Overcoming Multiple Myeloma: How Storytelling, Emotional Intelligence, and Empathy Transformed Ray Hartjen’s Life
Have you ever wondered how emotional intelligence, empathy, and the power of storytelling can help you overcome life’s biggest challenges? In this inspiring episode, I sit down with Ray Hartjen — a writer, musician, marketer, and cancer patient advocate — who shares his compelling cancer survivor story and journey through multiple myeloma.
With over five decades of experience navigating career transformations, from investment banking to pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics to SaaS software, Ray’s story is a masterclass in emotional resilience, adaptability, and purpose-driven living. His multiple myeloma diagnosis became a powerful catalyst for personal growth, sparking a deeper passion for storytelling, advocacy, and empathy in leadership.
🎧 Key Takeaways:
- Why authenticity and vulnerability matter in personal and professional relationships
- How a cancer diagnosis can shift your mindset and life purpose
- Strategies for building emotional intelligence and empathy in leadership and everyday life
- Using storytelling for business success and human connection
💪 Embracing Life’s Challenges: A Cancer Survivor’s Perspective
Discover how Ray turned his cancer journey into a source of strength by:
- Adopting a growth mindset through adversity
- Becoming a vocal advocate for cancer awareness and research
- Creating deeper human connections through shared experiences and storytelling
🎤 The Art of Storytelling in Business and Life
Ray shares practical insights on:
- Crafting emotional connections through authentic narratives
- Using storytelling as a leadership tool and marketing strategy
- The underrated power of listening in becoming a better storyteller
Whether you’re a business professional looking to connect with clients, someone facing health challenges, or just eager to live more intentionally, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Ray Hartjen’s story will inspire you to rethink how you lead, communicate, and face life’s trials with grace and empathy.
Don’t miss this powerful conversation on resilience, reinvention, and the transformative power of empathy and storytelling.
Tune in now and start giving a heck about growing your emotional intelligence and creating meaningful connections that last.
Connect with Ray Hartjen
Website: https://rayhartjen.com/v
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ray.hartjen
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGz0k3o0dK3g6c0aVJay_Q
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rayhartjen/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayhartjen/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rayhartjen5
X: https://x.com/RayHartjen
Connect with Dwight Heck:
Website: https://giveaheck.com (Free Book Offer)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/give.a.heck
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dwight.heck
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Giveaheck
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@giveaheck
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-heck-65a90150/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@giveaheck
Chapter Summaries (Full Unedited Podcast transcript follows)
00:00:02
Introduction to Ray Hartjin: Writer, Musician, and Cancer Patient Advocate
Ray Hartjin is introduced as a multifaceted professional with a passion for storytelling. His background spans various industries, and he’s authored multiple books. The host highlights Ray’s latest book release and his ongoing battle with multiple myeloma, setting the stage for an insightful conversation.
00:02:53
Ray’s Origin Story: Reflecting on Privilege and Life-Changing Diagnosis
Ray discusses his upbringing, realizing he had advantages many others didn’t. He shares how his cancer diagnosis at age 54 became a pivotal moment, leading him to approach life with a growth mindset and newfound appreciation for his “whole being.”
00:10:33
Developing Self-Awareness and Changing Life Perspective
Ray elaborates on how his cancer diagnosis shifted his perspective on life. He discusses the importance of balancing different aspects of one’s being – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – and how this realization led to living with more purpose and intent.
00:21:43
The Power of Core Values and Authenticity
The conversation shifts to the importance of identifying and living by one’s core values. Ray and the host discuss their personal values and how these guide their decisions and actions. They emphasize the significance of authenticity in personal growth and relationships.
00:35:35
Effective Storytelling and Its Impact
Ray shares insights on effective storytelling, emphasizing the importance of making emotional connections and considering the audience. He discusses how storytelling has shaped his life and career, particularly in connecting with other cancer patients and caregivers.
00:57:34
Ray’s New Book and the Importance of Regular Health Check-ups
Ray discusses his latest book about the Indy 500 and his passion for motorsports. The conversation then turns to the critical importance of regular health check-ups, with Ray sharing his personal experience of early cancer detection through routine blood work.
Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:02:12]
Good day and welcome to give a heck on today’s show. I welcome Ray Hartjen. Ray is a writer, musician, marketer and cancer patient advocate living in Southern California. Throughout his professional career spanning five decades, Ray has pivoted on many occasions, from investing banking to pharmaceuticals, from consumer electronics to SaaS software. However, one constant throughout his career in life has been his deep passion for storytelling. Ray has often been sought out for his insights by national media, particularly concerning the consumer electronics and retail industries. He’s also contributed to several online outlets and platforms, including his personal website where he shares his views on a wide range of topics, primarily writing, cancer, sports and business, particularly revenue team functions like sales and marketing. Ray is the author of three published books. Currently we’re lucky enough that Ray is actually releasing a book on the 6th of May when this podcast is going to be available for you to listen to as well. Congratulations Ray. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. On your, on your, on your, your fourth book. So the first book is Immaculate how the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. Then there’s Me, Myself and Multiple Myeloma and Revenue Orchestration and Today’s new era of B2B sales and marketing. His fourth book, again being released today is the Indy 500, a year long quest to win the greatest spectacle in racing. Look forward to catching some of these books, especially your book on Multiple Myeloma. So with the soundtrack of life playing, continually seeing his head, Ray finds catharsis performing and recording with his two piece acoustic band, the Chronic Padres. He resides in California where he and his wife Lori live with their Golden Doodle Quinn. I’d like to welcome you to the show Ray. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.
[00:02:12 – 00:02:19]
It’s my pleasure Dwight. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate you and appreciate this opportunity. So thank you so much.
[00:02:19 – 00:02:34]
You’re welcome. I look forward to our very detailed and up and down conversation. Isn’t that the best conversation right where, where it’s not just monotone, it’s got some variants to it. Like a volume, up and down, right.
[00:02:35 – 00:02:38]
Little back and forth, you know, question, answer, the whole thing.
[00:02:38 – 00:02:42]
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s not, it’s not linear. It’s just gonna.
[00:02:43 – 00:02:43]
Yeah.
[00:02:43 – 00:02:45]
Or maybe it will be. I don’t know. We’ll see.
[00:02:45 – 00:02:53]
I don’t think so. I, I think it’s going to have some, some ups and downs, twists and turns left and right. So yeah, we’ll see where it goes.
[00:02:53 – 00:03:48]
Right on. That’s fantastic. So Ray, like I talked to you before we hit record. I like focusing on the origin story. It helps people connect with you. It helps us continue to develop a relationship of know, like and trust. And that vulnerability is always appreciated. More so than people realize that our guests on my show, for the person that’s listening, your words, they can be hanging on, right? Oh, I have a similarity array or oh, wow, I never thought about that. My childhood did impact me that way. Again, it can be good, bad, ugly. I’ve had people that have great childhood, but you know, there were still things that they wish they were, they were great, but yet they were put inside of their pigeonholed. Right. They weren’t really allowed to grow because life was great, but it wasn’t developmental, if that makes sense. So Ray, please tell me your origin stories and the key things in your life that got you to where you are today. Yeah.
[00:03:49 – 00:10:33]
You know, so. And it’s a great question and I’m glad that you asked that. Not just of me, Dwight, but of all your guests. You know, it’s, you know, for me, I always, you know, I lived a big chunk of my life for a long period of time thinking I was just kind of like a normal guy, you know, on the bell shaped curve. You know, I was right there with it like everybody else, you know. But as I got older, I realized that that wasn’t the case at all. You know, and I’ll give you some examples. You know, you know, growing up, we weren’t rich. My father was a career military officer in the United States. And you know, so we were, you know, middle, middle class. But you know, I had both my parents in my house. Again, I don’t think that’s necessarily normal. Right. You know, I, I didn’t have to worry about, I didn’t have food insecurity. I didn’t have a, to worry about a place to, to live. You know, my, my parents and my, our entire family valued education. Right. And the, there wasn’t ever any, any question that I was going to go to college and I didn’t have to worry about paying for college. Right. You know, and while, you know, growing up, I kind of thought, well, that’s just like everybody, as I got older, I realized that’s not the case at all. There’s a lot of people that, that grow up without both parents in their house, that grow up with a great deal of food insecurity or roof over their head insecurity, that don’t know how they’re going to pursue a advanced education and the like, you know, and so I. I feel, you know, at the time, I didn’t even have the. Really kind of the gratitude for it because I was living in my little bubble, you know, and. And. And. And I just kind of thought, you know, this is kind of like everybody did and this. As I got older and I began to, you know, gain some more life experiences, I realized maybe I wasn’t, you know, the, you know, the typical and the average person that I kind of thought I was, that, you know, I had a great deal of. I wouldn’t say it’s a head start, but I had a lot of things kind of going in my way. Right. You know, and, you know, I think, you know, for, like, the first 54 years of my life, I lived, you know, and I think that it draws me with, you know, so, you know, so much interest to your podcast and Give a Heck is, you know, it’s. I was kind of like on the hamster wheel of. Of life, you know, and a treadmill is like, what I think of. Just one step in front of the other. And, you know, Monday was an awful lot like Tuesday, and Tuesday was a lot like Wednesday. And the days go by, the weeks go by, the years go by. Even though I had a lot of changes in my career, and it all kind of, you know, the cr. Crux of my origin story was, you know, March 11, 2019, 19 days before my 55th birthday, that’s when I was diagnosed with a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. And it’s something I know that you’re very familiar with with in your personal life. The. The dear friend of yours, a close friend of yours, having succumbed into. In a battle with multiple myeloma. And, you know, multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer, Dwight, as you know, and. But it’s treatable, right? And so I started treatment there, and it was. So many people helped me when I first, you know, began to have treatment. And I faced that challenge and that obstacle with a little bit of a. Maybe a different approach. And, you know, I kind of wanted to learn more about me, you know, as a person, you know, and I began to approach, you know, what I was experiencing and the disease and being a cancer patient and the whole cancer community, caregivers and allies and the like, with a growth mindset and a beginner’s type of attitude. And so, you know, Dwight, remember when we were kids, you know, we would, like, you know, just go outside with. With a. We didn’t know anything, you know, because we hadn’t learned it. We hadn’t experienced it. And we just had this curiosity about stuff. We didn’t go out every day and, you know, with the intention of learning, we would just discover by doing, you know, running around outside during the summer and, you know, like, hey, look, there’s a praying mantis or whatever. And, you know, checking out this bug and, you know, that, that sense of discovery and exploration and learning, you know, after a while, I think for most humans, it kind of goes away, right? You know, we become teenagers and we know everything. You know, for. For those in the audience who are. Are listening instead of watching, I just did little air quotes with my fingers. We know. We know everything. You know, I’m 16 years old. What can you teach me? You know, and we kind of forget that. And you know, for me, you know, a big moment was just a couple of months, a couple of weeks after my diagnosis, multiple myeloma. I’m sitting in a restaurant, a p. F. Chang’s restaurant, recall correctly with my wife and one of our children, my son, our son Raymond. And I was just exhausted. You know, I. I like everything I do. You know, I was, I was attacking being a cancer patient with everything I had. You know, you know, what can I control? I can control my medicines, I can go to the doctor, I can work out and prepare myself to, you know, receive treatment. I can get ready for a stem cell transplant, all these things. And after about 11 days, it was on a Friday night, I. I was sitting there and I couldn’t even read the menu. I was exhausted. And I, you know, very quickly realized that, you know, I had approached just the way I’d always approached everything in my life, Dwight, where, you know, athletically it was always like a game or a race, an event. You know, musically it was always like a gig or something. Professionally, it was a, you know, delivering something. So always a capstone event that would just like, kn, you know, you know, academically, it was an exam or what have you. There’s always a thing, you know, and, and I was approaching my fight with cancer and incurable cancer that same way, like a fight night, game day type of situation. And it dawned on me there. It’s like, wow, you know, it’s never a chronic illness. Every day is game day, every night is fight night. And I needed to kind of change my approach. And that’s when I kind of woke up to the fact that my whole being is more than just my physical being. You know, there’s my mental component, emotional component, my spiritual component, and being a musician. But, but I, I drew the analogy to a mixing board where you can, you know, raise the level of drums or, you know, lower, you know, me being a guitar player, it’s always get more guitar. It’s always getting more guitar. Right. You know, and so, you know, recognizing the fact that, you know, I could have a strength in one area that can pull up these factors of my whole being, you know, if need be. But at the same time, maybe one of those factors, my entire being, my whole being might drag down one of my other strengths, you know, and I needed to approach, you know, my fight with, with cancer in a more sustainable manner. And, you know, and look at my entire being, my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being and that kind of realization and being able to articulate in my head the way it was was, you know, really the beginning of, you know, changing my life and living my life with more, more purpose, more intent. And we’re going to definitely get into that conversation.
