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Starting Over Strong: David Lewis on Career Pivots and Personal Renewal · Healthy Happy Wise Wealthy

• 0:05
  Hi,
• 0:06
  everybody.
• 0:28
  This
• 0:32
  episode of Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy, I have with us Dave.
• 0:35
  Dave Lewis or David Lewis. Are you going by Dave? You
• 0:39
  know what? My friends and family, people I've known for a long time call me
• 0:42
  David. And so Dave's kind of my radio, tv,
• 0:46
  broadcasting, media name, so I'm fine with either.
• 0:50
  We're friends. We're family now, so you can go with David. That's right, I can
• 0:53
  go with David. I've been calling you David. So there you go. So I
• 0:56
  know David from. From work. We both work at a local television
• 1:00
  station, KOLO. TV in Reno. We both got there the same
• 1:04
  time. And as I was thinking through the kind of the.
• 1:08
  What I like to do on this podcast is talk about life
• 1:11
  pivots and life changes a lot. That's part of it is. And. And also
• 1:15
  just living healthy and making decisions that are
• 1:19
  healthy, moving forward with health, wealth, wisdom, all those kind of
• 1:23
  things, but especially when life doesn't necessarily go as planned.
• 1:27
  And right now, David and I, I found
• 1:31
  out, are both giving talks in August about that
• 1:35
  pivots and transitions. So I'm doing one on August 6th with the
• 1:39
  Creator's Conference Mini Monthly. It's a brand new
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  thing in Reno for creatives. And I'm calling it the Painful
• 1:46
  Pivot to the Powerful Pivot.. I like that.
• 1:50
  That's great title. Thanks.
• 1:53
  Whoa. Well, we came up with that on the fly. I tell you
• 1:57
  what, I just sat down, met her for. For wine. We
• 2:01
  didn't do coffee, we did wine. And all of a sudden we had a whole
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  conference set up. And, you know, so
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  the title was Wine Inspired. The title
• 2:12
  probably was Wine
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  Inspired. Right.
• 2:17
  Probably shouldn't say that. Well, and then David is
• 2:20
  giving a talk at the National Automobil Museum. I don't
• 2:24
  you think the. The automobile museum here in Reno is national? What do
• 2:28
  you think? Do you think they just add that on for fun? Hey,
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  I'm stuck in there. I'm not gonna let you.
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  It's such a cool place. I was looking at that. I'm like, is this the
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  only. Is this the only automobile museum in. The US in the nation is
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  what it is. I think it is very, very cool. No, I think it's super,
• 2:47
  super cool. And they do such a good job of doing events. So
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  yours is called. Okay, you tell me the name
• 2:54
  you are. It's never too late to start over. You're enough. It's never too
• 2:57
  late to start over. Is that right? Yeah. Mine was not wine
• 3:01
  inspired. Well, shoot,
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  yeah. Maybe I could have done better, you know, with it. If you would have
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  had a glass of wine, maybe they'll do that. I've. I know I've been
• 3:12
  to events there with wine, so you never know. You could, you could, you could
• 3:15
  let them know about that. So that's on August 12th. August 12th at
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  6? That's correct. Both at 6. So here we go. We'll see how we do.
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  Are you nervous to give your speech? I saw how they
• 3:25
  described what that talk is going to be about. I said, man, I better be
• 3:28
  good. They made it sound like, you know, it's must
• 3:32
  see, appointment, speechy speak. So
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  I got to be there and I got to get bring my A game. So
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  I got a lot of work to do. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm going to let
• 3:42
  you talk now. Tell us about. I want you to just kind of tell us
• 3:45
  about what got you to be a morning anchor in Reno,
• 3:48
  Nevada, and what led up to it. So you didn't start
• 3:52
  in. In news on television?
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  No. You want to go from the beginning? Oh, go from the
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  beginning. Yeah. . Okay. So I was a
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  top 40 disc jockey. My first job.
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  And we're going back a little bit. I won't say the year, but Madonna's Like
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  a VIrgin was a new album when that.
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  And I was making $5 and 50 cents an hour to work in
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  the middle of the night playing the hits and using that DJ
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  voice, talking like this. I'm puking like a DJ would at that time.
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  And so I followed that path,
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  went to full time there in San Bernardino, California.
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  Then that journey went from there to San Diego, San Jose, San
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  Francisco, and the Bay Area
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  for a dozen years in top 40. And then the last
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  station I was at switched formats, which was pretty
• 4:49
  common. And so when they do that, everybody gets fired. And
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  you got to figure out what you're going to do with your life. So I
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  looked for DJ jobs. There weren't any available in the Bay
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  Area. And I thought about a dream I'd always had about being
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  a sports announcer doing play by play
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  and put together.
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  Right. That's a massive pivot. You Know, maybe I changed the
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  title of mine. And in basketball you pivot as well, you know,
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  with the ball. But that was a, that was a career pivot. And I put
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  together a deal, broadcasting deal at Santa Clara. So I
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  found the radio station, sold the time, sold
• 5:30
  myself, and was able to get myself on as a
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  play by play announcer at the age of 32. I'd never done it before
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  doing college basketball. So I went from playing rap
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  music to doing March Madness in the span of seven months, which,
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  that's a big career move, pretty cool. And then simultaneously I got a
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  job in radio in San Francisco doing news.
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  And after a year of doing part time, I got named the full
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  time evening sports anchor in KCBS in San Francisco.
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  So that began around 21 years where I became a
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  journalist at that point. And so, and this is
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  still radio. It's still radio. It starts to evolve into
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  television because KPIX, Channel 5 is the CBS
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  affiliate. So in 2010 I was
• 6:21
  named a part time sports anchor on the television station,
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  making demos over a few months and they finally gave me a shot
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  to do that. And then during that time I'd been doing some television play by
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  play in sports. So I worked for Comcast doing
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  the game of the week from Fresno to Chico. That
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  evolved into college basketball at St. Mary's on
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  television, I did arena football for the Saber Cats, San Jose
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  Sabercats. That eventually led me to
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  Sacramento State doing football and television.
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  And you know, that had been my path. Also an actor during that
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  time, but I thought I was going to be doing play by play, that would
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  be the thing I would do most. I was still doing
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  radio up until
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  2022 and then my
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  job got reduced to part time. I was doing
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  news because Covid knocked out a lot of sports. So I got moved to news
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  and, and that was actually, that was a big change. There was a pivot that
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  I never thought that I would like, but it helped me because I became a
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  news person because there were no events during COVID So
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  they found something for me to do. And I
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  worked nationally for iHeartRadio, did sports
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  in Boston, remotely, New York City, Washington.
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  And so I became a news person at that time
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  until I decided I wasn't going to work part time because play by play
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  and acting in movies, a lot of that was on weekends.
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  And so I bet on myself I'm not doing that part time job.
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  And it took a while, but I, I saw this job
• 7:59
  in Reno on Indeed.com Shout out to Indeed.
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  And I was not looking to do full Time television at
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  that point, especially doing full time news. But I just as a lark, just
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  filled out the application. My best friend was here and
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  was just split up with my wife. So that'll be
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  another thing we circle back to. And
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  I needed to be very sure I was running to something rather
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  than from something. And I really connected with
• 8:31
  the news director really well. Then I became really interested. I go,
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  I think I might like this. And then I had a zoom
• 8:39
  call with the co anchor. I was watching her online. I really liked her, this
• 8:43
  woman named Rebecca Kitchen. And I thought she was really good. And so
• 8:48
  he goes, I don't care if he says it's okay that I like you, but
• 8:51
  you guys have to like each other. It's not going to work. So we did
• 8:55
  a zoom call for 45 minutes
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  hour. And I don't recall talking about the
• 9:02
  show all that much, but we talked a lot about life and getting to know
• 9:05
  each other and basically she disconnected that call
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  and gave me a thumbs up. And then we
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  negotiated over the course of another month or two and
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  it just felt right. Scary though, very scary.
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  Which I know will be a part of this conversation.
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  Yeah. Taking a big lump in my throat and then.
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  Packing my car and then going for it. Yeah. Packing my car and starting a
• 9:33
  new life up here. So the people have been incredible. The audience
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  is embraced. Our show, my staff has
• 9:41
  been so helpful. Not just
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  the staff that works with our show, but people in our building
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  and making friends in the community.
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  It's been a real blessing. So that's a year and a half ago I came.
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  Yeah. And I think we arrived in Reno right about the same time. So it's
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  as an, you know, and running
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  to something and not away from something. That's. You've said that
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  a couple times and we've talked and I think that's such a, probably
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  a real important part of transition
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  is sometimes when you have to make a transition, you really are
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  running away from something or you're pushed out of something or you
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  don't have a choice. And instead of like just sitting there and
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  feeling like this is terrifying and circling,
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  spiraling down about how you don't have a choice. There is that,
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  you know, there's that mental pivot, don't you think?
