Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / The Art of Bounce Back: Elle Davis's Resilience Journey | The Christian Reeve Podcast #353

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The Art of Bounce Back: Elle Davis's Resilience Journey | The Christian Reeve Podcast #353 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Brief
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  Podcast. Today's guest is a public
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  speaker. She's an author.
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  She did a Ted talk, Ted X talk, amazing leadership coach,
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  founder and CEO of the Elevate Group.
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  Her name is Elle Davis. Welcome to the show.
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  How you doing? I'm great, Christian, thank you
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  for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
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  The the owner is mine. The privilege is mine.
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  But thank you. Thank you so much.
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  I'm glad you're happy to be here.
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  As you know, as always, I always do research on my guests as you
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  should. Look, I hope so.
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  I showed up with nothing I guess.
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  You get get out of here. Hey answer some questions.
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  Here you go. You'd be surprised.
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  I mean, I've, I've been on some other people's shows over the
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  years and yeah, I don't do it as much anymore.
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  Like occasionally I get, I might get an invite and I'm like, oh,
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  awesome. And, you know, it's, it's a very
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  strange experience when you're an interviewer being interviewed
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  because there's no pressure, you know, to to do anything.
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  I don't have to do anything other than just sit and take and
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  have the questions. But you want to know that the
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  other person's taking you seriously and your time's not
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  being wasted. You know what I mean?
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  And it's it's. Yeah, absolutely.
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  And it's crazy, like you, you go on shows sometimes and they're
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  just not prepared. And you're like, what is this?
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  What you know, all I, I remember one time I I was on a show and I
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  don't know the guy did he did like half an hour shows, which
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  is fine. You know, there's nothing wrong
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  with that. You know, know your guest like I
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  what I mean. What I mean by that is I talk a
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  lot and I talk for a long time. I'm like the grandfather with
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  his stories, you know, if you, I love it.
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  Do you know what I mean? If you want like quick answers,
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  that's not me. And I remember we got it's half
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  an hour in and he's like, oh, that's yeah, that's the end of
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  the show. And I was like, I'm just getting
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  started. What do you mean?
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  You're like, we're warming up here.
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  We're this is the beginning. What are you talking?
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  About. That's good.
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  But anyway, enough about that. So in my research, obviously,
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  you know, I look to, here's a bit of an insight actually for
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  people who listen to the show, my breakdown of how I don't know
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  if I've ever really spoken about this.
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  So I get information sent to me and shout out to Shakira for
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  putting this show together. Thank you so much.
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  So I've got a bit of information from her.
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  I've got a bit of information just kind of like general online
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  stuff, you know, you do you Google research.
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  I say if someone's got like a LinkedIn account, I like to jump
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  into that, find some tidbits, obviously the websites and
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  stuff. And you know, I looked at the
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  Ted Talk and I was like, because sometimes I'll go into a show,
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  I'll always have the research and the notes on the side.
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  But sometimes I like to go into certain things blind and just
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  kind of go from there. But I was like, I have to have
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  to hear this, you know, because I think it might be the first
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  time I've ever had someone on the show who's done a Ted Talk.
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  And so it's so congratulations to you.
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  Thank you. It's actually a bucket list item
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  for me. I'd love to do 1 myself one day.
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  So putting that out into the universe.
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  Listen, put it out. I, I might be, I, I might have
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  listen, I have someone that might be able to help you with
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  that too. So.
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  Let's go imagine that guys being on the Ted TEDx talk.
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  Anyway, the thing I've always noticed about TEDx talks is
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  there's, there's like a style, there's an approach to it, but
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  everyone obviously approaches it a little bit differently, but
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  it's kind of they'll be like a, a specific end point.
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  And yours was all about resilience and, and we're going
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  to get really into that today. And the reason why I wasn't
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  unsure about whether or not to talk about it is because one of
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  the things obviously we're going to be talking about today is, is
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  a, is a, is a big thing. It's, it's about loss and, and
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  things like that. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to
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  like hear it just blind from you or hear you talk about it.
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  Then. Do you know what?
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  I'm so glad that I did. I, I watched it and then I
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  immediately put it in my discord and I was like, guys, you have
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  to check this out. This is a guest coming on the
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  show. I.
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  Love it. Just, I was, I, I was in tears,
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  to be honest. It was a really beautiful,
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  empowering story. And before, before we get into
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  that, I, I guess because you've got a history of public
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  speaking, you've been doing this a while.
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  What was it like for you doing a Ted talk?
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  What did that feel like for you? What did that mean to you?
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  Christian it was nerve wracking. It was so nerve wracking.
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  So I did the I'm from Chicago, IL in the US and have you have
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  you been have you been to? Chicago.
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  No. But like, so many of my heroes
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  are from Chicago. Like.
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  OK, awesome. Yeah, Love Chicago.
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  A lot of love for Chicago. Yeah.
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  So I'm, I'm from Chicago, but I did the talk in Boston at Babson
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  College. And so I got to Babson College
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  the like a day or two before and we had to rehearse on the stage
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  the night before, which is great, right?
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  Like that's what you should do. But I literally got on stage and
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  I couldn't get the words out. I felt like I was like tripping
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  over what I was trying to say. When I walked off the stage, I
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  had what the best thing that I can describe it is like
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  cottonmouth where you feel like, like your mouth is like dry and
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  you can't like really say anything or do anything.
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  And I was like, what is happening?
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  I was like, this is going to be the worst FedEx talk ever.
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  I was like, what's going to happen?
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  And so I, I'm like, called a friend that night and I was
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  like, I'm rewriting it. I'm, I'm, I'm changing stuff up.
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  And she was like, you're not, you are not going to do a thing.
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  She was like, leave it the way it is.
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  You need to get a good night's rest.
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  You will be fine. You will be OK.
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  And so I didn't change anything because she talked me down.
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  You know, she talked me off the ledge from changing anything.
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  And then the next morning, you know, I'm a girly girl, so I had
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  to get my makeup done. So I had a makeup artist come
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  and after the makeup artist came and did my makeup, I felt like I
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  could tackle anything. I was ready for it.
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  When you're telling, when you're going through this talk, when
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  you're telling this story, because I know like I've been a
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  musician over the years, I've done public speaking myself here
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  and there. It's, you know, as you say, it's
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  a nerve wracking experience. You could do it 100 million
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  times, you'd still be nervous. And when you're talking about
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  something this close to your heart, you know, it's your life,
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  it's bearing your soul on stage. It's it's a lot.
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  So you see this auditorium of people there and they're there
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  to listen to your talk and to hear you.
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  Did you, did you, did you kind of.
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  I guess my question is, it's twofold.
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  Like what was the kind of sense, the vibe you were getting from
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  the crowd? And then also, was there only
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  one that you looked at as you were doing the tour?
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  Because there's some points in it where I'm like, just like, do
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  you have tissues? Yeah.
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  Like it's, it's, it's, it's a lot.
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  Yeah, I'm not sure how I got through it, but so I think the
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  good thing is I went, there were two parts.
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  There was like a morning set of folks.
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  And then in the afternoon, so I got to go in the afternoon,
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  which was actually really good because I sat in the audience
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  for the morning folks. And I, I sat in the front row
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  and I was able to like interact with them in the sense of like
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  giving them eye contact, giving them the nod, Right.
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  And one of the speakers in the morning was like, oh, my
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  goodness, thank you. I felt your energy just he was
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  just like so excited. He was like, thank you FS your
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  energy. I was like, good, all right, I'm
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  glad. And then so when it was my time
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  to go, actually some folks from Chicago, I love a good coffee
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  shop and there's one of my neighborhood coffee shops is a
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  friend of mine. And actually the Chicago folks
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  had a viewing at one of his coffee shop locations.
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  So folks from Chicago were set up shop at the coffee shop
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  viewing it. And as I was preparing to go to
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  my seat in the morning, I was like talking to my mom.
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  My mom was there. My daughter was there.
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  And lo and behold, the coffee shop owner and his daughter and
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  his, like, chief operations person come into the auditorium.
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  I had no idea they were going to be there.
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  They surprised me. So I was like, oh, these stakes
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  are high, right? Like, I was like, the stakes are
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  pretty high. I got to do pretty good on this.
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  So I literally did like the Superwoman pose before I went
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  out on stage as they were miking me up.
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  I literally got into Superwoman pose.
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  And once I hit the stage, I really looked above the crowd.
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  I could, it was hard to see because there were so many
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  lights. Yeah, I, I couldn't like, really
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  see a face, so I kind of looked slightly above the crowd, and I
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  just went for it. And I was just like, listen,
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  these people are here to listen, so at least I have their
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  attention. I know that.
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  And let me just keep their attention.
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  And so when I started infusing a little bit of the humor at
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  certain places and they would laugh, and that made me feel
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  comfortable, too. So it was like looking above the
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  stage, but also knowing that I had a support system.
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  I probably had about eight or nine people in the audience.
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  So that felt good too. So when it comes to these kind
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  of talks, like I know similar types of talks, lectures,
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  etcetera, will you know, you typically afterwards you'll be
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  able to talk to the speakers and share your experiences and be
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  like, hey, this meant something to me.
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  Don't know how it works with Ted X, but were you able to do that
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  and and how was your talk received by people?
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  Yeah. So in the so all of the
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  speakers, we also had kind of like a green room area, which
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  was great, right, So that we could all connect.
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  And when I walked back into the room like they were everybody
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  was cheering and clapping and was just like, you did such an
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  amazing job. And then I quickly got onto a
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  Zoom with the Chicago folks while they were at the coffee
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  shop and they like projected me on the screen and everybody was
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  just like clapping and was just like, that was so awesome.
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  So that was really that was pretty.
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  That was like a rock star moment, right?
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  Like that was the rock star moment of like, you win the
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  Academy Award, just like this was great.
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  And then in the audience, like after everyone spoke, like I did
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  have people that I did not know who came up to me and was just
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  like, I really resonated with that.
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  Thank you for sharing your story.
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  One of the coaches, we had coaches through Babson College.
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  We had some speech coaches and the speech coach was just, I
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  remember his words. He was like your cadence, your
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  story, your confidence was, was impeccable.
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  He was just like you, you nailed it.
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  And I was like, thank you. Thank you so much.
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  You really did. I mean, I, I've watched a lot of
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  Ted talks over the years and, you know, there are some people
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  that kind of go for like more out there kind of approaches
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  sometimes. But generally there's like a
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  level of consistency as as far as like what you tend to hear.
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  There's a style to it. But yeah, it's like you, I, I
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  mean, I, we'll, we'll get into this in a second, but I don't
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  know how long you've been been public speaking for, but it was
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  like you've been doing all your life, like it was just
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  incredible. Well, as I, as I start that,
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  thank you for that. And as I started the Ted talk
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  talking about like I recited a poem in 3rd grade, I, I
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  literally since around 3rd grade started doing like oratory or,
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  you know, speaking in that way. At one point I wanted to act.
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  I know that you're an actor, you know, like I, I did certain
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  things in my life so that I could like be an actor or do
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  certain things. And so I, I, for there was a
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  while that I wasn't public speaking, but I know that when I
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  feel good on the stage and when I feel comfortable and
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  confident, I know that I can put it out there what I need to do.
