Latest / Aired Out / EMOTION INTO ART - Tom Varano

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EMOTION INTO ART - Tom Varano · Aired Out

0:00
Speaker 1: There is so much happening at Sweethearts and Heroes. Frankly,
0:05
Speaker 1: it's not easy for me to always keep up with it.
0:08
Speaker 1: But when Tom Murphy, the founder of Sweethearts and Heroes,
0:13
Speaker 1: and Leon and a few other members of the Sweethearts
0:16
Speaker 1: and Heroes family reached out to me and said, look,
0:21
Speaker 1: there's this guy, that's when I stop and pay attention.
0:28
Speaker 1: There's this guy. His name is Tom Verrado. He's an author,
0:37
Speaker 1: he's an inspirational speaker, he's a performance speed painter who
0:42
Speaker 1: has been changing lives for fourteen years, traveling all over
0:48
Speaker 1: the country, and you gotta have him on your podcast.
0:52
Speaker 1: I remember when Tom said that to me, and I
0:56
Speaker 1: have been looking forward to this moment for about a month.
1:01
Speaker 1: Tom Vernal, good morning, buddy, How are you?
1:04
Speaker 3: Good morning?
1:05
Speaker 2: Doing fantastic great to be here with you.
1:09
Speaker 1: What a pleasure, what an honor it is to have
1:11
Speaker 1: you listen. I have in front of me boatloads of
1:17
Speaker 1: notes on you, notes from having a discussion with you,
1:22
Speaker 1: notes from Tom, notes from you. I just I want
1:27
Speaker 1: to I just want to start out by reading your
1:31
Speaker 1: quick bio, and then, man, who knows how much of
1:34
Speaker 1: these notes I'm going to get into I can tell
1:37
Speaker 1: you right now, you and I could talk for five
1:40
Speaker 1: hours straight easily maybe eight. Emotion into Art it's something
1:47
Speaker 1: Tom that you have created where you're combining storytelling, music,
1:54
Speaker 1: audience engagement, large scale speed painting, which you're gonna explain
1:59
Speaker 1: here in a minute to create unforgettable experiences that inspire hope, resilience, leadership, kindness,
2:06
Speaker 1: and personal growth. More than three hundred and fifty thousand
2:11
Speaker 1: students in our nation have experienced Emotion into Art, making
2:18
Speaker 1: it one of the most unique and impactful educational presentations
2:23
Speaker 1: available today in the United States. Whether speaking on a
2:28
Speaker 1: school stage, at a corporate conference, in a church, a
2:31
Speaker 1: charity event, your mission remains the same to remind people
2:36
Speaker 1: that their life matters, that their story matters, and that
2:40
Speaker 1: the best chapters may still be ahead of them, which
2:46
Speaker 1: really resonated with me because we all think, including myself,
2:54
Speaker 1: this is it, this is how it's going to be.
2:58
Speaker 1: I've made my bed, I'm sleeping in it. It's probably
3:02
Speaker 1: not going to get better than this. And then we
3:06
Speaker 1: wake up a year or two later and realize we're
3:09
Speaker 1: going to be a parent, or we're going to get married,
3:12
Speaker 1: or something wonderful is happening in our lives. Man, we
3:15
Speaker 1: have so much to uncover about you though. What is
3:21
Speaker 1: emotion into art and what was the inception of all
3:24
Speaker 1: of this? What happened to Tom Verano to create this
3:28
Speaker 1: fourteen years ago?
3:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question.
3:34
Speaker 3: I found myself at a crossroads before emotion into art
3:39
Speaker 3: was actually a real thing. I was running a portrait
3:44
Speaker 3: studio for thirty plus years. And you know, I started
3:49
Speaker 3: the portrait studio at nineteen, right out of college. Started
3:53
Speaker 3: in my father's bedroom, or my father's home. I had
3:57
Speaker 3: two bedrooms in his house, me is house telephone number
4:01
Speaker 3: to start the company. And that first year, using a
4:07
Speaker 3: lot of perseverance and grit and just going after it,
4:13
Speaker 3: two hundred high school seniors came through my father's home
4:17
Speaker 3: to get photographed. And that's how I started my company.
4:21
Speaker 3: Fast forward. Ran that studio for thirty plus years. As
4:24
Speaker 3: I said, tens of thousands of people came to my
4:28
Speaker 3: portrait studio to be photographed. I was known as.
4:33
Speaker 2: The studio of choice, which was a complete honor to me.
4:37
Speaker 3: I never even was thinking that far ahead that I
4:40
Speaker 3: would even obtain that level.
4:43
Speaker 2: But people came from all over.
4:45
Speaker 3: They would drive for hours to come to my portrait
4:48
Speaker 3: studio and be photographed family portraits, weddings, children photography, commercial photography,
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Speaker 3: and ran it for that long, made millions of dollars
5:03
Speaker 3: in the company. It was incredible. And then we had
5:08
Speaker 3: a mishap. We had theft in our company. Fast forward,
5:13
Speaker 3: you know, we my wife and I ended up moving
5:17
Speaker 3: to Florida with our kids. And while I was going
5:21
Speaker 3: back and forth from Florida running the studio in New
5:24
Speaker 3: York and going back to Florida, we had a staff
5:27
Speaker 3: member that was embezzling money. And when you're dealing with
5:31
Speaker 3: a small company and you're dealing with small margins, you know,
5:37
Speaker 3: any amount of money that's being extracted from a company
5:40
Speaker 3: like that is devastating. And it was and it literally.
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Speaker 2: You know, almost bankrupted us. And so we had to
5:48
Speaker 2: move back to New York.
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Speaker 3: I had to, you know, have my family live above
5:52
Speaker 3: our portrait studio, the building that I currently had for
5:56
Speaker 3: the studio, and we lived in that little space for
6:01
Speaker 3: about four years. But in that time, you know, I
6:07
Speaker 3: was literally on my knees. I'm like, Lord, now what
6:09
Speaker 3: I've lost everything. I don't know what to do. I'm
6:14
Speaker 3: really feeling like giving up. I mean, I was in
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Speaker 3: the darkest place in my life. It felt like I
6:18
Speaker 3: spent my whole life building this company and then all
6:21
Speaker 3: of a sudden it was going away. And I was
6:27
Speaker 3: at a best Buy of all places, electronics story you've
6:30
Speaker 3: heard of it. And I'm in best Buy and one
6:33
Speaker 3: of my clients, past clients, comes up to me and says, hey, Tom,
6:38
Speaker 3: how are you doing? He said, hey, have you ever
6:40
Speaker 3: painted before? And I said, I said no, I don't
6:45
Speaker 3: like being dirty. You know, I wear a tuxedo to
6:48
Speaker 3: my weddings. I don't even help my wife paint the
6:51
Speaker 3: walls in our home. I don't like being dirty. You know.
6:55
Speaker 3: It was just being real. And he said, well, watch
6:57
Speaker 3: this video. And it was a gentleman by the name
6:59
Speaker 3: of Denny Dent. He's deceased now, but he was painting
7:03
Speaker 3: these these super large portraits set to music, and he
7:08
Speaker 3: was just throwing paint. They were all famous faces, and
7:12
Speaker 3: he had paint in his hair, he had paint all
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Speaker 3: over it. And you know, as soon as I saw that,
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Speaker 3: the same passion that hit me with my camera when
7:21
Speaker 3: my father gave me my camera at fourteen years old,
7:24
Speaker 3: hit me with that video. And so I went back
7:28
Speaker 3: to my home that night, and after dinner, I called
7:34
Speaker 3: my family down into the studio portion of the building
7:37
Speaker 3: and I said, hey, I said, come down and watch this.
7:40
Speaker 3: And I had a canvas set up. I had the
7:42
Speaker 3: music ready, geared up, and I turned the music on
7:47
Speaker 3: started painting really fast in front of them. I flipped
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Speaker 3: the canvas over and there was silence in the room
7:53
Speaker 3: because it did not come out. It just simply didn't
7:56
Speaker 3: come out. My teenage daughters thought I lost my mind.
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Speaker 3: My wife comes over to the canvas and says, honey,
8:02
Speaker 3: maybe if you tried this or you did this, this
8:05
Speaker 3: would help.
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Speaker 2: It wasn't.
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Speaker 3: I just stood in that room, discouraged and because it
8:10
Speaker 3: didn't come out. And so for the next four months,
8:14
Speaker 3: I went down into that studio and I practiced over
8:17
Speaker 3: and over and over again, and I was destroying my
8:21
Speaker 3: portrait studient. I would paint all over the hardwood floors,
8:24
Speaker 3: on my equipment, on the ceiling. And so I called
8:27
Speaker 3: a friend who works with brick and mortar and Mason,
8:30
Speaker 3: and he's been a friend of mine since we're little boys.