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  Oh, no doubt about it. And that that was the,
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  the determining factor before I said yes was making sure I was clear
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  on that. Because, you know, if you're running from something, your,
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  your demons eventually catch you, you know, your, your
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  fears or insecurities, the stuff you never dealt with. All
• 10:57
  that, you know, and it'll eventually
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  grab you from behind. But I was pretty clear
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  that this was the right thing, the right place, and I
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  was running to something that was going to eventually be special. And it's taken a
• 11:13
  while. I mean, I came here, we were distant number
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  two in the market. Now we're number one in mornings, which
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  is, I think I can say freaking on your podcast, right? Freaking awesome.
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  I didn't cross the line.
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  But. No, that's so great. And, and I've seen your segments, so they're so,
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  you know, they're. Some of them are so fun, you know, and
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  I love that you're bringing some really fun stuff into television because.
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  And you, you're a creative, you know, in
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  the acting, but also you've chosen careers that are pseudo creative.
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  They kind of have that mix of business and creative,
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  which is. I kind of have done that also.
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  And it, I think it works because
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  Rebecca is a real journalist. You know, she grew up in the field,
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  fourth generation Nevadan, and, you
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  know, she wants to know about how the fire started and get a
• 12:15
  mug shot of the suspect and all that down and dirty journalism
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  stuff. Your reporter, she's a reporter at heart. And I come in from more of
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  a sports and entertainment, you know, background.
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  So I like human interest stories. I want to find out
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  what makes people different, but also what makes people just like us
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  that, that people can relate to. So the,
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  the features I do are a lot of human interest things, and I think it
• 12:41
  gives our show a balance that, you know, gives some.
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  Some nuance that's different. What's been some of the most fun
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  interviews you've done since you've been here? Are you talking about
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  the one I had the crush on the most or. Yeah, start with that
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  one. I don't even know which
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  one it is because there's like, I feel like.
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  I don't even know why I volunteered that one, man.
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  I'll come back to that one. All right, so you're gonna come back to. That
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  one I really liked was this gentleman, 70 years
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  old, and he lives out in this Verdi area, Somerset, and
• 13:21
  he's riding from Canada
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  to Mexico on a bike to over 2,000 miles
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  for a friend of his that passed away from multiple sclerosis. And he's
• 13:32
  not a guy, a Tour de France guy. He's just a regular, you know,
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  do like you and me riding a bike. So he trained, he hired a trainer
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  to learn how to do it. And so he's on this journey now. I sent
• 13:43
  him a couple of Texts. I go, how you doing? And I. He said, I
• 13:45
  fell. He fell from in Seattle. So he showed me, you know, pictures of his
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  body all scraped up and wondering if he continue. Now. This was a
• 13:53
  couple days ago. I said, I need to find out if he's still doing it.
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  But I did tell him. I go, hey, whether you do it, whether you finish
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  or not, I'm not about, like, only the guy that finished in first place, you
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  know, to me, like, getting in the race for a lot of us, you
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  know, like, this conversation on life is the victory. So,
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  you know, if you get yourself to San Luis Obispo and you can't do
• 14:14
  it anymore, you got to come back to Reno. Your health. He's dizzy. He's not
• 14:17
  sleeping well. I go, I'm gonna have you on the show no matter what. You're
• 14:20
  gonna sit next to me on that set to talk about this experience.
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  So I love, you know, and why people do things,
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  you know, what makes them similar to us, what makes them different. You
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  know, I think that's, you know, the human condition. Something that drives me.
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  Yeah, for sure. Oh, oh,
• 14:39
  comedian. I'll circle back to the crush, but the comedian.
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  The comedian Justin Ruppel, who was on America's Got
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  Talent, and he shared his dream about
• 14:52
  headlining in Vegas. He's been doing this for now, like, 18, 19
• 14:55
  years. But he talks about how vivid it is, like, what
• 14:59
  kind of car he's driving and what he's eating. This double,
• 15:02
  double animal style from in and out, and he's got a donut in one hand.
• 15:06
  He's driving down the strip, and he's Caesar. As me sees his name
• 15:10
  up, you know, on the marquee tonight, Justin Ruppel. And he. And
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  he's. So I'm picking up these life lessons on visualization, and. And so
• 15:18
  he's become a friend, you know, away from the show. Hey, we do. I want
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  to do good tv, but, you know, I want to learn something that could
• 15:24
  gravitate and. And, you know, take into my own life. And we're sharing our own
• 15:28
  life lessons. He'd become a friend, you know, over the course of a couple TV
• 15:30
  visits. Yeah, that's. I mean, the power of visualization, I think, is something
• 15:35
  I definitely don't use enough for. Sure. Yeah. Instead of just having
• 15:38
  this kind of goal. More money, more than that, but. But not
• 15:42
  the steps you have to take and what it feels like. And some
• 15:46
  of that Tony Robbins stuff, you know, to really visualize and see it, to
• 15:50
  make it true. So I got myself thinking about, hey, My own goals. What about,
• 15:54
  you know, what do I want to do? And really making it real in my
• 15:57
  head. And I've heard that from a lot of different, I don't
• 16:01
  know, thought leaders about how the visualization, like, it's not just
• 16:05
  seeing it, it's feeling the emotions of it and kind of feeling what
• 16:09
  it's going to be like to do that. So I just wanted, I don't
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  know, I gotta do that more. I'm putting a check in my check box right
• 16:16
  there to go do that more. Yeah, it was something. When I hear
• 16:19
  he's like, oh my gosh, that's right. You know, a little mental note to self
• 16:23
  and we swap some text like, hey, let's, let's get on the phone and talk
• 16:26
  about life. I invited him to my talk that I'm doing next month. He goes,
• 16:29
  hey, if I can go, I'll fly up and go. So he lives in la,
• 16:32
  so it would mean a lot to have him there. Yeah, I'm coming.
• 16:35
  Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's going to be so exciting. You know, the night,
• 16:39
  the day I was talking to you and you said that you were, you're, you're
• 16:42
  making notes on your talk every night, you know, to kind of get it together.
• 16:45
  I was like, oh, I haven't even started that. And then that night I had
• 16:49
  a nightmare that I was just like on a TED
• 16:52
  Talk stage, just winging it. Oh yeah.
• 16:57
  Just back and forth, getting some talk from the, from the audience. I'm like,
• 17:01
  so, yeah, I have to buckle down. I think that was.
• 17:05
  And I'm still a play by play announcer at heart and I think I'm good
• 17:09
  at it. But the fear of sucking and not being prepared
• 17:13
  is like, drives me. So I'll have like a
• 17:16
  million notes and 90, 80% of it I
• 17:20
  never use. But it's always there for me just in case. Just in
• 17:24
  case there's that dead time or a guy twist his ankle and I
• 17:28
  know, you know, that he was 13, all American, whatever,
• 17:31
  whatever it is to have that stuff ready to go. So for that talk,
• 17:35
  I'm going to be prepared with video. I'm not going to go up there with
• 17:38
  notes, but I'm going to have this mind map worked out. You know, how I
• 17:41
  go from one thing to another. You know they're going to have video to
• 17:45
  play for me at certain points to keep it interesting. Yeah, I don't know if,
• 17:50
  heck, I'd bore myself talking for 40, 45 minutes
• 17:54
  without video. No or no. I know my family members, you know,
• 17:58
  I don't know how much they can take of me talking, you know? So anyway,
• 18:01
  I'm gonna have it compelling. There'll be some music. I'm gonna dance in there too.
• 18:05
  I've been working nice. I'll tell just you and your audience. No one else knows
• 18:08
  to be. But between you and me. Okay. Is
• 18:13
  Saturday Night Fever John Travolta. He
• 18:16
  does. He takes the floor. Tony Monero takes the floor. You should be dancing with
• 18:20
  the Bee Gees. Okay, I'm gonna have that routine down.
• 18:24
  To the T. Nice. Yes, nice.
• 18:28
  That'll be how I come on stage. Well, that's impressive because you also
• 18:31
  just had hip surgery. Yeah, that's a part of it.
• 18:35
  Like, hey, what can you do? It's never too late to learn that. Tony Monero.
• 18:38
  Three months after hip surgery. Yeah, three months after hip
• 18:42
  surgery. So, yeah, going back to kind of just. Well, let me
• 18:46
  ask you this first. Before we go back to some of all the transition stuff.