[00:10:33 – 00:11:35]
Oh, absolutely. I like that though. Like, you’re right. When we’re younger, we. Our realization or our awareness is very, very concise to our surroundings, of our parents, our extracurricular things, our schools. And we only see really what we want to see we become even at a young age. It’s not confirmation bias because we’re not necessarily reading about it or listening to it, but we’re a bit. We’re seeing. And we assume that person has both parents together. We assume they have lots of food, that we assume they’re going to get their schooling paid for because we live in that little bubble, I guess, and it’s the same as myself. I didn’t realize how many people were suffering. I grew up in a small farming community. I didn’t grow up in Edmonton. I grew up in a farming community of approximately 10,000 people. My dad’s one of 18 kids, my mom’s one of nine. Lots of farmers, lots of preconceived things of what I believed everybody had.
[00:11:35 – 00:11:36]
Yeah.
[00:11:36 – 00:13:01]
And then get older and you realize, oh my gosh, what do you mean you’re not going to college? University. Well, couldn’t even, couldn’t even get a student loan. We couldn’t get this processed or whatever the case may be. I know I got to stay home because my mom and dad need me to work this part time, like part time or full time to help with the bills. So I can’t go to school. And started hearing these stories as I got older, especially when I got into my finance industry, which wasn’t until my 30s, I realized how unique and different we all are just like our fingerprints. And we have to stop making assumptions about other people. We have to open our eyes up and have more gratefulness and gratitude and appreciation, which we’ll talk about too. So I liked you talking about the fact that you know, you had no food insecurity, family valued education. Right? Just stuff like that. And then we get all the way up to where you get diagnosed with multiple myeloma and the shift of your thought processes. But really where those thought processes, when you look back at it, when you were diagnosed, was it something that was in you already to continue to drive to be the best? Like you talked a little bit about that Was your mindset always something where you attacked everything no matter what it was. It’s just more intense because now it’s an incurable disease.
[00:13:01 – 00:21:42]
You know, I, it’s, it’s interesting question, you know, I’ve been asked a lot of times. A good friend of mine, biotech executive, he loves to ask a question of interviewees for positions. You know, do you, what do you, what, what describes you most as someone who do you, do you like to win or do you hate to lose? You know and that, that competitiveness factor. And for me it’s very contingent. I like to win the things that are important. I’m competitive on the things that are important to me. You know, like in business, you know, the, the race for the customer, there’s only one victory, one winner. And second place in the race for the customer is really first loser. So that’s important. You need to win the customer. But you know, if I’m playing monopoly with my, my daughter and my, my son in law, I don’t really care who wins. It’s about playing Monopoly with my, my. I, I mean I like to win if I could but if one of them should win, at least I got to spend a couple hours playing monopoly with them or whatever. Those are the rewarding things. So yeah, I, I attacked some things, I always have attacked some things in my life with this like laser focus. Gotta win. This is important. And then other things is, you know, more of the experience. What am I, I’m winning in different ways. I don’t need to win. It’s just the participation of that, that, that, that kind of, that, that kind of comes about. But you know, with, with my growth mindset, adopting a growth mindset which I have to remind myself to do every day, Dwight. Because it’s so easy to fall back into our, you know, what we think we know and there’s so many opportunities to learn new Things to unlearn, old things and the like. You know, I, for years I used to facilitate a time management course from Franklin Covey. Various names, what matters most and things like that. But there was an exercise in there that I wanted to revisit soon after my diagnosis. Once I began this, you know, kind of this sense of discovering who I am and it’s a timeline exercise, Dwight. And audience members, you know, just follow along with me. You don’t need a pencil and a piece of paper. You have one. This is the opportunity, opportune time to use it. If you don’t, you can do this mentally in your head you just take a, take your pencil or your, or in your mind, just draw a line, left to right, horizontally, you know, and on the far left hand side you make a little vertical tick mark. Far right hand side, make it a little vertical tick mark. So the left hand side, you put a B underneath that vertical tick mark. And that’s going to represent your birth. You guys are already too way too smart for me. And you’re ahead of me. You know what the right hand tick mark is? You’re gonna put a little D there and that represents your death. That’s your timeline. So in facilitating this time management course, Dwight, I would always just kind of like throw my, my tick mark right in the middle, you know, this is where I am right now. I’m right in the middle. I’m going to live to be at least 100 and shoot. I’m going to live forever, Dwight. You know, and so that’s the introspective part, you know, audience members, if you can just take a moment and kind of think, where am I on my timeline? You know, I know we intellectually, we know that tomorrow’s not promised and so forth, but, you know, where do you believe you are? Where do you feel you are? Right? So like I said, Dwight, I was always like right in the middle. And, and then when I was diagnosed with an incurable blood cancer, I, you know, I needed to articulate to myself I am probably much further to the right than I thought I was, you know, but what does that mean? You know what it means, you know, once I got, you know, time to, to think about that is that, you know, what, like a lot of human beings, I think I’ve been guilty of taking time for granted, you know, and I’ve, you know, depending on the, you know, I, I took all tomorrows for granted, Dwight. And then next week’s next month, next year, depending on the topic, it could be decades, you Know, it’s, it’s that age old story. Someday I am going to dot, dot, dot. Right. You know, and, but then I, I wanted to think about that more. Okay, so you take time for granted, you know, how does it really manifest itself in your life? Well, you know, maybe there’s some things I procrastinated about, but where it really impacts my life is that by taking time for granted, I also took people and relationships for granted. I mean, I’ve got a good friend, Dwight, in Edmonton, thinking about him, should reach out, but you know, he’s going to be there tomorrow and I’ll be here tomorrow. So I’ll just wait until tomorrow, you know, and sometimes those days would go for weeks and for months, for years without connecting with the people that meant most to me. Right. So a big learning experience for me early in my journey with cancer was, you know, understanding this, you know, you know, understanding my head, being able to articulate in my head what had been taking time for granted, how had it manifested itself in my life and it wasn’t very positive. Right. You know, these, these are poor things, you know, taking time for granted. I was taking people and relationships for granted. So I wanted to change that. And you know, being a musician, you know, having gigs, you’re always looking for ways to make more money. And one of the ways we like to do is make up T shirts, put a little, a little saying on the back of it. If you can sell a t shirt for 20 bucks, that’s great, you know, so it turned into a motto. And the motto, the first motto was if not now, when? By looking at my timeline, it’s finite. If not now, when what are the things I want to do? And you know, one, you know, tangible story is the first book. You mentioned it in the intro. Immaculate how the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. I am not a yinzer. For those of you out there unfamiliar with the word of yinzer as a person from Pittsburgh, but a dear friend of mine, Tom Olenek is a yinzer. And you know, he’s, he’s my age, uh, you know, he’s in his 60s now as well. And when he was growing up, you know, Pittsburgh had to suffer through a de industrialization transformation that’s very, very painful. But yet they came out of that de industrialization transformation smelling like a rose. They are considered a, a new economy success story. They’re world renowned for academia, medical research, technology and the like. They’ve really transitioned well where the United States, we have this rust belt and the rust belt cousins of Pittsburgh, Detroit, Akron, Cleveland, Buffalo, you know, they’re still struggling in moving from an industrialized type of, you know, a city into a, you know, a new economy type of city. Getting to a shorter story from this long story, Tom, for decades had this thesis that, you know, the reason that, that Pittsburgh, you know, kind of went through their deindustrialization transformation relatively smoothly compared to the Rust Belt cousins, is that when they needed their heroes the most, they found them in a rather unexpected place. And that was with a professional football team who up until 1972 had not been very good the first 39 years. They’d been mediocre at best, kind of horrible, you know, and, you know, so when they needed their heroes, the Steelers were there for them. The Steelers were built kind of like in a mirror image of them. Hard, Scrabble, blue collar, bring your lunch pill to work, Take a shower after work, not before work. Types, types of people, which were the people of Pittsburgh. But Tom talked about this book for 20 years. Heck, he talked to me about it for 10 years. He’ll be make a great book one day. We should write a book, blah, blah, blah. One day, Dwight. I just grabbed him by the shoulders and said, if not now, when? I mean, come on, we’re talking about things that happened nearly 50 years ago. Let’s get started. If we should have a beer. From your vision. Well, of course. Correct. So next thing you know, the book comes out. We never had to, we never had to, you know, we didn’t stray from vision. You know, 18 months later the book was done. And that was the first book. So, you know, if not now, win led to that, and if not now, win has kind of, for me, it’s morphed into another motto, and that’s punch today in the face. You know, I, I, I. And we’ve talked about this, you know, before, Dwight, you know, the day today is a gift. And not everybody received that gift today, you know, but we got that gift. So how can we honor the people that didn’t receive today as a gift? How can we honor them? How can we honor ourselves? And how can we honor the day that is to make the most of it, you know, and personifying the day. I want to grab today’s attention. I want today to know that I was here. You know, I want to go to bed at night thinking I used up today for all it was worth. And I have a sense of peace and inner peace and self satisfaction, you know, and, and how, how can I grab today’s attention and let it, you know, today Know that I was here. Well, I mean, if you’ve ever been punched in the face, that kind of grabs your attention pretty quick. So it just. It just. It’s something for me that motivates me. I have friends that say, can you just, like, hug today instead? You know, whatever motivates you to make the most of the day. If you want to give today a hug, great. Do you want to punch a day in the face? That’s also great. Just take advantage of the gift that today is and make the most of it. So, you know, again, that kind of ties back to that timeline exercise that really helped me reframe. You know what I do now? I try to concentrate my days on doing what’s most important for me, the things I want to get accomplished with the people I love and respect the most.
