it was a fun, it was a fun time.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Wow. So I mean you grew up with a lot of hard work, and I was very excited when you said that you know, you used to like all of you and your family used to grow your own fruits and veggies and you know the with the cattles around. So you did a lot of work to even get the food on the table, right? And and less of this was store-bought, and more of this was a lot of hard work in action. And you also mentioned there, Jay, about your dad. So I think was he the first person that you know who modeled resilience for you, and you know, a lot of hard work actually came into your mind, and you were really conditioned and brought up in that way that you know hard work gives us great results. So was it your dad?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yes. Uh well, my my dad, not on top of the farming and everything else, and the the ag spraying and hiring other pilots and other planes that we had, he started a business that uh did floor and wall tile. He did that when he had time in between things. He started, he went to school and learned how to fix typewriters. We used to have half typewriters and adding machines back in the in the older days, and he started another business, and that that business he sold about 20 years later for he did very well on it. So he was like an entrepreneur in himself. And so in my mother taught school after my little brother went back or started school, she went back to teaching, and so it was a in the town we were lived by was only about 4,500 people. So it was very agriculturally related, farm related, and everybody kind of knew everybody, they were friendly, you helped each other, and you I was raised that way, helping, you know, if your family was sick or your husband was injured, you know, you made sure that they got a big pot of chicken noodle soup or something, and you helped you helped bring in the crops, maybe. You helped each other, you know, and so much of that is gone in today's society. Um you can live next to five hundred people or one person or fifty thousand, and you don't know 'em.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, really. And yeah, it's just like a very secluded setup, right? Like not knowing who your neighbors are, not really caring or thinking about them. I know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, we we knew neighbors 15 miles away. You know, it's like uh, you know, and it was kind of a I remember when my my dad passed away. Uh I was standing at the end of the line and the the lady comes through this well the long, long, long, long line. But this one lady was coming through and and she shook my mom's hand. She says, You don't know me. And and I've long since forgotten the name, that's been 40 years ago. But she just said, you know, we lived east of you folks about eight miles, nine miles, and then south a couple miles, and my husband had lost a leg in a corn picker accident, and your husband organized a bunch of farmers and they took all of our crops in in two days completely, and made sure everything was done. And then during the winter, it was shortly after Christmas, your husband stopped and gave me$300 in cash for heating oil and food. And they had two children or three, I don't recall. And uh she said, but but you think$300 in say 1955, that was like$25,000 today. You know, that's it's a lot of money. And or$20,000, something, I don't know. But she was in tears, you know, and it made me cry, and it made me understand what what how how fortunate I was to learn and have that heritage to follow. And that's how I was raised. You always helped your people, and that's where I think we're missing today. And that that that's just a lot of who you are, because that's your formative years between when you're born to about 17 or 18, and then you, you know, from there I went into Marine Corps and the whole world changed.

Choosing The Marine Corps

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, yeah, and uh yeah, thanks for sharing your um you know story about how were you raised and how everything shaped up really in your early formative years because that's when we are most impressionable, right, as little kids. So now fast forward to the Marines. Uh, what pulled you into the Marine Corps and what were you looking for in that season of your life?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

I to Polly, I I don't have any clue. It's been so long, and I I just think it was the thing to do. You know, it was the thing to do. It was kind of, you know, uh, you had I had cousins go in, uh, friends went in. It was I I I I thought about the Army. I I didn't want the Navy or Air Force. I I wanted something harder, I hard, I wanted something tough. I wanted something that was and the Marine Corps just has a brotherhood. It's just uh Yeah, we're we're we're we're we're a bunch of crazy people, you know? And uh and I I I just think it was serve your country, look for something different. I needed to get out of the farm and go do something with my life. I didn't know what it was yet, and uh, of course that took a whole bunch of different turns, but it it was interesting. It's it's it's it's a whole different world.