8:33
Speaker 3: And I said, Angelo, you got to come over to
8:35
Speaker 3: the studio. Came over to the studio We went down
8:39
Speaker 3: in one hundred year old building's basement and we dug
8:42
Speaker 3: out four ton of rock and dirt and then poured concrete,
8:47
Speaker 3: and then we poured stairs. And I had a painting
8:50
Speaker 3: pit in my basement of that building, and that's where
8:53
Speaker 3: I went down for the next three months and practiced
8:56
Speaker 3: over and over and over again. And then I called
9:00
Speaker 3: my girls down again and they reluctantly came down, my
9:03
Speaker 3: teenage daughters. Dad, it doesn't come out, I said, just
9:06
Speaker 3: give me one more shot, and they came down. I
9:09
Speaker 3: turned down the music, I painted really fast, flipped it over,
9:13
Speaker 3: and I got it, and my wife came over to
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Speaker 3: the canvas, literally crying. She said, Tom, you just taught
9:20
Speaker 3: our daughters that if you put your whole heart into something,
9:24
Speaker 3: we could do and be whatever we want. And that's
9:27
Speaker 3: where emotion into art started. I took that grit, that
9:33
Speaker 3: essence of just perseverance, and I brought it into the
9:37
Speaker 3: k through twelve school districts and said, this is what you.
9:41
Speaker 2: Need to do.
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Speaker 3: Find a dream and go all in on whatever it
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Speaker 3: is that you choose to do. I did it twice,
9:48
Speaker 3: once with my camera and then again with my brushes,
9:51
Speaker 3: and you can do it too.
9:52
Speaker 2: I'm nobody special.
9:54
Speaker 1: What was that first portrait there that you're talking about
9:58
Speaker 1: where your wife was emotional?
10:00
Speaker 3: That's a great, great question. The very first painting I
10:04
Speaker 3: ever did was a painting of Einstein. And you know,
10:08
Speaker 3: if I look back at that fourteen years ago, I cringe.
10:12
Speaker 3: But my wife kept the painting. She said, no, you're
10:15
Speaker 3: not getting rid of that. She said, we're keeping that.
10:18
Speaker 3: And for the longest time it literally hung in our
10:21
Speaker 3: bedroom and I'm cringed every morning just because, you know,
10:25
Speaker 3: it was my very first painting. But it came out
10:28
Speaker 3: and it you know, and she loves it. So maybe
10:31
Speaker 3: it's maybe it's worth a million dollars today.
10:34
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
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Speaker 1: I'm sure it is, man, you know, I'm sitting here
10:38
Speaker 1: listening to you, and I'm like, it's got to be.
10:40
Speaker 1: It's got to be a painting of his wife or
10:44
Speaker 1: his his daughter. Were why Einstein? And what was your
10:51
Speaker 1: family expecting? Were they expecting a portrait of them themselves,
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Speaker 1: something that you love?
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Speaker 3: No, they they didn't really know what to expect. They've
11:00
Speaker 3: never seen anything like this before, they never experienced anything
11:04
Speaker 3: like this, so they didn't know what to expect. And Einstein.
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Speaker 3: I mean all the famous faces that I paint, you know,
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Speaker 3: I have seventy plus in my repertoire. Now, I just
11:15
Speaker 3: wanted somebody that was recognizable, that you could just instantly
11:19
Speaker 3: know who it is right away, you know, you didn't
11:22
Speaker 3: have to guess or that looks like or And of
11:26
Speaker 3: course with the hair and the mustache, everybody, no, I mean,
11:29
Speaker 3: you can scribble that on a napkin and everyone, oh,
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Speaker 3: that looks like Einstein. You know what I mean.
11:35
Speaker 1: But Tommy, you got to agree though, that having a
11:39
Speaker 1: vision with a lens held to your eye, to your
11:45
Speaker 1: brain saying this is beautiful. Snap, Snap, Snap, capture, capture, capture.
11:54
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move over here at the lighting. I just
11:57
Speaker 1: want to I want the sun to filter through the
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Speaker 1: trees this way, whatever that's the angle. I want. That's beautiful.
12:04
Speaker 1: Knowing when to snap the shutter, that's one thing. But
12:09
Speaker 1: having a brush in your hand and a blank canvas,
12:14
Speaker 1: not anything being provided for you. We're going somewhere else, man.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
12:23
Speaker 3: And you know where I take the kids in them
12:25
Speaker 3: only because when we do Q and A in front
12:28
Speaker 3: of all these thousands of kids, at the end of
12:30
Speaker 3: the show, they ask the same question, how do you
12:33
Speaker 3: do it? Like? And you know what I tell them
12:36
Speaker 3: and I tell you in this moment is everything is
12:40
Speaker 3: a study. Everything you sitting behind that microphone was a study.
12:45
Speaker 3: There was there was a time where you flip the
12:48
Speaker 3: switch to go live on the air.
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Speaker 2: And it was your very first time.
12:52
Speaker 3: Compared to today, and the way you feel about your
12:56
Speaker 3: program and everything you're doing and accomplishing, everything is study.
13:00
Speaker 3: And that's all I did, is see let me let
13:03
Speaker 3: me back up. I am not ashamed to admit that
13:06
Speaker 3: I have ADHD okay, And that's not an excuse or
13:11
Speaker 3: it's not even the reason why I'm able to do this.
13:14
Speaker 3: I'm not a servant, you know. It's not anything like that.
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Speaker 3: It's a study. And when you focus in on anything
13:21
Speaker 3: in your life, I don't care if it's your marriage,
13:25
Speaker 3: if it's a relationship, if it's whatever, if it's your
13:28
Speaker 3: studies in school, if it's if it's your job, your career,
13:33
Speaker 3: if it's your finance, whatever, you focus on growth. And
13:38
Speaker 3: I focused my entire energy on how to use this camera?
13:43
Speaker 3: And what did I do? I read the books, I
13:46
Speaker 3: used the camera, I studied it, and then I got
13:49
Speaker 3: around good mentors and I went deeper. And that's what
13:53
Speaker 3: I did with the painting process. I didn't have mentors
13:57
Speaker 3: because Danny was deceased. I could reach out to him,
14:01
Speaker 3: but I just I had studied and I knew the
14:05
Speaker 3: process of what it takes because of the camera, and
14:08
Speaker 3: I just applied that same process to the brusheses. But
14:13
Speaker 3: there was always a second mission. The mission first of
14:18
Speaker 3: all was learn how to do this process. But the
14:20
Speaker 3: main mission for me is that microphone. That's why I'm
14:24
Speaker 3: in the room. That's why I'm doing this and pouring
14:27
Speaker 3: my heart out and why I'm away from my wife
14:30
Speaker 3: so much by doing this, because she's on the same
14:33
Speaker 3: mission as me. She knows we're reaching the masses for
14:36
Speaker 3: good and that's the main mission. So a lot of
14:40
Speaker 3: people get caught in the weeds of like the paintings,
14:43
Speaker 3: the paintings, but for us, it's the microphone, the microphone,
14:47
Speaker 3: because that's really what's going to make a change and
14:49
Speaker 3: a difference in this world, and that's why we're doing this.
14:53
Speaker 1: How do you know when you step on to a stage?
14:57
Speaker 1: Do you know in advance what you going to be painting?
15:02
Speaker 1: That's one question I have. And the other question is
15:05
Speaker 1: you know, how how are you able to speak and
15:12
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, preach your your your
15:15
Speaker 1: your message, whether it's resilience, whether it's kindness, anti bullying,
15:23
Speaker 1: personal growth, whatever it may be. How are you able
15:26
Speaker 1: to do that? Well, you're moving a paint rush man.
15:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So you know, first of all, the reason
15:41
Speaker 3: behind it and how I'm able to do it is all.
15:44
Speaker 3: It's all based on things that I've gone through that
15:47
Speaker 3: I know other people are going through. So you know,
15:51
Speaker 3: I'm mostly talking about trauma. I'm talking about things that
15:58
Speaker 3: humans get involved in or have gone through that kind
16:02
Speaker 3: of stop them or get them caught up or you know,
16:07
Speaker 3: tangle their heart and all of a sudden, they're they're
16:11
Speaker 3: not being the person that they really need to be
16:14
Speaker 3: for this world. I personally believe, and you know nobody
16:17
Speaker 3: could take this for me of course, is that we're
16:19
Speaker 3: all here for a reason, Like everybody was created for
16:24
Speaker 3: a reason, and it's our mission and our beautiful journey
16:28
Speaker 3: to figure out what your personal mission is? What what
16:31
Speaker 3: are you here for? Like that's the beautiful journey is
16:36
Speaker 3: trying to figure that out. And if you're just sitting
16:38
Speaker 3: on your couch all day scrolling and looking at everybody
16:42
Speaker 3: else's life. No, you're not going to figure out what
16:45
Speaker 3: your personal journey is all about because you're caught up
16:48
Speaker 3: in watching everybody else's journey.
16:50
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of superficial stuff out there.
