Fred Rutman Finding A Solution

Summary: Fred Rutman suffered from severe health problems, diabetes, and heart problems. In one summer, his heart stopped 20 times. He was given a pacemaker that failed. He eventually found a solution to increase his health through intermittent fasting. Learn more about his fantastic story. He reminds us that we can always find answers if we look outside the box.

Show notes:

Email: dead.fred@gmail.com 

IG repeatedlydeadfred

Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Ari Schonbrun and I’m your host. My guest today is Fred Rutman Fred currently lives in Toronto. He was a marketing consultant, then went into academia as a college professor for a number of years. After acquiring his MBA, his weight ballooned up to 340 pounds. The combination of weight issues and playing years of hockey, rugby and football, left him in perpetual pain. Every joint in his body ached, eventually got down to about 280, where he plateaued. In the summer of 2009, he came crashing down was forced into permanent medical leave, he started passing out randomly. He was hospitalized numerous times and was put on insulin and metformin. It turns out he wasn’t simply passing out his heart was stopping. He was clinically dead dozens of times. They eventually put them on a pacemaker. That pacemaker then failed in 2013. He had subsequently I think three or four more pacemakers put in, over the course of the years. In 2018, Fred learned about intermittent fasting, and his life hasn’t been the same since he’s no longer asthmatic. He is now 10 Pant sizes and about 80 pounds. In mid December 2021, he had the cleanest pacemaker check ever. Fred is currently writing the medical trauma memoir, summary die 20 times. Please help me welcome Fred Rutman

Fred Rutman: Fantastic, thanks. How are you?

Ari: I am good. It’s good to hear that you’re fantastic. You know, we have to reading all of that information. My god. Wow. Unbelievable.

Fred Rutman: It’s it’s been a journey. You know, if I ever meet a new doctor, and I try and tell them, you know, my medical history, they just, they really don’t believe it. Yeah, it’s just unbelievable to them.

Ari: I can hear that. Well, as you know, the name of the the name of this podcast is whispered some bricks, the whispers of those voices telling us what the right thing to do is and they represent the good in life. And the bricks represent the bad things that we go through in life and God knows we all get hit with bricks throughout our lives, some bigger bricks, some smaller bricks, you know, some more, some less, but life is not a straight line. It’s not a you’re not always going to be on the up there are ups and downs. And, you know, that’s what life’s all about. Now, for you, it appeared that life was pretty good for you in the early goings, got a good job, you went into teaching you got an MBA all seem to be going well, until the first break hit your weight to 340 pounds, how old were you at that time? And tell us what was going on?

I was probably 40s from my early 40s. And you know, I’ve always been overweight. I was probably you know, some version of type two diabetic most of my life and just it never got flagged. And there’s no specific reason my weight spiraled out of control. And the doctors don’t think my weight had anything to do with what subsequently happened to me. Even though you know, it’s not a good idea to be that obese. Alright,

Ari: Can I ask you how tall you are?

Fred Rutman Not very. I’d like to be a lot taller. I’m five foot seven. 

Ari: Oh, okay. 

Fred Rutman So I was pretty portly.

Ari: I hear that. I hear that. Did they did did you or the doctors ever consider maybe it was depression or something of that effect that would cause the weight gain. Very often we hear that when somebody gains a lot of weight. It’s you know, it’s it’s, there’s something else going on? And usually it’s psychological. Have you heard that? Has anybody ever said that to you?

Fred Rutman: Not as a direct it might have been part of a whole bunch of factors that were going on. But you know, I my life didn’t start off on on the smooth plane either. In my mid 30s, I found out that I had had a stroke just before after I was born. So my body was never working properly. You know, the stroke was misdiagnosed or not diagnosed and so my It just really wasn’t working. Well, I didn’t know how to explain that to other people. I didn’t know who to to question. And that’s just part of, you know, the bricks that get thrown at you.

Yeah, I guess, I guess. And then later on, you got hit with what I would call like the major brick. You made your break, you started passing out randomly. Like, yeah, how old? Were you at that point?

See, I was probably in my mid 40s 4647.

Ari: Uh huh. So Whoa, what was going on?

Fred Rutman: Well, they thought it was passing out. And, you know, I went into the medical system. I’m in Toronto. So we have some pretty high end medical here. And I just went through a series of being misdiagnosed by a whole number of doctors. And what they eventually found out is that I have something called a severe heart block, which is a medical condition where the electrical system in your heart that runs your tells your heart how to how to beat, so it sends a signal to your atria, then to your ventricle. So they, they pump in synchronized fashion. And that system died. It just eventually died. And so my heart was stopping. So I wasn’t actually passing out. I was dying. My My heart stopped beating. Wow.

Ari: That must have been must have been scary. How, like, How often was that happening?

Fred Rutman: Well, in that summer, the ones we know about, it happened about 20 times, which Oh, my God, how the title of my book came to be, which is, you know, the the summer I died 20 times. So it was, you know, on the upside, every time, my heart would stop, you know, your blood pressure goes to zero, there’s no blood or oxygen in your brain. I would fall and I would smack my head, and I would get a concussion. And the upside of getting a concussion and getting so beat up mentally, is you really didn’t have time to process how bad your situation was. Because your brain was no longer working properly. It took a number of years for me to to try and wrap my head around the fact that I was dead. Wow, just did you see the bright light by any chance? I wish? That’s a question I get asked pretty often. I can imagine, you know, if this happens to you once, and you don’t see the bright light? You know, that’s pretty okay. If this happens to you, like a dozen or 20 or 30 times, and not once Do you have that experience? You feel kind of ripped off?

Ari: You know, and I think I think it’s, it’s, I do believe there is something to the bright light. I have my own theories on that. But because of the way I’m thinking I think about it, the theories that I have, it’s very simple. Why you didn’t see the bright light? It’s because it wasn’t your time. Yes, your heart stopped. Okay. And yes, you might have been dead, but it wasn’t your time. And, you know, that’s why you didn’t see the bright light.

Fred Rutman: Yeah, I did have a couple of out of body experiences.

 Ari: Really? 

Fred Rutman: Yeah, where I was out in the middle of nowhere cycling, for example. And it was, you know, later in the evening, so it was pitch black on the bike path. And nobody was around. And my heart stopped. Of course, I tumbled to the ground. And I I remember looking down on myself tangled up with my bike. And there’s just, you know, everything is black all around. And feeling like very confused. You know? So it’s like, if you’re in the sort of mindset that you believe that people have souls and there’s Heaven and Hell, it was like my soul had come out of my body and was, you know, trying to get some guidance as to do I go up? Do I go down? Do I go back into the body?

Ari: Wow, weird. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, you’re probably the only the second person that I know that has had that experience. I met another guy a few years ago who also he was in an operating room. And he literally talked about how he was hovering above his own body and he was watching everybody in the room, and he was out under anesthesia, and he was watching everybody else in the room and he heard everything that was going on. Which he then proceeded to relate to the people when they when he came out of it. He related to the people all of those conversations, and they were like flabbergasted. Just was just absolutely amazing. Wow. So so what what, like when when would happen? You know, like, what would happen? With the people around when it happens? In other words, did your heart just start beating again? Was it the concussion? Maybe when you fell that caused that shock your heart? Do you know?

Fred Rutman: Those are great questions already. The doctors don’t really know why my heart started again. They, you know, your your body is a marvelous thing. And it’s got all these subsystems, which are, you know, protective measures, and are supposed to start your heart again. But they usually work pretty quickly. I had events where, you know, I would go from 30 seconds of of no heartbeat to I think the maximum recorded was about five minutes. And that was in a hospital. So we know, we have a pretty good idea how long it took from when the monitors noticed, my heart had stopped till I came back to life.