Vietnam Death And Aftermath

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah. No, I and I'm glad I I love when you said we were a bunch of crazy boys doing things together, right? Like there's a certain degree of charm in in that, in that season of your life and you get to do things, you know, with your buddies of same age and you enjoy each other's company a lot. Now, um let's go to 1969. You said um you've died for the first time serving in the Marines, right? Now, when you replay that day, um, and I'm sorry if it triggers any bad or sad memories for you, but when you replay that day or when you think about that day, or whenever you're reminded of it, what's the first image or sensation or thought that hits you?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Terror. Yeah. Terror. Violence. Um just I when I when I recently I've got a book that I wrote that's coming out here in in a two, three weeks. But when I when I was writing the book and dictating it, because I can't really write with my hands not working, um, it was very hard to go back because I'd been trying to forget that. It was 56 years ago, November 12th, recently, two, two and a half weeks ago, that I died. I mean, you know, and I was in a coma. I was I was bad. And uh, you know, everything well it was it was it was very messy. And I I just the violence, the violence, the terror, the fact that you're you're above your body looking down, and and they're saying you you're you're done, you're over, you know, and uh it it's just all yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I mean when you said the first word was terror and a lot of violence. I know we can we think that we understand, but we don't. It's only you who have actually lived those experiences and and you know those devastating times who actually you know all of those times shape you and fundamentally, you know, kind of change your thinking and how you see life and death because you've had such a close experience, right? Now, in that moment between life and death, or you know, on the other side of it when you came back, I'm sure, but I still wanted to ask you, did anything about your beliefs, your faith, or you know, just worldview or your view of life shifted, or did it hit you later, maybe many, many years after?

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I I that's a fair question, and I've I've been asked that question before, and it and it's kind of a I don't I can't recall. I just knew I was fortunate to be alive. When I came out of my coma, they put me back into another coma for a couple of weeks, and I I heard a voice when I was in my coma, and it was my mother's voice. And other than that, it was just, you know, a Navy Corpsman and the people working in the hospital. And you kind of, I I at least kind of heard heard voices once in a while, but my mother's voice, when I when I heard it, I could feel a tear come out of my left eye, and it ran down my cheek and it burned my cheek. Just like putting a match out and drawing it down your cheek. It was very hot. But I don't remember anything really between that or my next incident of having some really faith belief or or or higher being being there, if that makes sense. It was not until the third time, and that that was completely different. Completely different. But I think it was because it was such a violent death. I I think it was that there was so much violence and so much body damage, but I I don't recall anything. No.

A Mother’s Presence And Pain

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Thanks so much for uh sharing that deeply personal story when you yeah, when your mom was there and you remember tears drippling down your eyes. I I mean I I don't want to say, but I have to say that you're so so brave, Jay, to just embrace it and just be okay to share it, right? It takes a lot of courage and you know when people around you whom you love, who love you a lot, who meet the world to you, and who mean the world, you know, to your family, when when you see them sad because you are in a state where say you are your health is declining, or in your case, such as you were going through so much of physical injuries and and you were in coma for some time, it is devastating. So I relate to it because I know if something really terrible was to happen to me and like for a few things which have gone bad for me, like I can endure them, but when it comes to telling my mom or my dad, honestly, Jay, I feel like I don't want to bother them. Now, I mean I you know it it's a controversial thing for me to say, but like if I have endured any hurt or pain or physical injury, I think a lot about telling to them because I know they're like you know, they're they're oceans away from me. They are in India, I'm in Canada, and I know the amount of hurt and grief that they will feel when they know that I'm not okay physically or mentally. So, you know, it's it's a very emotional journey, and yeah, I mean I alm almost was tear-eyed when you said when you described what you've just described.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So I I had one thing I I I would I would like to say. I know when I came out of my induced coma, my mother had a little pad of paper, and there's a picture of it in the book that I've written. And it's a it's a little pad of paper, and I I a I I couldn't talk. I my jaws, I had 32 facial fractures, I was breathing out of a tracheotomy, and I I was a pretty bad mess. But my hand would work, and I asked her if or I didn't ask her, I I signaled like I wanted a pencil and a piece of paper. And she gave me this little tablet, and she sh she gave it to me about 30 years later. I've got it, I still have it to this day. And and and I wrote on it, if I didn't tell you what it said, it's hard to read it because my hand was so bad. But I wrote, Am I gonna live? And then on another page I put, Am I gonna die? And then on another page I wrote, I love you. But when I when when I put that, am I gonna live? That's the one that's in the book. Think about your state of mind and writing that out to your mother when you have just come out of an induced coma after you've been in a coma for a month, and what's on your mind? Am I gonna live? I I I didn't know. I didn't have a clue. And it had been five or six weeks. And so how how did that affect her? Sometimes I think back, how did how did my mom take that?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Oh my god.

