Episode 30- The Ripples We Make

We rarely get to see the full reach of what we do.

Sometimes it takes a funeral, an unexpected conversation, or a story from years ago to remind us that our lives create ripples far beyond what we can see.

You may never know where those ripples go.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Take what works. Leave what doesn’t.

Make some ripples—and keep moving.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Again, um Man in Motion Podcast episode 30. We're gonna do a little bit of different format today, a little more informal, just because I don't know, my original plan for this episode fell apart, so we're running without any prep. So this is just me kind of talking, and I I got three stories I'm gonna tell. Three stories from my past, but they do tie into a lesson here. Something that I want to uh something I want to talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

And it's this idea that we don't realize our reach. We don't realize how what we do matters to the world around us. The first story. Um talk about my dad for a few minutes. Um, specifically my my dad when he died.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So when my dad, let me back up a little bit. My dad always said that he was just a nobody, that he wasn't anyone important, wasn't anything special. He was just a and then fill in the blank of whatever job he was doing, farmer, truck driver, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Um, and always said that he was nobody important.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

And yet, when my dad passed, now I I grew up in a town that was was small. My dad's day it was a farm community. Um, and at the time of his passing, it was growing out of being a farm community and into an upper class uh suburban area, transitioning. Now it's fully a upper class suburban area, and the farms have moved further north. Um regardless, um the the the town's population, and I had to look this up. My the town the population of the town when my dad died in 1998 was around 2,500 people, which is a decent size. It's not not huge, but it's not tiny either. So there was one funeral home in town, and my dad happened to know the guy that was the uh the undertaker, I guess that's what it is. If um the guy in charge, in any case, uh had gone to school with my dad. So we we had the funeral there.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

It was it was a very nice service, but what shocked everyone in this little town of 2,500 people, our guest book had 500 spaces on it to for people to sign in. And with about half the funeral to go, the book was full. That's like 20% of the town, one out of every five people, and that's in the first half of the funeral, and it was a never-ending stream the entire time. Somebody who thinks that they're a nobody to have that kind of a turnout, it just it never made sense to me. Like, how how could these things be be both be true? And in hindsight looking at it, we never know the outcome of our life.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

We never know the meaning of what we do, of who we are and how we have really truly affect the world around us. So now I'm gonna jump ahead to the second story, and the second and third story are related. They're kind of one story, kind of not.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I uh in 2012, let me back up. In 2005, I got out of the Marine Corps, and I was broken. Physically and mentally, I was broken. I needed to heal, I needed time to put myself back together.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Um in this instance, the the physical is what actually mattered. I had had an ankle that had been repaired incorrectly once, needed to be repaired again.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Um mobility was not great.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Uh so my my physical health, I should say my physical fitness, uh declined, put on weight, and finally in 2012, after I recovered from my last surgery, I was, as the doctor said, as 100% as I was ever likely to get.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And we're talking multiple surgeries, PT, you know, all of it. Uh, and the last surgery actually was unrelated to my ankle, it was a hernia repair.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

And I got got cleared from the hernia repair and decided, you know, I had enjoyed my time doing PT, I had enjoyed physical activity, I had enjoyed being active. So I decided to get back into the gym. I dropped about 60 pounds, um was was working out constantly, was getting stronger, and uh I ended up competing in some amateur strongman type stuff, you know, world's the world's strongest man type of things, if you're familiar with them, but you know, you lift big giant rocks and try to throw kegs over a bar and um I think the one contest there was a pickup truck with a thousand pounds in the bed and we had to drag it. Things like that. And I, you know, I did okay. I wasn't really intending to go anywhere with it. I wasn't trying to, you know, go fight the mountain or anything. Just did it for fun, just to see how I I could do. And at the competition that I went to, um, out of oh, I want to say there was just short of 40 people. I don't remember the exact number. I want to say like 37, but uh somewhere in that area. I was 17th. So a little bit better than middle of the pack, but not by much. And it was just a because I can thing. I was there, I had the time, so why not?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

And afterwards, um, I kept working out, I kept, you know, running, I kept lifting. Uh, I didn't really do much more competition stuff, though. That was just a because I could, because I was there, the time was right.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

But here's what I didn't realize.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Another guy at work, a fellow engineer, he uh he saw this, saw me doing this, saw me, and he and he was a new engineer, newer engineer at the time. I don't know exactly when he started, but him and I had had interactions, we had talked about things, we you know, he saw what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

And never realized what effect it had on him. So now this this this gentleman over the years has begun bodybuilding.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

And at first I just thought he was just trying to look good for his wife or whatever, you know. So he never really stated any goals to me. But over the last couple of years, and and mind you, he's he's of a similar age to me. I mean, so somewhere, you know, late 40s, early 50s. Not not exactly sure of his age. I think he's late 40s, but I could be wrong. Um at his age, he just announced that he's about to get his bodybuilding professional card, or pro card as he calls it. I'm assuming it's professional. Which is huge, especially for someone at his at his age. And I'm not saying late 40s, early 50s is old. But when you compare it to most of the people in that sport who are in their 20s, that's an impressive damn feat. And the guy puts in the work, he looks amazing. I mean, he's got muscles, his muscles have muscles. I mean, it's it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

In a good way.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

But apparently, he was talking with my wife the other day, and told Stacy that watching my journey back then is what inspired him to start his journey now. Stacy told me this, and I you you could have pushed me over with a feather. I was stunned. Me? Like I inspired this? You know, I I took that mentality that my father had that I'm I'm a nobody, I'm a guy that drives trains back and forth. I'm a horizontal elevator operator. Christ.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

What? Ow something I did affected someone very deeply. Something I I did set an example. And it it it kind of brought that story with my dad's funeral back to me. You know, because with with my dad, there was a man who thought he was a nobody.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

And yet, at least, you know, at least a quarter of the damn town came out to see him just to say a final goodbye. Our house after the funeral was overwhelmed with people. The impact of my father's life, a man who was larger than life itself, was on full view to be seen right there.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

But for me, here I am doing something that's just just for me. Getting healthy, losing weight, finding my love of motion and activity again. Someone else sees that. How many times has that happened in your life? How many? How many times have you off-handedly said something? Done something without thinking. And it it really meant nothing to you. Or maybe it did. But then later on someone comes to you and says, hey, that really mattered to me. That really meant something. We don't realize the impact of what we do.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

We don't realize the impact of the things that we say.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

We don't realize the ripples that we cause. Because we think we're small. But the truth is, we're all connected.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Every single one of us. Every time you meet someone, every hand you shake, every smile you give, every word you say connects us to others.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

It could be a tiny little thing, it could be something huge. But what we do matters. Not just to ourselves, but to others around us. Just because we don't ever get to see the full reach of where our ripples go doesn't mean they're not there. You matter. You matter. If you're listening to this, you matter. Don't ever underestimate the power of even the smallest thing that you do. I think that's it for today. Take what works, leave what doesn't. Make some ripples. And keep moving.