[00:21:43 – 00:26:30]
That’s fantastic. So many things that you talked about that resonate with me. And I look at the fact you talked about time for granted, your people, relationships, we all do that. Why do we have to have something shocking happen in our lives before we realize how important the things are around us? I’ve had to develop certain things, like my core values. I’ve gotten more deeper into them over the last, let’s say, decade and realizing that. So you have, you know, if not now, when. Punch today in the face, whatever. I have certain things that I look at and think to myself, am I taking this for granted? Because I’ve had people like my friend that passed away from multiple myeloma. I haven’t talked about it on the show before. So for those listening or watching, I can relate. And part of what Ray talked about is my connection of wanting Ray on the show was a large part because I had my. One of my closest, dearest friends pass away from that disease. And he didn’t have those aha moments as much as you’re talking about. He literally was a personal development guy. Both of us were. I just took it more serious. And what am I saying? That for people listening or watching, you can be superficial when it comes to things. You can. You can say things, you can, you know, project things to people. But are you actually taking action? Are you actually doing something? So for you to take action and upon the realization of where your life was at and advance and through your thought process, not everybody does that. That’s another thing you need to pat yourself on the back for. And I’ll pat yourself on the. You know, from here virtually, because some people don’t. They get terrible news tragedies that happen in their lives. And they one of two things happen. You’re either gonna climb from that, you’re gonna learn from that, or you’re gonna what, you’re gonna camp, you’re doing. I live in the valley of despair and I’ve seen that with my friend. And I think part of his thought process, he felt robbed. He was 62. Whenever he made it to his retirement, you know, and just the things that I seen and watched him go through and he felt a lot of regret and remorse. How many of us are going to feel that way? Regret and remorse? Not for the fact of we are knowing when our day is going to be coming up soon. What about those around you? Do you have parents still alive? I’m blessed to have both my parents in their 80s still alive. You know, am I taking their relationship for granted? Like you talked that timeline, am I spending enough time, I think to myself when people laugh at me, Ray, I’ll say, you know, think about how often do you see your sister last year, your best friend, your parents? Well, three times. How old are they? How many more? Let’s say they live 10 years and you see them 30 more times. Is that a guarantee? No. So every time you go see them out of that three times, be engaged. That time is precious. Life is in session. This is not a dress rehearsal. Really take for granted and take stock. Now if you can learn from Ray’s story and my interjections within that and my own experiences and it stops that slide in your life for not having time appreciation. Fantastic. Because again, like Ray said, we got to live today to the best and have gratefulness and gratitude. And I know every day I do, I literally have to, I have it when I get up, have it when I went to bed. I even thought about it in my, in my thought process and gratefulness. I thought, today is going to be a great day. I’m going to have a podcast. I’m going to have this go on. I’m going to have this go on with my one adult son. I’m going to have this go on and I’m going to live the day as it, as it rolls out, as it falls in front of me and challenges that come up. I’m going to have a character building moment. Possibly I know how to deal with those, but this is all stuff that we have to practice and work on. I don’t have bad days. I just don’t. I refuse to have bad days because I’ve had so many good people like Lyle that passed away. I’ve had friends die from Suicide. I’ve had family die from suicide. I’ve had people that didn’t have that hope. You need to instill hope in yourself, don’t you? Right. Doesn’t a person have to instill hope in themselves by their associations of what they read, what they watch, who they talk to, who they hang out with? You can’t be grateful if you constantly got noise and crap coming in.
[00:26:30 – 00:31:22]
I, you know, I. It’s. It’s a good question that you pose. You know, I. I think that it’s important to choose and choose your attitude, and the answer’s always right. You know, you audience members listening in, watching, you know, you. What’s right for you might be different than what’s right for somebody else. Quite, quite frequently, it is. Right. So there is something that is right for you. There is this choice. But I also think, you know, Dwight, it’s incumbent also for us to recognize signs of need in others. Right. You know, and, you know, recognize. They might not recognize that they need a little help, but you recognize it. Need a little help. And sometimes those conversations can be incredibly difficult. But, you know, I also like to, you know, it’s something I, you know, approach in the book, you know, me myself on my multiple myelomas is this, you know, is. I’ve had cancer patients in groups say, you learn who your friends are pretty quickly, you know, and they’re kind of. They’re kind of within their own bubble here again, and they’ve had a traumatic thing happen to their life. They’ve been diagnosed with cancer. Right. You know, and they have certain expectations on their community. But, you know, at the same time, you’re not giving. I hope I never, ever say that about myself. You know, who your friends are. You find out who your friends are really fast, because I don’t know what’s going on in their world necessarily, and a lot of times it’s because of me. You know, a lot of times we don’t know what to say. We don’t know how to have these difficult conversations. You know, and so if. If someone’s not asking me about my health, you know, I don’t assume that. Well, they’re. They’re not friends of mine. You know, the thing I do assume is that they’ve got stuff going on in their life, and also maybe they don’t know what to say to me, you know, and I think back to being a younger person, I would never ask anybody if they were expecting a child, they were pregnant, because I’ve seen somebody ask somebody, when are you Expecting, and they weren’t expecting. And it was super awkward. And, and I didn’t want to be in an awkward situation. So you know what? I would never ask anybody, even if they were obviously pregnant, I would never say anything until they had a baby in their hand. And, and, and another example is, you know, I asked a good friend of mine from, from college once, I was at a party and it’s like, you know, where’s your husband, Tracy? You know, and she just looks at me and go, smiles and says, not here. Clearly we’re not a couple anymore or in the process of not becoming a couple anymore. And I felt horrible. I didn’t know what to say. So you know what? I stopped asking people about their significant others. You know, it’s like, let me, you know, I’ll have Therese bring up Tracy and if she brings up Tracy, then I’ll ask about Tracy. But if Teresa doesn’t bring up Tracy, then I’m not going to bring it up because I don’t see him here. Which is a silly way to approach life. You know, you’re not having these really meaningful conversations because you’re afraid of, you know, maybe having an awkward conversation. So I’d like to tell people. It’s like, man, if you don’t know what to say. If I don’t know what to say to my dear friend Dwight, start there, man. Just say, hey, Dwight, I love you, I care for you, I want the best for you. I don’t really know what to say, though. Can we just, can you help me work through this difficult conversation for like 30 seconds so we can get into something a bit more productive? How can I be here for you in your time of need? You know, and, and, and that’s what it takes to, to communicate sometimes it’s just reaching out and saying, I don’t know what to say. But I know that I’m not going to let that get in the way of us furthering our relationship because I care about you too much. So help me out. You know, And I like to tell cancer patients that, you know, friends are your friends. They’re in your life for a reason. Like, don’t look just because they haven’t reached out to you or something. They just might not know what to say. And communication is a two way street, you know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta share with them, you know, as you and I communicate. Dwight, no, you talked about core values. In a minute I’m going to ask you, what are your core values? Because I know my core values. I just Want to see where they match up. But you know, you’re, you’re a separate person and you have this reservoir of knowledge, skills, experience and values and that’s frames what you do, like how you communicate and how you interpret things. Likewise, I have those same, that, that same type of reservoir of knowledge, skills, experience and values. So as I’m trying to code a message for you, I got something rattling around up inside my head. But I’m like, how am I going to actually communicate it verbally and non verbally to, to Dwight? And so I will go through my knowledge, skills, experience and values and this is what I’m trying to get across and I’ll send it across to you. That makes perfect sense to me. But now you have to decode my, my transmission, right? You have to, you know, based on your knowledge, skills, experiences and, and values, you know, what does all that mean? You know, and then, so that, then you try to get meaning from it, then you’re trying to communicate back to me. You know, if we as people just recognize that, that we all have different reservoirs of knowledge, skills, experience and values, they might not be similar. They might.
[00:31:22 – 00:35:35]
And sometimes we shouldn’t work our way through it. I always tell people, like, if you’re thinking of saying something, does it serve the conversation? I had a conversation yesterday with somebody I got back home and I realized that conversation I didn’t put through my filters. It didn’t serve them. It didn’t serve me. It was more gossipy, even though they might not have thought so. And I thought to myself, I gotta analyze every time I talk. Even at my age, I always gotta be present in the conversation. What I’m saying, does it serve them? Is it going to make them better? Is it going to make them. Am I reading their body language initially before I even have any form of conversation? Do they look tense? Maybe it should be something where if they’re angry, I’ll just. Or I’m upset I got something going on. Hey, you know what? Can we have this conversation later? Right? I don’t want to say something that’s inappropriate. Or like you said, don’t touch those sensitive topics like are you pregnant? And find out they’re not. There’s so many different ways that we can stop from this phrase that it’s better to be thought an idiot than open your mouth to remove all doubt, right? And that’s something I’ve driven my life by. I’d rather be thought as, oh, he doesn’t converse very much. Then, oh, he just pukes and says Too much. And he doesn’t care about what other people think. And he may have been focused on this one person, but he’s so blindsided, or she’s so blindsided, there’s people in the group standing around that you’re triggering. You’re not triggering that person, but you’re triggered. You’re not looking at the overall perspective. Now. It’s not just a one on one. Are you watching your words? Are you using being a wordsmith? Are you understanding what is being said is affecting more than just. So I. I look at that. Who’s around me when I’m on stage talking? Am I thinking, do I know the demographics? Specifically what’s sitting there? No. So you have to massage words to get across the same point, the same message. Just puking on people doesn’t help them. It doesn’t serve. It’s back to that. Better to be thought an idiot than open your mouth. Remove all doubt. Right? So I constantly work at being a wordsmith, communicating with people, evolving who I am, keeping myself at an even keel. I’m not afraid to time myself out. I’m not afraid to walk away from conversations and tell people, you know what, that just. I’m just not feeling this. I know it needs to be talked about. And people say, well, how long you been doing that? Since my kids were little. What do you mean? My kids would come talk to me and I’d say, you know what? You seem really upset. Dad’s got to do this, I got to do that. I got to get this person off in the next 20 minutes, half hour. Is it really important that we address it right now? Is it something that we can delay after. Right. Giving them the opportunity to be young adults or whatever you want to call it, giving. Giving them control of their life somewhat. Was I perfect? No. I made mistakes. I’d snap at my kids, but then I’d have the courage to go up and say, and you know, knock, knock. Yeah, open the door. Hey, I’m sorry about before. Yeah, that was a little bit uptight. Shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Deflected on you. I apologize. Can we talk now? I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. But as they got older, they started learning body language and knowing, hey, I can see dad’s tents. Let’s not bring this. Let’s not bring it up right now. So I train them, learn behavior, whether it was good or bad. They started learning, and they do the same thing. Now. Most of them do the same thing as adults now. They’re all adults. They, they. They look at the circumstances. They read the room, they read the person. And most importantly, the number one person. You need to read selves. For those listening. I’m pointing at myself. We have to listen to ourselves if we’re not the ultimate version of ourselves and work on ourselves, like you said, constantly to stay at a even keel. It’s easy to destroy others around us and, and we’re one of the, we’re one of the casualties as well. Right.
[00:35:35 – 00:37:03]
So, you know, you know, so much what I think, you know, we’re discussing, you know, kind of falls back onto our value system, you know, and then I kind of gave a little preview to that just, just a moment ago. You know, it’s, you know, for me, my values. You know, I’ve taken the time to, to, you know, to identify my values, and they’ve been rel. They’ve been unchanged for about 25 years now. It’ Friends, Fun, fitness, education and challenge. Those are the, Those are the. My. My values. And I define them probably different than a lot of other people might define them. But, you know, you talked about just, you know, having really like a value conflict. You know, a family truly is a value. And then, you know, you snap at your case, you got some other things going. It doesn’t make you feel well, because, you know, you, you are in conflict with your values. You might not understand it intellectually, you haven’t articulated in your head yet, but it’s like, man, who do I love more than my kids? Nobody, you know, and then, but then it’s like recognizing the fact that I don’t feel good about our last interaction, you know, because it, it is contra to what I value most. Knock, knock, knock. Hey, I want to apologize for, you know, our last interaction. Didn’t want to go the way. The way I do it, you know, and I. I think it’s really important for us as humans to understand what our values are and what they mean to us, because that kind of drives this, you know, what we feel inside. If we are. We are acting and, you know, contradiction to our values that creates a sense of conflict inside ourselves that we might not recognize. So. I know, Dwight, you have your values. What are your core values?