16:53
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, man, you kidding. I mean, it's it's crazy.
16:57
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to get our students to understand. Look
17:00
Speaker 3: these electronics that you know, our gaming systems, our computers,
17:06
Speaker 3: I mean, they have the ability to be used as tools.
17:10
Speaker 3: I mean, I paint Steve jobs portrait, I've studied demand.
17:13
Speaker 3: These are these were supposed to be tools, but because
17:16
Speaker 3: of you know, the way our brains work, now they've
17:20
Speaker 3: become addictions to us and we can't put them down.
17:24
Speaker 3: We're getting notifications, we're you know, getting texts. I mean,
17:27
Speaker 3: it's it's going off all day long, and all of
17:29
Speaker 3: a sudden, we find ourselves behind a screen before we're
17:34
Speaker 3: reading a book about our future and what, you know,
17:37
Speaker 3: what we can accomplish in this world for growth. So anyway,
17:43
Speaker 3: I did that answer that question, I mean very.
17:47
Speaker 1: Much, And you know I got to ask. I'm listening
17:51
Speaker 1: to you here and already so inspired, and I have
17:56
Speaker 1: so many follow up questions I've just overwhelmed here. But
17:59
Speaker 1: you know the fact, you know, Tom said to me
18:04
Speaker 1: two nights ago on the phone that literally the energy
18:13
Speaker 1: in the earth brought you two guys together. And you know,
18:22
Speaker 1: if I were just having a conversation with you right
18:24
Speaker 1: now and you didn't know Tom, I'd be like, dude,
18:27
Speaker 1: as soon as we're done talking, you need to meet Tom.
18:29
Speaker 1: And I would say the same thing to Tom. But
18:32
Speaker 1: the fact that you guys have come together, gravitated towards
18:37
Speaker 1: each other, and you're taking your mission his mission, which
18:41
Speaker 1: is so similar in so many different ways and combining it.
18:47
Speaker 1: Tom can't get up on a stage and do what
18:50
Speaker 1: you do. He can do other things, but man, what
18:55
Speaker 1: an absolute powerhouse to have you connected with eat hearts
19:00
Speaker 1: and heroes. Holy crap.
19:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and listen, I can't do what he does. I mean,
19:06
Speaker 2: he's an amazing human being and he.
19:09
Speaker 3: Has things going on in his mind that are whirling
19:13
Speaker 3: on a twenty four to seven basis, and I can
19:16
Speaker 3: never keep up with that. And I wouldn't even want
19:18
Speaker 3: to try, you know. I want to stay in my
19:20
Speaker 3: lane and do my job and do it very well
19:23
Speaker 3: and connect with people like Tom and Rick and you
19:26
Speaker 3: and you know, other great people in the world and
19:29
Speaker 3: have this, like we talked about before the show, the
19:31
Speaker 3: synergy of all of.
19:34
Speaker 2: Us coming together for the greater good.
19:37
Speaker 3: You know. You know, here's a real quick funny story.
19:40
Speaker 3: Is the week before I met Tom and God's on
19:44
Speaker 3: his truth. My wife would attest to this because she
19:46
Speaker 3: was dumbfounded. I'm sitting in my living room in Texas, Houston, Texas,
19:52
Speaker 3: and in the evening, for some reason, I couldn't even
19:55
Speaker 3: tell you why, I'm watching Cage fighting for the first time.
20:01
Speaker 3: For a week straight, I couldn't get enough of it.
20:03
Speaker 3: For some reason. I'm just watching all these different fights
20:07
Speaker 3: and all the I mean for hours, and I'm like,
20:10
Speaker 3: what am I doing? Like this isn't even me, this
20:13
Speaker 3: is you know what I mean. I'm not that type
20:15
Speaker 3: of guy, you know what I mean. And so but
20:18
Speaker 3: I'm watching all these fights constantly for a whole week.
20:22
Speaker 3: You know, my wife will walk by the television. We
20:24
Speaker 3: have this, you know, I mean, we have this large
20:27
Speaker 3: TV in our living room and.
20:28
Speaker 2: She's like, what are you watching? You know?
20:30
Speaker 3: And so the next week, I'm in New York and
20:35
Speaker 3: I'm doing a staff convocation. I was one of the
20:38
Speaker 3: keynotes and before I went on, Tom and Rick were
20:42
Speaker 3: doing their program for the same staff.
20:45
Speaker 2: I was the follow up.
20:46
Speaker 3: I was the next speaker, and so I listened to
20:49
Speaker 3: their program and then I find out Tom is a
20:53
Speaker 3: cage fighter in and I'm just like, I had this
20:56
Speaker 3: aha moment, like, oh my gosh, I can't even I
20:59
Speaker 3: can't believe the way God puts these kind of things together. Yes,
21:02
Speaker 3: and you know, we don't even know what's going on
21:05
Speaker 3: in the moment, but all of a sudden, it all
21:06
Speaker 3: comes together like this beautiful painting. You know what I
21:10
Speaker 3: mean that we just we just can't we just can't
21:13
Speaker 3: get enough of.
21:14
Speaker 1: You know, you're watching You're watching people trying to survive.
21:18
Speaker 1: You're watching primal instincts. Yeah, right in front of you.
21:24
Speaker 1: It's fascinating. It's fascinating you hear that. So you you
21:28
Speaker 1: introduced yourself to Tom or vice versa.
21:31
Speaker 3: After well, you know, the funny thing is, they did
21:34
Speaker 3: their program and now the staff are all in that room.
21:37
Speaker 3: I think there was like five hundred dog It was
21:39
Speaker 3: a district like professional development day, and so after Rick
21:44
Speaker 3: bowed out, he closed their program and he introduced me,
21:48
Speaker 3: and then I came on stage and I did my program. Well,
21:52
Speaker 3: I look in the very front row and who's sitting
21:54
Speaker 3: in the front row is Tom Murphy.
21:57
Speaker 2: And he's just sitting.
21:59
Speaker 3: I thought, of course he's gonna leave and go on
22:01
Speaker 3: the road. I mean, our lives get pretty busy when
22:04
Speaker 3: we're speaking and staying in hotels and you know, trekking everywhere.
22:09
Speaker 2: But he sat there, and.
22:11
Speaker 3: He stood and listened to the entire program and took notes,
22:16
Speaker 3: and at the end he said, we need to do
22:19
Speaker 3: something together.
22:20
Speaker 2: He said, we need to hop on a call.
22:22
Speaker 3: And sure enough, he put me on a call with him,
22:24
Speaker 3: and and you know, now we're He created this synergy
22:30
Speaker 3: of us doing this program together. So Rick and I
22:34
Speaker 3: who Ricky Iras who you've had on the program? Him
22:38
Speaker 3: and him and I did five shows a couple of
22:41
Speaker 3: weeks ago, where I did the first hour of the
22:45
Speaker 3: program and Rick followed up in the last half hour,
22:48
Speaker 3: and we just morphed our two sweethearts and heroes and
22:52
Speaker 3: emotion into our program into something we had no idea
22:57
Speaker 3: that was gonna morph into something so beautiful and so
23:01
Speaker 3: powerful for these students and staff members. You know, before
23:05
Speaker 3: Rick came out, I painted his portrait, my very last
23:09
Speaker 3: portrait I'll do three or four in you know, in
23:12
Speaker 3: a presentation. And my very last portrait was him before
23:17
Speaker 3: he got injured, and so nobody really knew who this
23:20
Speaker 3: person was that I just painted. I mean, they heard
23:23
Speaker 3: the clips because while I'm painting it, it's set to
23:26
Speaker 3: music and it's set to him speaking. But I painted
23:30
Speaker 3: his portrait and then introduced my new friend, Rick Irish,
23:34
Speaker 3: and he came out on stage, of course, with his injury,
23:39
Speaker 3: and that's how we morphed the two programs on that stage.
23:44
Speaker 1: So Rick's injury, which we've talked about an awful lot
23:47
Speaker 1: over the last couple of years here on aired out
23:51
Speaker 1: Rix a veteran. He was in Iraq and was blown
23:56
Speaker 1: up from a roadside bomb in his his Bradley vehicle,
24:02
Speaker 1: burned alive, covered in diesel fuel, lost a leg in
24:08
Speaker 1: the process of this. His best friend Montees, right next
24:11
Speaker 1: to him, died almost right away. I think Rick, I'm
24:18
Speaker 1: not sure what the percentage is. Sixty seventy percent of
24:21
Speaker 1: his body is burned, is scarred, no nos, no ears,
24:28
Speaker 1: no hair. Really, it is a profound experience just to
24:39
Speaker 1: let's be honest, just to see Rick with the amount
24:46
Speaker 1: of scars that he has, but in a sense, he
24:51
Speaker 1: was almost kind of reborn, for lack of a better term,
24:57
Speaker 1: into a whole new person, tapped into something that he
25:03
Speaker 1: wasn't before this accident, And yet you painted your vision
25:13
Speaker 1: of what he looked like before this happened. I want
25:18
Speaker 1: to ask you about Rick's reaction to this. I'm guessing
25:26
Speaker 1: this wasn't anything that was planned, but I also want
25:28
Speaker 1: to ask you what your reaction was when you first
25:32
Speaker 1: met Rick and heard his story. But first, what was
25:36
Speaker 1: it like when you painted this portrait of your image
25:42
Speaker 1: of Rick before the accident? What was what was Rick's
25:44
Speaker 1: reaction to that? Was that planned?