Fi going being down for five minutes. I mean, doesn’t, I mean, isn’t that usually? You know, isn’t that cause? Brain damage? Yeah,

yeah, I have, you know, a lot of recovery from this.

Ari: Oh, I was gonna say you don’t look like your brain damaged? 

Fred Rutman: Well, it’s kind of hard to see, you know, it’s one of those in visible afflictions that people have, you know, like lupus, you can’t see lupus, right? You know, my dad had wicked, rheumatoid arthritis, and you can’t see the pain people are in. Right. And, you know, I may have told you this in our pre talk. But, you know, I’ve been learning Hebrew since I was five. So I come from the Orthodox Jewish side of things. I had the entire language knocked out of my head, among other things, wow, my friends brought me my prayer book, and hospital. I could no longer read Hebrew. I still read at the level before. Yeah. Wow.

So I guess, you know, I look, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know much. But I know there are different parts to the brain. And I know the brain has different functions, like and I guess, you know, you just hit that one part of the brain that said, you know, you’re not going to know this anymore. Something to that effect?

On a number of other things.

Ari: Yeah, for sure. For sure. But, so let’s talk about something a little bit that let’s talk about the whispers. The Whispers then came, I think, in 2018, I think it was, was that about the time that you learned about intermittent fasting? Yes, it was. So tell us about that the effect it had on your life. And you know what happened and you know, he missed that part of the story, give us a good part of the story.

Fred Rutman: Well, it started off with me going to see my cardiologist, which I have three cardiologists because I’m that messed up, because of all this, that happened. And I’m in the exam room, and he comes in, and he literally throws a book at me. And he says, By this, read this, do this, after you talk to all your other doctors, and we get consensus that you can do this. And the book was the obesity code by Dr. Jason Fung. And it’s all about the science of intermittent fasting. Initially, the doctors who got on board this program, were looking at it as another diet, it was simply a matter to lose a tool to lose weight. As we know now, and it’s only four years later, the science or the medicine is just catching up with the research and intermittent fasting activates all these subsystems in your body and just initiates healing at so many levels, that it’s truly mind blowing for someone who’s had his mind blown. Yeah, this is mind blowing. Yeah. And I ended up becoming a moderator in a fasting group on Facebook that had about 335,000 members. Wow. You know, I I’ve seen so many people recover from so many different afflictions, that that it’s not just anecdotal evidence is you know, this is real life. And there’s a reason that a lot of the major religions have implemented various fasting protocols over the years. You know, the rabbi’s of 3000 years ago wouldn’t know exactly what was happening scientifically in our bodies, but they knew that sometimes a fast was good for you.

Right? So, so I had, like, you know, can you give us the 30,000 foot level on how this how this works? What is intermittent fasting?

Fred Rutman: So intermittent fasting is a series of cycles of not eating, which is the fast part, and then eating. So everybody has a different protocol that will work for their body. I’m currently doing what’s called an 18 Six, which is I fast for 18 hours, and I can eat whatever I want in the six hours. That doesn’t mean I eat continuously for six hours.

Ari: I could see myself doing that. Trust me. Yeah, it’s easy to do. No, I’m talking about eating straight for six hours.

Fred Rutman: Essentially, what happens is when you fast you, you give your body, your digestive tract arrest, and it lowers your insulin levels. And that seems to start a domino effect with the rest of your hormones that are out of whack. And hormones become out of whack for a variety of reasons. So eventually, all those things start to normalize. When they told me I was type two diabetic, they also said, Okay, here’s your insulin, here’s your Metformin. You know, this is gonna be a chronic condition, your life’s gonna turn to hell. You know, you’re gonna have a very painful end of yours. And good luck. Wow, we know that’s not true.

Ari: Thanks, doc.

Fred Rutman: That’s, that’s just, you know, in sync with the medical system hasn’t caught up with the research. And Dr. Fung is a nephrologist. So he sees tons of people with kidney damage, and losing limbs because of type two diabetes. And he’s reversed it in hundreds, if not 1000s of people. Wow. And I’m one of those people in six months of intermittent fasting started in May 2018. By December 2018, I was off insulin. My blood sugar’s were 100%. Normal. Wow.

That’s incredible. Let me ask you something. Just going back to you know, where you were, I mean, you must have, you must have been at some point in time at the lowest point of your life. And I just wonder when you did get to that level?

Ari: You know, what was going through your mind? Did you ever do you ever get to the point where you said, You know what, I can’t do this anymore. I, you know, I just, I’m checking out, I’m done. I’m checking out, you know, I’m going to, you know, roll up that a little ball and die. And thank you very little. And if it did happen, how did you? How did you get out of that? How did you manage to, to, you know, motivate yourself to say, no, that’s not going to be me, I’m not gonna let that happen.

Fred Rutman: Thankfully, I didn’t get to that point. I’ve got a really good support system around me. And, you know, there’s a, I guess it’s an adage, if that’s the right word, that that people are the composite of the five people they spend the most time with, or seven people or 10 people, you know, depending on your situation. And I’m just surrounded by spectacular people. I don’t know why I’ve earned this. Where if I have earned this, to be around all these people. And I think my parents gave me a super resilience gene. And, you know, they had a tough life medically. But they never quit. And I guess I have a lot of that attribute from them. And I’ve tried to develop it further. I’ve always been a person that tries to improve himself, even though I didn’t know exactly what I was trying to improve. But I’ve always been on that path. Right. I think those combinations and of course, you know, my religious beliefs that that you know, God God has a plan for us. Yeah, you know, I hear it’d be nice if he told us that plan every so often.

You know, it’s kind of like you you know, you have kids but they don’t come with a manual you know, you wish they come with a manual. Now, so, tell us about the book you’re writing. Right? What is it coming out? What possessed you to do it? What is possessing you to write it well? Are you writing it? What do you hope to accomplish with it?

It’s funny, you mentioned that or you ask that because that’s what the publisher I’m negotiating with, just asked me for, why are you writing this book? It’s a great book. But why? And I see, I just have an obligation to people outside my circle, to share my story and tell them that there is hope. Once I’m sure you know, this off the top of your head, the Holocaust survivor, that was a psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, Viktor Frankl, one of his classic thoughts is, if you have hope, you can conquer anything. And that’s what I’m, I’m trying to spread a little of people have been so gracious and generous in supporting me that I’m just trying to do that. Tell my story, let them know that what they’ve been told might not be the final answer. And and that there’s, you know, what’s the word there, there’s treatments out there that doctors don’t even know about, that are available that can help you heal in ways you’ve never imagined.

Ari: Yeah. Any idea when the book is going to be coming out?

Fred Rutman: Depends on how fast I can make the revisions the editors asked for. So are the instructions. You’ve written a book, right? I have written a book. So you know, some of the instructions you get back from the editors and publishers are, you know, we think you should change this, but they’re not really specific, and giving you guidance. So that’s the stage I’m going through right now.

Ari: So let me ask you, before we go, words of wisdom, anything you can share with my audience, something they can take away with them?