Drunk Driver Crash And Out‑Of‑Body Moment

SPEAKER_00 18:37

And then the next one, no, or will I die? And then I love you. It was just, you know, I I always it's it's really hard to pull that out. It's very, very hard.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like a deep week, and I I want to say that we will not be able to put out into words what your mom had to endure and go through when she was seeing you the way you were, right? It's intense grief and pain and just like, you know, an unbearable amount of grief that is so heavy emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, that can leave a significant point in in the person who's experienced it. So I really want to respect that, and I still want to say that it's very, very difficult to put it out into words because you know, few feelings cannot be captured into words, right? So that's it.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, you just can't. There are you can't, you can't, you can't put it. There's no there's no words. It's it's it's an internal mental, physical, it's like experiencing a ghost or maybe the ghost of Christmas or something, you know. It's like like yeah, it's a lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

So yeah, thank you for again sharing this very, very emotional story. Now, as if like one death near death experience wasn't enough, life had more coming from. You and so I know a few years later you were hit by a drunk driver and you know you were facing another reality a second time. Can you walk us into what happened and you know how many years after was this happening and what you remember emotionally from that season? Were you like angry and frustrated, or you know, you were too busy just surviving to even wake up and feel like it?

Humor, Grief, And Family Impact

SPEAKER_00 20:23

It it was it was different because I I I had been I I had started several businesses and they were going, everything was working great. And uh I was going down a narrow, a narrowish high old highway about five miles four or five miles out of town and four or five miles to the next town, and uh I'd seen this pickup truck coming towards me that kind of I didn't know if he was looking at the cornfields or if he was looking at the sky or the birds, but uh as he got closer to me, I thought, you know, I wonder, maybe he's drinking. I I don't know. It was early evening in early September of 1973, and uh just at the last second I realized he was coming into my lane. I turned my wheel hard to the right. I remember the crash. I don't remember the crash other than the noise. And it ripped the left side of my car off, it ripped the motor out of it. The gentleman was driving a pickup truck, uh, he did not have his seat belt on, he got thrown out of his truck and run over by his own truck and killed. Um I rolled to my right and rolled several times, and when I did it it it it it it I had my seatbelt on, so I didn't get thrown out. I was trapped in the car uh behind the steering wheel, and I remember my mouth being full of glass. So I was conscious for a little bit after everything stopped, but the noise and the rolling was just extremely violent. But the pillar on the left side that holds your windshield in came down and ripped my left shoulder out, the bone came out the back of my arm, severed the deltoid muscle. I had busted ribs, a punctured lung, again, you know, more damage and lots of cuts and bruises, and you know, I was bleeding real bad. And uh I I I just remember fading in and out a little bit, and then I finally passed out completely, and the next thing I knew I was up in the air, and I can't tell you how far up I was, but I was up far enough to look down, and it took about about a half an hour for anybody to get there to work on me. So by then I pretty much had bled out. I was, and I remember it was more as violent and noisy as it was, I remember being going, continuing to move up into the sky, and it was like I was hearing voices. I can't say that they were angels, but they may have been, but it was like I was being welcomed. It was like, come on, you're okay. Come on, come on, come with us. We have you, you're safe. You know, it was like they were welcoming me out of my out of my body. Like they wanted to take my spirit and take take it with them, I guess. I and I I I remember looking down at the emergency crew finally when they got there working and trying to get me out, they had to do a lot of cutting and so on. And they took one of the couple, well, two of the other gentlemen uh and stuck a needle in one of their arms and stuck it into me to give me some blood, because they didn't have blood with them. So it was direct transfusions. And after they did that, I I remember watching it from way up above, and I was still ascending up into the sky. But then I next thing I know, it's like four or five days later, and I'm in the hospital. So at some point I got back. They can't they got me back, the good Lord let me come back. I I don't know. But that was it. On the note of saying my mother earlier, on about the fifth or sixth day, seventh day, something like that, I don't recall, she came, she came to visit me. We didn't live about seven or eight miles away. She came in and she had a news rolled up newspaper. It was, I look back, I have to laugh about it, but I I remember her, she was hitting me with the newspaper on my right side, which didn't really have much damage other than beefies and stuff. And she was saying, quit doing this to us, quit doing this to us. And you know, and at the at the time I was thinking, I I remember telling her, Mom, I didn't, I didn't do anything. But from her point of view, three years before that, well, four years before that, I've been at the hospital three years, but four years before that, it had been the same thing, except a whole lot worse. And now she's going through it again. Yeah. So if you've got children, if you watch, if you saw one really messed up badly, they're lucky that they're even there. Now it's happening again three or four years later. It's like I can't imagine what she was thinking, but I I remember her hitting me saying, Quit doing this to us, you know. And I'm like, oh my gosh.