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  So feels pretty good. They say everything happens for
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  a reason. Obviously you mentioned I'm an
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  actor. I mean, I don't know if it's
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  ever going to work for me in those fields.
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  I do a lot of things. But one thing I do feel very
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  comfortable and confident with is speaking to people, doing
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  interviews. And it's interesting how these
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  different industries in life can give you certain skills.
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  You know, obviously acting as you're on a stage, as you
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  mentioned, doing, doing public speaking, talking to people,
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  poetry, I think that's more nerve racking than anything
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  else. I did a little bit of that a few
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  years back and I found that terrifying because with music
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  you've got like the, you can hide in the music, you know what
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  I mean? With acting, It's, you know,
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  it's. You become a different person or
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  yeah, you're. Working everyone's there to kind
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  of help you get the most out of what you're doing and you to be
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  on it. I mean, I don't, I can't speak
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  for other people, but for me, I go into my head and I'm focused
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  on work. And I would imagine public
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  speaking in the way that you do it is probably somewhat similar.
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  Just because you've got a goal, you know what the the points you
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  need to hear, yes. You.
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  Probably, yeah. You've practiced this speech and
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  everything, and as you said, you've been doing it all your
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  life, which kind of leads me on to my next question.
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  What would you say you've learned through public speaking
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  over the years? What have been the biggest
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  takeaways for you? It's.
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  A great question. I think really, I think what
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  it's done for me is it's built my confidence over and over
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  again. And I think that with building
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  that confidence you have, like it has reminded me that people
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  love a good story, you know, and that and that.
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  And that is really like the nugget, I think of public
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  speaking when people have a hard time.
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  I'm like, well, what's the story you're telling?
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  What are you trying to communicate to the audience?
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  And they're like, what do you mean?
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  What's the story? I'm like, that's why people are
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  there. That's why people, you know,
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  want to see you because they want you to hold their story,
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  hold their attention through a story.
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  And they want a little bit of humor.
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  I'm not always funny. I was able to infuse some humor
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  right into my TEDx talk, and it sometimes depends on the moment
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  or how familiar you are with the audience or what's happening
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  there that you can kind of infuse some of that.
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  And so I think, you know, I really think public speaking is
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  about building confidence and it's about storytelling.
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  And if you find a way to tell a story that people resonate with,
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  then you've hooked some people. And and to always remember that
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  everybody is not your people. Like just because someone's in
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  the audience and just because they, they may resonate with
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  you, but that may not mean that they want to connect with you
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  afterwards. That may not mean they want to
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  buy your book. That may not mean, you know,
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  like there's all these things that it may not mean, and that's
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  OK. Absolutely.
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  Your story's about resilience and there's, there's a lot of
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  elements to this and there's a lot of different ways I wanted
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  to approach this, but something came to mind immediately because
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  the first thing that I thought was about the initial aftermath
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  and everything. So for those who don't know,
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  back in 2014, your husband passed away and it was sudden
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  and it was unexpected. And the often in life, that's
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  how it is, isn't it? You know, something big will hit
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  you out of nowhere that you're just not prepared for.
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  How can you ever really be prepared for for these things?
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  Yeah. And it reminds me of a show that
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  I saw years ago. I'm pretty sure you've probably
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  heard of it. Afterlife by Ricky Gervais.
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  I think I have heard of Afterlife.
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  I haven't seen it but. So it's, it's a show where
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  basically he it follows this guy's life after he's lost his
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  wife and how he sort of slowly comes to terms with it.
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  And initially he just doesn't want to be here.
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  Then over time I think he's adjusting.
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  Do you know, I mean, it's, it's adjustment really, isn't it?
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  But there's a scene, I don't know if it's in the first
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  episode or the first week. He's he's like very quiet, sort
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  of paralysed, just in his head. He's he's obviously very
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  depressed and everything. And I often talk about like
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  when, and I felt this myself over the years, when, when I've
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  lost someone, you feel numb, you feel life ceases to be, you
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  know, like we as humans live in linear time.
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  You know, time marches forward and, and we move with it.
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  But in those moments, I feel like time just dissipates
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  really. And you're just thing matters.
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  And not because things don't matter anymore, but because you
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  feel in that moment, how could anything matter?
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  Like this is what even is this anymore?
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  And in that moment, I, I, he, he doesn't know what he's doing.
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  He's in the kitchen. He's just kind of like, what's
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  the point? And his dog is motioning like,
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  it wants food, like it's hungry. And he's like, right, yeah, I
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  need to feed the dog. So he feeds the dog.
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  And then he kind of remarks on that as he keeps going.
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  He's like, well, I need to keep feeding the dog.
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  Who's going to feed the dog? So what I'm hinting at with this
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  is you lost your husband, but you have a daughter and at the
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  time she was very young, a couple of years old.
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  Was that right? 2 yes.
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  Two years old, right? So I guess like how, how did you
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  initially find that strength to keep going and to be there for
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  her and and and to, to start rebuilding?
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  Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I the strength just came.
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  I don't know if I found it. I don't know if it found me.
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  I don't know how right it came to be.
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  It was. But I knew that I didn't have a
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  choice because I had a daughter with her only being two years
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  old. I knew that I had to explain so
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  much. I had to be there.
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  I had to show up. So for me, it wasn't really a
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  question of if there was an option to do something else
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  because there was not. But I also like one of the
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  things that I always tell people is my community, like my friends
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  and family showed up in such a huge way, Christian, like such a
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  huge way that they motivated and kept me going and they, you
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  know, propelled me forward in a way that I didn't even know that
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  I was going to need or I didn't even expect.
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  And so they like, I had friends that were sleeping on my couch
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  for weeks at a time. I had friends that made sure my
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  daughter got to childcare, that made sure we ate because I tell
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  you, I'm certain I didn't cook for six months.
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  So I don't even know what we ate.
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  No, it's, it's fair. It reminds me, I was watching
• 19:38
  the Brit Awards here in the UK the other night, British Music
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  Awards, and they were doing it. They were doing a legacy award
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  for Ozzy Osbourne, who passed away last year, I believe.
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  And so his wife and his daughter were there and Kelly, his
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  daughter. I remember sitting there with my
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  with my girlfriend just she was saying like Oh my God, like.
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  You can tell she's at this point in her life just existing for
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  her mum. She's the strength for her mum.
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  And she she's lost so much weight and, and people online,
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  people in society are horrible. Like they're just all making fun
• 20:21
  of her and being horrible. And she put out a statement
• 20:23
  saying like, Hey, I hope you never like, I mean, I'm
• 20:25
  paraphrasing, but basically the gist of what she was saying is
• 20:28
  I've just lost someone and grief does that to you.
• 20:33
  What is it? I heard Jimmy Carr say the other
• 20:35
  day? He was he was doing a there's a
• 20:38
  guy to check out if you ever suffering with grief.
• 20:41
  He has these little lines every now and again.
• 20:43
  He said grief is the price we pay for love.
• 20:47
  I've heard that before. Yeah, it's it's.
• 20:54
  And yeah, every. Like I said, things are numb.
• 20:56
  You, you things like eating don't really seem important.
• 21:04
  You know, like you said, there's a six months that I don't
• 21:06
  remember what we, what we ate because you don't think about
• 21:09
  that. Like what?
• 21:11
  Right. And I think what's beautiful
• 21:13
  with what you sort of outlined there with your support network
• 21:16
  is the concept of empathy, which is something I had to learn over
• 21:21
  the years because I didn't, I don't think many people
• 21:23
  necessarily get it. People talk about it a lot now,
• 21:27
  but for many years there was this misconception of, of what
• 21:29
  it means. And that is empathy right there.
• 21:33
  It's just your friends showing up.
• 21:34
  They're on the couch. They're like, right, you need to
• 21:36
  eat. You need to, let's get your
• 21:39
  daughter dressed for school. Let's take her to school, right?
• 21:41
  You need to get up, get in the shower, you know, because you're
• 21:44
  not, you're not doing those things because in that moment
• 21:46
  when that big thing has happened, life stops.
• 21:51
  It absolutely does. And you're like, why?
• 21:53
  What? What do I need to continue on?
• 21:56
  And I always say life would have been very different had I not
• 22:01
  had my daughter, right? If my daughter had not been
• 22:06
  there, I'm, I might have been the one that was in the bed for
• 22:11
  six months. We don't.
• 22:12
  It's the it's the responsibility thing.
• 22:14
  I mean, I would wager in that moment with how you felt and
• 22:18
  everything, there was obviously the big thing in your head still
• 22:20
  of, well, I have to be here for my daughter regardless of what's
• 22:24
  going on. I have to figure it out somehow,
• 22:28
  and it's a lot. It's a lot of pressure,
• 22:30
  responsibilities of pressure. Pressure.
• 22:33
  But at the same time, you know, as I mentioned with the Kelly
• 22:38
  Osbourne example, you can, you can be, you know, eating or
• 22:45
  trying to live your life normally in when you're dealing
• 22:47
  with grief and your body will react that way anyway.
• 22:50
  Like people don't necessarily know this.
• 22:52
  And my girlfriend was kind of educating me on this, but even
• 22:55
  if you're eating normally, your body will still just drop
• 22:57
  weight, drop weight, drop weight, drop weight because it's
• 22:59
  the same as like when you're stressed, absolutely.
• 23:02
  And your cortisol levels are through the roof.
• 23:04
  And it's like people don't understand how intrinsically
• 23:06
  linked physical the physicality of your body is to your
• 23:11
  emotions. So listen, I, I lead a virtual
• 23:15
  grief support group and we're actually doing this month.
• 23:18
  So I do it maybe three to four times a year.
• 23:21
  And so we're doing it. March starts tonight.
• 23:24
  And I tell people all the time that we sometimes feel the grief
• 23:32
  and the heartache literally in different parts of our body.
• 23:36
  And so you might be having knee pain, but your knee, it may have
• 23:40
  nothing to do with like getting older or, you know, an injury or
• 23:45
  whatever. It may have everything to do
• 23:47
  with the heartache that you're feeling, right, from losing a
• 23:50
  loved one or if you're carrying guilt, right?
• 23:53
  Like, there's different parts of our body that we actually carry
• 23:56
  the emotions of what's happening.
• 23:59
  And most of us don't recognize that, don't realize it.
• 24:03
  And I remember last year holding a grief support group and one of
• 24:06
  the participants said that she was like, my goodness, since
• 24:10
  I've been coming to this grief support, I've also started back
• 24:13
  with physical therapy and I've started doing other things to
• 24:16
  like release it. And she was like, thank you for
• 24:19
  for sharing that and saying that because I had no idea.
• 24:22
  And I'm like, yeah, most of us don't.
• 24:24
  We just think that we're going through life and it's all fine.
• 24:28
  And it's like, no, your body, your body is taking score, as
• 24:31
  they say. It's like that saying choose a
• 24:34
  rest day or your body will choose it for you.
• 24:38
  You don't listen to your body, then it's it'll become a big
• 24:41
  problem. It will listen.
• 24:42
  It will shut down. Your body will say no thanks.
• 24:45
  Hey, I got I got let go from a job last month and I hated.
• 24:51
  No, I was good. I didn't want to be there.
• 24:53
  That was a good thing. No, it was a good thing.
• 24:58
  Well, and I understand that too. I've been, I've been there as
• 25:01
  well. So I get it.