[00:37:03 – 00:41:48]
There are three. They’ve been the same three for just about 20 years. And then there’s subcategories. It sounds kind of weird, my three main categories, because a lot of our core values can tie together faith, family, and work in that order. My faith is so important to me and helped me through the most Difficult times in my life. Faith in myself, faith in others around me, faith in my, my faith, which is Christianity, right? Catholic, Christian is so important to me. If I don’t have that solid, I’m all discombobulated and all over. I look back on my life and I reflect at certain times raising my kids as a single dad, you know, just all the different trials and tribulations of my business, the career, right? As a serial entrepreneur. And I think to myself, my faith gives me that hope, it gives me that solace, it gives me that anchor. Then family. If my faith is solid, my family is always going to win because I’m going to be working and on my best version of me, I’m going to be. They say something that I don’t take it personal if it’s not. And if it is personal, I’m still able to keep myself at an even keel that I can have a conversation or say, oh, I, you know, I see you’re very upset, I’m sorry that I had a part of that. Or oh, I hear you’re upset, I’m sorry you’re going through this at work and knowing when to talk, knowing when to give advice, knowing when to just listen and not being afraid to ask. So, Ray, you’re talking to me about stuff. Sorry, I’ll let you continue on in a second. Is this just a listening session, a venting session, or do you want me to add advice? Having respect enough to ask somebody and that’s a tough thing for me. I just want to help. I’m a fixer, man. I just want to fix. It’s like, ah, your family. I want to fix it. And then I take that to my clients. Oh, you’re my clients. I love you. You’re my extended family. I want to fix it right? But family’s so important to me. I have to have my faith ground in me to help, help and serve my family. And at the end of the day, I grew up with a father, love him to pieces, which was one of 18 kids and still alive. Work, work, work, work, work, work. Score values because depression and all the things they dealt with feeding the family hard work. And he felt his, his love for the family was work more, work more. Let’s work 18 hour days. Wife can raise the kids. Love my dad, learned tons from him. But work is my last. I’ve given up opportunities. I had joint custody of my kids eventually I went back to court in 2008 and got full custody of the kids. And I’ve had to work at things I had to give up an opportunity to, to be involved and, and, and the head of a brokerage where I’d be making five to six million dollars a year right now. I gave that up to raise my kids full time because my business is built a lot at nights, weekends. Well, guess what kids are doing in the evenings and weekends? Soccer, Gym. Right. Cheerleading, Extracurricular, softball, whatever, whatever. Swimming. Everything, all the different things. And I was the main stay of my kids. And I sacrificed and walked away from an opportunity the year before knowing full well that things were falling apart, that I needed to start progressing myself and educating myself enough on taking over this circumstance, knowing full well I’m going to go from a nice six figure income that I was currently making down to barely surviving for many years because I couldn’t work enough. But my core values kept me centered. I prayed, I prayed, I had gratefulness. I kept on working at it. Did I have my nights of quiet desperation? Absolutely. I talk about it in my book. Having that mask on and pretending with my kids that I wasn’t hurting, that I wasn’t alone. Even though I had people around me. We can be mentally, emotionally and so and spiritually alone. We feel alone. And my, those core values have served me. And then I have, obviously I have things that offshoot with family and connection and self time spent and different things like that. But those three core values have pretty much served me. Have they served me perfectly? Probably not. I could probably throw a couple extra in there. But I, I know people that have 8, 10, 12 core values and they’re much more specific than I. But mine work. I’m not gonna. Right, they keep me grounding.
[00:41:48 – 00:44:01]
And you know, it’s recognizing, you know, you know, if you’re, if you’re out there in the audience and you haven’t identified your core values, you know, it’s not a really, it’s not an aspirational thing. I mean, they are who you are. You have to kind of like recognize what those values are and you can change them over time. And you know, and there’s, you know, you might notice for me, work is not one of my values. But I tell people, yes, it is. You know, if you paid attention, it was, you know, family, friends, fun, fitness, education and challenge. But when I have a working situation that I enjoy, I want my teammates to be kind of like family and friends to me. Right. You know, I want to learn in that. I want to be educated in my job, I want to be challenged in my job. All those values that I have, my core Values fit into whether it’s a good working relationship and a good working position or not. You know, I cannot work and I will not be happy. I will have conflict in my heart and I will have trouble getting to sleep tonight. If I was working at a place that, you know, I did not like the people I was working with, I wasn’t learning things and it wasn’t challenging, you know, I, I need, I need that part. So, you know, if you have audience members, if you haven’t identified your core values, there’s a lot of exercises you can go, go through online. Just, you know, do a Google search on, you know, identifying your core values and you know, work your way through the exercises and find out what your core values are. And then, you know, as you live to your values, that’s when you have that peace of mind and that sense of self satisfaction. You don’t have that conflict when you act and you behave and you think contrary to your values. That’s when we create this conflict for ourselves that, that gets us kind of wrapped up. And we kind of go in these, you know, these circles where we’re not very, we’re not happy and you’re not happy or you’re typically not very productive. And you know, there’s, there’s things that you feel as though you’re, you’re missing out on. And you know, you had talked earlier, Dwight, today but you know, you know, senses of regret, you know, it’s like you don’t want to be lying on your deathbed going, oh man, I wish I’d done this, you know, you know, that’s, you know, as part of your learning process, everybody out there and identify those values and then, you know, take a, take a, you know, a good hard think on them frequently revisit them. It’s like, you know, my, am I living to my value? You know, and if I’m not, could that be the cause of, of, you know, internal turmoil in my head?
[00:44:01 – 00:45:52]
And how do, and how do our values tie to one another? Like when I talk about work and you, you talk about challenge. Same thing. Your core values are what they need to be for you. And your interpretation of how they fit in your life have to be true to you. So I look at my work circumstances and, and, and I told you about, you know, embracing my, my clients as my family and stuff. I honestly believe that. I believe that because I’ve been invited to weddings, I’m getting, you know, I’ve been invited to clients birthday parties, the list goes on. Because we create a Connection. But when I talk about work, it ties to faith. My faith will tell me, you know, based on, you know, the Ten Commandments for an example, whether you’re spiritual, whether you’re somebody that worships trees, whatever. There’s a lot of good value within the Ten Commandments, right? Maybe thou shalt not love God above, you know, thou shalt love God above all others. Well, maybe if you’re not a God believer, that doesn’t affect you. But don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t. You know what I mean? All good stuff. So I look at my faith as a core value that is so much more integral than the word faith, family, and work. So my work ties into my family because I want to feel, I want to have that, that, that connection I want to have. And my faith will tell me, don’t, you know, better it better to, you know, if you’re not gonna uplift people, why are you saying that? What is, what is the purpose of, of your conversation? What is the purpose of your action? And again, I’m not perfect. I catch myself. But my core values and your core values, the only difference is, is I don’t spell mine out. But I know that’s all that matters. I know that they tie together and that I practice that and I continue to move forward. But we’re gonna go on because we got so much other conversations.
[00:45:52 – 00:47:03]
I did just want to add in there, though. You know, you said you’re not perfect, and that’s important for, I think, the audience members to give yourself a break, everybody, you’re not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. And just, you know, give yourself some grace every once in a while. You gotta, you know, I, I messed up. I did a mistake. And, you know, it’s the same conversation when you’re, you’re not feeling well, it’s okay not to be okay. Right? You know, and, you know, to give yourself a break. You’re not perfect. You’re not always okay. You’re not always fine. You know, you do have to figure out a ways to kind of work your way through it. You know, I, I, the other day I was getting treatment, you know, and a nurse asked me. She goes, you know, how you feeling today? You know? You know, you know, feeling kind of blue yesterday or whatever. And she goes, you know, hey, it’s okay to visit the blues. Just try not to move in permanently. Right? You know, I’m like, exactly. You know, it’s. We’re people and, and, you know, we, we should give other people grace. But you certainly need to start with yourself, give yourself some grace. You’re not perfect. Dwight’s not perfect. I’m not perfect. And you audience members, you know, I hope I’m not breaking news to you, but you’re not perfect either, and that’s okay.
[00:47:03 – 00:48:53]
You’re right, though. Like, you know, we could continue on and on. My goodness, we could have multiple episodes. But you don’t have to be defined by your character building moments. That blue moment, you don’t have to be defined by it. You can learn to that you’re triggered. You can learn to tell people, listen, I just had something happen. I can’t deal with this right now. Obviously there’s going to be circumstances where you got to suck it up, put on a mask and still deal with things. But more times than not, my character building moments, my blue moments, I embrace them, I acknowledge them. Because to compartmentalize and push them away just harms me. It harms me more. Admit. Admit what I need to change. Admit what I. Sometimes I don’t realize that I’ve got so much going on in my head, Ray, that I want to work until I have my awareness exercise at night. When I do my gratefulness and gratitude and I’ll realize, oh, my goodness, I talked to this person and I see and they reacted a certain way and I just, just ignored it. Right. Maybe they really needed to talk to me. Text, phone call, whatever. Hey, I noticed something going on yesterday. If I said or did something that, that brought that upon you, I want to apologize. That was not my intention. And if, and if it’s something else and you needed somebody to listen to you, I’m sorry, I failed in that front too. How could I help you? Right? Just. Am I 100 perfect at that? No. But I strive to be that person, as always empathetic because I am an. I am an empath. I’ve been told multiple times by empath coaches, I’ve gone through quizzes that I’m a person that picks up on other people and. But I don’t necessarily, because of my learned experiences of life, know how to utilize it properly. Sometimes it’s a weapon against me. Right. It’s just too much. Right.
[00:48:53 – 00:48:54]
It’s too much.
[00:48:54 – 00:49:03]
Picking up everybody’s stuff and what they’re laying down and not knowing how to cope or, or communicate, to distance myself. Right.
[00:49:03 – 00:50:22]
And I’m still learning that aspect. You know, I hadn’t even heard the word, you know, the phrase emotional intelligence and EQ to about like 2002. And I, I did not have. I, I Did not have a very, very high EQ in 2002. And it’s something that I am, you know, continually learning. It’s a, a, it’s an ongoing challenge for me. An ongoing growth is to, to, you know, to understand that aspect and you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an ongoing, I’m not gonna say struggle, but it’s a challenge. I’m, I’m learning and I, I, I hope I’m getting a much, much better about it. But you know, like, like I said, you know, from my origin story, kind of like lived in a little bubble, kind of felt that I was average and you know, and you know, like the average person is and you know, but I was you know, really kind of self centered. It was like me, you know, and like, you know, maybe, maybe this is all just a simulation and everyone’s a, an NPC out there and they’re, you know, what could you possibly be thinking if you’re not talking to me or something like that? But you know, it’s, I’ve learned that and so you know, learning from empaths like you and people with a higher degree of emotional intelligence and you know, understanding you know, my feelings and also understanding the feelings of others and just being empathetic, I mean there’s. Empathy is not a bad thing.