The Pool Accident And Paralysis

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yeah. No, this part was funny. I mean, amidst all the difficult things that you had to endure, and your mom was with you in all of this, right? So now this is the second one. There's another incident that changed everything again the swimming pool accident.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

The swimming pool accident, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

In the 1981, right? So one after the other, all of these accidents. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

This was that was eight years later, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah, just okay, eight, eight, eight years later. So where did you drown? And I know you mentioned that you've broken multiple vote brains in your neck and you woke up paralyzed from your shoulders down. Now it's so hard, but what's the hardest part of that story to tell when you think about that day, even today?

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Uh it was such a a quiet time because I had some guys gonna throw me in the pool, and I said, no, wait till I get my my boots off and my wallet out of my pants pocket, and I jumped in. And you know, I I I think is if anything is, is why didn't somebody come help me? You know, and I broke my neck right away, but I didn't know it. I I I didn't know what the problem was, and I I jumped in three and a half feet of water, landed on my feet, and I had a compression fracture that broke C3, four, five, and six. So most of the bones in my in my neck were broken. And uh just the fact that I had a couple of people gonna help come in to see if I was okay, but they said, no, he's a crazy old marine, and he'll hold on to you and he won't let you go to the surface. And but once I drown, and when you drown, have you ever have you ever been in a swimming pool where somebody tries to talk to you in your ear and they go like, hey DePau, let's go get an ice cream cup or something. Okay, and it's got it sounds like bubbles, it's very garbled. It's like you really don't hear anything. And I I knew I had to breathe. And you cannot sit there wherever you're at and whatever you're doing and hold your breath till you pass out. You can't, it just God doesn't that it's natural. It's good, he's gonna make you breathe. And so I got to the point I'd held my breath, I don't know, four or five, six minutes. I don't know. They said I was under about eight minutes, roughly. And uh when I sucked in the water, I just had to breathe. I had to do. I I and whether I breathed it in through my nose or my mouth or both, I don't know. But it sounded that garbled sound, and everything, as soon as I did that, almost instantaneously, everything went dark because I had had my eyes open. I looked at people swimming over me. Where are they at? Why aren't they helping me? People jumping in the pool. And uh, but everything went dark and silent, totally quiet. And I never had the feeling that I was going down a pipe or a tube or there was a bright light at the other end. I felt more like I was inside of a tornado, like a vortex, you know, spinning and turning and going faster and faster and faster and faster and faster away from my body. And I I didn't see any end in sight. It just I just kept going faster down this tube. Now I knew it had to end, but the next thing I knew, I was three, four days later. I I can't tell you because I don't know. And I even talked to my ex-wife, and because we were married three weeks the day that it happened. Welcome to your honeymoon, you know. And uh I called her and asked her, I said, how many days was it when you had Tom, when this other gentleman was there to say a prayer? And she said, Jay, I don't remember. It's it's been 45 years, you know. I well, it's been 44 years ago since the last 4th of July. And I uh I just remember a doctor telling me, and I had some bolts in my skull, and I was in what they call a circle bed, and there's a picture of that in my book, come to think of it. But he told me I had broken my neck in multiple places. I had this apparatus on my head, and they were going to change it out in three or four weeks, probably, and I would go to a rehab center, and if I was very, very fortunate, I might get a little bit of movement back, but it was their impression at the time that I would be paralyzed from the shoulders down for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Oh God, and so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