• 18:50
  TV or radio, what do you feel like are the
• 18:54
  differences in those two fields? Well,
• 18:57
  radio is much more
• 19:00
  spontaneous. With the television show,
• 19:04
  there's so many moving pieces and there's elements of it where we
• 19:08
  can be spontaneous. But it all revolves around having a director know what we're
• 19:11
  doing, having the video coming up at the right time, producers that are
• 19:15
  wondering, you know, what's going to be next. So it's kind of
• 19:18
  structured, but not truly improv.
• 19:24
  Creating a basketball game, I don't know how it's going to end. I don't know
• 19:27
  how every play is going to happen. I don't know how any play is going
• 19:30
  to happen. So it's purely. It's living in the moment all the time.
• 19:34
  And that is so
• 19:37
  invigorating. Doing radio scripts and news is the same
• 19:41
  as television, you know, Although I don't have to get up at 2 o' clock
• 19:43
  in the morning and put on makeup, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I could. I
• 19:47
  could wear this and be good. And quite often I would wear worse than
• 19:50
  this. But. But it. The structure of it, news
• 19:55
  and television, I rely on more people on tv, I just need to turn on
• 19:59
  the microphone and radio. And if I suck, it's because I suck. It's not because
• 20:03
  I can blame some intern or producer or a director that played the wrong thing.
• 20:06
  So it's all on you. And I like that. I like having that responsibility. I
• 20:10
  embrace it. And, you know, you. If it's good, it's because you were good.
• 20:14
  If it sucks, it's because you suck. And
• 20:18
  in TV it doesn't happen without everybody. So no,
• 20:21
  it's. Yeah, I mean, I've got a great co anchor
• 20:25
  and I think the best weather person in the market. Lindsey's
• 20:28
  unbelievable. We've got three
• 20:31
  producers, one editor, a director,
• 20:35
  two reporters and a camera person. And if even
• 20:39
  one of those people come up short,
• 20:42
  everybody can see it on tv. And so we all got to be in,
• 20:46
  we all got to be locked in. We all got to be doing it. So
• 20:49
  I make sure before those producers leave every day, I thank
• 20:53
  them. I said, if you ever leave without me thinking you, you come back
• 20:56
  and they do a U turn. Say, man, you didn't show me any gratitude today,
• 20:59
  dog. And because it's critical,
• 21:03
  it's critical. So I enjoy TV because I didn't think I was do. I could
• 21:06
  do it, especially later in life like this. And all the things that
• 21:10
  you, this negative self talk that we'll
• 21:14
  get into, you know, you're too old to do it. You're not good looking
• 21:17
  enough, you know, not experienced enough. All these things that we
• 21:21
  talk ourselves out of even trying and you know,
• 21:25
  you know, just getting over it and believing. I had a news director that believed
• 21:28
  I can do it. I had people in San Francisco that believed I can do
• 21:31
  it without experience. Despite that little voice on your shoulder, just slap that
• 21:35
  thing around and knowing what it is and what it isn't, you
• 21:39
  know, and that's, you know, someone else's wounding is someone else's pain, is someone
• 21:42
  else's bullying, whatever it is. And then once you're able
• 21:46
  to understand what it is and what it isn't, then you can
• 21:50
  hopefully make some choices that empower you and maybe
• 21:54
  empower others. Right. And I would in some
• 21:58
  ways, you know, I'm. I do the sales and commercial side. I've
• 22:02
  never talked about that on the podcast. And you know, KOLO gave me a
• 22:05
  chance too to get out here to live near my son. And
• 22:09
  this is where I wanted to live. And I combined that
• 22:13
  whole on camera stuff with sales stuff. And I think at
• 22:16
  some point you just, you. Someone gives you a chance to.
• 22:20
  It's a new industry for me in a way. I've done sales and I've done
• 22:24
  media, but putting it together was a new thing. So that's.
• 22:28
  It's nice when someone just gives you a shot and
• 22:31
  there's good people there. In life, you know, here by the self made, this
• 22:35
  self made, that bottom line is like someone's got to say yes. You know, someone's
• 22:39
  got to say yes to your idea, your business Idea. Your job application,
• 22:43
  your asking for a date, whatever. Someone's got to
• 22:46
  say yes. And, you know, without that, it doesn't happen.
• 22:50
  So I'm grateful for all the people along the way that that says yes, including
• 22:54
  that program director that saw something in me doing
• 22:57
  radio at $5 and 50 cents an hour, because without that, all
• 23:01
  the chain reaction of everything else doesn't happen. Then the next thing. And the
• 23:05
  next thing. Yeah. Have you noticed a difference in
• 23:08
  fans from radio to tv? I imagine you get
• 23:12
  noticed more on tv, of course, because it's video. Oh,
• 23:16
  absolutely. I mean, in. In radio,
• 23:20
  you get noticed from making public appearances. So
• 23:24
  in the 90s, you know, I did a lot of high schools and
• 23:28
  nightclubs and car dealers and things like that. So those people
• 23:31
  recognize you, and then they're coming out to see you. So they haven't
• 23:35
  recognized you. They only recognize your voice, and then they get to meet you in
• 23:38
  person. Yeah. You know, here, everywhere we go, you know,
• 23:42
  Rebecca and I will see somebody that, hey,
• 23:46
  aren't you, you know, give you a little side look, whether it's the gym
• 23:49
  or whatever. And it's,
• 23:54
  you know, you hope they like you, but. But you do get noticed because
• 23:57
  it's. Because it's a visual medium. Yeah. And then
• 24:01
  sometimes, because I've witnessed this, when we went to that one concert
• 24:05
  with Amy, the Amy Grant concert that you had tickets to, and that you interviewed
• 24:08
  her, may or may not be your crush. I'm just gonna say,
• 24:13
  I'll come back. Not gonna admit
• 24:17
  anything, but, you know, there was a lady who
• 24:20
  stopped you and said, you know, this is the best show, and I watch you
• 24:24
  all the time, and you're the best in the market, and I love you the
• 24:27
  most. I'm. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but, yeah,
• 24:31
  she was. That's a quote. She was a fan. That's not an exact quote. No,
• 24:35
  I think that was an exact quote. That's actually
• 24:38
  an exact quote. An exact quote is
• 24:42
  what that is. But the community here is just great. I mean, the.
• 24:46
  For sure. A couple months into our
• 24:50
  show, I discovered the very first show, which was January 14th
• 24:54
  of 2024. And
• 24:58
  I was completely new to this, and I remember watching, oh, my God, I
• 25:01
  suck. And so I. I went to our news director
• 25:05
  and I said, hey, thank you for sticking. It's now six months into it, I
• 25:08
  go, hey, I want to thank you, because I saw that first show, and I
• 25:11
  wasn't very good. And he. He says, hey, dude, it's just about putting in
• 25:15
  the reps. You know, I. I've seen what you can do and other medium
• 25:19
  is just, you know, learning the skills of this thing and the
• 25:23
  repetitions, just like learning how to play guitar or,
• 25:27
  you know, any skill. Surfing, golf, you know, it's just practicing and
• 25:31
  getting better with the reps. So I used to be a snob thinking about, hey,
• 25:35
  you can either do it or you can't do it. You know, whether it's actor
• 25:38
  or tv, you're, you're talented or you're not talented, but it is about putting in
• 25:41
  the reps. And so, you know, now we got a year and a half of
• 25:45
  reps under our belts together. You know, we're still learning,
• 25:49
  we're still a work in progress with, you know, when
• 25:53
  someone takes over this, this part of the show or, you know,
• 25:57
  making eye contact in certain moments when we're off camera, which no one can see,
• 26:02
  you know, it's, it's a work in progress constantly. And we're always trying to
• 26:05
  get better. Yeah, yeah, well, and doing
• 26:09
  a great job. But there is something I think about. You know, life
• 26:13
  teaches you how to, how to stay in humility, right? Oh, gosh, yeah.
• 26:16
  No, life keeps you humble. Yeah.
• 26:21
  When you think you got it, got it going on, you know,
• 26:25
  something will hit you when you least expect it.
• 26:28
  So I thought, I thought before I came up here, I had it made
• 26:32
  because I had done three films
• 26:36
  that had won awards. One of them I co wrote San Francisco Film
• 26:40
  Festival and multiple play by play
• 26:43
  gigs and volunteering and just feeling like, hey, I'm
• 26:47
  a good person. And then as October of
• 26:51
  2018, and I remember the exact day, but it was in
• 26:55
  that month. And I, I told my wife, hey, I, I don't know where
• 26:58
  all this is coming because it's so many different directions, but they were all good.
• 27:01
  Everything was good. And I said, I think I'm becoming the man I want to
• 27:05
  be. Yeah, it's gonna do great.