Fred Rutman: Sure, a couple of things. You know, they say that comparison is the thief of joy. And, you know, I think, I don’t know is that the sixth commandment, don’t do not cover it. I’m not sure where that lines up on there. But, you know, if you start trying to compare your life and your recovery to other people, and get mad and frustrated about that, it’s really hard to have any joy in your life. And as Viktor Frankl said, it’s really hard to, to pull in that hope that things will get better in and that you will conquer whatever battle you’re facing. The it’s just the reality, your mindset is probably your greatest superpower. In, you know, realizing that your mindset is walking around and a cape and leotards and has a, you know, a giant s or whatever on your chest. Yeah, that’s, you know, when we talk or moderating the intermittent fasting world, that’s one of the things we talk about the most is, this isn’t going to be linear. There’s going to be times where you take a few steps back. But you keep that mindset that this is going to work. And it is going to move you forward in so many aspects of your life.

Ari: Yeah, absolutely. Truly, truly words of voice to never ever give up. I think is, you know, if you want to put into a nutshell. So, Fred, if people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to do that? Do you have a website? Do you have emails, social media?

Fred Rutman: I’ve heard about this email thing I heard it’s pretty convenient. I have an email. My email goes by my moniker repeatedly dot dead.fred@gmail.com Again, again, repeatedly idli dot Fred sorry, repeatedly I get confused still repeatedly dot dead dot Fred because that’s what I was really dead@gmail.com and that’s also my Instagram, you can find me at that Instagram, which I’m just getting into millennial. And, you know, I’ll post things like this podcast or any other inspirational things that come my way. And they can always follow me and, you know, slide into my messaging and give me a shout.

Ari: Okay, that’s awesome. Fred, I want to thank you so much for sharing your story with my audience, giving people the motivation they need to persevere and all the struggles in life because everybody goes through struggles. Good luck going forward. Looking forward for your book to come out. Let us know when that’s going to happen. And, you know, just keep on keeping on. It’s, you know, that’s my prayer for you. You were listening to whispers and bricks and I’m your host Gary Shermer. Remember, if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud, like you’re spinning your wheels, wasting time and your career, your business your life. If you know you’re not enjoying all the success, satisfaction and significance that you desire, that it’s time for you to book a call with me at www dot call with ari.com. Check out my whispers and bricks, coaching academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams. Bye for now.

 

Rachel Michelberg Difficult Choices

Summary:

Rachel Michelberg had a normal life when her husband was in a plane crash. He survived but suffered extensive injuries including brain damage. She had two small children and wasn’t sure how she would take care of her husband. She made a difficult choice and had him stay in a rehab center to heal instead of bringing him home. This was a very hard choice but was the right choice for her family. She still visited him and made sure he saw the kids and was a part of family celebrations. She still oversaw his care she just could not physically care for him. Her story reminds us that sometimes you might have to make an unpopular choice because it’s the right one for you and that love sometimes means making hard choices.

Show notes:

https://rachelmichelbergauthor.com/

https://www.facebook.com/RachelMAuthor

Rachelmichelbergauthor

RachelMAuthor@gmail.com

Episode Transcription

Intro Plays

  

Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks My name is already showing I’m your host. My guest today is Rachel Middleburg who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and still enjoys living there with her husband Richard and her two dogs, Nala and beanie. She earned her bachelor’s degree. I’m sorry. She earned her Bachelor of Music Degree in vocal performance from San Jose State University, and has performed leading roles in the musicals and opera from Carmen to My Fair Lady, as well as the pot of Mother abbess. Three times in the sand the music when Rachel isn’t working with one of her 20 voice and piano students, she loves gardening, hiking and baking sourdough bread crash how I became a reluctant caregiver is her first book. Please help me welcome Rachel Nicole Berg. Rachel, how are you?

Rachel Mengelberg:I’m well, Ari. Thank you. So great to be here.

Ari: Oh, yes, I’m very happy to have you here. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Now, as you know, the name of the podcast is whispers and bricks, the whispers are those voices telling us what the right thing to do is and they represent the good in life. And the breaks represent the bad things that we go through in life. And we all know that, you know, life is not a straight line, many ups and downs, many bumps in the roads. You know, people get hit with more bricks, less breaks, bigger break, smaller breaks, but everybody gets hit at some point in time or another. Now your life seemed to have started out pretty good, but then took a turn for the worse. Now I think the first break happens when your marriage starts to decline. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Rachel Mengelberg: Yeah, sure. I mean, I’ve had several other stumbles along the way, which I do talk about in the book. But those felt small ish in comparison to what happened about 10 years, almost 10 years into my marriage. My husband, same as David, we, we had two children, ages six and seven years old. And our marriage had was in trouble at the time, that of this tragedy, this this trauma that I’m about to explain. And so that that’s an important setting set up for why I made the decisions that I made after this this trauma, which was that he was flying in a small airplane with one other. He was the passenger there was a pilot. And they were the plane crashed. And it crashed into a vineyard in on the central coast of California. Both men survived. Miraculously, it’s not every day you hear that people survive a plane crash but they did. But they because they weren’t wearing shoulder harnesses was an older plane and there was a grandfather clause. The plane didn’t, wasn’t equipped with them. Both men hit their heads pretty hard on the instrument panel of the airplane. My husband David was knocked unconscious and the other guy remain conscious and pulled David from the wreckage. David sustained a very severe traumatic brain injury, essentially from the his skull was split open from the middle of his nose up to the crown of his head. So the entire frontal lobe of the brain was smashed if you can pick Yeah. And in fact, normally they are with a head injury they actually have to open up the skull a little bit because of the swelling in the brain and they need to give it room in his case they didn’t need to do that because the skull was already split up and I’m sorry about those gory details but it’s it’s truth so so it through Of course all of us into you know it just in an instant as as with you with that plane hitting the tower it it altered the course of so many people’s lives. And in this case, I was really struggling with the reality that At, which I learned eventually would be the case that David would not recover, he would improve, but he would not recover, he would never recover his ability to be a father to be a first certainly to be a provider to, to maintain any kind of relationship as we know it. And in addition to all the physical issues, which, for the most part healed, there were, there were spinal injuries, severe spinal injuries, pancreatic injuries, he lost an eye while he didn’t lose the eye, but he became blind in one eye because of the pressure on the optic nerve. So it was just, it was just devastating. And in my book, I really wanted to explore the incredible ambivalence I felt about being having this role of being his caregiver. inheriting it, inheriting, it sounds like a very passive, passive way. It was, it just became my role. And at first, you know, it was mostly about managing all the doctors, he was in the hospital for a very long time, the ICU and then he was just an physically in such terrible shape. He had several several facial reconstruction surgeries, and there was just so many, as you can imagine, so many different elements that we had to deal with.

Ari: Well, how did this affect your family and your kids? For the most part,

Rachel Mengelberg: right? Well, so at first, you know, it was a question of how to tell them the truth, what was because at first, I didn’t at the very beginning, I just told them that, you know, Daddy was hurt. I didn’t, we didn’t know. Right, but and then when I learned it, actually had my rabbi. I was a cantor at the time. And I actually asked my rabbi to come and talk to them, because I, I was afraid about their reaction when they learned that their dad would never really be the same. And how do you explain that to a six year old, you know, and a seven year old, it’s so but then it was a question of making arrangements to get them to the hospital to visit him and, and, and to just kind of make that part of our daily lives. And, and it wasn’t long before I realized that, particularly my older child, my daughter needed, needed some therapy, she admitted that she’d been crying a lot, but only on the inside. And so it was then I knew I knew, Okay, she needs to go to therapy. And at that age therapy is really more just creating a safe space for the kid to just play and express their, their, their feelings. Um, but yeah, it was it, it changed everything. It was so devastating. Because I remember going to shortly after the accident, going to this gymnastics show that my kids were in. And I remember looking around at the, at all the dads that in those days, we have people at camcorders, you know, and they were they’re recording their kids little somersaults, or cartwheels or whatever. And, and I remember looking around, and even though I was sitting there with my sister and brother in law, who were there, I’m very caring. And I had a really strong support system, I it suddenly hit me I am, I am really now a single parent, like, there’s going to be no one in these kids lives besides me who’s going to be as invested in their lives? So yeah, it was a profound. It was a it affected us all profoundly.