That's and and the pain was terrible. The pain was, it felt like my body was on fire, and somebody was I probably had 50 people standing around me stabbing me with ice picks in in every every spot they could. It didn't matter where. But but just the the fear of never moving anything again was what really did it. That that's and I didn't even know I broke my neck until they told me. I didn't I didn't know that it ever happened. I never knew it. I never knew why I drowned. I I you know I until he told me that I didn't realize it.

Drowning, Darkness, And Vortex

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah. So it's um a lot that you had to go through, right? And realizing finding yourself in that situation really, really changes you. So you were paralyzed from shoulders down. And honestly, at that point, most people would completely give up. We even had minor inconveniences and small bumps on the way, we were like complaining and we'd be like, okay, no, life is not being fair to us. And we have this sense of entitlement that we carry, and by we I may also mean I, because you know, when things don't go my way, I'm like, okay, no, but why is this not happening the way I thought it would? You know? How small bumps on the way come and sort of distract you from your own purpose and your path, and you start questioning everything. So honestly, people start blaming their lives, right? But you, on the other hand, what stopped you from being that complainer? What stopped you from was it like a person that gave you a lot of strength and hope? Was it a moment with God or like a promise that you made to yourself, that inner decision, that faith, that love, or any stubbornness that led you to where you are today after enduring so much?

SPEAKER_00 31:58

I think it was kind of a combination to Polly. Uh, I I my wife said there was a gentleman there whose son had been in an accident. He wasn't injured badly, but he was in the hospital. He met her in the in the waiting room or whatever, and he would like to say a prayer. And if it was okay for him to pray for me, blink my eyes. So I, you know, I I I blinked my eyes, and he he he prayed, and I don't remember what the prayer was exactly, but he prayed for my health and our family and for me to be able to have movement back and to do whatever it was that I you know the Lord would allow that that would that that I could push myself to and that the Lord would help me. And that was I I remember that very, very specifically, and I've and I've also asked myself this question had I not accepted that prayer from him with my heart and faith, or if I would have denied it, let's look at it that way, if I would have denied that prayer, would that have been like denying God, denying the the faith, and would I have ever moved anything? That it's a good question, it's a fairer question. And so I I I just I know that you feel helpless when you're laying there and you can't move anything but your your eyeballs and you can't move your neck, you can't move your head, you you move your eyeballs, your lips. I couldn't hardly breathe, I couldn't cough, I couldn't talk, because when you drown, your your lungs are full, my lungs were screwed up bad, and I'd had punctured lungs from the Marine Corps, so they were damaged again. I I just remember after a while, my my left arm, about three or four weeks, moved a little bit, just a little bit, and I kept in my mind, I was believing that I'm gonna do something. I don't know what, I don't know how, but let me, you know, let me give it a little bit of time. In other words, a little, well, it's it was hard to even breathe because of the the drowning. So they finally took the one apparatus off and they put a halo cast on that has four other bolts that go into your skull, and uh, and I finally got transferred another week or two later, a couple weeks later, to a rehab center. And that's where a lot of it happened, and and my faith and prayer and beliefs of what I could accomplish took took hold. But I I looked at things with a bit of humor, but at the same time, I I I just believed that I could do it. I believe my goal was to walk, not to run, not to skip rope, not to do anything else, just to walk, whether that was with leg braces and crutches and stuff, but just to walk some. And and I and I did finally.