25:49
Speaker 2: Well?
25:49
Speaker 3: Tom and Tom gave me and I love this about Tom.
25:53
Speaker 3: You know, he's not trying to control the narrative. So
25:57
Speaker 3: he was like, Tom, you're the artist, what do you
25:59
Speaker 3: say this morphing into how do you see this playing out?
26:03
Speaker 3: And they were thinking that I was going to paint
26:05
Speaker 3: Rick as he is, you know with the injury, and
26:09
Speaker 3: which I could easily did, but I wanted to paint Rick.
26:14
Speaker 3: I think the story, like you started with this podcast,
26:17
Speaker 3: is what's the story behind the story, Like what got
26:20
Speaker 3: you to this point? And before Rick was injured, he
26:26
Speaker 3: was a handsome, you know, individual with a dream and
26:30
Speaker 3: fighting for him. I mean, he started in the military
26:33
Speaker 3: because he's he saw images of nine to eleven, you know,
26:37
Speaker 3: and so he's pissed that, you know, our Americans are
26:41
Speaker 3: dying over this stuff. So he wanted to get involved
26:43
Speaker 3: and do his part. And that's the whole reason why
26:46
Speaker 3: I even gotten that Bradley to begin with. And so
26:49
Speaker 3: when I painted is, I wanted to paint his portrait then,
26:53
Speaker 3: like let's start with Rick then, and let's hear about
26:56
Speaker 3: Rick now. And so after I got done painting his
27:00
Speaker 3: portrait and then ask him to come out on stage,
27:04
Speaker 3: his very first words, now I'm not on stage.
27:06
Speaker 2: With him, I'm behind the.
27:07
Speaker 3: Curtains, but his very first words to the audience those
27:12
Speaker 3: five days was pointing at that painting, yelling like angry,
27:18
Speaker 3: saying that's not me, that's not me. And he got
27:21
Speaker 3: louder and louder saying that's not me.
27:25
Speaker 2: And he got into.
27:26
Speaker 3: His whole his whole story of who he is now.
27:31
Speaker 3: And you know how beautiful it is that this actually
27:35
Speaker 3: did happen to him. Of course, in the beginning, it
27:38
Speaker 3: was a friggin' nightmare. I mean, hundreds of surgeries, you know,
27:43
Speaker 3: missing limbs. I mean, you know, not knowing how he's
27:47
Speaker 3: gonna make it in the world. You know, all of
27:49
Speaker 3: his dreams of being married and having kids and all
27:52
Speaker 3: of that. It was hanging in the balance, and he's
27:55
Speaker 3: trying to like, how do you even how do you
27:57
Speaker 3: even not be paralyzed with fear and doubt, and you know,
28:02
Speaker 3: not to mention the pain he was in. I mean,
28:05
Speaker 3: those surgeries are no jokes. Just I've burned my hand
28:08
Speaker 3: on the stove and you know, I'm thinking about it
28:11
Speaker 3: for a week. I mean, his whole entire body was burned,
28:15
Speaker 3: you know. So anyway, you know, he just told us
28:20
Speaker 3: his story and that was beautiful, you know. And then
28:24
Speaker 3: at the very end he would point at the painting
28:27
Speaker 3: and say that is me. That is me, and this
28:31
Speaker 3: is me pointing himself now on stage, and it was
28:34
Speaker 3: just it was beautiful. I mean, you can't you know,
28:37
Speaker 3: some of these things I just feel like are meant
28:40
Speaker 3: to be. Like when like you said, people coming together,
28:44
Speaker 3: and I just feel like this is a chapter in
28:46
Speaker 3: my book, you know, meeting them and being at this chapter,
28:51
Speaker 3: this page right now and doing this with them.
28:55
Speaker 2: I have no idea where it's going.
28:57
Speaker 3: Tom has a vision, a greater vision of this, but
29:01
Speaker 3: I could see has taken this around the country easily.
29:04
Speaker 1: Oh easily. This is light years beyond just an artist
29:09
Speaker 1: stepping up onto stage, preaching a little bit, throwing some
29:13
Speaker 1: paint on some canvas and close the book. We're done.
29:16
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it. This is so so far, so
29:21
Speaker 1: far beyond this. Your mission, being aligned with Tom's mission
29:26
Speaker 1: is absolutely something that should be going to every state
29:33
Speaker 1: in America at least once. You know you have said.
29:41
Speaker 1: You said something to me just before we went on
29:44
Speaker 1: the air that stuck with me. You said, we're not
29:48
Speaker 1: going to be here forever. Tom said something to me
29:57
Speaker 1: by phone a couple of months ago. I'm sure he's
30:00
Speaker 1: gotten but I didn't. He said to me, we're running
30:07
Speaker 1: out of time. And I remember saying to Tom. I'm like,
30:12
Speaker 1: tom My, God, buddy, three sixty five twenty four to seven, buddy,
30:16
Speaker 1: you never you need to just stop. Go to Costa Rica,
30:20
Speaker 1: sit on the beach, get some sunshine. And he's like, can't.
30:26
Speaker 1: We're running out of time. I called him one time
30:29
Speaker 1: and he was on vacation, sitting on a beach, and
30:33
Speaker 1: I'm like, Tom, I am so sorry. I am so sorry.
30:37
Speaker 1: He's like, please, it's it's I want you to I'm
30:41
Speaker 1: going to answer your call. We have what's going on.
30:43
Speaker 1: We got to talk about stuff. We're running out of
30:45
Speaker 1: time to make a difference, to connect with people. You
30:49
Speaker 1: seem like you're the same kind of guy, Tom.
30:53
Speaker 3: Absolutely I feel. I mean, my family would attest to that,
30:58
Speaker 3: like I eat, breathe and sleep this because it's a mission.
31:04
Speaker 3: And you know, I I know in my heart, because
31:07
Speaker 3: I've lost loved ones, especially my father at a very
31:11
Speaker 3: young age, that this life is over before we know it.
31:14
Speaker 3: I mean, and if if this life is all about
31:17
Speaker 3: what we accumulate and what we you know, you've you've
31:22
Speaker 3: read that. You've read the bumper sticker, you know, you know,
31:26
Speaker 3: the one with the biggest toys at the end or
31:29
Speaker 3: whatever it says wins, you know what I mean. Yeah,
31:33
Speaker 3: it's such a lie, you know, because none of that
31:36
Speaker 3: truly brings us happiness.
31:38
Speaker 2: None of it is you know.
31:39
Speaker 3: I buried my father with a T shirt in jeans
31:43
Speaker 3: happened to be the portrait studio at the time.
31:47
Speaker 2: The photography studio T shirt and a pair of.
31:51
Speaker 3: Jeans because it was honoring him that he helped me start
31:54
Speaker 3: that company, and you know, you believed in me, And
31:59
Speaker 3: in the end, that's that's really. What we're taking with
32:02
Speaker 3: us is absolutely nothing. And the only thing we're going to.
32:06
Speaker 2: Take with us is what we've pushed ahead.
32:09
Speaker 3: This life is so short, you know. And I realized
32:12
Speaker 3: in that moment that I had lost everything after running
32:17
Speaker 3: my career. That it was like an AHA moment for me, like,
32:23
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I'm spending all my time running this studio,
32:27
Speaker 3: which I absolutely loved. I met so many amazing people
32:30
Speaker 3: throughout the years of running the Portrait studio, but all
32:34
Speaker 3: the stuff that I accumulated, all the all the things
32:38
Speaker 3: that I work so hard to obtain, were really meaningless
32:43
Speaker 3: because first of all, I can't take any of it
32:46
Speaker 3: with me. Secondly, the joy of all that crap, if
32:50
Speaker 3: you would, fades real quick, especially if you've had it.
32:55
Speaker 3: You know, it's like driving a brand new car off
32:57
Speaker 3: the lot and then a couple of years later when
32:59
Speaker 3: you're making the pains, you know, it doesn't feel and
33:02
Speaker 3: smell the same way, you know what I mean. But
33:04
Speaker 3: the payments are still there. Sure, So anyway, that's we
33:10
Speaker 3: definitely align in that Tom and I with mission based
33:15
Speaker 3: because we know that this isn't the end. My show
33:17
Speaker 3: is not religious at all, but my faith is critical
33:20
Speaker 3: to my life, and I even make a disclaimer at
33:24
Speaker 3: my shows. You know, whatever your faith is, study it,
33:27
Speaker 3: practice it, and live it out by loving other people.