 

Ari: Well, so at some point in time, and this is, again, I don’t know how long it was. But at some point in time, you made a major, a major decision. All right. Tell us about that decision.

 

Rachel Mengelberg: Yeah. And that’s really what the book is about. Because I couldn’t find that story. As an avid reader, I had found stories of people that had had these tragedies happen to them and had risen to the challenge. dealt with it by changing their desires, and doing what they needed to do. I knew when my health and own health started to fail. And my sense of self and my sense of confidence that I could raise these kids and I could keep our house household together and I could do this in the car. and it’s just there was none. I felt terrified about the prospect of him coming home. We had a smallish house. I just felt like he needed 24/7 supervision. He was very impulsive and very incontinent at the time. He had seizures. He, he just was he was it, you know, saying he was like a child is, it’s not terribly accurate, but it’s as close as I can get. He just you know how children just don’t have these. They don’t have impulse control. They don’t have filters. That was that describes David, even to this day. So I when my health started to fail, and I ended up being hospitalized as well. I had a meeting with a social worker, because we were making arrangements for him to come home, his coming home had been postponed because of my illness. And I came home weighing like 100 pounds. Because an eating disorder I’d had kicked in as well. And she basically gave me the permission to consider other options. She said, why don’t we have him go into a brain injury rehab facility for a little while? And I said, No, no, no, no, no, I can’t do that. He’s, he’s my husband, it’s my job to take care of him. I’m a nice Jewish girl. This is what we do. I mean, I know that sounds a little, I don’t know, kitschy or something. But it’s true. That’s how I felt I felt that it was my duty. And there, I couldn’t imagine any other option. And yet she opened that door, she gave me permission to consider that other avenue and, and I told myself, this is just temporary. And it just bought me a little time to recover myself. And perhaps for him to get even that much more improved and his physical and cognitive health. But then, as time went on, I and he kept having physical issues. Primarily, he kept him well actually, both he, at one point he did what they call, elope he tried to leave he, he just started walking out of the facility and down the road. And it felt horrible. It felt like I was a jailer of some kind. His family was very angry with me. They, I was accused of being his jailer of being a warden, and keeping him in a place with other crazy people, you know, instead of bringing him home where he would be better off but I knew and in my heart, in my soul in my everything that I would implode. And our whole family therefore would implode if he came home. And so I made that decision to not having come home. Yeah. And so I kind of gave away the books ending. But there is there is more to it, of course, because it’s my journey on that decision toward that decision that I think is important that there are so many people these days, I think you and probably everyone who’s listening to this, either themselves or know someone who has been put in a position of being a caregiver, to a degree where it was very hard on them. And in, in my I dedicated my book to caregivers because I really believe they’re heroes, even the ones that are being paid for it. Because maybe it’s it’s such a heroic act. It’s it’s it’s so selfless. And it wasn’t all I all I could give was to to my kids. All I all I had was to take care of myself and my kids. I didn’t have the bandwidth, if you will to to be that caregiver that that David needed. So.

Ari: So although, although he decided at the end of the day, not to be his caregiver. All right, you didn’t totally give up on him. You did help him in other ways. What tell us about that?

Rachel Mengelberg: Yes, absolutely. I lest I sound like some kind of villain. I really, I asked myself this question, What can I do? And I know that that’s again, that’s sort of a basic question that therapists might ask their their patients, you know, well, rather than beating yourself up for what you can’t do, why don’t you really focus on what you can do? So what I decided I could do became that he was in a facility in a At town about a half an hour away from us, which is really it was really doable. And every time I could I had the facility they would, they had a service where they would bring him up to visit us, either our house where we had dinner, usually on Sundays, just because that was the easiest day for everyone people were home, or if the kids were in a performance or had a baseball game or Karate, you know, tournament or something, whatever. It was some some event at school, Bar Mitzvah, or bat mitzvah, they David was there for those actually by then he was he’d already moved to Israel. That’s, I’ll get to the end of the story in a second. But He currently lives he’s still alive. And he lives in Israel with his sister, near Tel Aviv. So what So in answer to your question, that was one of the things I could do. And the other thing was to go visit him and to take the family on outings, we would go to BestBuy by a charging cable, you know, that was a big event, right? We would go we would go to a restaurant, but going to a restaurant was actually really stressful because he didn’t walk well, his back injuries never really healed very well. He, he would be inappropriate. I’m never to the point where it was. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t violent. But there was so much unpredictability, again, that it was stressful. And then, of course, I was dealing with my small children too at the same time. One time, I remember, my daughter was some somewhere else. And I took my son and I took them to a nearby State Park and we went on this hike, and hike. And I remember driving up there and realizing I have no cell signal. If my set my seven year old, you know, breaks his ankle or, you know, what am I going to do? Like? Or what if David falls? Or you know, and so I realized, what am I thinking I can’t do this hike, right? It’s just it just, it changes so much about the way that how you view like what a family life should be? Or what you expected of it. I know I meandered a little bit but

Ari: know, that’s fine. But basically, I mean, more what I’m getting out of this is that although you know caregiving was was out of the question, alright, kind of keeping the family together and making sure that he knows who his kids are making sure that the kids know he is that was something that you’ve that you’ve done. And that is also I mean, that’s a major accomplishment, you know, and try, you know, trying to keep the family together. That’s also important. Look, not everybody can do everything, you know, in the I just reminds me of the Clint Eastwood, what are the Clint Eastwood movies with 30 Harry where he goes, man’s got to know his limitations. You know, so, you know, you and and look, I understand that you realize what, that you had limitations, and you knew that you couldn’t, you know, do the things that that you although you may have wanted to do them. Okay. You know, it was just beyond your scope, which is fine. Okay, because like I said, You were you’re helping in other ways, keeping the family together, making sure the kids make sure is there for the bar mitzvahs for the parties for all these things. And that is also very, very important. Now, let me ask you this. Okay. What prompted you to write your book? First of all, tell us a little bit what was the name of the book THE CRASH

Rachel Mengelberg: CRASH, which of course implies is his crash, but mainly my crash, right? Oh, interest how I and then the subtitle is how I became a reluctant caregiver. And it’s does seem a little bit ironic, because I’m, I’ve been speaking for the last several minutes about how I didn’t become his caregiver. However, I was, as you say, a caregiver of a sort. It just wasn’t the one who was there, helping him to the bathroom every single day and making sure he got his meds and you know, all of the above it wasn’t that it was a different. It was a different format. And so and I remember having a conversation with the director of the brain injury facility where he was and it was a town called Gilroy. And, and she asked if I wanted to go to this brain injury seminar, it was a one day seminar and for caregivers, and I said, Well, I’m not his caregiver. And she looked at me and she said, Oh my God, yes, you are. are even though as I say, you’re not you’re not doing it in the conventional sense. So, so that’s why my publisher and I went back and forth about the title at first it was like, a memoir of motherhood, guilt. And I can’t remember the third one. But it really it. I think guilt is is a is a very important theme in my book about the, what I expected myself what society expected of me and what I what I did or didn’t do. Shame enters in there too. But what prompted me I think, and I didn’t start writing it until about three and a half years after the accident. I, I have no real training as a writer, you know, I, I, as you said, I’m a I’m a singer, I teach voice I, I been a performer and actor all my life. I was a cantor, a cantorial soloist, meaning, I My degree is in music, not not in, not in cantorial studies. And so I had to, I had to figure out how to do it. But I knew that there was a story I felt like because like I said earlier, because I had found other stories about people with tragic tragic things happening to them who and telling the story of their journey to either they personally wrote it, their journey to overcome it, or their caregivers journey, how the caregiver rose to be the caregiver, those demands, my story was so different, it was, in a way the anti hero. And I felt that it was important to give people like me a voice that that you can have self respect by making a different decision. A choosing a different path than is expected of you. Or, or in hindsight, you should have done something differently. I felt it was important that that story be told. And what I was very much afraid of was that it would come across as whiny or complaining that you know catching that, that Oh, poor me and and everyone who read it in a Vance of the drafts, different drafts was very, was very clear that it didn’t read that way. I just wanted to tell my story. This is what happened. This is the decision I made. This is how I felt about it. This is how I got through it. So that’s that’s why I wrote it. But again, I had to learn how I had I started by just taking classes and just starting I started in the middle, I started with the scene of that social worker telling me I didn’t have to take him home that one day.