• 27:09
  This would be a great story to tell on Mary Meyer's podcast someday.
• 27:14
  And then a month later, she said she wanted a divorce. So,
• 27:17
  you know, oh, goodness, that. And I thought, man, I thought I'd describe someone that
• 27:21
  was pretty cool right there. But, you know, the bottom line is
• 27:25
  there's never a breakup that's 100 0. It
• 27:28
  doesn't have to be 50 50, but it doesn't have to be 100 0. And
• 27:32
  you know, bottom line, all that cool stuff I was doing by myself,
• 27:36
  so I wasn't tuned into the
• 27:40
  relationship that should have mattered the most. You know, I'm an empty nesting
• 27:44
  parent. At that point. So I'm doing stuff that just gets me off, and I
• 27:47
  love doing. I'm trying to get good at everything. But as parents that pour
• 27:51
  all their energy into their kids, you know, you. When they're
• 27:54
  gone, you either have an opportunity
• 27:58
  to get, you know, a lot closer, the kids are gone, or you splinter.
• 28:02
  And, you know, that's the direction we,
• 28:07
  you know, headed. And you always have to
• 28:12
  accept those consequences for those things. So I thought I was doing
• 28:16
  some great stuff, but I was doing it on my own.
• 28:20
  That's tough. Well, let's dive into the tough stuff, because you
• 28:24
  opened the door to that. So. And I have also divorced. My divorce was longer
• 28:28
  ago, so I lose track. I think maybe nine years ago, but,
• 28:32
  you know, there's nothing after. I think we were together over. Well, we were
• 28:35
  together over two decades, maybe 23, 24 years.
• 28:39
  So I know you were married for. Shoot, Mary.
• 28:43
  Our divorce was final four days shy of our
• 28:47
  30th anniversary. Yeah. So that's painful.
• 28:50
  That's painful. Like, you couldn't get to the 30. There's no way. Hey, you're close
• 28:54
  to the third. No, sorry. Not
• 28:58
  that it had been awesome at 30, you know, but it just sucks more that
• 29:01
  it didn't get to 30. Yeah. And it's an interesting thing.
• 29:05
  I don't even know what there. What kind of words there is to put into
• 29:08
  that, that you made it for decades. And then, you know, then you're like, this
• 29:12
  is not. Our experiences, I think, were way different.
• 29:15
  But. Yeah, but. So, like, just let's
• 29:19
  focus, like, because we don't want to get too negative about talking
• 29:23
  about the ins and outs of a divorce. It's not
• 29:26
  negative. It's not. I mean, she's someone,
• 29:30
  like, I'll tell her I told the story because it's all good. But we talk
• 29:34
  about four times a week, you know, we.
• 29:38
  She's become a better friend, you know, now
• 29:42
  you kind of see things a little bit differently. But,
• 29:48
  you know, she's someone that. When I had my hip surgery,
• 29:52
  the first call I had was from her. You know,
• 29:56
  that's good. I have some success on the show. First call, I guess, from her.
• 30:00
  Oh, good. So, you know, she's a great friend and a huge
• 30:04
  advocate. I saw her this last weekend at a party down in Southern California,
• 30:07
  hanging out. So some people kind of roll their eyes, like, what are you
• 30:11
  doing? But we spent all those years together,
• 30:15
  and we're grandparents, so let's make it
• 30:19
  a good thing. Yeah. So what are the. Some of the things that
• 30:22
  you did to kind of get through divorce
• 30:26
  that you feel like are healthy. Like, we probably do some
• 30:30
  things that maybe aren't healthy, too, which is
• 30:34
  part of the deal, but. Well, the. The health part of it is
• 30:39
  huge. And I got into exercise when I was
• 30:43
  19 years old. Kind of an escape. I mean, you transform your body and you
• 30:46
  feel good and all those things, and you try to look good on a tank
• 30:49
  top, but I. I just felt good doing it. So I just. You
• 30:53
  know, when my. When I'm bummed out or when I get stressed
• 30:57
  before my kids say, hey, why don't you just go to the gym, dad? Get
• 31:00
  out of here. So I really worked
• 31:03
  on my health, you know, just kind of losing myself in
• 31:07
  it. We have some addiction history in our family, and if you're going to be
• 31:11
  addicted to something, working out, it's pretty good. So better
• 31:15
  than other choices. Heck, yeah. So I can see people
• 31:18
  visualizing that. God, you look incredible. Your life must
• 31:22
  be falling apart. It must be a mess.
• 31:25
  Yeah, get nice, good abs there. You want to
• 31:29
  do some therapy, but that's been a healthy thing. And
• 31:33
  then I think for anybody that might be sad is if you can
• 31:37
  give to something else. You know, it's hard to feel
• 31:41
  bad and have that pity party if you're creating value for other people.
• 31:45
  So, you know, I worked with Parkinson's disease patients, special
• 31:49
  needs adults, and, you know, making a difference in someone's life,
• 31:53
  that's a great therapeutic tool for anyone that's
• 31:57
  dealing with some kind of sadness or changes. Hey, what can I give to you?
• 32:01
  You know, homeless ministry I worked with, and
• 32:04
  I just thought, hey, you know, it's not all about. I
• 32:08
  mean, my life is all about me. But if I can create some value to
• 32:11
  someone else, you feel good about it, and I'd recommend that. Yeah, maybe that, you
• 32:15
  know, they're working out. Not everyone's going to be into. I mean, I think it's
• 32:18
  a good thing, but I think anybody can give to someone else, you know,
• 32:22
  create value for someone else. Yeah, well. And hope everyone should be able to
• 32:26
  exercise at some point. Oh, I know. But as far as, like, being maniacal about
• 32:29
  it, you know. Yeah, that's a little bit maniacal working out,
• 32:33
  but movement, I don't. Yeah, it gets the endorphins moving. So
• 32:37
  movements, the medicine, you know, that's. Yeah, like, that's.
• 32:41
  That's good advice. You. You move and you give
• 32:44
  back so you're not thinking about yourself. That seems really solid.
• 32:48
  There was some. Some Tony Robbins thing I remember years and
• 32:52
  years ago, and he said that your physiology helps determine how you feel. You
• 32:56
  know, so if you looked up on the sky, you looked up at the ceiling,
• 32:59
  you had this big, sh. Type
• 33:02
  grin. I don't know if I can say the word on your podcast,
• 33:06
  but you're. But you're eating it. And if you smile while you're doing
• 33:10
  it, you know, it's impossible to feel bad. I challenge you to feel
• 33:14
  lousy or sad by looking up and smiling at the ceiling. So it shows
• 33:18
  that, you know, controlling how you move your body, like, impacts, you know, how you
• 33:21
  feel about things. So imagine being able to switch that instantly by. Yeah.
• 33:25
  How you move, how you. How you smile, what your posture is like.
• 33:29
  That's a pretty good tip. Yeah, Posture is huge. You know,
• 33:32
  I. You know, it's interesting. I was so depressed one Sunday,
• 33:36
  and I. There was not a real reason why, and I went and I
• 33:40
  put my hands in the dirt of my son's house to pull some
• 33:43
  weeds. And like that, I felt better. But there's supposed to be a thing
• 33:47
  about that ridiculous hands in dirt that's ridiculous. Like.
• 33:53
  Like that. Hands in dirt. No, it's true.
• 33:57
  Listen, listen, listen, listen.
• 34:02
  There is something to it. I don't know, but just connecting, I think. Connecting. I
• 34:06
  mean, sunshine, movement, connecting to the ground, connecting
• 34:09
  to other humans, skipping all these things. It
• 34:13
  seems like at a. Endorphin releases, it's a. It's a feeling of
• 34:17
  accomplishment to get rid of weeds. I like that. No, it's. It.
• 34:20
  There's science in it. It's just science. We've not heard very often, but
• 34:24
  I listen to all that geeky stuff, so I listen to
• 34:28
  geekier stuff and. And look at videos of planting a garden because I
• 34:31
  don't do it. So I'm. There's that. The hands in the dirt,
• 34:35
  you know, could have been a mic drop to end the show, but I'm not
• 34:38
  going to let it. I'm not going to let it end that way. Not gonna
• 34:40
  let it. No. You're not gonna let that end the show. No. That's just an
• 34:43
  aside I have. You know, it's my. It's the quirky side, you can call it,
• 34:46
  but one day you're gonna see something come across the newsfeed about
• 34:50
  how just having your hands in dirt is. I'll
• 34:54
  bring a little bit on the set. You know, if I'm stressed out between the
• 34:58
  A block and the B, I can just put my hands in the side.