33:31
Speaker 3: I'm a Christian, this is my story, and so all
33:34
Speaker 3: the shoulders go down because I'm dealing with all different
33:37
Speaker 3: types of religions, you know, Muslims, I'm dealing with all
33:41
Speaker 3: different Jewish people. I'm dealing with all different types. I'm
33:43
Speaker 3: not there to convert anybody. I'm not there to turn
33:47
Speaker 3: them into a Christian or whatever. I just want my
33:50
Speaker 3: story to be known and that I want to be
33:53
Speaker 3: able to pour into their lives in a positive way
33:56
Speaker 3: for them to keep going because their life matters, And
34:00
Speaker 3: that's the whole mission of my show.
34:03
Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing how so many of us walk around saying, well,
34:07
Speaker 1: I go to I go to my church, So therefore
34:12
Speaker 1: you know that's enough. But the others who may not
34:19
Speaker 1: have a religious faith but are trying to instill hope,
34:29
Speaker 1: faith in some way, in some capacity that things will
34:35
Speaker 1: get better, belief in themselves. You know you've heard Tom
34:39
Speaker 1: and Rick say hope the acronym hold on possibilities exist,
34:45
Speaker 1: pushing through life, hanging on to the good things that
34:49
Speaker 1: we have, and not banging the victim drum as often
34:57
Speaker 1: or as loud as we could, and many of us do,
35:02
Speaker 1: whether it's in social media or we're at the barbecue
35:06
Speaker 1: and in the backyard. Oh gosh, I know I've been there,
35:10
Speaker 1: I've done that. I know somebody that is the same
35:14
Speaker 1: same thing.
35:15
Speaker 3: Pa.
35:17
Speaker 1: We we do that all the time, Tom.
35:20
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, why Because it's easy, it's easy to complain,
35:25
Speaker 3: it's easy to blame. What what really is The tough
35:29
Speaker 3: part is using grit to overcome, you know, turn your
35:35
Speaker 3: your nightmare story into you know this beautiful you know
35:41
Speaker 3: canvas that people look at and say, wow, if he
35:45
Speaker 3: could do it, I could do it, if she could
35:47
Speaker 3: do it. And that's the whole point of the people
35:49
Speaker 3: that I paint. All these people are famous faces of
35:52
Speaker 3: course that people recognize, but they all have an unbelievable
35:57
Speaker 3: story and I'm focusing my whole sho is focusing on
36:01
Speaker 3: the good of these people. I mean, I could, I could,
36:05
Speaker 3: you know, paint MK's portrait and which I do it
36:09
Speaker 3: pretty much at every show and rip his life apart.
36:12
Speaker 3: I could go look for skeletons and rip his life apart.
36:16
Speaker 3: Or I can do what I do at the shows
36:19
Speaker 3: is focus on the good. Here's a man that was
36:21
Speaker 3: spit on, people, spit in his face, they beat him,
36:25
Speaker 3: they put him in prison twenty seven times. I mean,
36:29
Speaker 3: you know, can you can you imagine having a dream
36:32
Speaker 3: that you're that powerful and that that passionate about that
36:37
Speaker 3: you could overcome those kind of things and do it
36:40
Speaker 3: all in the vision of nonviolence. I mean, come on,
36:45
Speaker 3: you know what I mean that? So, yeah, that's it's incredible.
36:49
Speaker 1: I've heard you. I've heard you say just this morning
36:54
Speaker 1: and I've counted three times you've said the word grit.
37:01
Speaker 1: You got a new book coming out.
37:03
Speaker 3: I do.
37:04
Speaker 1: I do.
37:04
Speaker 3: It's it's it is called Grit. And you know, I, oh, gosh,
37:12
Speaker 3: to be able to to be able to, you know,
37:15
Speaker 3: get through to these students, these everybody that I'm in
37:19
Speaker 3: front of. You know, not everybody's born with grit. Not
37:23
Speaker 3: everybody has grit. I believe it's a learned process by
37:27
Speaker 3: the mentors and the coaches and the teachers that you
37:30
Speaker 3: have in your life. And so I set out on
37:33
Speaker 3: a mission to write this book on what is it?
37:36
Speaker 3: How do you obtain it? How do you live it?
37:40
Speaker 3: Who are the people that have had it that we
37:42
Speaker 3: could look at their lives and say, Wow, that person
37:46
Speaker 3: has grit And how can we pass it on legacy
37:50
Speaker 3: wise to our kids like I have too.
37:53
Speaker 2: I have a grandchild.
37:54
Speaker 3: He's too. He's freaking amazing. I mean, I'm loving being grandfather,
38:00
Speaker 3: but the responsibility of having this grandchild and how can
38:05
Speaker 3: I pour everything that I've learned up to this point
38:08
Speaker 3: in my life into this boy so he doesn't have
38:11
Speaker 3: to start over? And a lot of it is grit.
38:14
Speaker 3: If I can pour character into him. If I can
38:17
Speaker 3: pour you know, values and life choices, but also grit,
38:22
Speaker 3: the ability to work hard for something that you truly want.
38:26
Speaker 3: And we've seen it in all the greats. I mean
38:29
Speaker 3: MLK had grit, Kobe Bryant had grit, Abraham Lincoln had grit.
38:34
Speaker 3: I mean, do a background on his story. Abraham Lincoln alone.
38:38
Speaker 3: You know, it takes grit to fail that many times
38:41
Speaker 3: and still get back up. You know, one of the
38:44
Speaker 3: people that is in the book is Mike Tyson. His backstory,
38:49
Speaker 3: I mean, his whole life was grit, you know, and
38:52
Speaker 3: based on trauma. So anyway, as you can tell, I'm
38:56
Speaker 3: extremely excited about the book. It'll be out in about
38:59
Speaker 3: a month.
39:00
Speaker 1: Man, that's incredible. You know, your your life go way
39:08
Speaker 1: back early childhood. You you've you say that you you
39:13
Speaker 1: also depict trauma through some of your your your painting here.
39:20
Speaker 1: Have you gone through trauma? And the other question is
39:25
Speaker 1: have you ever been in the in the process of
39:28
Speaker 1: being on stage with a canvas and starting to feel
39:34
Speaker 1: that you might be painting your own life and that
39:37
Speaker 1: you've been over overcome with emotion? Has that ever happened?
39:41
Speaker 3: Oh gosh. I name the company Emotion into Art for
39:46
Speaker 3: a reason because you know, I'm not ashamed to say it.
39:50
Speaker 3: As a guy, I'm an emotional person and I believe
39:53
Speaker 3: I've gotten that from my my heritage, my culture as
39:56
Speaker 3: an Italian, losing people that I've loved, having relationships like
40:02
Speaker 3: with my grandmother, who was my only mother, my mother,
40:07
Speaker 3: my parents divorce when I was two, my mother kidnapped
40:10
Speaker 3: me to California, my biological mother, and then my father
40:14
Speaker 3: sent people to California and kidnapped me back to New York.
40:17
Speaker 3: That's why I was raised in New York. And I'm
40:19
Speaker 3: not some surfer dude in California never knew my mom.
40:23
Speaker 3: Grew up my entire life not knowing my mom, not
40:26
Speaker 3: knowing the color of her hair, the color of her eyes.
40:29
Speaker 3: She never read to me, We never celebrated each other's birthdays,
40:33
Speaker 3: did not know my mom my entire life. And that's
40:35
Speaker 3: some of the stories that these students are facing. You know,
40:39
Speaker 3: they've had divorce, and I tell them straight out that
40:43
Speaker 3: wasn't my fault that my parents got divorced, and it's
40:46
Speaker 3: not your fault. Sometimes people don't get along, adults don't
40:50
Speaker 3: get along. It's not your fault. And you can't carry
40:53
Speaker 3: that baggage forward in this life that's already difficult, and
40:58
Speaker 3: carrying this backpack of un forgiveness and trauma in your
41:02
Speaker 3: backpack that you're dragging along like chains and think you're gonna,
41:08
Speaker 3: you know, win at your highest level.
41:11
Speaker 2: It's not gonna happen.
41:11
Speaker 3: We have to you know, I'm reading a book right now,
41:15
Speaker 3: you know, forgiving what you can't forget, you know, learning
41:18
Speaker 3: to let go of our past and and you know,
41:22
Speaker 3: be able to live our greatest future ahead of us.
41:25
Speaker 3: But have I had trauma? You know?
41:29
Speaker 1: JD.
41:29
Speaker 3: I mean I don't have three hours on your program.
41:33
Speaker 3: But yes, I've had a lot of trauma. Sexually abused
41:36
Speaker 3: by a priest when I was an altar boy, lived
41:40
Speaker 3: through that trauma, left the church completely angry at God.