Ari: Well, so it took you three and a half years, I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. My book that I wrote, took me nine years to decide to write it. All right, I don’t write it, that my book came out on the 10th anniversary of 911. So, okay, so

Rachel Mengelberg: how long did it take you to write?

Ari: It took me about nine months to write it.

Rachel Mengelberg: Mine took 11 years. You mean, in the first category, I went in this big?

Ari: Let me ask you something. Who is the one person you can point to? That you would say had the most influence on your life? And why? And I’m not talking about your husband obviously. Because, you know, you know, that was just like something that obviously, he didn’t do that on purpose. Okay. But, you know, there must have been somebody in your life that you point to and say, you know, without that person, I never would have made it or you know, that’s the person that gave me the strength or who would that person be?

Rachel Mengelberg: Yeah, so usually when people ask me that question, I talk about my my high school choir teacher Ah, just because of his encouragement for me to sing. But but your your your question base had two parts and in retrospect, in retrospect, looking back now, and having just spoken about my book for the pet and my story for the past, however many minutes I believe that it really was my therapist and I started seeing her actually, when I was 19. My mother was an alcoholic, and I was blaming myself. And so I started therapy when I was 19. And I know the same person. Yeah. But I, I saw her on and off over the years, she just happened to live in that same area where I live in and, and I think it’s having that safe space to go whenever I needed to, and get, get that mirror back, get those questions asked that, that forced me to look back inside and just tell the truth. And really tell the truth without filters, you know, without worrying about how it’s going to come across. I have that such a safe space to do that. And once I did that, you know, you can’t really turn back. I couldn’t. So I do believe that my therapist got me through it. And through other things in my life, I you know, the eating disorder, as I said, my parents divorce. My mother’s alcoholism. You know, we all we all have burdens, as you said at the beginning, those bricks, that, you know, some sometimes they’re little and they just crumble when they hit you. And sometimes they’re massive, like, like your experience. And this experience with the plane crash the brick was ginormous, gigantic. Yeah. And you it altered you and you know me completely forever. And most of us, well, some of us can weather it if we have the right support system and know where to turn to, to get that. So I would say my therapist.

Ari: Okay, so let me ask you this, before we go. Any words of wisdom that you can share with my audience, something they can take away? Something that can help them?

Rachel Mengelberg: You know, I, I didn’t really know what whispers and bricks was. And when we explained it in the beginning of this i i feel like you know, when the whispers when the bricks are coming at you, listen, the whispers are still there, even if they’re very soft. Listen to them. And that whisper was telling me it’s okay to give myself permission to consider an option that isn’t popular. That isn’t what’s expected. Give yourself permission, at least to to open yourself up to other options. If you feel trapped, if you feel that there’s no way out of a situation that you’re being forced into. Then there’s, there are little glimmers that you can follow that may be more true to what who you are and what you want to do.

Ari: Wow. That is that sounds like great, great advice. Now if people want to get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to do that? Do you have like a website? If you have an email or social media?

Rachel Mengelberg:I have a website. It’s my name. Rachel Michael Berg. author.com. I don’t know if you’re going to put it. In fact, let me spell it. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Rachel is our AC H E L. M, like Mary? i c h e. L. B like boy, e r g. author.comRachel Mengelberg author.com.

It’s also Rachel M. author@gmail.com. At gmail.com. Yeah. And my book is available. It’s distributed traditionally, or so it’s available through any bookstore any. And I believe it might be on sale right now. The Kindle version for 99 cents. Oh, wow. Is it at the one year anniversary my publisher does? Does a 99 cent sale. Oh, wow. It might have gone up starting today. Sorry.

Ari: There you go. All right. I hear you. I hear you, Rachel. Thank thanks so much for sharing your story with my audience. I know that there are people out there that are in the same boat that you’re in wondering, you know, can they make that decision as well? I think you coming out is very, very brave. It’s very strong, that you come out and say look, I know my limitations. Okay. And I don’t need to feel guilty about the fact that I have limitations because I do what I do. I can do I do what I can do and what I can’t do, I don’t do and You know, there’s something to be said for that. I mean, again, not everybody, not everybody, Superman and not everybody’s Batman. Okay, it takes, you know, different kinds of people

Rachel: in this world. In fact, most of us aren’t

Ari: the Yeah, that’s very true. That’s very true. But anyway, listen, good luck going forward. So you’re now you’ve remarried, correct?

Rachel: Yes, I remarried. I married a physicist. He’s working on Dark Matter discovery. Wow. Goes right over my head. Yes. My kids. My kids are 24 and 23. doing really well with graduated college. And, yeah, I’m still singing still. Doing a little writing not as much.

Ari: Wow. Okay. Well, thanks so much. Good luck going forward. I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your story. You were listening to whispers in bricks and I’m your host Gary Sherman. Remember if you feel like you’re stuck in the mud like you’re spinning your wheels wasting time and your career your business your life. You know you’re not enjoyable success, satisfaction significance that you desire, then it’s time for you to book a call with me at call with ari.com Check out my whispers of bricks Coaching Academy and until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams.

 

Joe Templin Learning To Adapt

Summary:

Joe Templin has had a very successful and varied career but one of the bricks he learned the most from was having a child with special needs. His son has Autism and both his sons have ADHD. Helping his sons navigate the world has taught him lessons that not only help his children deal with change but help his business clients deal with the unknown. He reminds us to not only embrace change but plan ahead for it. His story reminds us that no matter the bricks we face we can find ways to adapt and thrive. 

Show notes:

https://everyday-excellence.com/meetjoe/

Episode Transcription

Intro Plays

  

Ari:  Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Ari Schonbrun and I’m your hosts. My guest today is Joe Templin. He calls himself a reformed physicist, financial planner, startup founder and autodidactic polymath that best describes is best described as a Swiss army knife. Say that three times fast. Joe Tillman has invested the past two and a half plus decades to helping others reach their financial potential as a planner, trainer, mentor and creator. Joe has served as a member of naifa The National Association of insurance and financial advisors on the local, state and national level, and including three terms on the naifa National Young advisors team subcommittee, and was honored as one of the 2011 for under 40 is a graduate of the leadership and Life Institute of naifa as well as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and is an alum of Johns Hopkins University. George is CFP and has written hundreds of review questions for the exam. He has been a business columnist for the Albany Times unions, advisor today magazine, and insurance news net Joe earned is a certified executive counselor designation as well as his certified master executive caseloads. 2021. Joe is currently a vice president of the Autism Society of the greater capital region. He is also the managing director of the unique minds Consulting Group, and is the author of everyday excellence, the Kindle number one new release in professional development. Joe is the co founder and president of the intro machine Inc, an organization dedicated to teaching professionals in a variety of fields, how to build an introduction based business. He has spoken all across the US and Canada on ethical business development in his free time. I don’t know where he gets that from. Joe enjoys running ultra marathons, Crazy guy. And as a fourth Dawn from the Koch kick won in Seoul Korea. I don’t know what that is. And former international champion. He lives in gainsford New York with his hooligan boys, Danny, Liam and Colin. They’re huge Yankee fans. Please help me welcome Joe temple template.