• 25:03
  Yeah. This is what I want to do with
• 25:05
  my life is talking to people and and telling stories and I take
• 25:11
  any job I can get. My audience has had me talk
• 25:14
  about this a million times. So I will save you that.
• 25:18
  But what's interesting is when you're dealing with these hard
• 25:23
  times, bad jobs, whatever you may notice, for example, I have,
• 25:28
  I can, I have vitiligo and poliosis, which vitiligo is a
• 25:34
  skin condition that affects your skin.
• 25:38
  So it's white and patchy around my body.
• 25:40
  And then the poliosis is the eye lashes.
• 25:44
  I haven't had this all my life. I only had this at the beginning
• 25:48
  of last year and it was off. They say that with these things,
• 25:54
  they're genetic, but they lay dormant and much like a skin
• 25:59
  irritation, things can trigger them.
• 26:02
  And I theorized, I don't know this fact, but it's I've since
• 26:08
  had bodily reactions to stress. So that when I got let go from
• 26:11
  that job recently, I was ill for like a week because my, my body
• 26:16
  was like, I was relieved. And also I think there was
• 26:20
  stress there and my body was like wipe we need to repair now.
• 26:25
  And this came off I think the back of like 6 months of stress.
• 26:29
  The last two years has been quite challenging for me.
• 26:31
  OK. You know, I've not always dealt
• 26:33
  with that very well and I've always held my hands up and said
• 26:36
  that. But there's lessons to be learnt
• 26:40
  in that as well, like how you deal with things in the moment,
• 26:42
  how you reflect on things. But I think my biggest kind of
• 26:46
  mistake a lot of the time is, A, not getting enough rest time,
• 26:52
  and B, you just, yeah, not handling stress very well, you
• 26:56
  know, to be honest. Do you need to up your
• 26:59
  resilience game, Christian? I might need to up my resilience
• 27:04
  game. Didn't know.
• 27:08
  I won't know. No, I, I would say I'm a very, I
• 27:12
  think my audience would agree with this.
• 27:13
  I'm a very resilient person. I've, I've been through a lot in
• 27:16
  my life and this is kind of why I wanted to give our audience
• 27:20
  some context to your story before we kind of delved into
• 27:23
  resilience. Because you don't just get that
• 27:27
  straight away. You have to build that up.
• 27:29
  And it's about consistency over time.
• 27:32
  And you mentioned that you had a support network that helped you
• 27:36
  build that. But at some point you realized,
• 27:42
  hey, I'm getting through this, I'm surviving.
• 27:45
  It's been 6 months, it's been a year, it's been five years.
• 27:52
  You know, and much like, I mean, you're never not going to think
• 27:57
  about your husband. But like, much like if you, if
• 28:01
  you experience a really physically bad breakup and
• 28:03
  you're still thinking about them.
• 28:03
  And then there's a day when you don't think about them and you
• 28:06
  reflect on that and there's a few different emotions there.
• 28:09
  There's, there might be guilt, like, Oh my God, I didn't think
• 28:12
  about them. But then there's also relief
• 28:14
  because you're like, I didn't think about them.
• 28:17
  Now relating that to your story, I imagine there was a day when
• 28:21
  it just didn't occupy your mind. And then you were like, oh, wow,
• 28:25
  that's interesting. There's I'm building something
• 28:29
  here. So I guess my question to you is
• 28:33
  that strength, that resilience that you were building when was
• 28:37
  kind of the first moment that you were like you maybe you
• 28:40
  realized, OK, I'm building something here and I'm
• 28:44
  succeeding. That's a great question.
• 28:46
  The first time that I felt like that I would I don't know if
• 28:53
  this was the very first time, but it was the like it was
• 28:59
  definitely a moment where I was like, this is bigger than me.
• 29:04
  And on the first year anniversary of Paul's death, I
• 29:11
  decided to give a talk. I don't know.
• 29:17
  I do crazy things like this, right?
• 29:19
  Like you're. Brave.
• 29:20
  Like that's tough. Wow.
• 29:25
  I decided to give a talk in the place where we had our wedding
• 29:30
  reception. Nonetheless, I know Christian.
• 29:34
  You just like a challenge, don't you?
• 29:36
  I do, I do. I love a good challenge.
• 29:39
  And so, you know, I invited folks out and I was just like,
• 29:44
  this was my way. And I didn't call it resilience
• 29:46
  at the time. I can't remember what I called
• 29:48
  it. I actually need to go find that
• 29:49
  document and see. But like, I had a, had a
• 29:52
  document, had somebody come out, take pictures, and I was like, I
• 29:58
  told the audience, this was my way of giving back to people,
• 30:02
  that if they were navigating something difficult, that,
• 30:05
  number one, they didn't have to do it alone.
• 30:07
  And #2 they can use that pain to like give to others.
• 30:13
  And so I have continuously found a way to use my pain to like
• 30:19
  pour back into other people. And that's the only way I know
• 30:23
  how. Like, I'm a social worker by
• 30:26
  education. I have, you know, acted in the
• 30:31
  role of a social worker in various ways, but I think I
• 30:34
  social worked my life to a certain degree.
• 30:37
  And I, you know, if that makes sense.
• 30:39
  It's like I took the things that I learned in school.
• 30:43
  I took the principles that I understood.
• 30:46
  I implemented them for myself and my daughter.
• 30:49
  Like, OK, we're going to go to therapy.
• 30:51
  We're going to do certain things.
• 30:53
  And then it was like, well, what do you do with this hurt, this
• 30:57
  pain, this emotion? Well, you turn it into something
• 31:01
  and so that's, that's how I know how to cope.
• 31:04
  I don't know how to I, I cry. I'm a, I'm a big crybaby, like
• 31:09
  cry all the time. I can't believe I made it
• 31:12
  through that TE DX talk without crying.
• 31:14
  Truth be told, I was not sure how I managed that, but I'm
• 31:18
  like, I cry all the time. But even in the midst of those
• 31:22
  tears, I then say, what is the next thing?
• 31:25
  How do I how do I now turn that emotion and give it back to
• 31:29
  somebody else? Would you said that that was the
• 31:32
  point where you started thinking this is what I need to do with
• 31:36
  this pain? Or did it happen earlier than
• 31:38
  that? I think, I mean, I think it
• 31:39
  happened earlier than that because I like within the first
• 31:43
  year I had become a co-author. I was a part of a book anthology
• 31:49
  around single parenthood, which I was, you know, when someone
• 31:55
  approached me about it, I was just like what?
• 31:59
  Like it didn't make sense. But at the same time, it also
• 32:02
  made sense because I know that solo parenting, that was a story
• 32:08
  that was my my unique story was that it was a widow who had
• 32:13
  become a solo parent. And that was not most people's
• 32:16
  story or most people didn't tell that story.
• 32:19
  So I think I did that within the first like nine months after
• 32:22
  Pauls passing. I also, I, I used to write
• 32:27
  poetry when I was younger and so I remember writing this like
• 32:32
  spoken word type piece all around numbers.
• 32:35
  And it was like all of the numbers that he and I
• 32:38
  experienced, like the date that we met and, you know, like our
• 32:41
  birthdays and, you know, like just all these different numbers
• 32:44
  that applied to us. And so I just kept finding ways
• 32:48
  to like pour out. And I remember I think I posted
• 32:51
  that on social media maybe six months after his past, five or
• 32:54
  six months after his passing, because that was just how my
• 32:56
  brain was working and processing like what was actually
• 33:00
  happening. So I may have made the decision
• 33:02
  much earlier, but then slowly started acting on actually doing
• 33:07
  things. And, and technically, I probably
• 33:09
  made the decision the moment I spoke at his funeral as well,
• 33:12
  because I actually spoke at his funeral too, so.
• 33:15
  Yeah, you mentioned storytelling earlier and, and how human
• 33:18
  beings, first of all, love that. But also it's, it's a way we
• 33:22
  connect with each other. And I, I've, I think I've
• 33:25
  learned over the years doing this podcast that it really is
• 33:30
  the most powerful way to inspire people and get people motivated
• 33:35
  because it's about relatability, but it's also about celebrating
• 33:40
  the human spirit and, and trying to give people a picture of
• 33:43
  things that happened. The next question to you sort of
• 33:50
  revolves on the relationship with your daughter.
• 33:53
  I wanted to know, and I think this the reason I ask this
• 33:56
  question is I think it it would be useful maybe for people who
• 34:01
  are experiencing this to understand.
• 34:05
  Like how do you go about telling stories about your husband to
• 34:09
  your daughter and kind of giving her an understanding of what her
• 34:13
  dad was like, who he was? Because you know, like she'll,
• 34:21
  she'll know him through you, she'll experience him through
• 34:25
  you, but she'll never, unfortunately, have that direct
• 34:28
  connection. So how do you approach that?
• 34:32
  It's infused in our life. I I was at this morning, I'm
• 34:38
  trying to think it was just over the past few days, something
• 34:41
  happened and I was like, oh, me, your dad and such and such did
• 34:46
  blah, blah, blah, you know, like whatever it was.
• 34:48
  I can't remember at the at the moment.
• 34:51
  And that is that comes up all the time.
• 34:55
  Like she'll ask me about something and I'll say, oh, when
• 34:59
  me and your dad went to Hawaii, we, you know, experienced this.
• 35:04
  We went surfing or, you know, we did this thing.
• 35:07
  And also because I have such a good network, I told you my, my
• 35:13
  friends are, are amazing. They actually put a book
• 35:15
  together that has different pictures of him within the book
• 35:21
  and things that he did. And some of his, he wrote a
• 35:24
  prayer blog. And so it has some of the prayer
• 35:27
  blog in there and, you know, different things like that.
• 35:30
  And when she was younger, she used to flip through it all the
• 35:33
  time. She would look through it and
• 35:37
  you know, and she was, she would just take it all in.
• 35:40
  Every now and again, she would ask the question.
• 35:42
  Now as she's older, I mean, it's it's more difficult for her
• 35:46
  because she just for her life, She knows it.
• 35:50
  Me and her, it's like me and my mom, hang tight.
• 35:53
  We are, you know, we're like this.
• 35:57
  And so sometimes, you know, she just is.
• 36:01
  It's like there's no, I, I remember her telling a story
• 36:05
  about her teacher had them doing biographies at school about
• 36:10
  their life. So they had to do their
• 36:12
  autobiographies and the teacher broke it up for them to like,
• 36:16
  ask your parents about a story in your infant hood, your
• 36:20
  toddler. And then you write your first
• 36:23
  memory yourself of what you can remember and like, go from
• 36:26
  there. And so she wrote, oh, this might
• 36:31
  get me today. So she wrote, you know, when I
• 36:36
  was 2 years old, my dad passed and I don't remember much about
• 36:42
  him, but my mom, you know, always tells me things.
• 36:47
  And I have a book that I look at.
• 36:49
  And I was just like, OK. And she read it to one of her
• 36:54
  friends. And her friend was like, oh,
• 36:56
  that makes me so sad. And I asked her.
• 36:58
  I said, well, I said how does it make you feel?
• 37:00
  I said, do you feel sad? And she goes, can I be honest?
• 37:02
  And mine just she's like 8 or 9 at this point.
• 37:04
  And I was like, of course, I'm like please be honest.
• 37:07
  And she says, I don't really feel any kind of way because I
• 37:11
  don't remember. And that's the tough moment.