41:44
Speaker 3: Why would you allow this? Only to you know, find
41:48
Speaker 3: another church for thirteen years, non denominational church, Protestant church,
41:54
Speaker 3: and then come full circle back into my Catholic faith
41:57
Speaker 3: because I had realized that there's bad actors in this world.
42:01
Speaker 3: There's bad teachers, there's bad priests, there's bad police officers,
42:06
Speaker 3: there's simply bad actors. And we can't hold the bad
42:10
Speaker 3: actor against God because he didn't do that. The bad
42:14
Speaker 3: actor did and so that changed my whole life, learning
42:17
Speaker 3: that from Bishop Baron. But yes, I've had a lot
42:21
Speaker 3: of trauma, a lot of trauma.
42:23
Speaker 1: What happened?
42:23
Speaker 3: Then, yeah, go ahead, And that's why I'm doing what
42:27
Speaker 3: I'm doing, because you know, you can allow the trauma
42:30
Speaker 3: to suffocate you into paralyzation where you are not living
42:35
Speaker 3: your best life. And I'm not saying that I'm living
42:38
Speaker 3: my best life right now, but I could tell you
42:41
Speaker 3: what I feel like. I'm doing what I'm supposed to
42:44
Speaker 3: be doing by pouring into other people, And you know,
42:48
Speaker 3: do I have a perfect life? Absolutely not. Am I
42:52
Speaker 3: using grit to get through this life? At this life? Absolutely?
42:56
Speaker 3: My wife and I just celebrated our thirty third anniversary.
43:01
Speaker 3: And why is that important? Not to brag to anybody?
43:04
Speaker 3: And I tell the students, I don't say that to
43:06
Speaker 3: you to brag because I don't need, you know, no offense,
43:10
Speaker 3: but I don't need to brag to you. The reason
43:12
Speaker 3: I say that is because my parents were married ten
43:15
Speaker 3: times between them, ten times, all the pain, the anguish,
43:20
Speaker 3: the financial devastation. My wife and I looked at each
43:24
Speaker 3: other in high school before we got married, we were
43:27
Speaker 3: high school sweethearts, and said, we want something different, you know,
43:32
Speaker 3: we want to put into work and do something different.
43:34
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what we've done and continue to do.
43:39
Speaker 3: That's grit, you know what you know?
43:42
Speaker 1: I have to ask you. So I'm assuming that's a
43:46
Speaker 1: that's that's a yes. That you have been emotional on
43:49
Speaker 1: stage while you're painting, while you're connecting with your your audience,
43:53
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing you've you've witnessed with your eyes a
43:56
Speaker 1: good amount of emotion in your audience as well. But
44:00
Speaker 1: what happens after you're done, when your presentation, when your
44:06
Speaker 1: experience is complete on stage, are you do you go
44:12
Speaker 1: into Q and A? Do you get people coming up
44:15
Speaker 1: after after and speaking with you. I'm guessing the curtain
44:20
Speaker 1: just doesn't close and it's over.
44:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that's a great question. I I love to
44:30
Speaker 3: connect with the audience, and so we will if there's
44:34
Speaker 3: time allows, we will do a Q and A with
44:36
Speaker 3: the with the audience, and then it leads us down
44:39
Speaker 3: all these rabbit holes of stories and and things that
44:43
Speaker 3: didn't come up during the program. So it's beautiful, and
44:47
Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of questions because we're covering
44:50
Speaker 3: it's an emotional show. We're covering, you know, my trauma.
44:54
Speaker 3: I'm literally burying my soul on that stage. So you know,
44:58
Speaker 3: because we're a human being, we relate to each other
45:02
Speaker 3: through non posing situations, if you know what I mean.
45:08
Speaker 3: You know, if you're real with me and transparent, then
45:11
Speaker 3: I feel vulnerable enough to be real with you. And
45:14
Speaker 3: what that means for the audience is the emotions flow.
45:17
Speaker 3: I mean, people cry, you know, our emotions are all
45:21
Speaker 3: over the board. During one of the presentations, We're laughing,
45:24
Speaker 3: we are crying, We're contemplating, we're thinking of our future.
45:29
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the beautiful thing. And of course after
45:33
Speaker 3: the Q and A is over, then you know, oh,
45:36
Speaker 3: I have people come to the stage and to hear
45:38
Speaker 3: their stories and to see the tears in their eyes
45:42
Speaker 3: and and you know, and I write about these and
45:45
Speaker 3: all my books. I mean, my very first book was
45:47
Speaker 3: called From the Pit to the Palace. And you know,
45:50
Speaker 3: all my books are on Amazon, but there you know,
45:54
Speaker 3: that whole book is all the trauma that I went
45:57
Speaker 3: through and it unpacks. But it's the second lyne you know,
46:01
Speaker 3: it's called from the Pit to the Palace. It's all
46:03
Speaker 3: stories of overcoming and it's it's not staying in that
46:08
Speaker 3: that space. It's like it's it's digging your way out
46:12
Speaker 3: of that pit of frigging hell, whatever your hell is,
46:16
Speaker 3: and you know, pressing on and then and then.
46:20
Speaker 1: You come out of that with The War Within Us
46:24
Speaker 1: another one of your books, Yes.
46:25
Speaker 3: The War Within Yeah, the powerful book. I'm laying in
46:30
Speaker 3: bed one night and my my daughter, Jordan, her her husband,
46:37
Speaker 3: his father just passed about three years ago. So my
46:41
Speaker 3: grandson at a Nija, I'm his only grandfather. So I'm
46:46
Speaker 3: laying in bed one night, and I'm thinking if something
46:49
Speaker 3: ever happens to me on a flight or in a
46:51
Speaker 3: car accident or something, I don't, I don't. I can't
46:54
Speaker 3: pass anything on to him, Like how am I going
46:57
Speaker 3: to pass? So the whole book is written as a
46:59
Speaker 3: war admiral that's retired talking to his grandson about finding
47:06
Speaker 3: inner peace. And so he use his war stories to
47:10
Speaker 3: relate to his grandson about everyday life issues, from relationships
47:15
Speaker 3: to finances to all of it, forgiveness, you know, overcoming
47:21
Speaker 3: certain traumas. And it's just this beautiful unfold of this
47:26
Speaker 3: grandfather speaking stories to his grandson, his young grandson. It's
47:29
Speaker 3: called the War within Us?
47:31
Speaker 1: Tom, have you ever painted?
47:33
Speaker 3: What?
47:33
Speaker 1: What have you done with homelessness, addiction, real suffering and hardship?
47:43
Speaker 1: And you know, you say the word grit, and I'm
47:47
Speaker 1: also thinking of the word grip. You know, I know folks,
47:52
Speaker 1: you know folks, good people who are who are fighting
47:59
Speaker 1: against a grip of something that has got control of
48:07
Speaker 1: their life and they're struggling to release that grip, whether
48:10
Speaker 1: it's alcohol, whether it's whatever, whatever, gambling, whatever it is.
48:14
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, I know.
48:16
Speaker 1: I'm asking you a lot of questions here but what
48:18
Speaker 1: have you gone down this road?
48:19
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it and I appreciate the questions,
48:24
Speaker 3: the question, you know, have I ever dealt with homelessness?
48:27
Speaker 3: My favorite painting? I get this in the Q and A.
48:30
Speaker 3: What is your favorite painting? You have all these paintings,
48:33
Speaker 3: what's your favorite? My favorite painting? To do? And this
48:37
Speaker 3: may sound weird to people, but it's Mother Teresa. And
48:42
Speaker 3: why because here's a five foot woman right less than
48:46
Speaker 3: five foot or whatever, and she's got no money, She's
48:51
Speaker 3: got nothing, but she goes. She says to you know, her,
48:55
Speaker 3: her priest that's overseeing it. I want to go to
48:58
Speaker 3: India and I want to I have a vision mission
49:02
Speaker 3: to reach the homeless in India. She goes there billion people,
49:08
Speaker 3: doesn't know the language, she has no money.
49:10
Speaker 2: You and I, You and I JD.
49:12
Speaker 3: We see a homeless person on the street. We don't
49:15
Speaker 3: know what to do with them. I've been to New
49:17
Speaker 3: York City multiple times. I don't know what you know.
49:19
Speaker 3: Do I pat him on the back? Do I tell
49:21
Speaker 3: them it's going to be okay? Do I give him
49:23
Speaker 3: leftover food from the restaurant? Do I go buy them
49:25
Speaker 3: a different meal, give it to them? Do I give
49:27
Speaker 3: him money. She knew what to do. She would take
49:31
Speaker 3: these people on the streets in India, pick them up.