Joe: You’re gonna read all that I just like make up something. Make it sound like I’ve done something.

Ari: Yeah, well, you know what? I wasn’t going to read all that. But I need to fill fill some airspace. You

 

Joe: know what I mean? Okay. Air to try and be slightly amusing.

Ari: Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it. How are you? Okay, how are you, Joe? I’m doing well. How you doing my friend. I’m getting better. Always better, always gets better.

 

Joe: You know what, that’s American optimism right there. Love it. Here

Ari: you go. There you go. Okay. Now, as you know, the name of this podcast is whispers of bricks, whispers of those voices telling us what the right thing to do is and they represent the good in life. The bricks represent the bad things we go through in life. And let’s be real, everybody has bricks thrown at them at some point in time or another in their lifetime. Some more bricks, some less bricks, some bigger, some smaller. Now there’s always you

 

Joe: should take those bricks and build a castle out of them. Like, you know, defend it and get rid of the bad guys.

Ari: They go. I don’t know why I think of that. There were several reasons why ESRI my guests on the show. After our initial conversation. I knew there were people in my audience who go through some of the same things that you were going through. They had been here with brick after brick, much like what you had gone through. And they needed to hear it to know that they could get through the trials and tribulations, the same way that you did. They needed to know that there are whispers out there that could save them. Now in your life, you’ve had many bricks thrown at you. But let’s start with a little background info to start with. To start with. Your mom was in nun. Your dad was a military man. Your they had six kids. Six of us

Joe: that survived. Yeah. Tell us about that. So my mom was a farm kid. She was the youngest of seven growing up in upstate New York. And my dad went to RPI, which is part of the reason I ended up there. He started in 1958 because of Sputnik when they decided the US government decided to start putting a lot more investment into technology to beat the Russians. So my dad went on ROTC scholarship to RPI graduated, got commissioned. As a butter bar and the US Army infantry, and then three months later was the bad pigs incident. Oh, okay. Then we started to ramp up with this little thing called Vietnam. I remember that well, yeah. So that’s, you know, my dad, mom and dad met on a blind date arranged by my mom’s older sister who’s my godmother, to and her boyfriend, who was my dad’s fraternity Big Brother. They went on a blind date. They did a whole bunch of times that my mom decided, screw this. I’m going into the convent.

Ari: Oh, so. So she was she she was dating first. And then she became a nun. I thought she was a nun. And then

Joe: out of the convent started dating my dad again,

 

Ari: how long? How long was she in the continent?

Joe: I don’t know, this is before I was born. So obviously, now that most of my aunts and uncles have passed on, I can’t get the right story anywhere. Okay. But then, like, they got engaged, she gives the ring back because back into the convent, she was in the comment, like two or three times I think it was three is what system. And eventually, Sister Margaret’s like, you’re gonna marry John. And she ended up marrying my dad. And there’s six of us. And, you know, they lived happily ever after until my mom eventually developed cancer from smoking two packs a day probably from dealing with six kids, and passing on about eight years ago.

Ari: And how old was she when she passed on? 

Joe: She was 73. 

Ari: 73 All right. Well, I think let’s let’s go back to I think this was the first major break that you got hit with was the age of 10. When you were, as you said, quote, unquote, legally dead from asthma. Can you tell us

 

Joe: about this? Well, you know, there were lots of bricks leading up to that with the various asthma attacks. Because back in the early 1970s, I mean, they didn’t have the puffers that they have now, and all that. So if you were having an asthma attack, you’d need like a shot of adrenaline, or, you know, they would do one of those things where they were basically blowing adrenaline and steroids directly into your lungs, and then they’d stick in an oxygen tent for a week and all that. So I was having a real bad asthma attack. I was 10 years old, we go see Doc Murray, I’m laying there on the examination table, and all sudden, I no longer had a tight chest and I’m floating on up and there’s the big light and everything I’m looking down, Doc Marie becomes like an octopus with all these arms. And he’s like, going like this, and my mom’s freaking out. And I heard you know, the big deep voice. It’s not yet time then as back down my body and just, you know, having trouble breathing and off to the hospital. Wow.

Ari: Wow. So you saw the bright light?

Joe: Yeah, I saw the bright light. And that’s part of the reason why I’m like this today. No, not completely insane. That’s from other things. But because, you know, if you get a second chance like that, and this is one of the things that, you know, I’d love to hear from about your story a little bit on this. When you get that second chance at life. You don’t waste it. I mean, we get 86,400 seconds a day. Doesn’t matter. If you’re Bill Gates, or a kid in college, you get the same amount and you can’t like bank some for next week when you know you’re going to need them. So I as my friend say, burn the candle at both ends and in the middle. And so I accomplished more typically in one year than most people do in a decade. And that’s just the way it is because I’m nonstop.

Ari: Wow, wow. Well, I do know that you are an underachiever because you started college at the ripe old age of 13.

Joe: Right, because my parents said 12 was too young to start college. Ah,

Ari: okay, so you were an underachiever. 13 years old. You started college? What I mean, what was? How did that come about? Like, were you just bored in school? Did they? Did they

Joe: there was partially that? Yeah. And so like, my mom actually refused to tell me what my IQ scores ever were. But I found out that they were, you know, the first digit determine what I saw was a two. So I used to be wicked smart. But I told my mom was like eight years old that I want to learn everything that there was no and she’s like, Well, you better get started, you know. So, to this day, I have that attitude. And that’s part of the reason why I’m an autodidactic polymath is that I get fascinated by everything, whether it’s finance, physics, psychology, so I am a sponge when it comes to learning and a lot of things have come From that it made me a very good intelligence officer. It’s helped me as a writer makes me always, you know, everyone’s first choice at trivia night in the pub. So I’ve learned and just had this absolute desire to experience and learn things from even before I had the encounter, as we’ll call it. And so that’s carried forward in a lot of ways. So the Johns Hopkins University was introducing a special program in the 1980s, which we nicknamed genius camp. And I was one of the first people in upstate New York to be involved with it with my Irish twin, my older brother, Jay. And so at 13 years old, I was taking college classes.

Ari: So what was it like being Sheldon?

Joe: It’s funny saying that, because then later on, I went into applied physics. So everybody’s like, Oh, you know, the big bang theory that’s like you template on it. And I have never actually seen an entire episode of that. And well, even though the it’s funny, because it’s true. GIF is my favorite gift to use on other people.