• 35:01
  Yeah, yeah, I have some. Have some next to me. Yeah,
• 35:05
  that was Not. That was not an aside that was supposed to be in this
• 35:08
  podcast at all. This is just free now. I'm not charging extra to anyone
• 35:12
  for that little tidbit. That's a joke.
• 35:15
  Okay, back to you. That
• 35:19
  took us so far off. Okay, we're gonna go back to the things that help.
• 35:23
  So you. Okay. So going back to Dave. David
• 35:27
  did a major transition, life transition from moving to
• 35:30
  California to Reno, Nevada, from doing a lot of things
• 35:34
  that were, you know, not news to doing full time
• 35:38
  news on camera, finalizing
• 35:41
  a divorce and having a hip surgery. That's all happened in the
• 35:45
  last year. That's a lot of stuff, David. Yes, a lot
• 35:49
  of stuff. It is. It is a lot of
• 35:52
  stuff. So that's kind of still standing.
• 35:56
  You're still standing. What was it like? What about the part of moving
• 36:00
  to a different city in a different state? Like what. What kept you
• 36:03
  sane in that part of it or was what was hard in it?
• 36:07
  Either one. Well, I never left California for
• 36:11
  anything, you know, professionally. I visited other states, but I never worked or
• 36:14
  lived anywhere else. So that part
• 36:19
  was unsettling. The no state taxes is settling,
• 36:23
  but picking up your life. You know, I,
• 36:27
  I drove a pier by myself and
• 36:31
  was crying for four hours. So I didn't, you
• 36:35
  know, make that move, you know, with full of
• 36:40
  energy and saying, yeah, I'm doing this. It was, it was unnerving,
• 36:46
  you know, until I took the mic, you know, that first day and everyone else
• 36:49
  made me feel good about it. It's. Yeah, yeah, it's. Change
• 36:53
  is scary, especially when you've had this comfort zone. I lived in my
• 36:56
  same house for 23 years, transformed
• 37:00
  it, remodeled it, it became my place, that
• 37:04
  I made it perfect. And to spend the
• 37:08
  last few years making it perfect and having to leave it was
• 37:12
  as hard as anything. Yeah. You know,
• 37:16
  then the year before that, lost two dogs in the span of six weeks.
• 37:20
  So that was traumatic. But,
• 37:24
  you know, you just, you know, faith is a part of it. You know, I'm.
• 37:30
  I never attended church until my late 20s and
• 37:34
  I'm certainly flawed, but it's a part of the whole
• 37:38
  thing to know that if I go someplace and I'm alone, I know I'm not.
• 37:43
  And that's, you know, a big part of this whole thing.
• 37:47
  Yeah, that's beautiful. Well, and I appreciate
• 37:51
  about you that you're very, you're not positive because you're
• 37:54
  just ignore the emotions of the, the hard stuff, you know,
• 37:58
  you're willing to kind of feel it. I feel, you know, you feel it
• 38:02
  and Then you move through it is what I see you doing.
• 38:06
  I've kind of watched here and there in the last year and a half.
• 38:10
  And then also you had a grandson born
• 38:15
  a big year and a half, hasn't it? Yeah, well, the. The
• 38:19
  whole. The whole being enough, being good
• 38:23
  enough, that kind of came full circle, full circle with
• 38:27
  my grandson because my son called me in February
• 38:30
  of 24 saying that he was going to have a boy.
• 38:35
  And they had the name. He said,
• 38:38
  are you ready? I go, yeah, this is David
• 38:42
  Archer. What do you think?
• 38:47
  I told him I. I couldn't tell him what I thought
• 38:52
  because his parents would just. There's no manual for it. So
• 38:55
  you do the best you can. You make errors. You know, sometimes the
• 38:59
  punishment's too strict or not enough or you didn't communicate this. You're not a good
• 39:03
  role model in this area. And in
• 39:06
  that moment, I knew I'd been enough.
• 39:12
  And so all these games you play with yourself over the years, hey, if I
• 39:15
  do this, you know I'm going to feel good. If I make more money, I'll
• 39:18
  do this. Or if I have this kind of a car or this type
• 39:22
  of relationship. But, you know, it all does come from
• 39:25
  within. So when he. When he told me that, it
• 39:29
  meant everything. And I played that on television with Rebecca. We played
• 39:33
  that part where he told me that and I told the story. I'm crying there
• 39:37
  on the chair because it's.
• 39:40
  It's one of the best days of my life.
• 39:44
  There's something I. Cause I, you know, I moved to Reno. You know this because
• 39:47
  I have a grandchild. I've not said that on the back podcast either. But
• 39:51
  there's something that's. It's like becoming a parent for the first time.
• 39:54
  You know, getting married, leaving the house, going to college,
• 39:58
  getting married, having your first child, and then,
• 40:02
  you know, having the grandchild is like,
• 40:06
  I don't know, the earth gets shinier, don't you think? Oh, gosh,
• 40:10
  my day could be horrible. And then
• 40:14
  we FaceTime every week. And
• 40:18
  when I just see the smile, I mean, there's. There's nothing at
• 40:21
  the station that could ruin my day. There's no
• 40:26
  debt that I have to pay or anything else. Nothing matters.
• 40:30
  I go to bed with my heart full
• 40:34
  after interacting. So his birthday is August 1st, so I'm going back to
• 40:38
  Tennessee in a couple weeks, and I can't wait. It's
• 40:42
  going to be awesome. You have to pry that guy out of my hands, because
• 40:45
  it's. It's the best. Yeah, there is
• 40:49
  something so beautiful about that and settling, you
• 40:53
  know, with a lot of life transition. But, you know, I
• 40:56
  think in some ways it's like life. Life hands a lot of
• 41:00
  transition, and it's. Even if everything goes kind of the way you want it
• 41:04
  to and you hope it will, you're still going to deal with a lot of
• 41:06
  transition. And it can catch us off guard
• 41:10
  and then send us spiraling, I
• 41:14
  think, and into a lot of negative, you know,
• 41:19
  you know, negative. Not just negative talk, but negative thought
• 41:22
  patterns that are hard to. To shake. And,
• 41:26
  and then if there's any traumatic. If it, if it's traumatic in any ways, then
• 41:30
  it can get locked in even worse. So that's part of the
• 41:34
  reason I like to talk about these things because, you know, I would like people
• 41:37
  to know they're not alone. They're not the only one that's dealt
• 41:41
  with that. And I think you, you
• 41:45
  are an inspiring voice in terms of
• 41:49
  you feel it, you're not like, not feeling it, but you're rolling with it
• 41:53
  and in a good direction. Yeah. I don't think you can
• 41:57
  put a, a timetable like, hey, I'm going to do
• 42:01
  this by like, you just know when it's right. I mean,
• 42:04
  you can want to make these changes. I mean, I kind of referring to like,
• 42:07
  the personal stuff like dating and things like that. Like, I don't have
• 42:11
  a personal go. I want to have a, you know, great girlfriend by this
• 42:15
  time. This time. Because then you, then you make choices that are bogus. Like you
• 42:19
  just do something just to do something, and it
• 42:22
  happens when it's meant to happen. You have to be ready for it. You have
• 42:25
  to prepare yourself, make yourself better and, you know, have your,
• 42:29
  your personal boxes all checked off, but just trying
• 42:33
  to, you know, do something because you. And you
• 42:37
  might not be ready for it or you make the wrong choice. You know, I
• 42:40
  think that's a recipe for disaster. Yeah,
• 42:43
  that's. That seems like. That seems good, like, good advice.
• 42:47
  Yeah, no, I've had some experiences.
• 42:51
  You know, we don't have enough time on the podcast, but things like that.
• 42:55
  It's just when it's. When it's. When it's right, it's right, you know, and it's
• 42:57
  not. It's not. Yeah. Well,
• 43:02
  I can understand that. So let me ask you this. So you
• 43:06
  both with. I know yours kind of overlap the divorce and moving to a new
• 43:09
  city, and sometimes those things do overlap
• 43:13
  and come together, like where there's just a lot of transition at once.
• 43:17
  But what did you, what did you do just to kind of find
• 43:20
  community in either. In either
• 43:24
  way, post divorce or then moving. Like, how has that
• 43:28
  been? Like, what action steps? You think things
• 43:31
  were helpful? Well, I mean, some of the stuff we already
• 43:35
  touched on to do something, you know, for other people. So
• 43:39
  I have some I, I see on a regular basis here that I
• 43:43
  can help with exercise and chores and, and
• 43:46
  things like that. It's just good to feel like you're bringing some value to the
• 43:50
  world. And we all need a circle of people that you can trust, that are
• 43:52
  not judgmental, that you can lean on. So some
• 43:56
  of my best friends are my actor friends because we. I've been told
• 44:00
  this too. Like, the more you practice acting these roles, you have more
• 44:04
  empathy for other people. Because we're not supposed to judge our characters.