• 37:17
  That's the like, I wish you just had just a small memory of him
• 37:23
  and her because he was he just he just loved her dearly.
• 37:30
  Like he was such a hands on father and he was, you know, to
• 37:34
  see him with her, his eyes lit up and she was so happy to see
• 37:40
  her dad as well. And so like, probably about a
• 37:43
  year ago, I found a picture. She couldn't have been any more
• 37:47
  than like maybe nine months. And he's sitting on the couch
• 37:51
  and her little self is like balled up on him.
• 37:55
  And they both just look so content.
• 37:57
  Like she's asleep with her little bitty self.
• 38:00
  And he's just like, I got my baby girl and I showed her that
• 38:05
  picture and she was like, Oh my goodness.
• 38:07
  I'm like, yeah, I'm like, that was you and your daddy all the
• 38:09
  time. Like he loves, he loved you
• 38:11
  genuinely. So, you know, it's like we he
• 38:16
  gets infused into everything that we do just.
• 38:20
  And, and one of the the big things, that's not like a a huge
• 38:24
  public thing that I talk about. Well sometimes I share it on
• 38:27
  social media but Paul was a 4th of July baby.
• 38:32
  He had his birthday so it was always a holiday and he would
• 38:36
  always start his birthday by playing tennis on the tennis
• 38:39
  court. He was an avid tennis player.
• 38:41
  He actually paid played tennis the morning of the last day of
• 38:45
  his time on earth. He played tennis that morning,
• 38:48
  but he always started the day his birthday playing tennis.
• 38:52
  So after he passed, Miss Simone, that's my daughter's name, she
• 38:57
  would, she would say, are we having daddy's birthday party?
• 39:00
  Because we would go to the tennis court and play tennis.
• 39:03
  And for the first like 3 or 4 years, we had like 20 to 30
• 39:07
  people on the tennis court. All my, all my friends would
• 39:09
  come with their kids and we would all just like play tennis
• 39:13
  for an hour. None of us play.
• 39:15
  Well, a couple of guys played well.
• 39:17
  There were a couple people that actually can play.
• 39:19
  I took tennis lessons and still can't play very well, but it's.
• 39:23
  Hard. It is, it is so, but we still do
• 39:27
  it. We still, and now the group is
• 39:29
  only like 4 or five. Like my mom always goes, a
• 39:31
  couple of my friends go, but we we as long as we could hit the
• 39:36
  court for about 30 to 45 minutes, we're OK.
• 39:40
  And she, I just love that she refers to it as like Daddy's
• 39:44
  birthday party. Beautiful.
• 39:46
  Yeah. What do you think he would say
• 39:48
  to both of you now? Seeing how far you've come,
• 39:53
  everything you've achieved, how you've kind of gotten through it
• 39:57
  together. Christian, that's a loaded
• 39:59
  question. I don't know.
• 40:01
  So let's see. My daughter will turn 14 on
• 40:04
  March 8th. So it's been 12 years.
• 40:09
  And I mean, I know that he would be extremely proud of her.
• 40:14
  She is every bit of the mixture of him and I.
• 40:18
  She looks like the both of us, she has both of our
• 40:21
  personalities infused in her. She's super smart and witty and
• 40:29
  she's very reserved though, which is more him than me.
• 40:32
  I was going to say, like, is there particular things that
• 40:34
  stand out where you're like, well, that's him, right?
• 40:37
  Yeah, she has kind of like this reserved, but like, but still
• 40:41
  kind of the snappiness about her.
• 40:43
  And that's definitely him, like all day.
• 40:46
  That's him. She's very athletic, which I
• 40:48
  think is more him. Yeah.
• 40:51
  Those kinds of things I think are more him.
• 40:53
  And but, you know, so it's I, I just think that he would just be
• 40:58
  proud of like the person that she has become and is becoming.
• 41:03
  I I don't know what he would say to me, because I think some of
• 41:07
  the things that I've accomplished and some of the
• 41:09
  things that I've done have happened because of the loss.
• 41:13
  Yeah, I know what you mean. There's, there's like who you
• 41:17
  were and who you are and hey, it's been 12 years.
• 41:20
  Like a person changes a lot in 12 years, don't they?
• 41:23
  Yeah, yeah. Kind of brings us to to your
• 41:26
  book. I mean, your book is called The
• 41:29
  Art of Bounce Back, which I just thought was fantastic, really.
• 41:32
  It's, you know, it's a picture of you on the front and it's fun
• 41:35
  and you can already see your bubbly energy right there.
• 41:38
  And. But he's talking about something
• 41:40
  pretty, pretty serious, man. Resilient.
• 41:43
  There it is, resilience, bouncing back from from
• 41:47
  traumatic experiences in life. So my question is, you know,
• 41:51
  you're already talking about it. You already know, OK, this helps
• 41:56
  me get through it. This is useful to people.
• 41:59
  You know, talking about this can help other people and it helps
• 42:02
  me. At what point did you decide,
• 42:06
  OK, there's a book here, I want to write a book.
• 42:09
  How did the book come to be? Yeah, so this is, I love telling
• 42:13
  this story because the book did not come to be in a traditional
• 42:16
  manner by any means 01 year. So I believe it was 2020 or
• 42:25
  2021. In December, I decided I have
• 42:29
  this kind of like love, dislike with social media.
• 42:34
  So sometimes it's like, I feel like it's, it's great,
• 42:37
  especially like I'm a big fan of LinkedIn these days, but you
• 42:41
  know, like this Instagram, Facebook thing.
• 42:44
  I, I kind of wasn't sure where my footing was with it, but I
• 42:49
  challenged myself in December of that year to go live every day
• 42:55
  for 31 days and it could be no more than 90 seconds.
• 43:01
  So they, it was supposed it was meant to be like quick in and
• 43:04
  out, like, hey, and I wanted to give people the things that I
• 43:10
  was doing to help my heart heal. And so I, you know, I was just
• 43:16
  like, all right, I'm going to pre record the videos and I'm
• 43:18
  going to post them with a caption.
• 43:20
  And then that's going to be it. I'm not going to think about it.
• 43:23
  I'm not going to like stress about it.
• 43:25
  Nothing. I'm just going to put it out
• 43:26
  there. And so I, I have, I've worked on
• 43:30
  and off with like business coaches and things like that.
• 43:32
  And one of my business coaches is also a friend and she very
• 43:39
  serendipitous because she was in the audience for the TE DX talk
• 43:41
  as well. But she was like pulled a group
• 43:47
  of us together to form a mastermind.
• 43:49
  And we started talking about, she's really big on repurposing
• 43:52
  material. How can you repurpose what you
• 43:54
  have? And so we started talking and I
• 43:58
  started thinking like, I have 31 days of content.
• 44:03
  I was like, maybe I should upload those videos and get the
• 44:06
  transcripts and see what you know, like see what it's looking
• 44:09
  like. So and I always tell people I, I
• 44:13
  was using AI before AI was a real big thing, right?
• 44:17
  Because I got those transcripts and then I started tweaking it
• 44:24
  and making it more user friendly for a book.
• 44:27
  I always knew that I wanted a book that was like a pocket
• 44:30
  sized book that people could carry with them.
• 44:33
  You could put it in your coat pocket, a woman could put it in
• 44:36
  her purse. Like I just wanted it to be
• 44:38
  really easy, something light. And that what did not weigh
• 44:41
  people down because we're talking literally about bouncing
• 44:44
  back. So I didn't want it to weigh you
• 44:46
  down. And I got an editor and I wanted
• 44:50
  it to still be fun and like have like my personality, but I
• 44:54
  wanted them to be able to read something for a day, do a
• 44:58
  practice strategy and keep it moving.
• 45:01
  And that is literally what happened.
• 45:04
  So I took what I use for social media platform.
• 45:08
  I transcribed it and turned it into a book.
• 45:11
  Edible stuff I love. I love just how much thought you
• 45:15
  put into it, like the physically it being something that doesn't
• 45:21
  weigh you down because yeah, grief can weigh you down, does
• 45:25
  weigh you down. And it's like, I just love that.
• 45:28
  I don't know, It's it. I think there's a lot of,
• 45:32
  there's a lot to that. Because, you know, I mean, we
• 45:36
  have to be mindful. It's like, I love a good
• 45:39
  hardcover book. I love.
• 45:41
  And initially I thought I wanted it to be a hardcover.
• 45:45
  And, you know, there's all kinds of things that you think about
• 45:48
  putting a book. I mean, like putting my face on
• 45:51
  the cover is a very bold move, right?
• 45:53
  Because then some people are not attracted to it, right?
• 45:56
  Because people are like, well, who is this woman?
• 45:57
  I don't know what this means. And is this only for black
• 46:01
  women? And, you know, like there's all
• 46:03
  these questions. Yeah, I've, I've had that ask.
• 46:06
  I've had that asked of me, like, is this only for black women?
• 46:08
  No, this is not only for black women, right.
• 46:11
  So I've even struggled about doing another edition with
• 46:14
  taking my picture off of the cover.
• 46:18
  And, you know, so I have schools of folks that are like, don't
• 46:21
  you dare take your picture off the cover.
• 46:22
  And then other folks are like, well, maybe it's more appealing.
• 46:25
  And I'm like, you know, to this point, my pictures still on
• 46:28
  there, but it, I literally wanted it, like I said, I just
• 46:33
  wanted something easy. I don't want you to like feel
• 46:36
  like if I carry this book, my bag is going to be too heavy.
• 46:39
  It's going to make my purse heavy.
• 46:41
  It's going to, you know, do all of those things.
• 46:44
  And it's meant to be such an easy read, like 5 minutes of
• 46:48
  your day to help you build your muscle of bouncing back.
• 46:52
  So. Yeah, I mean, it kind of fits
• 46:55
  into the whole concept of resilience really, doesn't it?
• 46:58
  It's a process. It takes time, it's continuous,
• 47:01
  even at the point of maximum strength, if you like, it's
• 47:04
  still everyday building. I mean, there's a lot for me I
• 47:09
  think to to relate to in this as far as how I move through my
• 47:13
  life. And I've always held my hands up
• 47:16
  to my audience and said, you know, I struggle and like I get
• 47:20
  it wrong. And I'm a very emotional guy, so
• 47:23
  I do acknowledge that it's a blessing and a curse depending
• 47:28
  on how you act, right? And the thing, the thing I find
• 47:33
  it's difficult is the consistency of, of emotions.
• 47:37
  How do you not let it all get to?
• 47:39
  How do you keep your head and and stay strong in those really,
• 47:44
  really tough moments? For other people who might be
• 47:49
  experiencing the loss of a of a loved 1A sudden loss, what
• 47:54
  advice could you give to them? Grieve at your own pace.
• 47:59
  Grief is very personal. It comes in waves.
• 48:05
  It for some people it is. It may not take you like as long
• 48:11
  to go through the grieving process for whatever reason,
• 48:14
  whether it was you were prepared for it because it was a terminal
• 48:17
  illness or you know what have you.
• 48:20
  Grief can also be very complicated depending upon your
• 48:25
  relationship with people. My dad has also passed with in
• 48:31
  thank you in 2018, so four years after and and that year, that
• 48:35
  2014 was interesting anyway because it was like my husband
• 48:39
  passed and then six months later my maternal grandmother passed.