Ari: Yeah. So what was just, you know, just to veer off a little bit, what was it? Like? I mean, you’re 13 years old, you’re going to college? I mean, with guys that are 1819 20. How is how did you I’d

Joe: always been exposed to people who are older because my mom was the youngest. And she had us when she was relatively older. So my cousins were all five 815 years older than me. So I grew up with them as my models, not always necessarily good models. But I mean, my mom said that when I was like two years old, and she was teaching my cousin and helping her with her high school biology homework, I was dancing around and singing about deoxy ribonucleic acid, and my cousin wanted to strangle me. And then later on that cousin was actually head of the science department at high school I went to, so that sort of laid the groundwork. Like I designed an atomic bomb was 11 years old, maybe I was 12. And I asked my mom, if she could give me any radioactive material because she was former radiation biologist. She wanted to know why I explained. So of course, she said, No. I mean, I wanted to get a chemistry set. She’s like, Okay, you need to take high school chemistry first. So I took high school chemistry, did really well. I’m like, where’s my chemistry said, she’s like, You need to take AP Chem. Before I do that. I’m like, Alright, so I took AP Chemistry, I got five on the exam. And like, where’s my chemistry set? She’s like, You’re too dangerous now. So of course, I ended up going into physics, and working for the government designing weapons. So this is what happens if you don’t give your kid a chemistry set. You’re going over atomic bombs and stuff like that. So according to the parents, it’s like that scene from NCIS. Where again, is, you know, back seeing his dad and his dad, when when take the rifle away was a kid. So he ended up becoming a navy sniper. It’s just like that give you the chemistry set. All right, we’ll get a copy of the NRCS cookbook, and then go and be an Intel officer. All right.

Ari: Let’s fast forward. Now you have three children, two of whom are actually special needs. Yes. Tell us, you know that that must have been very interesting, you know, trying to raise three kids, two of whom are special needs. You must have acquired some kind of, you know, skills that most parents would not have acquired. That’s what it was like, tell us what you did tell us, you know, how you how you how you dealt with it?

Joe: Well, before my mom died, and this is before my youngest, are either more diagnosed as autistic. I used to call her up and I’d be like, Mom, I’m so sorry. And she’s like, which one? And would they do this time? Because, you know, she used to say that she would curse me with what just like myself, and I got three of them. So there is that going on? So my youngest was diagnosed first. And he was diagnosed with autism and ADHD simultaneously. And he had horrible eyesight, so he could like barely see and he had sensory issues. So in kindergarten, first grade, it was like having a drunk toddler in Vegas with the overstimulation. And like, every time I turned around, I was getting a call from the school app to come pick him up. He ran from a bus, you know, he got thrown out for a day for throwing rocks at kid. He got thrown out three summer programs in a one week and a half week period, because of just having this uncontrolled bull. Not just energy, but in ability to relate to other individuals. And so we got him diagnosed and then that was actually a great thing. Because once we know what’s wrong, you’re not wrong, but why he’s different because he’s not Ron, he’s just difficult. He’s, he says he says he’s immune, he has super power. So I go, and he does have some, you know, incredible intellectual abilities. So, but then we were able to start dealing with, we were starting to, we’re able to get the school social worker, we’re starting to learn strategies, I reached out to autistic communities, I talked with one of my friends, who’s a highly successful physicist and executive, and he’s got us on it. And so he was, in many ways my mentor through there. So when I was having bad days, I could call him. And when he was having bad days, Jason would call me. And we will be able to support each other on this. So that’s one of the things in the special needs community, whether it’s a neurological special needs like mine, or I’ve got a friend whose son had a rare foreign pediatric cancer, or who’s got kids have diabetes, finding your tribe, your support group that you guys can swap stories, and ideas. And you know, shoulders is a major, major thing. So my Cub Scout pack, I’d say a quarter of my kids are special needs in some capacity. So some of the things that I’ve been, I’ve learned over time, I actually sit down with the parents, I’m like, Hey, you might want to try this. Here’s an idea that, you know, we’ve used as worked. And they’re like, Thank God for this because one, the kids, we accept all kids, it doesn’t matter how weird they are in Cub Scouts. And some of them are really weird that there’s no excuse. They’re just strange heads. But that’s awesome. There’s still, we still love them. But it gives the kids peers and kids who are a little bit older that they can model off of because this, like, with my kids, my youngest and my oldest are on the spectrum, my oldest can be highly disruptive, to say the least. And so my youngest models off of him. So having other kids a year or two ahead of him three years ahead of him, that he can see and have a different path that he can walk because of that is a very good thing. So any of your listeners who have children that are on the spectrum, or have these emotional support needs, I would recommend that they find organizations like that, or groups like that, where the kids can see better influences better behavior, if it’s whether it’s the older kids, or the leadership around it, so that they can have this image of this is the better way overall. So in terms of strategies, one of the strategies that I picked up from Jason that I’ve applied with my youngest son, and actually I apply in business all the time that I teach my clients is playing the white F game. Because with autistic kids, they very often have this checklist in their head of how things are gonna go they write their narrative, which is part of the reason why some of them don’t like to read fiction because the plot twists, we do throw a wrench in their works. And if something does not go the way that they have scripted in their head, that’s part of the time that they have big meltdowns and some of the issues. So what I did with my son is we learned to play the what if game. So we’re gonna go to your favorite restaurant on your birthday, buddy. What are we going to do? If they are close? What if they are closed? What’s the backup plan? And he helps develop that plan. So he’s buying in? So he has emotional invested interest in Okay, da, if the sunsets closed, we’re gonna go ahead and race. All right, good. Now what if we go to sunset? And you want to have nachos? You said your favorite food? Yes. Okay, what if they don’t have nachos? What are you going to do? I’m going to do this. And so it allows him to plan out what he can do in terms of alternative paths. If what he is foreseeing is not happening. And this reduces the stress and allows him to be comfortable. So if you’re going on like a plane trip, or if you’re planning a night out or planning something, taking a couple of minutes to sit there and play the what if game, on the most likely disruptions helps reduce that stress level and helps them cope. So with my clients, my business owners, I teach them to this Okay, what if this sale does not go through? What if the client says acts in response to your presentation, and it allows us to essentially roleplay alternatives beforehand so that these clients are better prepared, if something Then comes from left field. And the origin of this actually, in some ways goes all the way back to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The victorious general

conducts 1000s of calculations in his fortress era, he marches out to battle, if you played this game and figure out the alternatives and what could happen, and what your responses are, it allows you to think two or three steps ahead, sort of like a chess grandmaster. And this way, no matter what is occurring, in this situation, you are at least somewhat prepared for the outcome. And so you can control and get what you need.

 

Ari: It’s absolutely brilliant. I mean, it’s, I mean, ah, I gotta be honest with you, I mean, all that That’s brilliant. Something that I think everybody could, could learn from. Now, in, but when we had our time, just you and I, and we were talking, you mentioned something, you have another, you have another another way of dealing with situations, and that’s called the reset button. Yeah, tell us about the reset button.

Joe: So the reset button is actually something that we as big people can use, if our days spiraling out of control, we’ve all had that day where it’s the absolute horrible, no good day where it starts with you spilling coffee on yourself on the commute. Maybe you have a flat tire, though, the computer’s not working properly, you get the call for you know, disrupting things. And it’s just spiraling out of control. And we need to, if it’s like dominoes, going, you know, being knocked over, we need to put a hand there to stop the fall. We need to literally pause everything and be able to take a deep breath, and rewind and reset. So when my youngest is having a really bad morning, when he gets up, it happens sometimes he didn’t sleep well, maybe you know, his brothers were being jerks, which, if you have older brothers, you know that they are jerks, that’s part of their responsibility. So whatever it is, if he’s having a bad start to the day, before that can spiral out of control, and he takes it to school or whatever. I literally say, alright, buddy, we’re going to hit the reset button. And we go back to his room, he takes his glasses off, puts them on his nightstand, shoes off, crawls back into bed, I tuck him in real tight, because a lot of kids with sensory issues like almost being swaddled like babies, because it makes them comfortable. It helps them to calm down. So I swaddle him in real tight, tuck him in, turn the lights out, and I walk out. And I come back in. Two minutes later, three minutes later, I basically wake him up as if it’s a brand new day, we forgotten all the crap that happened in that 1015 minutes or half hour would that was up. And you know, being nasty, or whatever. So we just play it forward from that when I wake them up, you know, with sweet smile. Hey, man, come on, let’s get up. No, we’re running a little bit late today, but it’s gonna be a good day. And we just I just literally give them a chance to restart it with a fresh slate.