• 44:08
  We're supposed to rationalize and
• 44:12
  accept what they are, not say, that's a bad person or this isn't it. We,
• 44:15
  Everyone does stuff because they think it's right. And so the more you
• 44:19
  do that, you can deal with people differently
• 44:23
  and have empathy. So, like, like a lot of my best friends are actors, you
• 44:27
  know, they, they, whether they've experienced exactly what I have or not, you
• 44:30
  know, they. They can imagine or tap into
• 44:34
  it and be empathetic and be that
• 44:38
  shoulder to cry on, which I've had, or just someone
• 44:41
  to chat with. Yeah, that's very true. Because
• 44:45
  acting, you. You really have to go inward to
• 44:49
  find. Find that place where it's authentic to you. Otherwise, you can see it
• 44:53
  on, in your eyes that it's not authentic. So that's really good. See, that's a
• 44:56
  good little actor tip too. For everybody who's wanting to do acting
• 45:00
  or just wants to do life better. Do not judge the character.
• 45:04
  Do not judge the character or the characters in your life.
• 45:08
  Yeah.
• 45:12
  And then everyone, also,
• 45:15
  everyone's thoughts on the world, it's right to them, you know,
• 45:19
  So I don't have a right to tell someone, hey, it's, you know, BS that
• 45:22
  you feel this way or, you know, get over it.
• 45:26
  Everyone's experience is authentic to them.
• 45:30
  So I learned that from a therapist, a friend of
• 45:33
  mine. So if you can do that, you know, when they talk to you, hey,
• 45:36
  it makes sense that you feel this way. It makes sense that this
• 45:40
  causes you to react in this way, because it does to them. And, and so
• 45:44
  maybe you want to reframe it and be able to channel that in a different
• 45:47
  direction, but everyone's feelings are appropriate
• 45:52
  to them. Yeah, that's true.
• 45:56
  True that. So I never tell someone that they're stupid for feeling that, because
• 45:59
  it's not, you know, does that mean, like, my way is the only
• 46:03
  way that world should be viewed and it's not. So if you can take yourself
• 46:07
  away from that and you can be much more accepting, you know,
• 46:11
  we should just. Throw those into, you know, political arguments on Facebook, see how it
• 46:14
  works. I stay away from that. I've had too many family arguments
• 46:18
  with anything referring to politics on Facebook. I know,
• 46:22
  that's why it's a joke. But it's, I agree. It's, it's,
• 46:26
  it's really hard, I think, especially with the world where we
• 46:30
  keep hearing what we agree with. That's how algorithms work.
• 46:33
  And so then we become more and more convinced of what we know. So I
• 46:37
  had that talk with my last guest about that and about
• 46:41
  schemas. We develop these mindsets, right? Our
• 46:44
  schemas about what's good, what's bad, based on just, you know, our experience
• 46:48
  in life. And those can be based on things
• 46:52
  that are not accurate,
• 46:55
  biased, not fully developed. They're kind
• 46:59
  of knee jerk reaction stuff. So becoming aware of them, which I think is what
• 47:02
  you're talking about, just, just kind of becoming aware of what our own thoughts are
• 47:05
  and then having some empathy for other people in different situations.
• 47:10
  Hey, I mean, I've had to play a serial killer, so I don't know about
• 47:14
  you. That's very believable. That is very believable.
• 47:18
  It's totally my archetype. So, I mean, if you didn't have. To dig deep
• 47:22
  for that one.
• 47:26
  That one was right at the surface. So that one was super easy. But,
• 47:31
  you know, I had actually had. This is an incredible experience. I had someone,
• 47:35
  the lady at the returns at the Amazon counter
• 47:40
  at Whole Foods, she's like, I know you. I'm like, I don't think you do.
• 47:44
  She's like, I've seen you in something. I'm like, I kind of doubt it.
• 47:48
  But, you know, because I've done shows, but I've not, I've not done that many
• 47:52
  shows. But then she, she, she treated, she was treating me
• 47:56
  like I was an A lister. But she watches the ID channel and I have
• 47:59
  a lot of shows on the ID channel. Okay. I think that is the first
• 48:02
  time that I have someone that I didn't know is like,
• 48:06
  she lost her mind. She didn't take a picture with me. I mean, she's.
• 48:10
  Yeah, that was an experience, but that's what made me think of it. That had
• 48:14
  to feel good. Snapped was my, you know, serial
• 48:17
  killer moment. Good times. Do you think,
• 48:21
  do you think acting has affected your
• 48:24
  television and radio or is radio and television affected your acting?
• 48:28
  Do you think those are, do they think, how do they pair together? I think
• 48:32
  all those experiences, that's where my news director kind of
• 48:36
  saw this coming from. Was that the, the radio
• 48:41
  helped with the spontaneity, the sports help with spontaneity to be in the
• 48:44
  moment. Being on camera helped with being on camera.
• 48:48
  Yeah, the acting
• 48:52
  helped me be more comfortable.
• 48:58
  I don't think we're acting on TV doing the news because we're just doing the
• 49:02
  news and we're, we're just delivering it. You know, stuff that's
• 49:05
  sad or disturbing, you know, sometimes it's hard to
• 49:09
  mask that. So I can't be just like a straight faced robot, you
• 49:13
  know, all the time. But I think it just helps being more
• 49:17
  authentic. You know, I'm too old to give many blanks anymore,
• 49:21
  so I just want to go and do it so I don't get too rattled
• 49:24
  by mistakes or, or things that
• 49:28
  happen on the show. Live TV is going to catch it all.
• 49:32
  So, yeah, like I said, you know, someone that's newer and they're going to be
• 49:35
  more nervous or uptight and I just, you know,
• 49:38
  stuff happens and you just, you just roll with it. So I think, you
• 49:42
  know, I've been in broadcasting for 40 years, so,
• 49:47
  man. You must be old. That's jokes. It's jokes. It's
• 49:50
  jokes.
• 49:54
  Like I said, Madonna, you know, like a version was a new album, you know.
• 49:58
  Oh, gosh. And so I think it does help with the, the
• 50:02
  learning curve of, of this, you know, I, I don't need to do it
• 50:05
  for 10 years before I get good at it because I've done broadcasting
• 50:09
  for 40 years. There's things that apply some skill sets that
• 50:13
  you'll make that curve a little bit, you know, steeper.
• 50:18
  And if they thought it would take me 10 years to get good at it,
• 50:20
  they wouldn't have hired me. So. Yeah, yeah. So I do think some
• 50:24
  of the things translate in life. So, you know, like I said,
• 50:28
  the play by play, the, the DJing, all of it
• 50:32
  comes together, you know, for where we're at today.
• 50:36
  Yeah, definitely a very inspirational talk in there
• 50:40
  for sure. Transitioning in a career and in life
• 50:43
  38 years into your career is not for the faint of heart.
• 50:47
  No, you, you are definitely just hit it out of the
• 50:50
  ballpark in my opinion. Bless your heart. Yeah, bless
• 50:54
  my heart. No, no, I appreciate the nice words. And you mentioned
• 50:58
  38 years. And, and I'll use the word crush loosely
• 51:02
  because she might watch this, but Debbie Gibson is my
• 51:05
  favorite interview I've ever done. And I
• 51:08
  interviewed artists as a
• 51:12
  dj, so, you know, going back to talking to Janet
• 51:15
  Jackson and Paula Abdul and the artists of that era,
• 51:19
  Michael Bolton, I was in a bar with Tupac
• 51:23
  Shakur and interviewed Biggie Smalls. That was all awesome. And.
• 51:28
  But. And I played. And I played Debbie Gibson as a dj.
• 51:32
  So when she came to town a month or so ago,
• 51:36
  we did a zoom call. And I'm just going to do four or five minutes
• 51:40
  of TV, but we're talking for 20 minutes. I'm going to take the best part
• 51:42
  out of that and put it on there. And I mentioned that at the beginning
• 51:46
  of the conversation. I go, this is extra cool for me because,
• 51:50
  you know, I want to do good TV and I want to promote your show,
• 51:52
  but I played your stuff when you were a kid. This is
• 51:56
  awesome. And so. And I knew everything about her life.