• 48:44
  Like I've just, I've had a lot of loss.
• 48:47
  By the time my daughter was 8, she had lost her father and both
• 48:52
  of her grandfathers. And so it is a very grief is
• 48:57
  just a very personal thing. And it will take you through all
• 49:04
  kinds of emotions, all kinds of setbacks at moments.
• 49:08
  And I tell people I say this in the book, I'm pretty sure I said
• 49:11
  it at the Ted X talk, like feel whatever that emotion is.
• 49:15
  When I start to cry, when I start to well up with tears, I
• 49:18
  don't stop them. I I stop them so that my face
• 49:21
  isn't like ruined, but I don't tell myself to stop crying.
• 49:26
  I'm like, no, I'm going to feel this emotion and it's necessary.
• 49:33
  This is the thing I don't really get about society often, this
• 49:37
  idea that, oh, you should have gotten over it by now.
• 49:42
  It's been this many years or this much time.
• 49:46
  I don't know. To me, I just kind of think
• 49:49
  that's a sick way of thinking because it's a process.
• 49:53
  And also I feel it's ignorant to not just being ignorant in
• 49:59
  general to someone's grief, but also to the complexity of the
• 50:04
  human mind. I mean, as you said, it's a
• 50:06
  complicated thing and, and things can just hit you, you
• 50:10
  know, like just out of nowhere, a random memory.
• 50:13
  Like there's things traumatic things I've been through where
• 50:17
  all these years later I'll have a random memory and it feels
• 50:20
  like I'm there And it, you feel the way you felt then, which is
• 50:27
  pretty surreal. And I just don't understand.
• 50:30
  I mean, all I can say is this. I think there's a lack of
• 50:33
  empathy and understanding in society when it comes to grief.
• 50:39
  Agreed. I mean, how did you deal with
• 50:42
  that? Because there must have been
• 50:43
  some people who thought they knew it all.
• 50:45
  And you know, you sometimes you just got to be like, get out of
• 50:49
  my face. But how do you, how do you deal
• 50:52
  with that? Because like, they don't know
• 50:53
  what they're talking about and they're being very
• 50:56
  disrespectful. How do you deal with that?
• 50:59
  Yeah, I don't. Right.
• 51:02
  Fair enough. I mean, I, I, I don't, I've what
• 51:08
  I do tell the folks that I lead to the virtual grief grief
• 51:11
  support groups, What I do let them know.
• 51:13
  And what I do tell them is they just have to be willing to
• 51:17
  communicate and be open and honest about it being their
• 51:21
  story. And just because someone,
• 51:24
  because here's the thing, even folks that say that they are,
• 51:26
  they're like past the grief or they've gotten over it.
• 51:30
  I strongly believe that they are that that they haven't.
• 51:35
  I, I think they suppressed it. I don't think they actually went
• 51:38
  through the process of grieving. And I think people get back to
• 51:43
  work, they excuse me, they get back to living, they get back to
• 51:47
  work and they just say, oh, OK, like whatever, like on to the
• 51:53
  next thing. And I wholeheartedly disagree
• 51:56
  with that. I think that that's part of our
• 51:57
  problem now as a society and as you know, a universe, is that we
• 52:04
  do not stay connected to people in the way that we need to, and
• 52:07
  we don't talk about what it means to grieve.
• 52:11
  We know that just as surely as we have been born, we will die.
• 52:16
  That is not to be morbid, that is not to like, but that is a
• 52:20
  matter of fact. That is the truth.
• 52:24
  Why do we not talk about it in our families?
• 52:27
  Why are we not better prepared? Why are we like, not having
• 52:32
  ongoing conversations about what will happen to children?
• 52:36
  Like, why don't we do that? You know, it's a really good
• 52:40
  point because we all know we're going to die.
• 52:44
  It's the one thing in life we all share.
• 52:47
  We are, we are certain of it. Right.
• 52:50
  And yeah, things like grief counselling and stuff exist.
• 52:54
  And as you said, like some people are a bit more switched
• 52:58
  on and understand, OK, support network.
• 53:01
  And you know, I think what we've kind of established here today
• 53:04
  is that if you've got some good people around you, you'll be
• 53:07
  able to get through it. But right.
• 53:10
  But the I completely agree with you.
• 53:13
  I don't think grief works that way.
• 53:16
  I don't think you ever go over the loss of a person.
• 53:20
  I think it's more you, I heard someone say this years ago.
• 53:24
  You, you learn to accept life with them no longer here, but
• 53:29
  you don't get over it and, and life will never be the same.
• 53:32
  And you know, it's like, it's like when we were talking about
• 53:35
  who you were then versus who you are now.
• 53:37
  Right now. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's
• 53:40
  almost like two different lives, you know, much like maturing,
• 53:46
  growing up. Like there's things that I'm
• 53:48
  learning in my 30s and I'm, I'm letting things go.
• 53:51
  And, you know, there's a lot that I've let go over the last
• 53:54
  five years. And that is a conscious
• 53:59
  conversation you have to have with yourself where you're like,
• 54:02
  I'm going to let these things go because it's necessary on the
• 54:07
  concept of what you were saying about, you know, this
• 54:11
  expectation of, of grief, you know, like what other people's
• 54:14
  expectations are, which, as my girlfriend reminds me, it
• 54:17
  doesn't matter what other people's expectations,
• 54:20
  limitations are, what matter are yours.
• 54:23
  But also, you know, I can I can get with the idea of of I'm a
• 54:28
  workaholic, I can get with the idea of getting back to work.
• 54:32
  But I think you have to, as you said, you can't suppress it.
• 54:38
  You, you, you can't hide in your work.
• 54:40
  You can, you can busy your mind. And I think it's only healthy as
• 54:45
  long as there's moments where you can just sit and think,
• 54:49
  breathe, whatever. You know, like you have to have
• 54:52
  those moments. You can't just, OK, I'm just
• 54:54
  going to get back into things because you're going to have a
• 54:57
  breakdown at some point and it will hit you out of nowhere.
• 55:00
  Like you just, and I, I think what's interesting is how
• 55:07
  people, other people know us better than we know ourselves in
• 55:10
  those moments. And they'll, they'll know if
• 55:13
  something's up. You might think, oh, I'm fine.
• 55:15
  And they're like, no, you're not.
• 55:16
  No, you're not. Yeah.
• 55:18
  Yeah. But yeah, it's, it's, it's
• 55:21
  interesting just how unprepared we really are.
• 55:25
  And I guess maybe it's it. Maybe it comes down to denial.
• 55:29
  Maybe people just don't want to accept death.
• 55:32
  Definitely think it's I definitely think it's denial,
• 55:36
  but but why is what I keep asking like, why are we denying
• 55:42
  what is inevitable? And that that's where I don't
• 55:46
  have the answer right? Like that's where I just, I
• 55:49
  don't understand. And it's, and even for, you
• 55:53
  know, like when I do these virtual grief support groups, I
• 55:55
  have to, I kind of have to be the bad person sometimes because
• 56:00
  I, I tell people like, you have a choice in terms of how you
• 56:06
  grieve. And so you do make the choice.
• 56:10
  I mean, sometimes the grief is very overwhelming and you're not
• 56:14
  sure how to do, how to move. But ultimately you make the
• 56:21
  choice to say, I am going to get up and shower today.
• 56:28
  I am going to, you know, go go to a yoga class.
• 56:36
  I am going, you know, like whatever it is.
• 56:38
  Like ultimately you make the the decision to do those things.
• 56:44
  And so some people get kind of frustrated at me because it's
• 56:48
  like, well, I don't know how to get past this.
• 56:50
  Of course you do. Of course you do.
• 56:53
  You have to make a choice. Yeah, you know, it's a good,
• 56:57
  it's a good point. I guess in those initial stages
• 57:03
  it's more about like, oh, what's what's the point Trying to get
• 57:06
  out of the being stuck in the I'm don't see the point anymore
• 57:11
  kind of mindset. Because if we're rebuilding,
• 57:17
  we're, we're obviously trying to, to find, refocus and try to
• 57:20
  find more purpose in, in life again.
• 57:24
  But to do that, as you said, we've got to make some choices.
• 57:26
  Like you have to get up, you have to, you have to.
• 57:33
  It's like whenever I've dealt with something big in my life,
• 57:35
  like I've always accepted the fact that tomorrow's a new day.
• 57:40
  The world returns. Like, I think, and I know you'll
• 57:43
  agree with me on this, the reality of death is kind of
• 57:47
  brutal because we remember our loved ones forever, but it's
• 57:53
  very almost formulaic. It's like the person passes away
• 57:58
  now it's just busy, just so much planning and arranging and doing
• 58:03
  stuff. And then the funeral happens.
• 58:07
  You say your goodbyes, you celebrate their life, and then
• 58:12
  everyone goes their separate ways.
• 58:13
  And then and then that's just it.
• 58:15
  And I'm like, and So what do you mean?
• 58:16
  Is it like this person was here and now they're gone.
• 58:19
  What do you mean? What does that mean?
• 58:21
  Like what? And then you think about those
• 58:25
  quotes like you die twice, once in life and once when your name
• 58:31
  is not uttered again. And obviously, like, you know,
• 58:35
  your husband lives through you and your daughter and through
• 58:38
  all the people that he inspired and, and and met over the years,
• 58:44
  like he lives through them. That's legacy.
• 58:46
  But there is still that brutal reality of life, that life just
• 58:51
  will continue to March on and move forward, whether you like
• 58:55
  it or not it. Absolutely will.
• 58:58
  You know what I mean? And like, that's why I get what
• 58:59
  you're saying. Like when you got to try and
• 59:01
  push people just out of that mindset initially, it's because
• 59:05
  you need to get through this to the healing stage because life
• 59:10
  is going to move with or without you.
• 59:12
  And if you choose to wilter, like life's not going to change
• 59:18
  one way or another. Like as in like the reality of
• 59:21
  life. Yeah, here's the here's here's
• 59:23
  the thing, Christian. I think it was my one of my
• 59:27
  aunts after Paul passed, she and and this, this is aunt that I do
• 59:34
  think like I, I don't know that she's ever grieved anyone.
• 59:36
  I, she gets right back into the rhythm of life.
• 59:40
  But one of the things that she said to me is she said you are
• 59:45
  still here. She said you are alive, which
• 59:51
  means that you have to live your life and in the moment.
• 59:58
  And this is like within three days, right, of Paul's passing.
• 1:00:01
  So of course, this is not the kind of stuff that I want to
• 1:00:03
  hear. However, however.
• 1:00:07
  That truth and that reality was huge for me because it did
• 1:00:13
  remind me of like, yes, I, I still have a life to live.
• 1:00:17
  Paul has lost his life. He is no longer here, but I am,
• 1:00:22
  which means I still have stuff to do, which means I still need
• 1:00:26
  to live every single day to the fullest.
• 1:00:29
  We, this world, we are living in crazy times right now, right?
• 1:00:33
  We like there are a number of things going on all across the
• 1:00:36
  world and people are losing their lives every single day of
• 1:00:43
  of no, you know, remark of their own.
• 1:00:46
  And So what I try to do for myself and infusing other people
• 1:00:52
  and even my daughter and I on our way to school, have this
• 1:00:56
  conversation about like no moment is promised to us.
• 1:01:00
  So let's live fully. Let's enjoy each other.