Ari: Wow, that’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Let me ask you this. Was there ever a point in your life where you, you’d suck like solo. He said, You know what? I just I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard. You know? I’m not giving up on my dreams. And if yes, how did you overcome?

Joe: Okay, I have to admit, I hit that point multiple times every single week, because my goals are so big. When you’re trying to change the world when you’re trying to, you know, break through records, be an Olympian, when you’re trying to do incredible things, the world beats you down, and people try and drag you down, and you’re trying to do things that haven’t been done before. There’s risk. So that means that you can fail and if you fail over and over again, it can beat you down, especially if you got somebody chirping in your ear, blah, blah, blah. So what you need to do is, as Frederick EJ said, if the man has a strong enough why he will overcome it anyhow. So there are days where I’m like, God, can I do this again? I don’t want his or like, you know, I had a big client cancel on five hours notice the other day, five hours supposed to give me 30 days notice five hours and say nope, not paying an entire month’s worth of you know, revenue gone. And then I had a couple other minor incidents that were negative who like immediately after, and it could have literally spun me out of control. What I do, alright, I went outside and went for a walk around the block I took a deep breath. And I looked at nature because one of the things in human society, we build things that are very linear. I mean, you can see my bookcases behind me. And the doorframe and the walls. It’s all straight lines and linear just like in a school, or an office or a prison. Nature does not do that. Nature is all curved. Okay, look at your tree, look at a river, look at rocks, Okay, hello, my tree. So go walk, we look at your tree, walk around, okay, because one, when you’re getting a little bit of physical activity, the blood flows, and it helps your brain clear out negative chemicals, and reset and it helps reset your attitude. But also the visual change of seeing different things walking around looking at the texture, maybe getting some wind on your face, feeling the sun, all that helps reset you in some ways. So I do that. And I remind myself, the why, why am I doing this? What is so important? I mean, like, as they say, in The Princess Bride, when miracle Max is trying to revive, Wesley, you know what you got to live for? Okay, remind yourself, what is your mission? Because if you are that involved in that engrossed in your mission, then yeah, you’re gonna have bad days, but you’re going to get yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going.

Ari: You know, when I was when I first started my career, I had a mentor. And he gave me this advice, which has stuck with me for the last 40 years or so. And he said to me, I always remember one thing, those who know how, will always, always, always work for those who know why. Exactly. Brilliant, just brilliant. And that has stuck with me, you know, and that’s how I’ve tried to model my life, you know, you got to know yet you have to know the why. The how we can always teach but the why. Exactly why

Joe; or as I teach people, there’s the skill set and the will set. Okay, and so, you know, your will set is informed by your why your why is your mission, your will set is the guts, the determination, and you will get up at Oh, dark, 32 Train to develop your skills, if the will is there. And the weapons from that, why as Muhammad Ali said, champions are not made in the ring. They’re made in the dark, before dawn. And that’s what then ultimately comes into manifestation while others can see. I mean, six year old Cassius Clay was champion of the world in his mind, right? It took him until he was 22 years old to actually win the title, youngest title holder ever at that point. But he had that belief that why and then did the work around it. I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger asked them, How many sit ups do you do? Every day? And Muhammad Ali told Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don’t know I don’t start counting until it hurts. Because he was that mid to dry? Should sure because of the vision.

Ari: So So what are you doing now?

 

Joe: I’m sitting on my butt.

Ari: Oh, very smart. So you’re basically you’re a coach,

Joe: I coach. I don’t do much financial advising anymore. It’s more working with advisors agency. So I’m basically helping develop these people, because it’s a leverage play. I could go and I could help 3050 new clients a year on my own. Or I can go and work with, you know, a couple of dozen agencies and 30 or 40 individual reps, and they can each go help 30 to 50. And so instead of helping 50 families a year, I can reach 500 Plus families. I can. And that’s one of the reasons why I ended up writing the book is because I think that through the book and podcasts like this and talking with individuals, I can actually reach out and help impact 10 million people a year.

Ari: Yeah, so that was gonna be my next question. Tell us about the book that you wrote. What is it called?

Joe: It’s called everyday excellence. And it’s designed to be a multivitamin for life. Because every single day, we have all these different components of our life that we need to try and improve upon. Whether it’s our communication, whether it’s our occupation, physical health, mental health, help our nutrition Are our families. So every single day, we’re basically fighting entropy, the universe wants to make us worse over time, you know, because we get lazy, we’re human things happen. So, everyday excellence is designed to help people get better on multiple parameters on daily basis, so that at the end of a week, month year, we can be in a better position. Overall, I call it human Kaizen, Kaizen being the Japanese idea of continuous improvement that was applied to engineering and manufacturing, we can turn around and apply this to ourselves, and our families, our occupation, our relationships, and ultimately put ourselves in a much better position.

Ari: Now, if you had to point to one person who had the most effect on you in your life, who would that be and why?

Joe: I know they’re at different stages in our life, different people come into it that are important to us. So for about a decade, it was my taekwondo master Danny Grant, who my oldest kids named after, because he was teaching me, you know, the reinforcing the discipline, and the guts, and you know, going beyond anything that you knew, working on your skill set, he also taught me to be a great communicator, as an instructor. So for a while it was that for a long period, obviously, it was my mom, because she embedded in me, the love of learning, and the hard work, you know, growing up on the farm, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. So that translates to the work ethic that I maintain to this day. For the past 10 years, it’s been my dad being there to help guidance support male always. So there’s no one person that I can say over my entire life, except my mom, because she obviously brought me into this world. And as she’s always said, I can take you out make no one looks just like you. But I used to say, well, because I don’t look like my brothers and sisters, because I’m tall and they’re not. I’m like, Well, my real mommy’s a Space Princess. And someday she’s gonna come and get me. She’s like, I’ll help you pack. So that’s the relationship that I got flat spot in the back my head, Virgo like me all the time. But that was one of the things that I my mom taught me and I’ve taught my kids is she used to say sometimes I love you. But I don’t like you very much right now, when I was not making good choices. And, you know, somebody asked us her, which one of her kids was the favorite? And she’s like, Oh, I hate them all equally. Yeah. And so I tell my kids that and my youngest actually responded, yes. But you love us all differently. And I think that is, you know, this is my autistic kid incredible insight. Because you need to if you have multiple kids, they’re different people. If you have multiple people work in your office, they’re different individuals, absolutely. People in your life. You love them differently as they need to be loved. And if you can adopt that mentality, you can actually go pretty far.

Ari: Wow, I think those are, you know, tremendous words of advice, tremendous words of wisdom. Something that definitely my audience needed to hear. Now, if people want to get a hold of you, how would they do that? You have a website you have emailed yet social media, tell us tell us, how does one get in touch with Joe template.

Joe: So go to the website, which is every day dash excellence.com There’s a Contact Us button there. Also, I put up four or five microblogs per week. So little one, two minute quick edits that are out there to just help people out. You can follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Those are both at Ed E with Joe. So at Ed E for everyday excellence with Joe and those are the best ways to turn around find me or you can just go to the local Irish pub and might be sitting there.