49:35
Speaker 3: You know, listen, it wasn't a pretty sight. Okay. These
49:38
Speaker 3: people are are feced on themselves, they reek, they have disease,
49:44
Speaker 3: they have pus. She'd pick them up and take them
49:47
Speaker 3: to a special place that she created for them to
49:50
Speaker 3: die with dignity. She bathed them, she fed them, she
49:55
Speaker 3: gave them love, and they died. Some of them died
49:59
Speaker 3: right in front of her. And you talk about if
50:02
Speaker 3: we want to find true joy and true peace in
50:05
Speaker 3: this world, we have to get our eyes off ourselves
50:09
Speaker 3: and onto other people. And that's exactly what your show
50:13
Speaker 3: is all about. If you think about it, you're talking
50:16
Speaker 3: about everybody else's story. So you're diving and you find
50:20
Speaker 3: your joy in that. And that's where I've found my
50:22
Speaker 3: joy is putting my mission on other people and trying
50:27
Speaker 3: to help them, and it gets myself out of my
50:31
Speaker 3: own head into other people's issues. And I love that
50:36
Speaker 3: about this life. And that's a little secret that I've
50:39
Speaker 3: found out that that's what the greats do, that's why
50:42
Speaker 3: they have the joy. I mean, here's a woman who
50:44
Speaker 3: had nothing, and she had the greatest joy in the world.
50:48
Speaker 3: Why because you put her emphasis on everybody else.
50:52
Speaker 1: You know, you have impacted more than three hundred and
50:56
Speaker 1: fifty thousand student lives nationwide. And of those, I would
51:02
Speaker 1: say every single one of them that has sat in
51:06
Speaker 1: your audience. You're looking out at a crowd of, however
51:09
Speaker 1: many hundred people. Every single one of them has a
51:12
Speaker 1: unique story, has a different story. There's some good in it,
51:15
Speaker 1: there's some bad in it, there's some really really private
51:21
Speaker 1: and dark stuff in many many of the folks that
51:26
Speaker 1: are sitting in front of your audience. You know that
51:28
Speaker 1: tom before you walk out on stage, that you're reaching
51:32
Speaker 1: something that goes deeper than the smile or the laughter,
51:38
Speaker 1: not just for students, but for the faculty, for the
51:41
Speaker 1: administration that's there, or whoever it is that you're speaking
51:45
Speaker 1: of in front of a conference or whatever. You know
51:50
Speaker 1: that everybody has a unique story to their life. Thus far,
51:55
Speaker 1: some of us are walking around with a ton of
51:58
Speaker 1: anxiety depression, which is buried very deeply behind the smiles
52:07
Speaker 1: and the laughter. But you connect people together to say,
52:12
Speaker 1: I know I'm not going to hear everybody's story. I
52:16
Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of stuff, good and bad
52:19
Speaker 1: that's in your life, but your story and your life matters,
52:24
Speaker 1: that you matter, which is huge, and that makes me
52:29
Speaker 1: just want to brush against suicide because Tom, we've had
52:34
Speaker 1: we've had a couple of teenagers in the recent past
52:39
Speaker 1: here right here in central Vermont, one girl thirteen years
52:42
Speaker 1: old locally beginning of May, who took her life, gave
52:50
Speaker 1: up lost hope that things were going to get better.
52:57
Speaker 1: Whether it's bullying, whether it's her home life outside of school, whatever,
53:02
Speaker 1: it is, complete despair, loss of hope. Things are never
53:08
Speaker 1: going to change. This pain that I'm walking with and
53:12
Speaker 1: carrying every day is unbearable. I'm checking out. I'm making
53:18
Speaker 1: the conscious decision to end it. Does your paint press
53:26
Speaker 1: get into that.
53:27
Speaker 3: Absolutely. One of the most powerful pieces that I paint
53:32
Speaker 3: is Robin Williams, and it's all set to well, I'm painting,
53:36
Speaker 3: I'm not speaking, Okay, I'm I'm allowing the person that
53:40
Speaker 3: I'm painting to actually have the airwaves, and so he's
53:45
Speaker 3: speaking while I'm painting his portrait. And when I get done,
53:50
Speaker 3: I turn to the audience, whether they're adults or students,
53:54
Speaker 3: and you know, even the students can relate to him
53:56
Speaker 3: because some of their favorite Disney movies like a Laddin,
54:01
Speaker 3: you know, you know, he was a part of and
54:03
Speaker 3: he changed all of our lives. I mean, he brought
54:06
Speaker 3: joy to our life through laughter and through seriousness like
54:11
Speaker 3: in Goodwill Hunting. But you know, the one thing that
54:16
Speaker 3: I tell the audience, whether they're adults or students, is
54:20
Speaker 3: that he was one carrying adult away from turning his
54:24
Speaker 3: whole life around. And one of the most tragedy, the
54:28
Speaker 3: biggest tragedies that I ever heard with Robin Williams was
54:33
Speaker 3: David Letterman. And he's in the clip that I actually
54:36
Speaker 3: paint Robin Williams portrait to David Letterman is saying, you know,
54:44
Speaker 3: you know, here's a man who was in pain, he
54:47
Speaker 3: was suffering, and I had no idea. I mean, what
54:50
Speaker 3: a tragedy. You know, Here's here's a fellow comedian, a friend.
54:55
Speaker 3: You know, they've gone to parties together, and you have
54:58
Speaker 3: no idea that this is suffering. I mean, what is
55:02
Speaker 3: Hollywood all about? You know, what are you people doing
55:05
Speaker 3: in the back end of you know, is it just
55:07
Speaker 3: all about the glitz and glamour? Are you truly getting
55:10
Speaker 3: into each other's lives? You know what I mean, And
55:12
Speaker 3: so that just really upset me that he was Robin
55:17
Speaker 3: Williams one of his quotes is you could be surrounded
55:21
Speaker 3: with thousands of people and still feel alone, and that's
55:25
Speaker 3: exactly what he was. He was alone, you know. But yeah,
55:31
Speaker 3: we definitely touch on suicide. I mean, even myself in
55:36
Speaker 3: my darkest hour, I wanted to end my life because
55:39
Speaker 3: I felt like I lost everything. I was a failure.
55:43
Speaker 3: I was a disgrace to my family because I didn't
55:47
Speaker 3: you know, uh, you know, have checks and balances in
55:50
Speaker 3: place for this THEFF that took us out and I
55:53
Speaker 3: just felt so disgustingly alone, alone, you know. And it
56:02
Speaker 3: wasn't because of anything I personally did, but it was
56:07
Speaker 3: what I you know, I chose not to lean on
56:12
Speaker 3: the people that were closest to me, and my wife
56:14
Speaker 3: being that person really and when I talked to her
56:17
Speaker 3: about the depth of the despair that I felt, she
56:21
Speaker 3: literally pulled me out of it. And it was so
56:24
Speaker 3: beautiful because that's what true relationships are all about, are
56:29
Speaker 3: you know, finding finding your tribe, people that truly have
56:33
Speaker 3: your back and they're not gonna, you know, when you're
56:36
Speaker 3: not in the room that and and people are talking
56:39
Speaker 3: about you. They're the ones that say, wait, wait, wait, wait,
56:42
Speaker 3: wait a minute, no, no, no, we're not going to
56:45
Speaker 3: be talking like that without this person present.
56:47
Speaker 1: And if if you don't have if you don't have
56:49
Speaker 1: the grit they do.
56:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So she's my she's my person.
56:57
Speaker 3: And so yeah, we do touch on that. And it's
57:01
Speaker 3: a tragedy that it even happens that we feel that
57:04
Speaker 3: type of despair that we're gonna you know, I mean,
57:07
Speaker 3: like you said, there's gambling addictions, there's there's so many
57:11
Speaker 3: drug addictions, I mean, families adds. Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly,
57:18
Speaker 3: and it's horrific. But if we get the students at
57:23
Speaker 3: a young age to realize, you know, I pushed these
57:26
Speaker 3: students and I and I take the the the the
57:30
Speaker 3: mask off that counseling is a bad thing. You know,
57:34
Speaker 3: it's set up in these schools for a reason. There's
57:36
Speaker 3: counselors there that want these students to come to them
57:41
Speaker 3: and talk to them about their problems so they don't
57:43
Speaker 3: have to carry it all by themselves. I was that guy,
57:46
Speaker 3: you know that that that boy. They carried the weight
57:50
Speaker 3: of the world through sexual abuse, through physical abuse, through
57:54
Speaker 3: drug abuse, at home, all these different things. I was
57:57
Speaker 3: the guy that carried all that on my own shoulder.
58:00
Speaker 3: And you know, just a wreck, just a wreck inside.
58:06
Speaker 1: And no and no school counsel or no counselor no,
58:13
Speaker 1: no one's got the magic wand and the fixed all
58:16
Speaker 1: to everything. We need a team of people that are
58:19
Speaker 1: behind us, carrying us often. We need that. When it
58:23
Speaker 1: comes to grit zero to ten, where's Tom Verano.
58:30
Speaker 3: Well, it depends be transparent, and I'm very transparent in
58:34
Speaker 3: the book. It depends on what subject we're talking about.
58:39
Speaker 3: You know, I'm learning grit in certain areas because those
58:44
Speaker 3: certain areas aren't as important to me as other areas.