• 1:01:04
  Let's do all the crazy things that we want to do.
• 1:01:07
  You know, Christian, when I was looking and researching you, I'm
• 1:01:10
  like, Oh my God, his link tree is like bananas, right?
• 1:01:13
  Like it's so long in terms of like the different places that
• 1:01:18
  people can find you and find information about you and hear a
• 1:01:22
  song. And like, I was just like, Oh my
• 1:01:25
  gosh, I got to up my link tree game.
• 1:01:27
  I got to get every like I want anything, anywhere you can find
• 1:01:31
  me. I want you to be able to find
• 1:01:32
  me. And so, you know, but I say that
• 1:01:36
  because that means that you are out here fully living and you
• 1:01:39
  said like you got let go from a job that you you really
• 1:01:43
  shouldn't be at because this is what you enjoy doing.
• 1:01:46
  So then you have to do more of this.
• 1:01:48
  Like this is how you show up into the world.
• 1:01:50
  And this is how you know, this is what makes your heart happy.
• 1:01:54
  This is what brings you joy. So that God forbid if your days
• 1:01:57
  are numbered much sooner than you think they are, you can say
• 1:02:02
  that you've lived a good life. You've done and did the things
• 1:02:06
  that you wanted to do. And I think that more people
• 1:02:09
  have to lean into that and, like, really give the world what
• 1:02:15
  it is that they want. And the legacy lives beyond.
• 1:02:20
  Like, yes, hopefully that all of our names will be uttered
• 1:02:23
  because we're doing good work and we're giving back to society
• 1:02:25
  in a way that is meaningful and impactful.
• 1:02:29
  But that's why we also turn, like, I've also turned my grief
• 1:02:32
  into something amazing. On the 10th anniversary of my
• 1:02:35
  husband's death, I put together a storytelling exhibit for
• 1:02:38
  widows. It's like, that's not something
• 1:02:41
  that you normally do. That's not something that you
• 1:02:43
  hear. But I wanted to tell the other
• 1:02:45
  stories of young widows who are amazing and their husbands were
• 1:02:50
  amazing, and I did not want their stories to just go by the
• 1:02:54
  wayside. So I did something about it.
• 1:02:56
  I figured out a way. I had something, a desire in my
• 1:02:59
  heart and I pushed forward with it and that is what I want
• 1:03:03
  people to do. That is what I encourage people
• 1:03:05
  to do. That is how I want people to
• 1:03:06
  show up every single day. Show up like it's your last and
• 1:03:10
  do all of the things that your heart desires.
• 1:03:14
  There's been people over the years who've, who've continued
• 1:03:16
  to tell me, you know, to not give up and to keep going and to
• 1:03:22
  not be upset that things haven't quite worked out the way I want
• 1:03:25
  them to. And to be honest, to continue to
• 1:03:29
  do things in, in, in Despite that.
• 1:03:34
  You know, like after six years, I, I, I really did think I
• 1:03:39
  would, I would be more successful with, with the things
• 1:03:42
  that I do. And I, you know, I've been, as
• 1:03:47
  I've mentioned before, through many emotions, I've been
• 1:03:49
  flippant, I've been angry, I've been upset, I've been
• 1:03:51
  heartbroken, everything you can imagine.
• 1:03:55
  The point I'm at in my life right now when it comes to
• 1:03:58
  everything I do is that I am no longer stuck in the prison of
• 1:04:03
  other people's expectations and limitations.
• 1:04:06
  I no longer accept any of that. I don't accept the fact that
• 1:04:13
  people judge my body of work and the things that I've done over
• 1:04:17
  the years based on status or likes or views or whatever.
• 1:04:22
  And you know, I remember my girlfriend's a very smart woman.
• 1:04:27
  And every now and again she'll, she'll just say something and it
• 1:04:30
  just hits me. And I think she's amazing.
• 1:04:33
  She basically said in not so many words that when I talk
• 1:04:37
  about life, when I do this show, for instance, or a live stream,
• 1:04:42
  and I'm positive and I'm telling stories and you're doing what
• 1:04:47
  you do, that's when I'm at my my best.
• 1:04:52
  And that's what people are drawn to.
• 1:04:55
  And for anyone listening who might be experiencing grief or
• 1:04:59
  hard times in their life, the reality is, if you're wondering,
• 1:05:04
  well, why, you know, why don't people care?
• 1:05:06
  Why are people away from me? Why are they moving away from
• 1:05:09
  me? It's because it's because you're
• 1:05:12
  sad. It's because you're upset.
• 1:05:13
  It's because you're feeling sorry for yourself.
• 1:05:15
  It's all these things. Now, don't get me wrong, the
• 1:05:19
  real ones, your support network, the people that really care
• 1:05:22
  about you, they will be there in your lowest moments.
• 1:05:24
  Anyone that isn't, they were never meant to be and and
• 1:05:27
  they're not your people. But it does teach us this
• 1:05:32
  important lesson about life, which is the regardless what we
• 1:05:36
  do, if we're downtrodden, if, if we're being negative, if we're
• 1:05:42
  talking about ourselves negatively or just being
• 1:05:45
  miserable or whatever the case may be, those emotions are
• 1:05:48
  completely valid. But people don't want to hear
• 1:05:51
  it. And they will move away from you
• 1:05:54
  and they don't want anything to do with you.
• 1:05:57
  And that sucks that humans are like that, but positivity and
• 1:06:02
  happiness is contagious. People want it.
• 1:06:05
  People want people get angry at it, people attack you.
• 1:06:10
  In addition to the things that I've outlined here, like I've
• 1:06:13
  had more criticism than I can mention over the years, and I've
• 1:06:18
  got more haters now than I've ever had before.
• 1:06:20
  And I think it's because I'm positive and I keep going
• 1:06:24
  despite what people say, despite what their limitations or
• 1:06:28
  expectations or whatever they think, their judgements, what
• 1:06:31
  they want to say. Like yourself, I found things
• 1:06:33
  that are bigger than me. I think this show is or
• 1:06:37
  something I stumbled across. I started it because I just
• 1:06:40
  wanted to do a podcast. I just wanted to talk to people
• 1:06:43
  and I thought I'd be good at it. And I'd always wanted to do it.
• 1:06:46
  And I was a fan of podcasts since like the 2000s.
• 1:06:51
  And I finally got to do it. And then I realized it doesn't
• 1:06:56
  matter about money or success or fame or validation or anything.
• 1:07:03
  If you're doing something in life and it means something to
• 1:07:06
  you, and you pour your heart and your soul into it and you give
• 1:07:10
  it your all and you try your best every day to be better,
• 1:07:15
  that's when you're really going to get the most out of yourself.
• 1:07:17
  And to be honest, that's when you're more likely to be
• 1:07:20
  successful. I think.
• 1:07:22
  I think my day hasn't come yet, but it will.
• 1:07:25
  And I think it will come after all those lessons are learned.
• 1:07:28
  And I know this might sound crazy, maybe a bit woo woo well,
• 1:07:32
  but like I can't help but look at the last couple of years and
• 1:07:34
  think life is trying to forcibly teach me the lessons because I
• 1:07:38
  wasn't willing to listen before or I wasn't willing to step up
• 1:07:42
  and acknowledge them in the right way.
• 1:07:45
  And now I am. And now I look at like this show
• 1:07:50
  as a privilege, as an honour. Like when I get, for instance,
• 1:07:54
  people reach out to me on behalf of someone like Shakira did and
• 1:07:57
  say, Hey, would you be interested in having this person
• 1:08:00
  on your show? I'm like, I'm you have no idea
• 1:08:03
  how much of an honour that is to have people do that and think
• 1:08:07
  this is a show I started in my bedroom in some crappy house I
• 1:08:12
  was living in years ago with a terrible microphone that was
• 1:08:14
  like €20 or whatever and a terrible camera.
• 1:08:18
  Here we are all these years later and I'm interviewing
• 1:08:21
  people all around the world with incredible stories just like
• 1:08:23
  yours. And it's an, it is an honour and
• 1:08:27
  a privilege. And I think I've finally, after
• 1:08:30
  all this time, realized that and actually I'm getting the most
• 1:08:36
  out of it and that's why it's going to be a success because
• 1:08:40
  the mindset is there. Listen, Christian, you just
• 1:08:43
  spoke to me as look, as they say in the church, Amen.
• 1:08:47
  And that'll preach. I've always wanted to testify.
• 1:08:52
  That's a bucket list. I want to be in a church and
• 1:08:54
  they go testify and I'm like. Listen, because I feel very, I
• 1:09:01
  feel very similar like even though like by the stretch for
• 1:09:05
  some people will look at me and say you've done so much, you're
• 1:09:09
  so successful. And sometimes I get caught up
• 1:09:12
  like I think I have less than 2000 views of my TE DX talk.
• 1:09:15
  There's no way I was like I was aiming.
• 1:09:18
  I was aiming for the 1,000,000 views, right?
• 1:09:20
  Like I was like, what? Yeah, I don't know if you've
• 1:09:23
  looked at the views, but there's 1.5 million.
• 1:09:27
  No, there's not. Look, go look now 1.5.
• 1:09:29
  Million of my TE DX talk. I'm pretty I'm pretty sure when
• 1:09:33
  I checked. No, it's not my.
• 1:09:35
  It's not my TE DX talk. It can't be what you're gonna
• 1:09:39
  have me like, go right now. Hold on.
• 1:09:44
  Yeah. Oh 1.5 Ki misread that.
• 1:09:46
  OK, yeah, I was like my TE DX. Talk.
• 1:09:50
  Well, I'll do you know, I'll say this.
• 1:09:52
  I apologize. I got that wrong.
• 1:09:54
  I misread that, but I looked at it as one of the best TE DX
• 1:10:00
  tools I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I'm not just trying to
• 1:10:04
  blow smoke up your ass or be like just really like, I mean
• 1:10:06
  it. It's up there with the best, the
• 1:10:10
  best it should have more. Hopefully it does get the
• 1:10:12
  recognition it deserves because it's up there.
• 1:10:16
  It's fantastic. Thank you, Thank you and I
• 1:10:18
  appreciate that. But I have to tell myself like
• 1:10:21
  regardless if if it stays at that 1.5, I did what I wanted to
• 1:10:26
  do. I've always wanted to do a Ted X
• 1:10:27
  talk. When that opportunity came, it
• 1:10:29
  was amazing. Here's the other thing as well,
• 1:10:34
  I'll add to it because I've had the same with my podcast.
• 1:10:38
  I'm like, oh, I wish it would reach more people.
• 1:10:39
  I wish I would have more followers or you know, I wish I
• 1:10:43
  had more streams on my new single.
• 1:10:44
  Exactly, Yeah. People have listened to your
• 1:10:49
  talk and heard your talk. 1500 people, Think about how many
• 1:10:55
  people that is. If you were to put them in a
• 1:10:57
  hall, that's a lot of people. 1500 people have listened to
• 1:11:02
  that and they might have gone out into that world and taken
• 1:11:08
  the lessons they'd learned from that talk and changed their
• 1:11:12
  lives. That's 1000 / 1000 people that
• 1:11:15
  have heard what you had to say and heard your story and were
• 1:11:18
  inspired by it and did something with their life.
