Latest / The Scene Projects / Zach Tidwell on Mental Health, Podcasting Passion, and Community Impact

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Zach Tidwell on Mental Health, Podcasting Passion, and Community Impact · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Well, welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:04
  I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is the host of the going in blind podcast with
• 0:09
  Zach Tidwell.
• 0:10
  Zach Tidwell, welcome to the show, brother.
• 0:12
  Thanks for having me on, man.
• 0:14
  Well, this is great.
• 0:15
  I I I absolutely love the show.
• 0:19
  I'm a big fan already and a big fan of your story.
• 0:23
  So without too many details, I guess, we'll kinda give us a short version, and then we'll
• 0:28
  talk about the podcast.
• 0:29
  Yeah.
• 0:30
  I'll give you the shortest version possible.
• 0:32
  I my name is Zach Tidwell.
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  I'm 29 years old.
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  I'm a Marine Corps veteran, and I lost my sight almost six years ago to a suicide attempt when
• 0:40
  I shot myself in the head.
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  So totally blind and deaf in one ear now, but I do all sorts of crazy stuff, including running
• 0:48
  my own business and public speaking and skiing and snowboarding and rock climbing and
• 0:52
  whitewater kayaking and competing in Brazilian jiu jitsu against people without any
• 0:56
  disabilities and do a lot of stuff like this to try and discuss mental health and hopefully
• 1:01
  save lives.
• 1:02
  And the podcast is an extension of you know, over the past couple years as I've shared my
• 1:10
  story more, especially through through interviews and public speaking.
• 1:14
  I've met a lot of people with similarly incredible stories, not necessarily in the
• 1:20
  mental health space, but just people who have overcome stuff, but also people just doing
• 1:26
  interesting and big things out there, whether it's researchers working on interesting
• 1:29
  projects or founders of these big organizations that are spreading from national to
• 1:34
  international and really just kinda movers and shakers, and I want to help other people get
• 1:40
  their stories out there.
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  And I like picking those people's brains.
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  So that's what the podcast is all about.
• 1:46
  That's amazing.
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  I've I've said a lot lately that this is how God is speaking through us.
• 1:53
  Each one of us sharing our stories and the the struggles that we've lived through and and
• 2:00
  obviously yours.
• 2:02
  You know, most people would never would never take that second lease on life, right,
• 2:10
  surviving a suicide attempt and figure out how to turn that into a positive.
• 2:15
  And to turn that into how am I going to keep anyone from feeling that way that I felt when I
• 2:23
  tried to take my own life.
• 2:24
  I have to imagine that that is the deep motivation for continuing to go on.
• 2:30
  Yeah.
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  And so I I was a machine gunner in the marines.
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  Obviously, that is a, you choose to do that in in service of your country.
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  When I got out of the marines, I wanted to be an ER nurse, still wanted to help people.
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  And when I was taken off of life support and had a bullet hole in my forehead and was
• 2:47
  completely blind and along with everything else, it was I I still want to help.
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  Initially, I thought that would be going into psychology, and it led me down a different
• 3:00
  path, but I I still have found these ways, as I've gotten comfortable in speaking about this
• 3:06
  stuff early on as I had lost all my independence and was so dependent on everyone
• 3:10
  that I really struggled with that because it was you know, I hadn't lost my sight accident.
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  I was the only one who could be held responsible for what I'd done and for letting
• 3:20
  myself get to the point of doing that.
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  And so as I've gotten more comfortable and more in in in a good spot and dealt with all of
• 3:31
  these things, has been okay.
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  This is how I can spin that into a positive.
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  Instead of counseling people, I can talk about this stuff.
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  These are all big topics, very uncomfortable topics that people tend to avoid.
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  And even with with my podcast, it's not supposed to be a mental health podcast
• 3:47
  whatsoever.
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  I'm literally just following my curiosity, but I just recorded the fourteenth episode
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  yesterday, and I think maybe a third of the episodes so far have people have brought up
• 3:59
  their own struggles with suicidal ideations and deep depression.
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  And even in public speaking stuff, you know, these issues, both suicide and substance abuse
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  stuff, because I also struggled with alcoholism for a couple years, are so much more common
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  than you would ever realize, but people people just don't talk about it.
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  And so that's the hope here is that it kinda opens those discussions.
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  And, also, I I like to think that if I had heard a story like mine while I was in that
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  decline towards my suicide attempt, that that probably would have snapped me out of the
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  irrational place that I was in.