[00:50:22 – 00:52:03]
Not, not at all. But you gotta learn, you gotta understand how though if you’re an empath, a true empath, I’ve had to start practicing to learn stuff because it eats away at you because you’ve got to realize in this house, four daughters, a son, and I’m a giant antenna and I’m picking up what they’re sending and they’re in a second floor bedroom and, or they come and get in a vehicle and picking them up from school or taking them somewhere and you can feel the icy chill and it isn’t towards you, but you can, you pick up on it. And I was tired, exhausted all the time. And it makes so much sense now that people have helped me realize why and why I’m a people pleaser. Right. And I had to learn that the people pleasing is a good thing. But you have to, it has to be at an even keel your emotional intelligence. I was about the same time when I was introduced to emotional intelligence. We’re going to continue on but for the listeners and, and those watching one thing he talked about Pittsburgh. One of my, my book, my book publisher lives in Pittsburgh. I know the population’s around340,000 people. It’s an amazing city. They don’t have just the Steelers. They have the Pittsburgh Penguins, baby, headed by two of the most famous Canadians in history, Mary Lamu and Sidney Crosby, and helped win a bunch of cups. That is a winning city, winning championship city. Yes, there’s negative about every city. But you adding that stuff that I wasn’t realizing about for the Pittsburgh Steelers just makes me love it even more, and I’ve never been there, so.
[00:52:03 – 00:52:50]
You know, one of the. One of the things you talk about in the book, you know, is the city was fighting through, you know, losing jobs, you know, steel mills closing down, you know, people leaving the City. You know, 1979, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series, and then the Steelers won the super bowl in January. Three months later, January 1980, you know, they were the city of champions. And it was kind of, you know, that was, you know, part of that civic pride coming out. It’s like, yeah, we’re losing jobs like crazy. We’re economically depressed, but we’re the city of champions, you know, and, you know, when you’re in your time of need, they, you know, they found heroes in their. In their athletes. So it’s. It’s. It was a really rewarding book to, you know, I learned so much in researching for the book. It was. It was fun to. Fun to write it. And it’s a book I’m proud of. Yeah, I’m proud of it.
[00:52:51 – 00:53:27]
I would be, too. We have so much to talk about storytelling. Right. So you believe effective storytelling ties us and connects people and causes engagement? I love storytelling. It’s something I’ve been working on for such a long time, but so many people are confused about storytelling, how to work on it, to become a good storyteller. And. And, you know, so basically, what led you to realize that effective storytelling helps connect people and how has it shaped your life to where you are today and helped you even get through your trials and tribulations?
[00:53:27 – 00:57:01]
Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, to be a good storyteller, you know, you also need to be a good story listener or reader or what have you. You know, you just need to enjoy stories and stories. I mean, as kids, we love stories, and the reason that we love stories is that they make some sort of emote. They evoke some sort of emotional response in you. Right? There’s an emotional connection. And that’s, I think, the key to storytelling. You can just convey information and data and that will be received by somebody. But if you can make an emotional connection, evoke an emotional response that all of a sudden you’ve got, you know, a greater degree of engagement. And so, you know, you can look at every, you know, everybody experiences in their life. It’s advertisements, you know, and the advertisement that can, that can hit you at an emotional level is the advertisement that you’re going to recall the brand, you’re going to be aware of the brand, and perhaps you might even make a purchase. You might not necessarily, but it’s going to be at least memorable for you. There’s a story that’s been told in this newspaper ad, magazine ad, television, commercial, radio commercial, what have you that, you know, that hit you someplace within your core. Right. You know, and, and I, you know, for me as a storyteller, you know, that was, that was one of the kind of the constants I saw within, you know, my career pivots. I was always, you know, telling stories, you know, and, and, and being a storyteller as a writer, I mean that there’s, you know, there’s that obvious aspect for it. But the, you know, really rewarding piece, and we’ve talked about this before, Dwight, is, you know, having an opportunity to listen to other people’s stories. You know, I. Making a connection with my storytelling that prompts them to want to share their story. You know, and it’s been the, we have talked about this in the past, Dwight. The most rewarding experiences of my life have been connecting with cancer patients, cancer patient caregivers and, and patient allies with the, the book, me, myself and my multiple myeloma. You know, I’ve had people reach out to me through social channels, just saying, like, you know, I read your book and then they, they ask me questions or they, they tell me a bit about themselves and interacting with these people who I would never have interacted with in the, you know, any other way than through social media now and our ability to really be a global village. You know, I’ve interacted with readers from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, and, and as, as you know, Dwight, because, you know, we were talking about this earlier, a group of women myeloma patients from Iran, you know, and, and you know, we can drop aside religious differences and geopolitical differences and things like that and just get down to human, to human interactions that come from stories. You know, me telling my story and being open and honest about that and then them coming back and sharing their story with me, which is such a privilege, you know, really when, when you think about it, when, you know, people, particularly when they’re talking about Their health, you know, you know, trust you enough to. To reach out and ask questions and to share their story. It’s. It’s such a rewarding process for me and storytelling. You know, I love hearing good stories. I love hearing your story, you know, and, and lessons learned and living with purpose and intent. You know, those are, Those are. That’s awesome. And that’s a great degree of vulnerability that you shared, not through just your book, Dwight, but through, you know, over 200 episodes of your podcast. Right. You know, this vulnerability and this learning and, and, you know, such a great way to be able to connect with people is, you know, sharing your vulnerability, and it’s hard to share your vulnerabilities, but then, you know, in turn, you know, being trusted enough where people share theirs with yours in those same stories.
[00:57:01 – 00:57:34]
Yeah, I love that. Storytelling, though, is something that people can do wrong. I know. I read that in your, like, going through all your information. That was quite prevalent. You believe there’s an effective way to tell stories too. Like, yes, people listening and watching tell your stories, but there’s ways to make your story more impactful and effective, and I know you believe that yourself. So what do people do wrong in regards to sharing their stories? How do they make it more effective?
[00:57:34 – 00:57:37]
Yeah, I don’t necessarily want to say it’s wrong. For each their own.
[00:57:37 – 00:57:40]
Well, sorry, wrong term, I guess.
[00:57:40 – 00:59:21]
But anyway, but to be more effective, you know, the story’s not about you. The story is about your intended audience and your target audience. Don’t ever, you know, don’t ever forget that. You know, I’ve had conversations with other authors and they talk about their community, you know, and they’ll create these online communities and. But they’ll, they’ll ask the community to do things. And I’m like, you need to be careful of that, because as soon as you start thinking about the community as being your community, you’ve lost your community. The community is not about you. It’s about them. The. The community. And so when you’re telling a story, it’s about your listener, your watcher, your view, your. Your viewer, your reader. What, what. What other. Whatever content and, and the method that you’re. You’re educating, your. You’re distributing your story, whatever channel it might be from. And I think we find this all the time that the errors and the, the, you know, the not effective storytelling through social media. It’s about me, me, me, me, me. It’s your. I call them a me form. You know, this is what I’m having for dinner. This is, you know, it’s all about me. It’s me, it’s me. And I’d rather be an informer. Right. You know, instead of a me former, I’m telling you all about me. You know, let’s, let’s inform, let’s educate, let’s entertain or whatever. But keep your audience in mind. They’re the customer, and the customers always comes first. It’s always right. If you can kind of get off of yourself and be there with a, you know, with the right intent in mind, and that is to somehow better your audience through your story, whether they need to be educated or informed or entertained or what have you. Whatever the objective might be, it still needs, you know, the effectiveness of your storytelling is seen from their perception and their eyes, their ears.
[00:59:22 – 01:01:32]
Well, when you’re telling stories, wouldn’t you say it’s also prevalent? Obviously, if I’m doing a blurb on social media, I can’t really look at my audience and say, well, this is what I’m viewing or what I’m seeing. But when you’re telling stories to an individual or a group of people, it’s back to what we talked about before. It’s important, in my opinion. I want to see what your opinion is that we stay connected to what we’re seeing. Right. Be a student of human behavior and what’s their body language like. When you’re telling the story, you can tell. When you can tell. When somebody, if you’re telling a story to one or a group, group, you can tell this connection. If you’re connected to who you’re talking to and making it about them, not you. Like you said, you can tell. And I, and I know when I was telling stories, I also know, I try to read the group or know a little bit about what I’m talking about, even if it’s just a. Where I’m thrust into a situation and hey, Dwight, tell them this story. I look at the, you know, I, I want to. Okay, I’ll do that. Ask a few questions. Because should it be a long story, should it be a short story? Am I going to be puking on them? Am I going to lose people? Maybe you lose a couple, but the person you really wanted to talk to the story about, they’re more important in engagement than the people around. But the people around still have a right to be addressed in the sense that they’re present in the conversation. So I still look at effectively telling the story to the person asking it, but knowing if there’s a group of people around Me that are, you know, what’s the word I’m looking for? They’ve all come over and they’ve all decided they want to be part of that little conversation or listening to it that I had me cognizant of them too. So being an active storyteller takes more work than people realize. I’m not saying it shouldn’t happen, but somebody that’s active at always being a good storyteller, like yourself and myself, working with clients, exposing our inner vulnerabilities, we need to understand how is it affecting. And I find the best way to do it is through our ears and our eyes. Listen, watch. Right? Watch how they’re, they’re acting. What’s your thoughts on that?
[01:01:32 – 01:04:02]
Yeah, yeah. And you know, you give a great example, great examples this real time feedback and, and you’ve got a vast amount of experience, Dwight, in public speaking. Right. You know, and you can look at your audience and collect some feedback. You know, it’s like, are people looking at you, for example? That’s a bit of feedback that you can give. Are they smiling, are they nodding along, are they shaking their head this way? Or they have their arms across them and very defensive. You know, all these are things that you can, you know, you have real time, you know, metrics in a way of thinking of collecting feedback on how your story is, is coming across and, you know, and you can make adjustments. And I think, you know, from a marketing perspective, you know, me being a content marketer, you know, it’s, you need to look at your metrics and your analytics, you know, and see how your audience is engaging, you know, and dig down on that because, because it’s so easy, particularly with digital marketing, you know, it’s so easy to, to make a change based on data. You know, you see a day that’s like, I, let’s go and change this, let’s add a different keyword in here. Let’s change this blog post or what have you. It’s, it’s, it’s not like we printed off, you know, 10,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica back in the days when we were kids, right? No, this is all digital and we can go into, you know, WordPress or whatever the site might be built on and change something super fast. You know, sometimes you have that luxury, you certainly have that luxury in, you know, like in public speaking to be able to ingest this information or, you know, it’s not, you know, forget, you know, standing on stage because not everybody in the audience does that. But there’s Times you’re just going to be speaking with people and, and some examples you’ve given so far in our conversation today, Dwight. You know, sometimes it’s, you know, one or two people, sometimes there’s people coming into the conversation or maybe people, you know, filtering away from the conversation, but you know, just being, you know, you know, like you said, eyes and ears, you know, how is your story being resonated? And you know, also ask, you know, again, you know, you can look at somebody that maybe isn’t looking at you, isn’t giving you direct eye to eye contact. You might value direct eye to eye contact, but they might value indirect eye to eye contact. But you, you know, asking questions and checking where they are, it’s always a, is it always a good idea, you know, in conversations and telling stories and the like, and just, you know, you know, just checking it to see do they understand what you’re saying, like know what you’re understanding what I just said, you know, and listen to them paraphrase back what you just said that lets you know if you know, you’re on target or if maybe you need to course correct and get back on target. Because my objective is to do this and it seems like there’s a disconnect at this point in time. Does that make sense, Dwight?