Prognosis, Pain, And Fear

SPEAKER_01 35:11

But and you know, your story is a testimony to the fact that we should never quit trying. And you know, you say this a lot and I love it, never quit trying. And you don't like seeing it in a way as if it's a motivational poster, but you say it like someone who's had to live it in the hospital bed for years and then struggle through and come see life on the other side after recovering and going through all that you've gone through. So you also talk a lot about micro steps, right? Inch by inch. So for someone listening today, our listening audience who feels totally overwhelmed, may not be like paralysis or accidents like yours, but by death, say divorce, having a diagnosis of a chronic illness, burnout, dream, flaws, heartbreak. Can you break down some of your micro steps, playbook, and habits that you do? And what would you recommend them to start from today?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Well, that's a that's a a good question because I think you are using the word micro steps, and I use it, you mentioned it earlier in the show because from our talk originally was inch by inch, it's a cinch, yard by yard is very hard.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Wow, I love it.

Prayer, Faith, And A Choice To Fight

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Well, it's kind of like saying that if I was going to take a walk a thousand miles, it starts out with one step. It's kind of like the old saying, if you've you may have heard it, maybe not, is how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? You can't you can't do it all at once. It's like you don't learn the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, blah, blah, blah. You don't learn it all at once. You learn, you learn it letter by letter by letter. So if you look at life like that, I think it's it was it's like it's kind of like going through rehab would be a good example. Uh I had PT for three and a half hours, I had occupational therapy for three and a half hours in the afternoon. And um, you know, they try to get you to raise your arm. And luckily, my left arm came back pretty good. It's the only thing I've got that works on my body is my left arm. Uh my left hand works pretty good, my wrist is fused, my shoulders shot, and so on and so forth. But but my left arm is pretty strong. And when when it before it was strong, though, back when it was just moving a little bit, the doctor would say, or the the PT guy would say, could I want you to lift your arm three times. And I would, you know, one, two, you know, you get number three, and then I would do two more. And he'd say, No, I said three, and I'd go, well, and I'd do it five. And what I was saying.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

OD, occupation entirely.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Yeah, what I was saying was if if if you try a little harder at everything you do, so if if I raised my arm six times and he said, Okay, well, now go ahead and raise it seven, I'd raise it eight or nine. I always did more. And so the thing is, I think for the people that that wonder how do you get from point A to point B, you don't start driving from, say, you're in Victoria, so if if you move from, you want to drive from Victoria to Denver, I don't know, someplace, I wherever you want to drive from. Okay, you you don't you don't automatically end up in Wyoming or North Dakota or Idaho or Washington. You have to start going down your driveway, down the next street, make another turn. So it's a little bit at a time, no matter what. You know, when when you go to make a Thanksgiving meal, it just doesn't, you don't wiggle your nose like a witch and it just appears. You have to you have to go buy the the you know whatever food and start. The grocery and you gotta start a little bit at a time. So my my thought suggestion is just you gotta realize everything takes time. It's we you didn't become 20 years old within a week. You didn't become 35 or 40 years old in three weeks. It it took 35 or 40 years. I did I'll be 76 New Year's Eve, and it's taken me a long time. But time goes faster the older you get, unfortunately. And it's like before you know it, it's over. But take a little step, just a small step at a time. Inch by inch is this inch. If you try to take too big a step, then you fall down, you become aggravated, you don't like what happened, you're you're upset, you get mad at yourself or or whatever you're trying to do, and you've achieved nothing.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yeah. No, you've lived um several lifetimes worth of experience, Jay, and uh it's a lot, right? Like I've learned so much from you in that conversation, and I don't know where the entire almost an hour went away. So if anybody is listening to this who feels like quitting on something right now, I'm sure your story, Jay, has inspired them. It may not be any accident, maybe it's their own health journey, their recovery, their dream, and even life itself. So I'm taking so much from this that never quitting isn't a dramatic movie moment. It's a decision that you remake on smallest days. And as you said, small teeny tiny actions, you cannot be 20 years in a week's time. And that faith and grit can coexist, and that as you know, your favorite thing, your inch by inch over the years, you can build a life again if you just put in a little bit of extra work or you know, a bit of more hard work, even after everything has been taken away from you. So, thank you for living this and uh thank you for sharing it so openly and deeply with us. Now I know your book is uh all set to be released in a few weeks. Tell us a little bit about your book and also tell us about where can listeners find you, your website, your social links, and I'll put them all in the show notes down below for people to actually come and find you.