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  And that's the goal with all of it.
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  It's just that it that it helps someone else and gets someone off the ledge or a family
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  member who was left behind after a suicide attempt realizes that, hey.
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  You're not to blame for that.
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  Or someone who's watching a loved one go through substance abuse recognize, hey.
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  It's okay to set your boundaries and distance yourself from that person if they aren't
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  helping themselves.
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  Like, we have to accept that the individual has accountability in these things.
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  And that's also I'm I'm flying through the second draft of a book that dives into all this
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  stuff and really puts a lot of stuff that I'm not proud of in my own story out there for
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  other people to see, but it is it's for the sake of getting these discussions started
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  because I think a lot of healing can come from that.
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  No doubt.
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  I mean, I've been I've been living it.
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  I came from the substance abuse side of this.
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  Right?
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  The things that got me down, man, I I should have died a few times because of my drug
• 5:33
  addictions.
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  I I would I guess I wouldn't call them suicide attempts, but I didn't care if I died or not.
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  Right?
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  Eating handfuls of pills and then waking up and essentially pumping my own stomach, you know,
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  at one point when I was 19 years old.
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  I mean, that was more than just curiosity and getting high.
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  That was and I don't give a shit about my own personal well-being.
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  Right?
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  You know?
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  And doing drugs while I was selling drugs and falling asleep behind the wheel doing 80 miles
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  an hour.
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  And, no, in itself, is it a a suicide attempt?
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  No.
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  But it definitely could have killed me.
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  You know, I woke up just as my truck hit the I took my, you know, side view mirror off of my
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  truck doing 80 miles an hour, woke up as I hit the rumble bars, you know, came to high on
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  methamphetamine, and, you know, God had my back that day and several times before that.
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  I just wasn't listening.
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  You know?
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  And and I wasn't realizing that the path was so much different for me.
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  I love that you've turned it into something that is going to save lives.
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  Already, you're you're 13 episodes in.
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  You just recorded your fourteenth episode.
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  Already you have put something out there that will find someone in their deepest, darkest
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  moments.
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  Right?
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  We're not doing this for we're not doing this for ourselves.
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  I mean, the this podcasting thing kinda found me.
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  Now I'm a 30 episodes in, and I've realized what it is.
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  When I say God is speaking through us, it isn't some kind of facetious, you know, just to say
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  it.
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  I do believe that this is how we're going to heal one another because it's you know, in my
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  conversation with you, I'm already changing.
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  And your conversation with your guests, you're already changing that one person.
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  You're changing you.
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  So if that can go out to the wider world and to change other lives, then it's a it's a huge
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  success.
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  And your life now has not been for nothing, and even your suicide attempt is not for, no
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  reason.
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  That that it has some cause to it.
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  Right?
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  Or at least some effect that is greater than the loss of one life.
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  It's the changing of many lives.
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  So I applaud you.
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  It's not easier to it's not easy to put our shit out there.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  It's definitely not, man.
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  It's I mean, I'm sure I I've come to to terms with all that stuff now.
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  Even still, though, I think the I then I'd be curious to know how you feel.
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  For me, the alcoholism for sure still brings some embarrassment up.
• 8:16
  I I don't feel it around the suicide attempt in the the rest of my story.
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  Just I think because I know where I was at, but the something I think because I was affecting
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  so many other people with alcoholism that that still to me is that's not a fun spot for me to
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  admit and put out there, especially the way that it affected other people.
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  But it does.
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  I I think when you have it in these conversations specifically, and it sounds like
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  you do long form conversations as well, approaching these these subjects in a natural
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  manner and not honing on them.
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  Like I said, my podcast isn't supposed to be a mental health podcast, but it does come up in
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  these conversations while we're talking about other things because these people know my
• 9:02
  story.
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  And there's value in that because there's no preaching going on.
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  It's just other people laying their self, laying their stuff out there for other people
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  to, you know, maybe recognize some similarities to being passed out and waking up high on meth
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  while you're going 80 miles an hour down the road and being like, okay.
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  Maybe I need to get some help.
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  He figured it out.
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  What can I do here too?
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  Right.
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  Yeah.
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  And my my podcast started as about arts and music, man.
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  And now it's kinda bled into podcasting and giving, you know, people like you a chance to
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  introduce themselves and introduce their own podcast.
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  But I had to start a whole another show because so much of our mental health and, like, the
• 9:43
  worst stories of my life cut bleeding into this.