[01:04:02 – 01:08:06]
Oh, well, absolutely, absolutely. You know, and asking good questions and people go, what’s the difference between a bad question and a good question? A bad question shouldn’t be asked. Right. A good question is something that’s been thoughtful and you can be a critical thinker. You can develop your mindset over time where you can literally analyze a situation. You can think to yourself, if I ask that question, does it serve? Does it harm? Oh, hey, like you said, indirect connection. I look at people, if they’re turned sideways and they’re kind of leaned in, I ain’t asking them if they’re engaged. They’re engaged. They just don’t want to look at me because maybe they’re that person that was in the classroom that didn’t want to, you know, put their hand up. They didn’t want to be recognized by the teacher. We don’t know, like you said earlier, where they’re at in their journey of life. We don’t know what’s going on behind the closed doors of their lives. But if I look over and I see Ray leaning over and he’s listening, he’s not looking that right? It’s back to that. Am I watching? Right? And you’re right, I can ask that person, you Know, are you getting what I’m putting down? You don’t have to say it necessarily that way, but I could. Depending on their sense of humor, I will because I’m a very. I like joke. I’m a jokester. I like teasing people in a friendly way, not. Not in a hurtful way. Right. Obviously. And yeah, storytelling to me has been something I continue to work. I did it the harsh way though, to learn how to do it. I got challenged by a friend on March 1, 2020. I was challenged just before the pandemic lockdown to do 30 days of videos. I thought he said live videos. So I did them live. Right. 837 days later, I quit. I never missed a live video. There’s 500 and some up on YouTube, on IGT, Instagram, there’s all of them, right. Facebook, you can go back to my videos and when I look at my first ones, Ray, I’m just like deer caught in the headlights. I’m honest. I used to be that person that would walk across the road and avoid cameras when I spoke. I was spoken to a captive audience in the financial industry, so there might be 40, 50, 100,000 people in the room. It was captive. So I didn’t really feel nervous because I was going up and blah, blah, blah, blah, here’s a PowerPoint, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t really speaking, it wasn’t really storytelling. And I remember the first time I went up on stage where I actually connected to my story and it’s actually on my YouTube channel. For those wanting to watch, they can go to my website, giveaheck.com and you can watch a three minute reel of it encapsulated or their full just shy of 14 minute speech that I did in Salt Lake City. And I got emotional. That’s when I knew I was beyond being a captive speaker. And now as a storyteller speaker, I got emotional and the audience got emotional. And the amount of people that I got three people to give, well, actually I didn’t. The company I hired to film me speaking got three testimonials from people and, and I got reached out from so many people in the audience. But that’s when I’m not making this about me, but this is. I want people to understand. That’s when I truly connected to storytelling. It was just, I had that aha moment where my emotional iq, my mental state of mind, everything about me, my soul, everything just came together in that 13 and a half minutes. And I didn’t realize until I heard from others because I’VE way of self doubt. Right. Sabotage ourselves, you know, imposter syndrome. Until other people started telling me that I really was connected to my story and that how much my story could help other people. That vulnerability. And I focus on that one conversation because that was the pivoting point of my life and storytelling and realizing how I need to be connected.
[01:08:06 – 01:08:48]
And one thing that we haven’t talked about, but, but I’ll add on to the audience members that authenticity. The authenticity, you know, comes out because we can, we can spot people when they’re not being authentic and that affects the storytelling as well. But you know, you being authentic, you being vulnerable, you being emotional and making that emotional connection, I mean, that’s, that’s success. You effectively communicated your story to an audience and they in turn, you know, you know, perpetuated that story by sharing their stories with you and providing you feedback. So yeah, it’s. But you know, being authentic and I don’t want to say fearless because it, there is some fear in being authentic. Oh, but over.
[01:08:48 – 01:08:49]
I was scared.
[01:08:50 – 01:09:11]
Yeah. To, to be authentic and knowing that the authenticity, you know, that’s, that trumps all, you know, be authentic and over overcome yourself. Don’t, you know, don’t, you know, try to be a charlatan, you know, and, and, and change yourself because we kind of see through that pretty quickly.
[01:09:12 – 01:09:19]
Absolutely. So anyway, a great conversation. We’re still. You got a few more minutes. I got a couple more questions.
[01:09:19 – 01:09:20]
I do.
[01:09:20 – 01:09:56]
I, I really want to talk about your books and here’s why. Right. To remind the audience you’ve authored three books. Right? Immaculate Hollis Steelers Save Pittsburgh, Me, myself, a Multiple myeloma, Revenue orchestration, and today’s new era of B2B sales and marketing. And then now your latest book that’s coming out today, the release of this podcast, the Indy 500. A year long quest to win the greatest spectacle in racing. I know myself writing one book. Oh, there’s the book. For those watching. He’s got. Oh, that’s a nice cover.
[01:09:56 – 01:09:59]
Thank you so much. You know, you know how difficult it is.
[01:09:59 – 01:11:06]
Oh my God. I went, I had had, I had 40 some different coverage that publisher came back with. And then I said, change this, change that. And that cover of my book now is, is a person, an individual, a man walking upstairs going through a keyhole. Right. That book, that cover was a combination of a bunch of other ones. And I put this in there. Try this, try that. I thought, I think they wanted to choke me. And my buddy Mike was like, we’ll get It. We’ll get it. We’re gonna find the perfect one. And that wasn’t the one they wanted me to choose, but it’s the one that resonated with me. My genuine Dwight. Right. My genuine self of give a heck and being my last name and stuff. But I found writing my book very cathartic, very healing. What of your books, like, through the process, did you find, like, from writing your first one to even your latest one, different cathartic moments of realization of patting yourself on the back for things that you didn’t give yourself credit for or maybe kicked yourself in the pants for things that you didn’t realize were a challenge that you needed to address.
[01:11:06 – 01:16:26]
Yeah. You know, the most cathartic book of mine is the. The second book. Me, myself, I’m a multiple melon. Because it’s personal. You know, it’s. And it was unveiling the. The veil. And, you know, you and I have talked extensively in the past. You know, I. For the audience members, when I. I had lived a life of good health up until the day I was diagnosed, and I felt good when I was diagnosed. It wasn’t like I was sick, right? And so it was. I, I. It was, in a way, kind of difficult to. To come to terms with, right? And I. I immediately went to a cancer patient group. I had never been to a group of anything before. And. And so I. I didn’t know how to, you know, I didn’t even know what to expect. I was like, you know what? Let’s give it a try, you know, and there’s so many brave cancer warriors in that. That group that, you know, lended a hand and helped me, you know, become a cancer patient, as weird as that sound, you know, but they helped me in a way that made an impact. Right. You know, and. And I made a decision soon thereafter. I want to be someone like that. You know, I want to be helpful for other patients, caregivers, and allies. And when I’m feeling good, if I can lend a helping hand to somebody and pull them forward to where they want to be, to where they need to be, I want to be that guy. I made that conscious decision. How do I want to be remembered, Dwight? You know, how do I. What. What type of role model do I want to be to my children and my. My. My family and my friends, you know, how do I. How am I going to respond to this obstacle and this challenge in my life? You know, and one of the things, you know, I. I became a fundraiser for, For. For. For cancer organizations. That benefit patients in the Multiple Myeloma Research foundation being one of them. But, but also a, a complimentary healings therapy healings thing that was in the Bay Area where I lived at the time upon diagnosis. And you know, I loved working with, with those groups and, and, and raising awareness and raising funds. Right. And I thought, what’s the best way that I can scale? You know, I had the privilege to. I’d have been interviewed, you know, based on my social media presence and, and other things. I had the, the privilege of being interviewed by several different media outlets soon after my diagnosis. And, and that was, that was cool. And I had people reaching out to me through social media. It’s like, hey, I read this article, I saw this video, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And, and I thought, you know, how can I scale that? You know, because those were great interactions I was having on a one to one basis. But how could I do a. Instead of one to one, a one to many? And that’s where the idea for the book came about. It’s like, you know, maybe I can tell my story and this can be to the community from a person in the community. Right? I’m a patient. I want to write it for other patients, their caregivers and allies. But, you know, more important than that, I want it to benefit the community as well. Not just as a resource, but financially. So, you know, all of my net writers proceeds for me, myself and my multiple myeloma get donated to the, the Multiple Myeloma Research foundation, the nmrf, you know, and so it was, it was important, important for me to write this book to be, you know, from the community to the community, for the community. But, you know, it needed to be authentic and it needed to be, it needed to be the truth. And you know, it’s. And it’s about my health, but a lot of people like to protect their health and you know, like, don’t talk about it. It’s. It’s something that’s in the United States, is legally protected and can’t be discriminated against and the like. But, you know, my readers needed to see it all wall. Right. You know, and, and I needed to open up and it was really kind of cathartic for me to really understand, you know, where I was with, with my relationship with cancer. I know that sounds kind of like a weird thing to say, but, you know, like in the book, you know, I explore the difference between a journey with cancer and a fight against cancer. Some people have journeys, some people have fights. You Know, for me, I have a fight against cancer, and it’s, it’s not for everybody. Some people have journeys, and I understand journey. You know, the, the difference there, you know, vernacularly speaking, when you think of fights, you tend to think of winners and losers. And, you know, I, I go into the infusion center three weeks out of four and look at a bunch of patients and infusion chairs. There’s not a single loser in the bunch. Those are some brave sons of guns, right? You know, and, and they are warriors. And I have a great deal of respect and admiration for each and every one of them. But for me, I get out of bed, you know, motivated and inspired by thinking about a fight with cancer. Cancer instead of a journey. Other people, Other people have journeys. You know, those are things that I explore in the book. I explore values. You know, I explore. You know, I went through a stem cell transplant and the chemotherapy that was associated with that. You know, and I wanted to give people a preview of that. You know, this is what my experiences would be. Maybe you might experience the same type of thing. Bone marrow biopsies. Another thing that, that, you know, revisited. Not particularly fun for those of you out there in the audience. Not to be considered recreational. They are painful experiences. But, you know, I needed to share that with people because that’s a reality of, of being a blood cancer patient, is you’re going to need a bone marrow biopsy. You don’t really know what’s going on until you take a look at that. You know, having, you know, listened to you before, Dwight, I know that you. You ask like, you know, are there any things that, that, that you want to, you know, to say kind of like at the last moment? And, and I’m going to take that opportunity to do it now instead of the last moment.
[01:16:26 – 01:16:26]
Sure.
[01:16:26 – 01:17:20]
You know, as, you know, part of the book I talk about, so many people reached out to me. It’s like, what can I do for you? You know, And I. And I told them, well, I think I got it covered. I don’t think you need to do anything for me right now. But I kept getting asked that all the time. And then when I was speaking publicly, particularly fundraising things, you know, I. I realized, you know, there are four things that you can do for me. People, you know, these are the things you can do for me. The first thing you can do is go see your doctor at least annually and make sure you have a complete blood workup. Why is that important? I was 54 years old. I felt fine. The only reason I started to get diagnosis, I had a routine blood test that came back that showed that I was slightly anemic. So. Well, trying to confirm that test. It was confirmed I was slightly anemic. Okay, let’s go more sophisticated tests to understand why. What’s the root cause of your anemia? Turned out 90% of my bone marrow was cancerous.
[01:17:20 – 01:17:21]
Wow.
[01:17:21 – 01:17:44]
And I felt fine. I was, at the time, I was a road cyclist and my performance metrics on the bicycle, I was a beast. At 54. They were every bit as good as they were when I was 49. Fine. And in hindsight, yeah, maybe I was a little fatigued, but come on, give me a break. It’s 54 years old, full time job, married with two kids in expensive private universities. I think I deserved a, you know.