• 52:00
  I knew that she. I had overcome Lyme disease. I knew her mother passing. I
• 52:04
  knew she had some financial challenges. But anyway, over this conversation,
• 52:07
  we became friends because it wasn't an interview. We were just
• 52:11
  talking, and there was commonalities. We had some old school radio,
• 52:15
  and I knew about her life, and she was asking me about my thing, and
• 52:18
  it's never too late for her because she's 54 years old, coming back to sing,
• 52:21
  and there's just these life parallels. So when
• 52:25
  the interview ended, I said, hey, I'm gonna go to your show. And,
• 52:29
  you know, hopefully I can, you know, see in person, because we're zooming like this.
• 52:34
  She goes, well, you. You are. I go, what do you mean? She goes, I'm
• 52:37
  gonna give you the number of my manager. You tell him I told you to
• 52:39
  call, okay? So I
• 52:43
  sent him a text and say, hey, you know, Debbie said, you know, I could
• 52:46
  go backstage. And he says, yeah, you know, she told me.
• 52:50
  So on the night of the show, he couldn't make it, but
• 52:54
  he put me in touch with somebody else. And then he says, hey, I'm going
• 52:57
  to call you in a little bit. So I'm sitting in the show and
• 53:01
  opening Axon, and I get a call from this number I don't recognize, a little
• 53:05
  town in Missouri. And. But this might be something, you know, it's
• 53:09
  not. Doesn't look like spam to me. So I pick it up and. Hello.
• 53:13
  This Dave? Yeah, yeah, this is Derek, Debbie's assistant. Where are you sitting?
• 53:18
  Well, I'm in the fourth row. I got black Shorts, red T
• 53:22
  shirt, okay, I'm coming to get you. And this
• 53:26
  wasn't the meet and greet. The meet and greets after the show with all the
• 53:28
  other VIP lanyard people. Oh, my God, he's coming to
• 53:32
  get me. So he whisked me back there. And
• 53:36
  she comes knock on the trailer. She comes out to see me. We had like,
• 53:40
  we had such a great talk. We hug. She brings her dog out. I knew
• 53:43
  she was a dog mom. I go, hey, like you even more because I know
• 53:46
  you're a dog mom. So. And then she went on to
• 53:49
  put this tour de force performance on afterwards. So I just see all these life
• 53:53
  parallels and she's a nice person and was willing to share her life.
• 53:57
  It wasn't I ask, you answer, I ask. And I've got this
• 54:00
  list of questions because those interviews suck, but if you can have a conversation with
• 54:04
  somebody. So it was totally real. You
• 54:08
  know, like I said, we come from the same generation. We've had some, some similar
• 54:11
  experiences. And so I use the word crush, but I just think she's a good
• 54:14
  person. And yeah, like I said, I saw root for people like that that
• 54:18
  I like. Super talented, but I can tell there's a great soul there.
• 54:22
  And you gravitate to people like that. Yeah. And don't you
• 54:25
  just. You like the ones, the famous people to be pseudo
• 54:29
  famous, Totally famous. You want them all to be good people. Oh, yeah. It's
• 54:33
  so much more fun when you know they're good people. Oh,
• 54:36
  she's the best. Hey, and I want maybe your audience. Maybe she sees
• 54:40
  your podcast. Debbie, I'm inviting you to my
• 54:44
  speech, August 12, National Auto
• 54:48
  Museum in Reno. I'll get you backstage to my
• 54:51
  show.
• 54:55
  Perfect. Well, I'm going to be there, so maybe she's going to be there too.
• 54:59
  There's a bunch of people from town are going to be there. You bet.
• 55:02
  It's get the whole station out. I'm excited about it because
• 55:06
  I am too. When I. When I met with the
• 55:10
  director of the auto museum a few months ago, we were just talking life
• 55:13
  and I knew some of the people that had spoken before. And he
• 55:17
  says, you got a great story. I said, well, you know, someday I'll tell it
• 55:21
  here. And then over the last few months, we were talking more about it and
• 55:24
  then, okay, let's lock in the date. So now I'm
• 55:28
  committed. I can't back out. It's on the website. People are buying
• 55:31
  tickets and the way they sold, I go, I
• 55:35
  gotta be good. I better be good. So there's
• 55:39
  a lot of work to do, but it's going to be a journey on not
• 55:43
  just career, but on life. And that voice, that voice that
• 55:47
  takes away our power, you know, you're not smart enough,
• 55:50
  you're not good enough, you're too tall, too short, too fat, all those things.
• 55:56
  A voice that, you know, every now and then I still hear, but just knowing
• 55:59
  what it is and what it isn't and, and then some people need to
• 56:03
  feel good about where they are. They don't need to worry about like we're talking
• 56:06
  about these changes and pivots and all that, which is awesome. You know, people need
• 56:08
  to do that. But some people need to feel good about who they are. You
• 56:11
  know, like they, they, they're, they're already a great mom, they're already great
• 56:15
  husband and a great parent, they're already good in their careers. And they don't need
• 56:18
  to feel like they're comparing themselves to them person next door. If I only had
• 56:21
  a car like that, if I only could drop 10 more pounds. Hey, I want
• 56:25
  people to love themselves, so I want to hit that sweet spot for everybody, whether
• 56:28
  they need to feel good about where they are and if we want to make
• 56:31
  some changes. And that way everybody wins that day. Yeah, that's
• 56:35
  beautiful. Being in the moment. Well, being in the moment is part of healing
• 56:39
  too, in my, in my opinion. I think, you know, like, I loved going on
• 56:42
  walks and I was going through the worst of it in the, in the woods.
• 56:44
  Because you're lost in the moment, you know. Yeah.
• 56:48
  And be happy in the moment. I, I'll think about when you, what
• 56:52
  you just said there. Being happy in the moment, putting on makeup at
• 56:56
  2:00 in the morning. I'm saying I'm in the moment, man. And Mary
• 56:59
  would be proud right now. Now you're full of it. I am.
• 57:04
  I've never thought that. I've never thought that at 2 o' clock
• 57:08
  in the morning. I remember when you first told me that you're getting up at
• 57:11
  2 o' clock in the morning. And I'm like, I'm just. I was, it was
• 57:14
  peculiar to me in some ways because I'm like, well, he must have been doing
• 57:17
  this forever. Like, why are they talking about this? But like, that's,
• 57:20
  no, this is. That maybe that's the hardest part of this
• 57:24
  transition is getting up at 2 in the morning. It does sound
• 57:27
  horrible. Oh, no. I don't care who hears this.
• 57:31
  That part sucks because it's, it impacts your social
• 57:35
  life, you know, because you go to bed at 8 o' clock to pull it
• 57:38
  off. So I can't stay up at all. And even on the weekend I'm tired
• 57:41
  because my body's conditioned. And before I took the job, I
• 57:45
  wanted to see if I could do it. Like, yeah, yeah, I can come Reno
• 57:48
  and be on TV and we'll be number one. But like, can you get up
• 57:51
  at 2 o'? Clock? So I did get
• 57:55
  up at 2, you know, in the Bay Area to see if I could. All
• 57:58
  right. And so after I did it for a week, I go, okay, I can
• 58:01
  do this. Now long term, that would be like the one thing.
• 58:05
  Like, hey, we're successful, we do a good show. But
• 58:09
  can I physically do this for years and years and years? And that would be
• 58:12
  the one thing that I weigh. Long term, not today. Right now
• 58:15
  I'm living in the moment, putting on the makeup at 2. But later
• 58:19
  on it'd be the physical toll. And you know,
• 58:23
  can I get myself to feel physically good at
• 58:28
  2 in the morning? You know, without that cup of coffee
• 58:32
  and the nap, the mandatory 90 minute nap every day?
• 58:36
  Yeah, that's huge. I don't even know
• 58:39
  like that. That sounds really, really rough. I'm not gonna lie.
• 58:43
  It's. But I'd rather do that than I would not want to be
• 58:47
  on the 11 o' clock news. That. Because then you're up to working till
• 58:50
  mid. So you never go out at night ever. So you never have dinner with
• 58:53
  anybody ever, except on the weekend. And,
• 58:57
  and then you're always up till 1 o' clock in the morning
• 59:02
  from work. So it's not like you're out having fun and walk like you're, you've
• 59:06
  been on a computer and you've been doing TV then. So I, I'd
• 59:09
  rather do the morning if I can get my body right. I could stay up
• 59:12
  a little bit. I can live a little bit. I can. I go to Taco
• 59:15
  Tuesdays, you know, go out and do that.
• 59:19
  Yeah, I'm gonna go to an Aces game next week, stay for a couple innings
• 59:22
  because I get to throw out the first pitch on Tuesday. So I'll stay up
• 59:24
  till 9:00. Clock on Tuesday, the 22nd. Okay,
• 59:28
  well. So, but anyway, I'd rather do
• 59:32
  this the early morning than working late at night because that would
• 59:36
  be brutal. Last
• 59:39
  question. Are you doing any acting still here in Reno? Not
• 59:43
  in Reno. My. I don't know if I can because
• 59:47
  like the station controls like what I can do. It's never come
• 59:51
  up in a conversation. So I can't do Like a local commercial.