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  It was supposed to be a fun podcast, and I was like, maybe we should start to separate some of
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  this stuff a little bit and to leave a little more room for for those deeper conversations.
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  I think that's the purpose of of this whole media form.
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  Right?
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  Like, sure.
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  We can all we can get stoned for three hours and talk with Joe Rogan or listen to his
• 10:10
  buddies, and I enjoy that programming sometimes.
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  But when I really started to dig into these conversations and felt the healing inside of
• 10:19
  myself, right, and and I haven't done a lot of public speaking on these things.
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  I, I play in a I write songs.
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  Right?
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  I'm a songwriter and and a performer.
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  So I've gone out, and I've shared a little bit about this and, you know, being to prison and
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  other things, but I never had an opportunity to, like, tell the whole story.
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  And it wasn't something that I could do just sitting down with someone even for three hours.
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  I couldn't tell you my whole story and all the details and all the moments that made me the
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  man I am today.
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  So having my own platform was really what unlocked this one.
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  Oh, okay.
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  Your story and all of the stories make much more sense when you're relating them to someone
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  else's story.
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  And it's something that I've never had a problem doing, but finding relationship with
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  everyone that comes across my computer screen and hopefully one day a beautiful studio that
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  people can come in and and share some time in person with, that's that's the mission of my
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  life.
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  Like, I have no other purpose at this point other than to raise my kids, be a good husband,
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  and to keep pulling on this thread and getting these conversations out there.
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  I it's so imperative to my life at this point.
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  I I can't imagine just, like, walking away.
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  Yeah.
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  And I I think that is why, like you said, you know, when it is when it's all laid out there
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  like that and not with the preachy thing, it leaves that it's out there and it's for other
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  people.
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  Like, obviously, you and I get something out of doing this too, and I I do I feel I walk out of
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  these conversations with stuff to to ponder and and to process and to think about, okay.
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  That was you know, I learned something from that.
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  But laying it out there just raw like this, it does.
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  It leaves it open to interpretation, and other people can can take it or leave it.
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  And that not talking at someone, I think, is the important key and why this this medium
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  really does resonate with people.
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  So talk about that.
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  I mean, you're you're 14 episodes in now.
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  Obviously, you're motivated to keep on going.
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  What kind of guests are you having on the program, and what kind of, you know, what
• 12:39
  what's your vision for the future, of what the podcast is?
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  I am following my curiosity with it.
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  Again, they the caveat there being that these are people who are accomplishing things.
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  Right?
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  It's or lessons hard learned.
• 12:56
  I've got I I've the the I I drop episodes every Monday, but I'm also doing an episode on the
• 13:03
  first Friday of every month.
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  So the the episode that comes out this Friday was with a self proclaimed prophet, and, you
• 13:11
  know, we just explore.
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  I let him say what he has to say and do my own kind of probing and being kind and letting him
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  say his course, but also pointing out, okay.
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  Here's a whole.
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  Like, can you speak to that kind of thing?
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  But I've got a a former Navy SEAL coming on, a Super Bowl winner who's had nine brain
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  surgeries from all of the head injuries that he's had, a former junkie turned judge who's
• 13:38
  who's coming on.
• 13:39
  I just had a the guy that I had on yesterday, his name is Travis Holzem, and he's in the
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  regenerative agriculture space.
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  Trying to get someone to come on and talk about prison and education reform.
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  I'm talking to pretty much everybody.
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  Just anyone who piques my curiosity and who I feel can can have an interesting conversation
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  for an hour, hour and a half.
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  That's where we're going.
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  And that's kind of the thread that I talk about pulling on with my own with my own podcast is
• 14:07
  like, what am I interested in?
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  And and what moves me?
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  And I had to start five different shows to kind of peak all of those interests because I don't
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  know that anyone can follow me on all the different tangents that I like to run down.
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  But, you know, a big focus of what I'm doing is to talk to podcasters.
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  Right?
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  A big part of what, you know, my life has become is like, well, instead of finding all
• 14:33
  the interesting people, like, all of the people, if you've chosen to start your own
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  podcast and to pursue this, you're pretty interesting.
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  So I think the last, you know, seven or eight interviews I've done have all been with people,
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  who have started their own podcasts and are kind of pulling on the same threads and and
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  chasing that curiosity down.
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  I think that's the only way we're gonna learn anything about, you know, this life because so
• 14:58
  much of what is kind of shoved in our faces and, you know, you're what'd you say?