• 1:11:21
  So if you ever feel down about views or you think I'm not, I'm
• 1:11:23
  not reaching enough people, I'm not doing enough.
• 1:11:26
  Don't look at the numbers. Think about the fact that you're
• 1:11:29
  reaching other human beings and doing what you set out to do in
• 1:11:32
  the 1st place, which was inspire other people with your story.
• 1:11:37
  You used your grief and you were like, you know what?
• 1:11:39
  I'm not going to give up. I'm going to show up for my
• 1:11:41
  family, show up for myself, and show up for other people and use
• 1:11:44
  this and make this into something positive.
• 1:11:47
  And here we are. You sat on my podcast and you're
• 1:11:49
  talking about your book, your life and your success.
• 1:11:55
  So there it is. OK, Received.
• 1:11:58
  Christian, received. That's all I can say to that.
• 1:12:01
  Received. All right, I've got a final
• 1:12:05
  couple of questions for you. You game for him.
• 1:12:09
  I I ask every guest these questions.
• 1:12:11
  Let's go. So what has lost taught you
• 1:12:14
  about life? To live really big, to go all in
• 1:12:20
  on all the things when it seems crazy to everyone else because
• 1:12:26
  you're doing 1520 things that people are like, that's too much
• 1:12:31
  and people don't know what you do, Who cares?
• 1:12:34
  You've done volunteer work. I found this on your LinkedIn
• 1:12:36
  profile. You may remember earlier I said
• 1:12:38
  I do my research. You do some digging, all right.
• 1:12:43
  What is volunteering taught you about life?
• 1:12:45
  I somewhere in my teenage years started to learn that service
• 1:12:52
  was important. I remember early in my 20s, I
• 1:12:56
  would say we are all here to serve others in some capacity.
• 1:13:03
  And what that what rings true for me over and over again is
• 1:13:09
  that no one can be successful without someone else.
• 1:13:15
  And success means very different things, right?
• 1:13:17
  And I, so I don't necessarily mean success in money or success
• 1:13:20
  and fame, but just you cannot navigate life well without other
• 1:13:26
  people. And so I give back and I'm a
• 1:13:31
  part of organizations that give back so that everyone has an
• 1:13:36
  opportunity to like, support, help, give something to someone
• 1:13:41
  so that they can feel better about what it is that that
• 1:13:44
  whatever they're doing or however they're navigating life.
• 1:13:47
  So services are services, the rent that we pay here on Earth.
• 1:13:52
  What is mentoring taught you about life?
• 1:13:54
  It's very similar to the volunteer work.
• 1:13:56
  We can't do this. We got to pour back into other
• 1:13:59
  people. We people have poured into me.
• 1:14:04
  I am where I am because there have been people who have told
• 1:14:10
  me, no, don't do that because that might steer you in the
• 1:14:14
  wrong direction or hey, here's an opportunity that I'm going to
• 1:14:19
  give you because I've seen what you can do and I know that you
• 1:14:23
  can do this well. So that support is huge in terms
• 1:14:28
  of giving the support of being a mentor as well as receiving the
• 1:14:32
  support of being a mentee. A lot of people have helped me
• 1:14:36
  over the years and I've I've often said how thankful I am,
• 1:14:40
  how grateful I am. I probably wouldn't be here if
• 1:14:44
  not for them. And I remember there's been a
• 1:14:49
  few times where people have been way too generous with their
• 1:14:52
  time, money, whatever the case may be.
• 1:14:54
  And I sometimes I've been like, well, how can I ever repay you?
• 1:14:57
  How can I ever show up for you? What can I do?
• 1:15:00
  And then I heard the saying, pay it forward.
• 1:15:06
  And I always look at that any opportunity there is, as you
• 1:15:10
  said, any, anything at all. It could just be showing up for
• 1:15:12
  someone's event. It could be sharing a status.
• 1:15:16
  It could be telling someone that they're what they're doing is
• 1:15:20
  brilliant and how how much you like it.
• 1:15:23
  It's crazy. Little things mean so much more
• 1:15:27
  than you might realize. Like I, I say this to my
• 1:15:29
  audience sometimes, like if I see you've shared a status of
• 1:15:33
  mine or my new song or a podcast, like that means the
• 1:15:37
  world to me because other people will now see that as a result of
• 1:15:42
  you doing that, other people might be inspired or, or gains
• 1:15:47
  gain something from that because we tend to put the value on
• 1:15:52
  things a bit too much. I think people when I ask, when
• 1:15:57
  I say, oh, here's the ways you can support me online.
• 1:16:00
  There are obviously like things like Patreon and stuff like
• 1:16:03
  that. But what I mean is all of it is
• 1:16:06
  equal. So if someone shares a status to
• 1:16:09
  me, that's as equal as gaining a new subscriber because it's, you
• 1:16:13
  know what I mean? It's it's it's there's too much
• 1:16:16
  of A focus on money in this society.
• 1:16:18
  And I think the true value is action.
• 1:16:22
  And you know what I mean? Like you how people show up for
• 1:16:25
  people like, yeah, I completely agree.
• 1:16:27
  It's it's it's worth its weight in gold.
• 1:16:30
  Yeah, absolutely. You did a bit of teaching.
• 1:16:34
  What is teaching taught you about life?
• 1:16:35
  Who? Teaching has taught me a lot of
• 1:16:39
  patience. The.
• 1:16:42
  Teaching has taught me patience. Goodness, because when you have,
• 1:16:45
  I mean seriously though, it has taught me patience because when
• 1:16:49
  you especially on a college campus, I actually was a guest
• 1:16:54
  lecturer a few weeks ago at University of Illinois at
• 1:16:56
  Chicago and I asked the students a question.
• 1:17:01
  And when I tell you these 2530 faces were just sitting at me,
• 1:17:05
  and mind you, these are anywhere between like 18 and 21 year
• 1:17:08
  olds. And they all just literally like
• 1:17:11
  just, and I told them, I said, listen, I said I'm a social
• 1:17:15
  worker by training. I have all the patience in the
• 1:17:17
  world. I will sit here until someone
• 1:17:19
  answers this question. And you know, then I got people
• 1:17:24
  like going. But Christian teaching can be
• 1:17:28
  hard work. It is.
• 1:17:31
  So yes, patience. It has definitely taught me
• 1:17:33
  patience. If people say that to me
• 1:17:35
  sometimes, like have you ever considered being a teacher?
• 1:17:37
  And I'm like, hell no. Like, no way are you mad?
• 1:17:44
  No way. You could, but with all your
• 1:17:47
  experience at this point, you could like if you were a music
• 1:17:51
  teacher or like an audio engineer teacher, like you can
• 1:17:56
  do those kinds of things, no? No, I'm not an expert in any of
• 1:17:59
  those fields. I think if I was ever going to
• 1:18:01
  teach something, it would be something like this, like how to
• 1:18:05
  talk to people, how to do podcasts, how to do public
• 1:18:09
  speaking, something something like that.
• 1:18:10
  I think only because I'm a big believer in in making things
• 1:18:16
  worthwhile and and I believe I do believe in value.
• 1:18:21
  I know I just like obliterated that a second ago.
• 1:18:23
  But when it comes to like business and teaching and things
• 1:18:26
  where people are investing in you, I want to give them value.
• 1:18:31
  I want to give them something, you know what I mean?
• 1:18:33
  Like, I feel like it's a bit hypocritical or just, I see
• 1:18:38
  people do this sometimes online that they're teaching whatever
• 1:18:41
  guitar and like they can barely play.
• 1:18:43
  And I'm like, well, that's you mean, or like, what's your
• 1:18:46
  credentials? You know what I mean?
• 1:18:47
  Like, why should I trust you over someone else?
• 1:18:50
  Like, I remember the the guy who produced my first album when I
• 1:18:55
  was in a band years ago. He'd he'd been in this band for
• 1:19:01
  many years. He'd produced a bunch of big
• 1:19:04
  records, not like huge, huge, but like, you know, good
• 1:19:07
  artists, fairly ish known artists.
• 1:19:10
  He's gone on to do big things since then as well.
• 1:19:13
  And, you know, he had a song in a film, which I thought was
• 1:19:17
  pretty impressive, you know, and I looked at things like that.
• 1:19:21
  And then obviously I looked at him and his, I was impressed by
• 1:19:26
  his work ethic. And we, we really got on because
• 1:19:28
  of that. Like the rest of the band left
• 1:19:30
  early and we had sat there till the early hours talking and
• 1:19:34
  figuring stuff out because we're both workaholics.
• 1:19:37
  And but that I looked at that and I was like, OK, it's
• 1:19:39
  important to have credentials. For example, I can't help but
• 1:19:44
  feel that some of the guests I've been able to have on the
• 1:19:47
  show over the years are as a result of having done this for
• 1:19:52
  so long and having proven that I can do it.
• 1:19:55
  You, you got to do the work first and have some credentials
• 1:19:59
  or something and know what you're talking about so that you
• 1:20:03
  can get that stuff. I, I feel anyway.
• 1:20:06
  But I, I started adding this question because I think it's
• 1:20:10
  fun. What's, what's the worst advice
• 1:20:14
  you've ever received? Oh.
• 1:20:15
  My gosh, that's a tough one. Worst advice that I've ever
• 1:20:18
  received. No, I, you know, I try to
• 1:20:22
  surround my people, browse, surround myself with people who
• 1:20:24
  are going to give good advice. But worst advice that I've ever
• 1:20:30
  received. Well, you know what?
• 1:20:33
  I, I will say this in this age of where I'm a multi visionary
• 1:20:40
  person. And so we are in this age where,
• 1:20:44
  you know, people will really say multi visionaries cannot be
• 1:20:48
  successful. So I think the worst advice that
• 1:20:51
  I've received has been to like, don't try to do it all.
• 1:20:56
  And, and I actually think that's the worst advice because I like
• 1:21:01
  I've been given multiple gifts and multiple talents.
• 1:21:04
  And if I just focus on one thing that I am not being true to who
• 1:21:08
  I am. And I followed that advice for
• 1:21:11
  quite some time. And it is actually when I think
• 1:21:15
  about the memory and the legacy of my husband that drives me to
• 1:21:19
  go ahead and move forward and do all the things, you know,
• 1:21:23
  because I, I don't, you know, I just go back to I don't know how
• 1:21:27
  many days I'm promised on this earth.
• 1:21:30
  And so if I only do this one bucket of things, then people
• 1:21:35
  don't get to experience all that I believe I have to offer.
• 1:21:40
  I've had the same criticism, I can't tell you how many times.
• 1:21:44
  And it's it's always, you know what's funny about criticism as
• 1:21:50
  well is whenever you get criticized, you never ask for
• 1:21:53
  it. And it's always from someone who
• 1:21:55
  doesn't know what they're talking about, has no experience
• 1:21:58
  in that said field, is either a stranger or just someone being a
• 1:22:03
  bit condescending. Very rarely is there a criticism
• 1:22:07
  where it's, like, actually constructive and useful.
• 1:22:11
  But yeah, so many people over the years being like, Christian,
• 1:22:16
  you need to find your niche. You need to focus on one thing.
• 1:22:19
  You're doing too many things. And I'm like, what you don't
• 1:22:23
  understand is that, as you said, there's a need for me to do
• 1:22:28
  these different things. And also, I don't know if I've
• 1:22:31
  really stressed this enough, but I get kind of bored just doing
• 1:22:34
  the same thing. You know, if like if I was only
• 1:22:38
  doing the podcast, I I love the podcast, but I wanted also do
• 1:22:44
  other things because and it's just like life.