• 59:55
  And I think there's probably a credibility component too. You know, if I'm some smart
• 59:59
  alec waiter, you know, throwing water at somebody and I'm on the news, you know,
• 1:00:02
  I think there's kind of this weird visual of that
• 1:00:06
  I can do sports in the market, on the radio, but I can't do TV
• 1:00:10
  because it's. There's definitely a conflict there. So my acting's in the Bay
• 1:00:13
  Area. I've got an agent in the city, so I audition for stuff there.
• 1:00:17
  Audition for a commercial. I had one I auditioned for. I thought I had a
• 1:00:20
  shot to get at the All Star break for the NBA. Didn't get it. But,
• 1:00:23
  you know, it's. It's a numbers thing. And as an actor,
• 1:00:27
  we're supposed to be conditioned to say having a good audition
• 1:00:32
  is the job. You know, if you can feel good about that,
• 1:00:35
  booking the gig is just gravy. But it's doing good work in
• 1:00:39
  your audition. So I want to carve out time to do more classes
• 1:00:43
  and that'll be the next thing I do because there's a couple of great coaches
• 1:00:46
  I have in LA that are top notch. So you
• 1:00:49
  got to keep working the craft. The reps I get on TV
• 1:00:54
  I think are helpful in a different way. It does make me a better actor
• 1:00:57
  because I'm just. I'm working on camera every single day. Every
• 1:01:01
  single day. So I think there is some crossover. But.
• 1:01:05
  But all my acting is in the Bay Area. I think comfort in front of
• 1:01:08
  the camera is pretty huge because that's the thing I think that throws a lot
• 1:01:11
  of actors right away is just, you know, or people in general. You know, if
• 1:01:15
  I have a business owner come in and do a commercial or an interview and
• 1:01:18
  I put them in front of the camera, it's. The camera itself is intimidating. Yeah.
• 1:01:21
  And you lose some personality. So. And like, that would be
• 1:01:25
  helpful. And then the one thing I know you had to wrap it up in
• 1:01:28
  a second. You have a. Do you have a time limit? Like you have to
• 1:01:30
  throw me off by a certain time? No, I was just going to throw you
• 1:01:33
  off just because. I'm kidding, just jokes. No, one
• 1:01:37
  thing. We're in about an hour. I try to keep it in about an hour,
• 1:01:40
  but. But this is so compelling. We're going over. Yeah, it is.
• 1:01:44
  No, one thing, besides the being comfortable on camera is like being able to
• 1:01:47
  listen. And that's why I want to do it not just on tv but in
• 1:01:50
  life. Because people I know people can relate to this is,
• 1:01:54
  you know, you're hearing me, but are you listening? So I'm waiting for Mary to
• 1:01:58
  be done talking so I can say what I'm going to say. So but if
• 1:02:01
  you're a great communicator, which is what I aspire, that's what Lindsey Matherly Lee is
• 1:02:05
  the best she hears, and
• 1:02:09
  she's responding authentically. She's not waiting for me to be done talking so she can
• 1:02:12
  say her thing. She hears me and she responds to that. And
• 1:02:16
  she's asking, like, did I do anything exciting over the weekend? And then I'll tell
• 1:02:20
  her, and then I'll say, what about you? It's not just, how are you? Fine.
• 1:02:23
  Like, we're talking. And if I can get that in my personal life,
• 1:02:27
  like, master that, then you really have something. And if I get up,
• 1:02:30
  master that on tv, which is harder to do because that is set
• 1:02:34
  up to have you talk. I talk. You talk. I talk. Is your turn to
• 1:02:37
  talk. And if you get yourself to where we're hearing and listening,
• 1:02:41
  oh, that's where the magic happens. And when Reverend Rebecca and I
• 1:02:45
  are really good, that's what we're doing. Like, we're hearing each other and
• 1:02:48
  listening. And so that's why I aspire to every day, not just on
• 1:02:52
  the show, but in life. Yeah. Listening is the
• 1:02:56
  key, isn't it? I think it's if you want to be better in business, listen
• 1:02:59
  better in relationship lessons, listen better in
• 1:03:03
  acting, listen better in friendships, listen.
• 1:03:07
  That is a key to. To a whole lot of stuff. What'd you say? Like
• 1:03:11
  what? I don't know what you
• 1:03:14
  said. I was waiting for you to finish talking so I could talk.
• 1:03:20
  I don't know what you just said, even. No, but you're right.
• 1:03:23
  And that's a lesson from actors, too, is like, not
• 1:03:27
  waiting for you to finish your line so I can say my line.
• 1:03:31
  I'm hearing you and responding authentically. Yeah.
• 1:03:36
  Yeah. It's such a good thing. And the improv
• 1:03:40
  piece of it, too. I'm sure that all the. All the play by
• 1:03:43
  play. And that must translate a little bit to improving, don't you
• 1:03:47
  think? In scenes? I'd hope so. No,
• 1:03:51
  I believe it to be true. Yeah. One day we're gonna do a scene,
• 1:03:54
  David. Oh, yes, yes. And now
• 1:03:58
  a couple. The way that the business is set up,
• 1:04:03
  agents embrace that stuff. You know, doing your own things instead of sitting around
• 1:04:06
  waiting to, you know, get this audition every. You can make your own stuff. Man,
• 1:04:10
  the iPhones are so good. That looks so good. You can lava their mic
• 1:04:13
  or just have the Camera phone, pick it up and create your own
• 1:04:17
  stuff and then show it off to people. Yeah,
• 1:04:21
  for sure. It's a little bit what I'm doing right now. Only
• 1:04:25
  this is a podcast and not comedy. But, you know, I did some.
• 1:04:29
  I did some comedy stuff way back in the day when I first kind of
• 1:04:32
  started with a friend who is an actor. So whenever we'd help each other with
• 1:04:36
  auditions, we do something super fun. And when I moved from
• 1:04:39
  Nashville to Atlanta, then that stopped. But he is doing so
• 1:04:43
  well. Like, his career has taken off like crazy. But
• 1:04:47
  I have to say, he. He messaged me his. And shot me his new
• 1:04:51
  reel the other day, and I'm like, man, I miss those
• 1:04:54
  silly little videos all the time.
• 1:04:58
  Yeah, yeah. He had a scene with Robert De Niro. So, like, he's
• 1:05:02
  like, he's. He's. I mean, his. His reel is very. Yeah.
• 1:05:06
  Win record. I'm gonna give him a shout out. Go check it out. Okay. But,
• 1:05:10
  yeah. Well, David, thank you for your time. I'm so excited to
• 1:05:14
  hear your speech. David Lewis giving keynote speech.
• 1:05:18
  Speeches, Speeches. It's easy for you to say. It's a
• 1:05:21
  great opportunity. I'm really excited about it. So for the folks in
• 1:05:25
  Reno, hope to put on a good show for you.
• 1:05:28
  Yeah. All right. All right, well, more to come
• 1:05:33
  tomorrow at 5am news
• 1:05:37
  and getting up at. 2 and putting on makeup.
• 1:05:42
  So besides catching you on KOLO tv, because you can. You can go to the
• 1:05:45
  website and catch them on the news. If you're not in Reno, you can go
• 1:05:48
  to the app, the KOLO News app, and catch them.
• 1:05:53
  And also, what. Any other socials you have at Dave Lewis on
• 1:05:56
  TV down there? Yeah, I mean, I put some other stuff, like, you know,
• 1:06:00
  some highlight, you know, show highlights. But right now I'm putting more of
• 1:06:04
  our stuff on the Good Morning Reno page.
• 1:06:08
  Being selfless, I'm more concerned about, you know, building our show.
• 1:06:11
  So we have a Facebook page. Good morning, Reno.
• 1:06:15
  Instagram, Good morning, Reno. And then,
• 1:06:19
  you know, Dave Lewis on the air, I think it's. Yeah. On the
• 1:06:23
  air and on tv, I think it's Dave Lewis on TV for
• 1:06:27
  one of them. And then I also have that on Facebook as well.
• 1:06:31
  Awesome. All right, well, thanks, Dave. I appreciate your time,
• 1:06:35
  Mary. I enjoyed the visit. You crushed this. Oh,
• 1:06:38
  crushed it. Thanks.
• 1:06:42
  All right, you have a good night, and I will see you tomorrow. I'll see
• 1:06:45
  you at the office, baby.