• 15:02
  You're 29 now?
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  Yep.
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  Yep.
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  I'm almost ten years older than you.
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  Right?
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  And my whole life has been full of, you know, a a bullshit story to put it pretty blatantly,
• 15:14
  like, you know, what you saw on TV and in advertising and all of these things were just
• 15:19
  so far from what was actually happening in the real world that it's become even more
• 15:26
  imperative now to do what we're doing, to to to lift the veil, of life and to to just expose it
• 15:35
  and to do that in anything.
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  Right?
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  From profits to prison guards or or prisoners.
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  I was one myself at one point.
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  Yeah.
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  And I just I get it's everyone has a story, and I'm so when you can get people kinda unreeling
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  the the thread there of it and just talking about it, I do it's it is interesting, but I
• 15:56
  really do whatever area it's in, you do learn things.
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  And that's been my my favorite part so far, and it's everybody like I said, with especially
• 16:06
  with the mental health stuff coming out, everyone has their own shit going on that you
• 16:10
  would never realize.
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  Everyone has their own story behind things.
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  And I think that all of those things in combination and when you take that take into
• 16:18
  perspective as well what these people are doing, You know, this the the NFL player that's
• 16:24
  coming on that was a Super Bowl winner is also despite all this crazy stuff he has going on in
• 16:30
  his life in his life is a wildlife biologist now and a very active one.
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  And you're just I wanna know what takes you from being the caveman that was playing on the
• 16:39
  the 49ers frontline to now you're you're nerding out on chinchillas.
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  You know?
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  I I don't know.
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  It's just people are interesting, and I I love being able to lay that stuff out there and help
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  people get it get their stories out.
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  And I think one thing that we forget as humans is, like, you go through cycles in your life.
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  Like, I'm not the same man I was at 25 running drugs and and doing like, I'm not even I'm not
• 17:06
  even close to that guy anymore.
• 17:08
  And in ten years from now, I'm not gonna be close to the person that I am even today.
• 17:13
  Hell, a year ago, Zach, I was still welding and going to a factory every day.
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  Then, about a year ago, it would have been later this month.
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  It'll be a whole year.
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  I walked away from that job, and I thought I was gonna be a rock star.
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  My band was playing some really cool gigs.
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  We were getting some great opportunities.
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  I was on the local news.
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  I was getting radio play.
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  I was like, here we go.
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  We're about to live that rock star dream finally.
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  And then by April, I was you know, had this little podcast that wasn't much, had a great
• 17:42
  summer with the band and kept doing a few interviews here and there.
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  And then by September, October, I was doing, you know, four interviews a day, and the
• 17:52
  schedule started filling up to now I do, you know, a minimum of 12 interviews a week, and
• 17:57
  I'm developing other podcast shows for other people and, you know, dragging that story out.
• 18:02
  Like, I didn't know I was gonna be here a year ago.
• 18:06
  How are we gonna know where we're gonna be in a decade?
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  And I think finding out kind of, like, who everyone was ten or twenty years ago and
• 18:16
  building it up to now that it gives us a really a a much better a much better vision of of what
• 18:22
  the future could hold.
• 18:24
  Right?
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  When we actually look and we see the launch pad for what it is, instead of making assumptions
• 18:29
  about who people are, you know, whether they were a soldier or whether they were a felon
• 18:34
  like me, you know, that doesn't define who we are.
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  And even one, you know, life changing moment, like an attempt on your life or something, that
• 18:45
  doesn't define you for the rest of your life.
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  It can if you let it.
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  Like, you you could have been the felon that doesn't go on and do anything with your life.
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  That that was a choice for you to move on from that.
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  You know?
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  And I think a lot of people get stuck in that stuff.
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  Then that okay.
• 19:00
  That that is there's a decision point there where you could you could be working a job at
• 19:04
  McDonald's and being, oh, I can't get a job because I I have a record, but you didn't.
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  That's the key thing.
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  And I I think laying that stuff out there and also seeing, like, okay.
• 19:15
  People it's there's a trend here that people don't know what they're doing as they go
• 19:19
  through life.
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  They just kinda figure it out as they go, and you you in in searching for these things, you
• 19:26
  will stumble across something that pulls on you.
• 19:28
  Like, it sounds like you have found your lane now, and this is your thing.
• 19:32
  And I similarly, when when I after I got back into college after I shot myself, I started
• 19:39
  going for clinical psychology and what I I mentioned earlier with kinda stumbling down a
• 19:43
  different road.