Rehab: Micro Steps And Overdelivery

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Okay, and I and I'd like to share a couple of comments before I do that, though. And one is ten two-letter words that people, if they wrote it down and listened to it and looked at it, but you know, ten two-letter words, if it is to be, it is up to me. If it is to be, it is up to me. If you write that down and share that with people, that makes such a big difference. And people need to realize that the things that lie behind us and the things that lie in front of us are very small compared to what lies within us, you know? And that's very important. And are you able to hear me now, okay? And then the name of the book, though, is The Strength Within You and It's Always Too Soon to Quit, is the subtitle. The Strength Within You, It's Always Too Soon to Quit. And basically the book does cover some of my deaths, it does come with cover some of them on medical stuff, but not very long and not very much. It's more about reaching what is it inside the palette or Jay or Bob or Joe that can what can you what can you get a hold of? Is it your heritage? Is it your pick? Is it upbringing? Is it your faith? Is it anger? Is it frustration? Maybe you're in a lot of pain. Pain is a big motivator. And what what can you dig into and find to help you move ahead through the adversities and obstacles and the problems that you're going to run into, whether it's business, whether it's marriage, whether it's you can use them for anything. And it's it my website, which is still under construction but soon to be up, I hope, is called neverquitting.com. In other words, you just don't quit. Neverquittrying.com. And or they can somebody could email me at my first name, J A Y, so J at NeverquittTrying.com. But the book should be out around the 20th. And it's not very long, it's like 160 pages. But it's it's practical applications, a lot of what we've talked about, the things that I learned over 75 years of life and death and surgeries, and I've spent almost four years of my life in hospitals. So you learn a lot. You learn a lot, but that's that pretty well covers it, I believe, for now.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah, thanks. Perfect. And I'll put uh your link to the website, and if someone wants to email you, they you just said they can email you and that address, and I'll put the email, the website, details about your book and yourself down in the show notes so people can come and find you. And if you want to go deeper with Jay, hear more of his story, bring him into your organization, or just have him speak at your podcast or somewhere else, just stay connected to his work. You can find him and all his details at the website. And uh, Jay, I am actually now seriously looking forward to seeing you on the very prestigious dead stage because you belong there and I'm cheering for you from today. So I know you will make it happen, and and you deserve to be on that stage, and your story needs to be heard, and people need to know that you know, never quit trying. So, thank you so much. What an honor to speak to you, and I love this conversation. Like, where did the entire hour go? And then I love the conversation we had just before this. Yes, ma'am. I I mean I feel like I could listen to you for hours and hours, and I'm sure for all the other people as well. And uh, thanks again for being here today and sharing your deeply personal story with us. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Thank you, Dupali. God bless and have a great Christmas, and and I wish you the best in all your future.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Great, thank you so much. Uh, and for our listeners, if this conversation moved you, please share it with a friend or someone that you know who needs a reminder that it's always too soon to quit. Um, and Dupali, once again, uh, this is the Self Help Podcast. Thank you for listening, and I will catch you in the next episode. And until next time, keep trying and please do not quit. Thanks, Jay. Bye bye.