[01:17:44 – 01:17:45]
A little bit of grace.
[01:17:46 – 01:19:44]
Yeah. So, you know, number one, go see your doctor annually. Number two is mitigate your twos. I call them the twos. And you already know what the twos are. You don’t need to go to a doctor. You smoke too much, you drink too much, you exercise too little, you eat too few fruits and vegetables and so forth. We all have risk factors. I’m not saying don’t live, just mitigate your risk factors. Third thing you can do for me is if you know anybody undergoing a serious chronic health issue, reach out to them. They’re going to appreciate it. It is difficult to go through a chronic health issue, a serious one. Just mail alone. I mean, we are inundated with mail here in the United States with insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, care practitioners. Just the mail alone is staggering. There is a lot, a lot to do. If you know anybody that’s doing it, particularly on their own, by themselves, reach out to them. They will appreciate the help. And the fourth thing is find your, Find your passion, your cause, and you’ll know what it is because it will connect with you emotionally and support it with your time and or your money. Because we’re all in this together, and together we are stronger than we know. Those are the four things you can do for me. But one of the things I definitely wanted to talk about out with you is that first one, go see your doctor. People, I, I consider myself to be early detection, even though 90 of my bone marrow was cancerous. A lot of multiple myeloma patients are diagnosed because of unexplainable bone fractures. They’ll get up in the morning, out of bed, take a couple of steps and suffer multiple compression fractures of the vertebrae. It’s like, well, that’s not that’s kind of weird. Why is that? It’s because the bone marrow, the cancer in the bone marrow yet gone in and provided, you know, gotten lesions on the bone. I didn’t have any bone lesions despite the fact that 90 of my bone marrow was cancer. But if it hadn’t been for that routine CBC coming back anemic, you know, I would have been on the route to. To having a very late detection. And when it comes to health, early detection is always better than anything late. Right.
[01:19:44 – 01:20:24]
It’s great advice. It’s great advice. So like, my friend got diagnosed and five and a half months later was gone. He literally within about 60 days had his kidneys shut down. So between treatments and going back and and forth, he. They’re giving him chemo, but yet he’s on dialysis because both his kidneys shut down. And then he’d have. And what does it do? What did dialysis do? Takes the chemo out of your system. Right. And he. There was so many other details I don’t quite understand, but I think early detection would have been good. Right. I don’t know if he had gotten his physical recently. I didn’t. It wasn’t a conversation that we had, but we should have had bad.
[01:20:24 – 01:20:25]
Well, right.
[01:20:25 – 01:20:27]
That’s what, that’s what, that’s what you’re saying, right?
[01:20:27 – 01:20:27]
Yeah.
[01:20:27 – 01:20:32]
Have that conversation. Remind people. I remind my friends all the time to get their yearly physical.
[01:20:32 – 01:20:58]
Yeah. It’s not convenient, so. But it’s an investment in yourself. Nobody likes the needle stick. Yeah, I get it. But it’s an investment in yourself. And Dwight, what better investment can you make? Your finance guy, what better investment can you make than an investment in yourself? It’s important. Go see your doctor. Get, get your blood work up. It’s just part of what you need to do. Do it.
[01:20:58 – 01:22:20]
Absolutely. Because you can’t. The rest of the world can’t. Your family and friends and everybody else, your clients can’t rely on somebody that’s dead. So, you know, take care of your health. First and foremost. I wish we had more time. I tell you about. I got a new doctor after 37 years and something they discovered about my health. Health, which was caught, which was, you know, I got tested for and it wasn’t as bad as they thought, but yet it’s still bad enough that had I not been consistently getting physicals, it would have just gotten worse and taken more to fix or possibly not be able to be fixed in my health. And you know, physicals are good. I don’t mind getting A physical. I’ve been getting them since my four, I don’t know, 43, 45. I told my doctor, there’s a lot of doctors. Oh, you don’t have to worry about till you’re older. No, get them. I don’t care how old you are, woman, man, get them. The doctor will not turn you down. Right. Unfortunately. Unfortunately we have universal healthcare that pays for all that stuff. You don’t, which kind of sucks. Right. So hopefully the people that are listening in places where you don’t have universal health care, you can afford to get it done every year. But it really isn’t an expense, it’s an investment in your long term existence on this planet.
[01:22:20 – 01:22:25]
Yeah. And it’s a, it’s a better planet having you all in it. So take care of yourself.
[01:22:25 – 01:23:18]
So last thing that we’re going to discuss is your new book, Indy 500. A year long quest to win the greatest speckling racing. How did this come about? Right. I just as a side note, I off road rallied for many years in this country. Chill out. We had a really bad accident. I was a co driver with my brother in law. I was a driver. We’re in the Rocky mountains and went off the side of a mountain. Long story short car was destroyed. I was out of work for three months. I punched both my legs to the floorboards. That’s how hard we hit a tree coming down the mountain. Mountain surface. So I understand racing not to the extent of the Indy 500. I’m familiar with the Indy 500 is. But I was a participant in the racing world and can really appreciate it. So I was excited to find out why this book. Book what, who, who guided you to this or yeah, you always wanted to do.
[01:23:18 – 01:26:09]
I like talking about this because here in the States we have this program in schools called Scholastic America. And there’s these little, there’s these thin catalogs, like eight and a half when I was a kid, eight and a half by 11 and tissue paper, thin paper, right. And inside there are all these, all these books and they’re usually, you know, a couple years old and you know, the teacher passes it around the classroom. You’re like oh, this is a book, book I want. You know, then you go home and beg your parents for some money or you break open your piggy bank and. And years ago I was like, I don’t know, I was probably, it was probably 1973, 1974, probably around 1973, let’s call me nine years old, third grade and I got this book. This is A this is a reprint. The book that I bought was called the Indy 530 days in May by a writer in Indiana named Hal Higdon. And it was A Chronicle the 1970s, 70, any Indy 500. And as a nine year old in the, in the early 70s, you know, reading about these guys, you know, racing has always been dangerous, but it was pretty dangerous back in the 70s. You know, lots of, you know, traumatic injuries through crashes and fatalities were not uncommon at all, unfortunately. And these racing drivers were sort of like astronauts in a way. Right. You know, and, and this book just captured my attention as a young reader. I read that book multiple times a year for multiple years, you know, and I, and I was just fascinated. It ignited a passion in me in the event. And like I said, this book chronicled the 1970 Indy 500 from the day before the track opened for practice all through the month of May and the race on May 30th. And, and throughout the years I thought, you know, I would love to. As an homage to that book, I like to update it and chronicle a more modern race, you know, and maybe I can ignite the passion in a kid did someplace for the event and for the sport. And going back to our conversation earlier today, Dwight, if not now, when? So you know my book, the book that comes out the day that this podcast comes out, it’s called the Indian Indy 500. A year long quest to win the greatest spectacle in racing. It starts with the last two laps of the 2023 Indy 500 and then goes through the entire year and culminates with the victory banquet the day after the 202324 Indy 500. So I try to tell the stories, you know, the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the history of the people that are involved in the event, and also, you know, the current events that happen. Kind of like a diary leading up to the race because it really is a year long effort, you know, when the Indy 500 ends, while there’s more races in the season that, that take place, you know, there’s still the attention of the teams and the drivers are, well, what about next year? You know, and really, in a way speaking a lot of the races that happen at, after the Indy 500 in, in a season are really just a prelude to the Indy 500 for next season. There’s one race to win. You know, the Indy 500 is a career maker for everybody involved. When that race, it’s more important than winning the season championship. It’s more important than winning any other race.
[01:26:09 – 01:26:13]
Well, it’s the de facto standard. It’s the. It’s the goal.
[01:26:13 – 01:26:42]
Yeah. And it’s, you know, I. It’s my homage to Hal Higdon and his book. That. That. That book ignited a passion in me that hasn’t been. Hasn’t been put out yet. I’m. I’m a ticket holder. You’ll. You’ll see me in the Paddock. Penthouse section, 23 rows double C and double B. Seats 13 and 14 each row. So stop by, say hi. That last Sunday in May.
[01:26:42 – 01:27:18]
Sweet. You know, that’s. That’s incredible. The things that. That we look back at our lives and the things that. Back to your origin. What touched you. Right. Our origin is always ongoing. Our living legacy is created on the daily. It’s not something we. We look at when we’re about to die. Our living legacy is in. In session. We’re creating it. And it’s interesting how you said you read that book and then you go and you want to, you know, do an homage to the person that wrote the other book, and you want to make. Make. You want to make your thoughts and under. People understand the journey.
[01:27:18 – 01:27:19]
Yeah.
[01:27:19 – 01:27:31]
Right. From. From the end of one to the start of the other. And it’s just amazing. I. I can imagine you’re gonna have the NASCAR fans, they’re just gonna be elated to have this book, right?
[01:27:31 – 01:27:34]
Well, IndyCar or Indy Carter.
[01:27:34 – 01:27:35]
Part of me not. Yeah.
[01:27:35 – 01:27:36]
Hopefully the NASCAR fans will like it.
[01:27:37 – 01:27:39]
Wrong words. Sorry.
[01:27:39 – 01:27:43]
Maybe they’ll invite me to. To write a book on the Daytona 500 or something like that.
[01:27:43 – 01:27:46]
Did you know that we used to have Indy in Canada?
[01:27:47 – 01:27:48]
I’ve been to Indy.
[01:27:48 – 01:27:52]
He never came. He never came to Edmonton, though. We had him here for many years.
[01:27:52 – 01:27:56]
I did not go to the Edmonton one. That was out in the. The airport, right? Yeah.
[01:27:56 – 01:27:56]
Yeah.
[01:27:56 – 01:27:56]
Now.
[01:27:57 – 01:28:20]
Now they’re building houses out there. They had it out there for five years. Four or five years. Yeah. It was. I went to the. I went to the first one. It was amazing. I didn’t go to the ones after because it was just. Just raising young kids and stuff. It was tough. I took my son. The girls didn’t want to go. How to have them on my shoulder because they didn’t have the best seats because it literally sold out. I waited too long to get tickets. Right.
[01:28:20 – 01:28:51]
You Canadians have a very rich. You love your motorsports, and you have a very rich tradition. I used to go to the Vancouver IndyCar race. That was great. As you know, I’ve been to the. The Montreal Formula one race. On multiple occasions. Yeah, but all through. You’ve got great tracks up there, most part. And, and you know the history of people like Jacques Villeneuve and his father, Jill Villeneuve. You Canadians do like your motorsport, hockey, but. But you do love your motorsport.
[01:28:51 – 01:29:47]
Well, hockey is like. Well, people say it’s a religion. I just, I don’t know if I considered a religion. I consider it to be a passion that drives a community to be connected and, and closer and shut out the noise of all the wars and politics and everything else. Yes, there’s wars within hockey and politics, but that’s different. A different type of politics and war of teams competing. But you look at the, like the end of last night’s game and you look at the players that know one another on the ice, that have played with LA or vice versa. Like we had one player change over to LA and one comes come to Edmonton this past season and you look at their. In between plays or whatever they’re talking about there. They’re not talk to one another. They’re just, hey, how’s it going? Once that puck drops. So, man, all friendships are out.
[01:29:47 – 01:30:00]
It is. All friendships are off. You don’t. As a longtime hockey player, in fact, I got a puck sitting here on my desk. As a longtime hockey player, you know, there’s a great, great mutual respect from hockey player to hockey player.
[01:30:00 – 01:30:01]
Absolutely.