• 1:22:48
  Like, do you only ever sit at home and watch movies or do you
• 1:22:51
  go out sometimes? Do you know what I mean?
• 1:22:53
  Do you? Do you?
• 1:22:55
  When you eat food like it's a very yeah, it's like it's the
• 1:22:58
  perfect. Exactly.
• 1:22:59
  Yeah, we can, we can eat the same thing every night, but
• 1:23:02
  that's going to we're going to hate that thing by the end of
• 1:23:04
  the week, you know, and it doesn't matter how much you
• 1:23:08
  might love this particular meal, eat it every week for every day
• 1:23:13
  for a week, you will hate it 100%.
• 1:23:17
  And I think it's the same with with, with life.
• 1:23:19
  And I understand with that criticism.
• 1:23:21
  What they mean is if you, you know, if you spread yourself out
• 1:23:24
  too much, it's like you can't really gain focus.
• 1:23:27
  But then what they don't understand is that you don't try
• 1:23:32
  like you, you don't literally try to do all the things at the
• 1:23:35
  same time. Exactly what you do is you, you
• 1:23:38
  plan. You have to be a master planner.
• 1:23:40
  I will say that you have to be a scheduler.
• 1:23:42
  You have to schedule your time accordingly, right?
• 1:23:45
  And I think you have to lean into things as well.
• 1:23:48
  So for instance, last year my debut album was released.
• 1:23:52
  So naturally that year was Thank you, that was about music
• 1:23:56
  really. I leaned more into that.
• 1:23:58
  The other things didn't get neglected.
• 1:24:00
  I just maybe didn't invest as much time because I was putting
• 1:24:06
  more of the focus into the music this year, to be honest.
• 1:24:11
  Lots on the podcast front and, and I'm also pushing to try and
• 1:24:15
  do more voice acting and stuff like that.
• 1:24:19
  Released some singles, you know, like I'm, I'm balancing these
• 1:24:22
  things, but I'm giving them their, their due and and their
• 1:24:25
  time when it's appropriate to do so.
• 1:24:29
  And that's how you do it, I think.
• 1:24:31
  But you know, I get, I get it. I mean, it's but but then I
• 1:24:36
  think that's what you said about goals earlier.
• 1:24:38
  You never know what a person's goals are.
• 1:24:41
  People. People seem to think like, oh,
• 1:24:43
  you do music, so you want to be a rock star, or are you acting
• 1:24:45
  so you want to be Hollywood actor?
• 1:24:47
  I'm like, did I ever say that? Because I'm pretty sure I
• 1:24:49
  didn't. You're like, this is what I just
• 1:24:51
  enjoy doing like I. I enjoy.
• 1:24:54
  Doing this. Well, I've said it until I've
• 1:24:55
  gone blue in the face because people say, what's your goal?
• 1:24:58
  My goal is to do this for a living.
• 1:25:00
  Oh, so you need you know, then why don't was it?
• 1:25:03
  There was someone I blocked recently in a live stream and
• 1:25:06
  I'm I'm very I'm very patient. Hear me out, hear me out.
• 1:25:09
  I'm very patient with this, but my patience has its limits.
• 1:25:13
  And they kept incessantly saying, Christian, you need to
• 1:25:17
  lock in. You need to lock in, you need
• 1:25:20
  to. And I was like, I've been locked
• 1:25:22
  in for 10 years. Don't tell me I need to lock in.
• 1:25:26
  There's nothing I haven't tried or done over the years.
• 1:25:29
  OK. Sometimes you just need a bit of
• 1:25:31
  luck. It is what it is.
• 1:25:33
  In any case, what that person was trying to say is, oh, if
• 1:25:38
  you're going to be successful in this one thing, you need to only
• 1:25:41
  focus on that and lock in and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:25:44
  And it's like they just don't get it.
• 1:25:46
  First of all, they're not doing it.
• 1:25:48
  And secondly, they're comparing with other people where the
• 1:25:53
  comparison is not there. You know it's.
• 1:25:56
  Just that happens. That happens often.
• 1:25:58
  People are always comparing their story to your story or
• 1:26:02
  someone that they know who does similar.
• 1:26:05
  I laughed so much with the lock in because my daughter says that
• 1:26:09
  when she hasn't been focused for school and she's just like, OK,
• 1:26:14
  just over the weekend, she's like, OK, mommy, I have to lock
• 1:26:16
  in. I'm like, yes honey, you have to
• 1:26:18
  lock in like. At least she's smart enough to
• 1:26:20
  realize it at that age. I mean, some people spend their
• 1:26:22
  whole lives not understanding that you need to lock in.
• 1:26:26
  But there's moments. You pick your moments, You know,
• 1:26:31
  for instance, whenever I do this podcast and I have a shirt, like
• 1:26:34
  there's a show I've been putting off, not because I don't want to
• 1:26:37
  do it, but because I need the time to sit down and do and plan
• 1:26:41
  it out. And it's a repeat person that's
• 1:26:43
  been on the show. He really gets to do the show.
• 1:26:46
  And I'm like, I'm just looking at my calendar and looking at
• 1:26:48
  what time and I'm like, I I need to get it will happen, but it,
• 1:26:53
  there needs to be that time to do it and to do it in the way
• 1:26:57
  that I do things, you know, and that's, and see, that's trying
• 1:27:01
  to explain that to people. Sometimes is, is difficult.
• 1:27:04
  And it's, it's like what I said earlier, like I'm not bound by
• 1:27:07
  people's expectations or limitations anymore.
• 1:27:10
  I'm just doing my own thing. And there's, I've got this quote
• 1:27:14
  book back there that I add to whenever I see really powerful
• 1:27:17
  stuff. Going to add to it in a bit.
• 1:27:19
  But one thing I saw was that it said, Oh, your 30s is about
• 1:27:22
  alignment, realignment in accordance with like living life
• 1:27:31
  in accordance with what you want to do and what works for you and
• 1:27:35
  not worrying about what other people say because it's not
• 1:27:37
  their life. They're going to have their
• 1:27:39
  opinions one way or another, but it's kind of irrelevance your
• 1:27:43
  life. Yeah.
• 1:27:46
  Simple as that. Love that.
• 1:27:49
  What's the best advice you've ever received?
• 1:27:51
  Best advice I've ever received. I think, you know, one of my
• 1:27:55
  mentors is always just says like do what makes you happy.
• 1:27:58
  And it's just like very simple. Do what makes you happy.
• 1:28:02
  If something makes you happy, don't worry about what other
• 1:28:04
  people are doing. Don't worry you know about what
• 1:28:08
  society will say, do what makes you happy.
• 1:28:11
  And sometimes I forget to lean into that.
• 1:28:15
  So because we have society has created a few monsters out of us
• 1:28:22
  with the with the likes and with the opinions and with the, you
• 1:28:25
  know, all the things that social media brings.
• 1:28:29
  And so that's thanks for asking that question cuz I need to
• 1:28:34
  learn more into doing what makes me happy.
• 1:28:36
  It's the biggest life lesson you've learned so far.
• 1:28:38
  No moment is promised. Yeah, I know the truth that.
• 1:28:42
  Is not a single moment is promised.
• 1:28:45
  Do not take anything or anyone for granted.
• 1:28:49
  As we draw things to a close for today, do you have any upcoming
• 1:28:51
  projects or some final thoughts that you'd like to share with
• 1:28:53
  our listeners? All right, I got emotional there
• 1:28:58
  for a minute again. I think I've cried about three
• 1:29:01
  times, Christian. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make
• 1:29:04
  you cry. No, it's good upcoming project.
• 1:29:10
  I am, I'm going to say this publicly because just like you
• 1:29:15
  said about your TE DX talk and like putting it on to the
• 1:29:17
  universe. So as a kind of a Part 2 to the
• 1:29:23
  Widow storytelling exhibit that I mentioned to you, we are
• 1:29:27
  working on making that into a documentary.
• 1:29:31
  Wow. Yes.
• 1:29:33
  And so I'm super excited pulling together team of folks.
• 1:29:37
  We we collected as we were doing the storytelling exhibit.
• 1:29:40
  We actually pulled lots of things together, video and
• 1:29:43
  things like that. But we are going to launch a
• 1:29:48
  Kickstarter campaign to get support from all across the
• 1:29:52
  world to help people to make sure that we can fund it
• 1:29:55
  properly so that it is done well.
• 1:29:58
  And I am hopeful that by this time next year that we will be
• 1:30:02
  entering some film festivals. So.
• 1:30:05
  Well, if you need a voice over or music, I'm here.
• 1:30:09
  Hey, thank you. Thank you.
• 1:30:12
  I wish, I wish you the best. Absolutely.
• 1:30:15
  I wish you the very best with with with that.
• 1:30:17
  That's an amazing, I think, I think, yeah.
• 1:30:20
  I mean, I think you should do more than one documentary.
• 1:30:23
  I think there's a lot that would.
• 1:30:25
  Yeah, to be honest. I think your story could, could
• 1:30:28
  make for a very powerful documentary, to be honest.
• 1:30:32
  Thank you. And yeah, I wish you the best of
• 1:30:34
  luck. It's been a real pleasure.
• 1:30:37
  It's been emotional. It has been.
• 1:30:40
  It has been. But it's been good.
• 1:30:42
  It's been so good. You are I love.
• 1:30:44
  I know early on you said that you you talk a lot and you like
• 1:30:48
  to infuse some of those stories. And it's the perfect balance
• 1:30:52
  though, because your audience knows you.
• 1:30:55
  They're getting to know me. And so when we infuse the
• 1:30:58
  stories together, it just makes for a really powerful
• 1:31:02
  conversation. So thank you for continuing to
• 1:31:05
  Share your story while also like asking me about mine.
• 1:31:10
  I think that this is what life is about.
• 1:31:12
  This is how you keep memories and legacy alive.
• 1:31:17
  This is how you connect with people outside of from where
• 1:31:21
  you, where you live, what you do day-to-day.
• 1:31:25
  And so it's been dynamic. It's been, it's been a great
• 1:31:27
  time. Thank you so much.
• 1:31:30
  It's it's been a real pleasure for me.
• 1:31:32
  I know my listeners are going to love the show.
• 1:31:35
  We've been just batting, batting out of the park this this whole
• 1:31:41
  year with with all the podcasts. Thank you for being on the show.
• 1:31:45
  To all the guests who've been on the show so far this year and
• 1:31:48
  for the listeners of the show, I hope that you're enjoying what
• 1:31:51
  we're doing, what I'm doing. Like he's, I say we like I have
• 1:31:54
  a team. It's just me.
• 1:31:57
  It is. Listen, you do a good job
• 1:32:00
  though. You do a good job.
• 1:32:01
  I. Did this myself.
• 1:32:02
  All right, all right, No, it's it's I I love doing this show
• 1:32:09
  and it's because of showless like this, like this.
• 1:32:11
  So thank you so much to all the listeners of the Christian read
• 1:32:14
  podcast. I hope you enjoyed the show as
• 1:32:17
  much as I did. As always, be safe, be well, and
• 1:32:21
  I'll see you in the next one.