58:48
Speaker 3: So when it comes to emotion into art, I'm eleven plus.
58:55
Speaker 3: You know, I'm off the scale. Why because it's mission oriented.
58:59
Speaker 3: And if I can get like like with my health,
59:02
Speaker 3: if I can get my health to that point because
59:06
Speaker 3: of being on the road and eating the way you
59:09
Speaker 3: eat when you're on the road doing one hundred shows
59:12
Speaker 3: a year, you know, but if I could turn my
59:16
Speaker 3: health into a mission, I would have an eleven plus
59:20
Speaker 3: grit in the area of my health. Why because it's
59:24
Speaker 3: mission oriented. Now now it's not about me. It's about
59:27
Speaker 3: the people that love me. So you know, Jim Rohn says,
59:33
Speaker 3: I'll take care of me for you, and you take
59:36
Speaker 3: care of you for me, and you think about that.
59:40
Speaker 3: That hits hard man. That's true love when you're taking
59:44
Speaker 3: care of yourself for somebody else, not even for you,
59:49
Speaker 3: You're taking care of it for her or for him.
59:51
Speaker 3: That's in your life. And so the different areas you know,
59:56
Speaker 3: I'm learning grit and and I fall short.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Tom. If you were forced to sit alone in the
1:00:04
Speaker 1: woods or in a room by yourself, no music, no
1:00:08
Speaker 1: paint brush, no cell phone, nothing for a good hour,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: what would you think about?
1:00:22
Speaker 3: If I were to be transparent with you, it would
1:00:26
Speaker 3: be that those quiet times, I always go to the Father.
1:00:30
Speaker 3: I always go to my relationship with God. And to
1:00:33
Speaker 3: be honest with you, one of the things that I'm
1:00:36
Speaker 3: personally is a constant overcoming for me is to not
1:00:42
Speaker 3: look at my own failures. Is to look at the
1:00:45
Speaker 3: good that I'm doing and not the areas that I'm
1:00:50
Speaker 3: falling short in what I think God the Father would
1:00:53
Speaker 3: want me to be doing. Wow, do you know what
1:00:56
Speaker 3: I'm saying?
1:00:57
Speaker 1: Do you worry about anything?
1:01:00
Speaker 3: Gosh? Absolutely? I mean I worry about my family mostly
1:01:06
Speaker 3: of providing for them and you know, leaving them in
1:01:11
Speaker 3: a in a stable position if I were to ever
1:01:14
Speaker 3: not be here. But then again, that's that's where of
1:01:18
Speaker 3: my I want to I want to have that grit
1:01:21
Speaker 3: in my faith where I can say everything's going to
1:01:24
Speaker 3: work out. You know what I mean, it's all gonna
1:01:26
Speaker 3: it's all gonna be okay. I don't have to because worrying.
1:01:29
Speaker 3: If you, if you did a study on worry, it
1:01:32
Speaker 3: doesn't do anything for us. It only robs from us
1:01:36
Speaker 3: in our future.
1:01:37
Speaker 1: But it's so hard though, it's so hard Tom for me,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: as a fifty five year old guy with an eleven
1:01:43
Speaker 1: year old little girl to not worry. Uh I know
1:01:47
Speaker 1: that whatever, we've all got an expiration date here, but
1:01:52
Speaker 1: to to not worry about how this world that she's
1:01:56
Speaker 1: going to live in, if this is the trajectory that
1:01:59
Speaker 1: we're on, how is she strong enough? Is she going
1:02:03
Speaker 1: to be able to to overcome some of the And
1:02:07
Speaker 1: I'm sure you feel the same way about your your
1:02:09
Speaker 1: two year old grandson.
1:02:11
Speaker 2: Can I can I interject?
1:02:13
Speaker 3: Because this is this is powerful and you know, again,
1:02:19
Speaker 3: this is the whole point of my faith is they're
1:02:24
Speaker 3: they're they've been given to us. They're not our creation,
1:02:29
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. They've been handed to us
1:02:32
Speaker 3: to take care of till they can fly on their own.
1:02:36
Speaker 3: But the real, the real mission in our families is
1:02:40
Speaker 3: to point them back to the father who created them.
1:02:43
Speaker 3: And and he's the one that's truly going to take
1:02:45
Speaker 3: care of them. I mean, if we were to be honest,
1:02:48
Speaker 3: because we can't leave them enough money. We can't leave
1:02:51
Speaker 3: them enough, you know, wisdom, we can't. And in the end,
1:02:56
Speaker 3: they need to have a relationship with him so they
1:02:58
Speaker 3: can lean on him when we're not present. And that's
1:03:02
Speaker 3: the most beautiful thing that I found when it comes
1:03:05
Speaker 3: to my family, because if I get to heaven and
1:03:08
Speaker 3: they're not with me, I feel like I've failed.
1:03:11
Speaker 1: Yeah what I mean? Wow, emotion into art dot Com,
1:03:18
Speaker 1: for your books, for photos, for all of your social
1:03:25
Speaker 1: Where you're going to be next. I think you said
1:03:27
Speaker 1: that you're going to becoming a Vermont at some point
1:03:30
Speaker 1: real soon. Not sure if that's going to be a
1:03:31
Speaker 1: public thing or a private thing. I'll find out. You'll
1:03:34
Speaker 1: find out if it's a public thing. I'm gonna nail
1:03:37
Speaker 1: it real hard. Between the eyes here on the on
1:03:40
Speaker 1: the air, You're all over Amazon. People can connect with you.
1:03:47
Speaker 1: They don't have to be in the audience to be
1:03:50
Speaker 1: able to connect with you. Grab one of these books,
1:03:53
Speaker 1: Yemma many Yeah, an extension from this. Yeah, so true.
1:04:02
Speaker 3: So in leaving this conversation, and I hope to be
1:04:06
Speaker 3: able to visit again with you, JD, You're You're awesome.
1:04:11
Speaker 3: I just want to tell your audience to just keep going.
1:04:15
Speaker 3: I know there's a lot of pain in this world
1:04:18
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of things that you know you're
1:04:20
Speaker 3: personally going through. Just keep going and get around good
1:04:26
Speaker 3: people that support you, and pick up some books that
1:04:31
Speaker 3: will support you. Obviously they don't have to be mine,
1:04:34
Speaker 3: but just get get some good books in your hand
1:04:38
Speaker 3: that support you personally and what you're going through. And
1:04:43
Speaker 3: break down the barrier of what it is you know,
1:04:46
Speaker 3: write down what you're top. You know, five ten things
1:04:50
Speaker 3: that are weighing on your mind, write them down and
1:04:53
Speaker 3: tackle them, go after them with a vengeance so they
1:04:57
Speaker 3: don't they don't win in the end.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: Wow, I can't wait to meet you. I'm excited. I
1:05:07
Speaker 1: don't know when it's gonna happen, but I know it's
1:05:09
Speaker 1: got to it's got to and I can't wait.
1:05:12
Speaker 3: Man, me too, me too. It's gonna be great and
1:05:16
Speaker 3: I can't wait to come. You know, even if we
1:05:18
Speaker 3: get a little theater in your town and we pack
1:05:21
Speaker 3: it solid and just do a show locally for your
1:05:25
Speaker 3: your you know, your local residence there, I would love it.
1:05:28
Speaker 3: I would absolutely love it.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: Anyone can get in touch with you, any any art group,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: any theater, anyone. Just emotion into art dot com to
1:05:40
Speaker 1: book you, to get books, to learn more about you.
1:05:44
Speaker 3: Yep. Corporate events, staff events, you know, for for corporate
1:05:51
Speaker 3: k through twelve schools. Charity events, you know, we do
1:05:53
Speaker 3: charity events and then we auction the paintings off to
1:05:57
Speaker 3: raise money for the charity. And let me just make
1:05:59
Speaker 3: a little disclaimer here. The show is not religious, even
1:06:03
Speaker 3: though my faith is incredibly strong to me, and you
1:06:06
Speaker 3: brought out some topics that kind of go to the
1:06:09
Speaker 3: core of who I am. I'm not pushing religion from
1:06:13
Speaker 3: the stage or politics for that matter.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so everybody else is let them saturate that.
1:06:21
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right.
1:06:22
Speaker 1: Good stuff, tom Man. God bless you, bro, and I'm
1:06:26
Speaker 1: so so glad that I started my day with you.
1:06:29
Speaker 1: This morning. You made all the difference. Man. I don't
1:06:31
Speaker 1: care what else unfolds ahead of me through the rest
1:06:35
Speaker 1: of the day. It started out right because of you.
1:06:39
Speaker 3: Thank you, Jay, thank you, thank you my man.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: We'll be in touch very soon. I can only hope.
1:06:46
Speaker 3: Thank you.
1:06:46
Speaker 1: Thanks tak Care. Yeah, Tom Verano, right there, my guest
1:06:51
Speaker 1: this morning. The aired OW podcast