[01:30:02 – 01:31:05]
The sport is difficult. It is so incredibly hard. It’s a sport of frustration. It’s a sport that to be any good at, you have to have passion and heart because if you can turn a 50, 50 puck into a 55, 45 puck, you have a really good chance of winning that game. And that’s just, that’s all effort and it. How hard hockey is, you could play for about 35, 40 seconds on a forward line. If you’re on a defender, you can maybe play a little bit longer on the shift and then you have to get off the ice because you are beat. And, and it’s a, it’s a. Such a difficult sport. But the one thing you know while you know when the puck drops, it’s. There are no friends. But at the end of it, there’s this mutual respect. And in particular in the NHL at the end of a playoff series, you know, you. There’s nothing like playoff hockey. Nothing’s more. But the, the handshake lines afterwards where you just. The display of mutual respect. Winner, loser, doesn’t matter. It’s that, you know, you’re, you’re a player and you played the right way. So a Lot of respect.
[01:31:06 – 01:31:12]
Hockey’s, as far as I’m concerned, is the most elite, difficult sport on the planet.
[01:31:12 – 01:31:13]
Oh yeah.
[01:31:14 – 01:32:08]
I don’t care what anybody says. You can look at, you can look at. I don’t care what it is. Rugby, I don’t care what it is. Soccer, football, you tell me. You slap on a couple razor blades and you go out there and you’re stuck in a power played mode like last night where, you know, some of these players are on the ice trying to kill a power play. They’re on that ice for two minutes. That’s two minutes the most. The intense skating, physical interaction, being zoned in on your own zone and not being able to switch out your players and you know what I mean? Like, it is intense. Yeah, it’s just, it’s an amazing sport. But anyway, we’ll, we digress. So the book itself is something you wanted to write and I apologize to those. I know there’s a difference between NASCAR and Indy. I just got word salad. I call it word salad. Everything just got kind of mixed up in my head. Have you ever tried racing yourself?
[01:32:08 – 01:32:43]
I have. Not at a high level. Go karting and that’s fun, That’s a lot of fun and, but, but never like I would, I just thought about this the other night. Ironically. He’s like, you know, I know I’m 61 years old, but I wonder if I could, I wonder if I could talk somebody into, let me like, you know, tool around in a sprint car or a midget just on like a, you know, a little bullring oval. I would, would, I would love to do that. I, I, I still think, you know, some of the best Friday nights I’ve ever had is just hanging out with some friends and family, watching sprint cars and midget cars, you know, at the local track. You know, that’s just a, that’s a lot of fun.
[01:32:44 – 01:33:22]
We’ve got a bunch of local tracks. We got drag strip, we’ve got all this stuff. We got dirt track, we’ve got, yeah, we’ve got all that stuff around here too. It’s fun. I even liked, I even like when you go to the ones where they call them absolute annihilation. And they, and they have crash, you know, they have smash up derby beast or they’re crashing the cars or, or they take a jet car and they, and take a van and they melt it with the jet. Right? Because they have these jet powered cars that have jet engines on them and, and I’ve watched them where they’ve elevated cars like 8, 10 stories off the ground and they drop them and you know what I mean? Just fun.
[01:33:22 – 01:33:59]
Right here in Southern California. I don’t know if they still hold the event. I think they do, but it’s a takeoff on the 24 hours of Le Mans race in France. Yeah, it’s the 24 hours of lemons. And so they have a, they have a price limit on how much you can spend on your car. And so basically they’re junkers that you probably spend more on tires than on the car. And you know, it’s a 24 hour race and you know, I’m like, I wonder if I could get three buddies or so to build out like an old Chevy Chevrolet Z24 or something like that, you know, put some tires on it and go out and see, see how many of these 24 hours you could actually erase it.
[01:33:59 – 01:34:12]
That’s awesome. We could go on and on. But this is the last absolute question. Ray, if you had to give our listeners one last closing message, what would you tell them in regards to giving a heck and never giving up?
[01:34:12 – 01:35:57]
Yeah, you know, it’s. For me it’s that, that sense of inner peace that I’ve spoken about before and satisfaction and it’s about living a life well lived lived. And, and I think that, you know, for most people the, the life well lived is that life, you know, as you know about Dwight, with intent and purpose, you know, and for me, you know, my intent and purpose, what helped develop that for me was, you know, approaching an obstacle with a growth mindset. You know, so let’s, let’s take a step back and you know, that we don’t know everything, so how can we go out and learn and discover more about ourselves? Right? And then it was that because of that growth mindset that, you know, stumbling back to this timeline exercise I’d done before and then really spending time introspectively thinking about it, you know, okay, I think I take time for granted. How does that manifest itself in my life taking people and relationship for granted? If I want to live a life with purpose intent, I need to focus. I want to focus on the things that matter most to me and the people that matter most to me. And if I can do that, I am going to have that sense of inner peace, that sense of self satisfaction. So, you know, for you, for you people out there, you know, living with purpose, intent, you’re gonna, you’re gonna feel better. The, the hard part is. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is finding out what your Purpose and intent is right. So take that introspective journey. You know, don’t be afraid to do it. And you know, it’s, you’ll find it to be so rewarding. But, you know, take that introspective journey, Find out what your values are. Find out what are the things that are most important to you. What is your purpose? What is your intention? Second, why are you here? For you. And there’s only one answer. And you have that right answer inside of you. But discover that right answer and then, you know, take advantage of the day, each and every day. Live your best life and be as happy as you can be. That’s, that’s, that’s what I want people to get.
[01:35:57 – 01:36:36]
No, that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, it’s a lot of inter. Reflection, awareness and being willing to be vulnerable to yourself and others around you. Not necessarily receive criticism, but receive that conversation. When you bring up something and you ask for advice or maybe you didn’t and somebody communicates back something that kind of makes you go, oh, I don’t know about that. It’s not necessarily they’re criticizing you. They’re giving you their, their pink fuzzy glass version of what they see or have heard from you or what they just heard from you at that moment. And don’t take it personal.
[01:36:37 – 01:36:37]
Yeah.
[01:36:37 – 01:36:57]
Look at it as a growth experience. Now if it’s, obviously, if it’s offensive and it’s morally apprehensive, that’s completely different. I’m talking about just a normal conversation where somebody is, is giving you their insight as to what you’re saying. Maybe you’re telling a story about something else and their insight is about that. Don’t take it personal. Just listen.
[01:36:57 – 01:37:04]
I think I like to think of that as intent. You know, what is the other person’s intent? Do they have good intentions or is it just to make them feel better?
[01:37:04 – 01:37:05]
Better.
[01:37:05 – 01:37:36]
You know, and if they’re providing you data, feedback with good intent, then that’s a gift. It’s, it’s some. That is another gift in and of itself. It’s just good, honest feedback with the intent to help you. And yeah, yeah, sometimes it can be difficult. You know, you learn that in your professional career when you get, you know, feedback for coaching and development. You know, but even athletically, you know, sometimes you don’t like to hear, you know, what the coach has to say, but you know, with the intent that. To make you better. Yeah. You know, try to receive that as the gift that it is because now you’ve got some Some opportunities for improvement. Let’s get to it.
[01:37:36 – 01:37:42]
Yeah, absolutely. You know, they say success leaves clues. So does conversation.
[01:37:42 – 01:37:43]
Right.
[01:37:43 – 01:39:40]
Conversation leaves clues. Body language leaves clues. Right. Tonality leaves clues. We just need to be aware and be open and live intentfully. Absolutely. I totally believe in purposeful living an intentful life. All right? That’s why I wrote my book and. And cried many times. Having to go through chapters and send it off to an editor and then, you know what I mean, like, it is what it is. I just. I’m gonna live today for today, and I’m gonna keep on climbing until the day I take my last breath. And I know you are, too. We are two warriors. We have a superpower that most people don’t believe is a superpower, but tenacity, being tenacious is a superpower. Wanting to. To grow, wanting to change. And tenacity can be a bad thing too. But tenacity can also be good wielded in the hands of a good person like yourself. And I will label myself as a. As a decent human being, too, that we’re always on. On the climb to change and grow. You wouldn’t write four books if you weren’t especially writing books with what you’re going through. Your challenges are still being treated and stuff, and. And I wish you best of luck. Obviously, you’re. You’re a warrior. You’re continuing to battle and stay healthy for an incurable disease, one that takes people usually well before where you’re at. So realizing that people that are sick, people that are listening, watching. If you’re sick, your most powerful tool is your mind. Your most powerful tool is your attitude, your emotional center, who you’re talking to. Like you said, I loved how you put that in, and I don’t know why I didn’t ask. Bring that up sooner when you said that you became or taught how to be a cancer person, like a person suffering from cancer. Right. How to be a cancer survivor. How great is that? You know, that may sound terrible, but how great is that, that you had a community that would teach you that.
[01:39:40 – 01:40:37]
Yeah. And I’m grateful for that community, and I want to be part of that. Like. Like I said, you know, if I can help. Help. If I can help any of you listening. Those of you have. Have lived through this entire conversation and stuck around to the end. If there is ever anything I can do for each and every one of you, reach out to me. You can hit me at all the social media platforms. It’s my name, Ray Harchin. You can hit me on my website, which is rayhartran.com and my email address is rayhartongmail.com. if there is ever anything I can do for you, please reach out. I say that sincerely. My phone number is in the book and, and, and I will gladly take your call. It just. I, I, I, I, I want to be a service because so many people have been of service to me and together, like I said before, we are stronger than we know and we all get something and it takes a global village. So let’s do this together.
[01:40:37 – 01:42:23]
Thank you so much, Ray. For those that are new to the show, go to give a tech dot com. Go to the top hit podcast. You will see a picture of Ray and you will see detailed show notes which will show all his social media links, his website. So if you’re driving, you didn’t. You don’t have to pull over, right? You don’t have to rewind. Well, actually you do have to rewind. This is a great episode. Rewind, listen to it, watch it again, do it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you’ll find all that information along with chapter summaries and an unedited full transcript of the show as well. So, you know, at the end of the day, just go check it out. You don’t have to remember Ray’s last name. You don’t have to remember nothing. You just got to remember give a heck you want. You want to live life on purpose, not by accident. Tune into the show, share it with your friends and family. You know, it helps the algorithm. Share it to more people as well. You know, I do this as a passion project. Those listening and watching and Rick to tell Ray that too. This is not a monetary thing for me whatsoever. I just want to showcase and support those out there that have been marginalized or have been in the shadows. Not that Ray has been, but just to highlight the greatness of people and what they go through and they still continue to climb. How many of you would have an incurable cancer diagnosis and would still be going out there to help the masses? Would be supporting financially by doing charitable work. The list goes on. Just ask yourself those questions. I may be sick, but I’m not dead yet. What can you do? What can you do to help others climb? And imagine you feed off that energy too. There’s one last comment.
[01:42:23 – 01:42:34]
Yeah. And you know, we appreciate you, your audience, Dwight, thanks for doing what you do. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for having me on the show. I greatly appreciate it and I’m thankful.
[01:42:35 – 01:43:09]
Yeah. And congratulations to those listening to this on the 6th for buying the book. Yeah, right. And any of your books. It’s just, you know, they’re all good. Yeah, I would imagine they’d be spectacular. Better than good. But anyway, we’ve already asked the closing comments. I’m going to wrap up the show. Thanks again, Ray. You bet. Thanks so much for being on Give a Hack, Ray. I appreciate your time and sharing some of your experiences so that others, too, could learn it is never too late to give a heck.