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  I wound up dropping out of college to become a software developer because I saw how
• 19:48
  inaccessible the world was for people with disabilities.
• 19:51
  And now that's what I do.
• 19:53
  I've won some awards doing it.
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  And, like but, again, something I never would have thought that I I would do.
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  And like you're saying, having that out there just laid out for other people to see is so
• 20:04
  valuable, and it can help people and someone else.
• 20:07
  And there's probably you probably have listeners even if you haven't heard from them
• 20:11
  yet who have also been to prison and are hearing that and seeing hope in the fact that,
• 20:17
  okay.
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  This dude's out there getting after it still, and maybe I need to get off this little pity
• 20:21
  party that I'm throwing myself and do that too.
• 20:25
  Exactly.
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  And and be a man of action or a woman of action and to just get out there and do it.
• 20:31
  You can't let these memories, because that's all they are.
• 20:34
  You can't let your memories define you and to keep telling your story.
• 20:39
  And I think that's the power of the podcast is, like, you lay your story out there, and then
• 20:44
  it's there.
• 20:45
  You you don't necessarily have to, like, keep going back and retelling that story to
• 20:50
  yourself.
• 20:51
  It's out there.
• 20:52
  Now now what are you now what are you gonna do?
• 20:54
  Right?
• 20:55
  And for me, that's it's been incredibly therapeutic to just come on and share my story,
• 21:00
  and and I can talk about things now with you, Zach, that, you know, I wasn't able to talk
• 21:05
  about with my own family five years ago and to get into and that I was masking with alcohol
• 21:11
  and drugs and and a lot of these things and a lot of these deep feelings that just having
• 21:16
  conversations mostly with complete strangers that then become that then become really good
• 21:23
  friends.
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  It's such a beautiful thing, and I just I can't stop.
• 21:27
  And I'm sure you feel the same way.
• 21:29
  I admire you for the, getting out and realizing the the plights of what is affecting blind
• 21:35
  people.
• 21:36
  You would have never had you would have never had that had you not become blind yourself.
• 21:42
  Right?
• 21:43
  And, like, how much now is, yes, that moment, while it could have defined you in a bad way,
• 21:49
  now defines you in a much different way because you have this thing that you otherwise wouldn't
• 21:54
  have had, this struggle, this mountain to overcome, but you're not just climbing over it
• 21:59
  yourself.
• 22:00
  You're building a ladder so that people behind you can climb over it much easier.
• 22:06
  Yeah.
• 22:06
  And I I think that that all and it sounds like it has for you too.
• 22:09
  It kinda stems from finding a a purpose after your circumstances have changed and as you're
• 22:16
  changing as a person.
• 22:17
  It doesn't have to be something so dramatic as shooting yourself in the face, but you can have
• 22:23
  you can have these moments where yeah.
• 22:25
  Okay.
• 22:25
  I I need to find something else that that drives me, and it will carry you in these these
• 22:30
  new directions that might light a a new fire under your ass.
• 22:34
  And there's there will always be people out there.
• 22:37
  I'm sure you've probably run into them with your own story where they can't look past the
• 22:41
  fact that you have been convicted of something, and they're assholes about it.
• 22:45
  I get the same thing with the suicide stuff.
• 22:46
  I'm like, okay.
• 22:47
  You don't understand, and you haven't been there, and that's okay.
• 22:51
  But fuck those people.
• 22:53
  They're not those aren't the people that you wanna surround yourself with.
• 22:56
  Well and and not that I need to point it out to you, but to point it out to, you know, our
• 23:00
  listeners and anyone who happens to hear this, your own life was not the first life that you
• 23:07
  had taken or attempted to take.
• 23:10
  Right?
• 23:10
  A machine gunner in the marines, you have taken lives.
• 23:13
  Right?
• 23:13
  I haven't.
• 23:14
  I'm not a combat vet.
• 23:15
  I deployed twice, but I didn't see sea war.
• 23:18
  Okay.
• 23:19
  Yeah.
• 23:19
  You were still trained to do so.
• 23:22
  Like and being in that environment, life becomes, unfortunately, a little cheaper.
• 23:29
  And it's it's something that they're never going to understand.
• 23:34
  Unless you've been there, you're not going to understand.
• 23:36
  And the only way that they can try to understand you is by listening to your stories
• 23:43
  and listening to you converse with other people.
• 23:46
  Like, that's the only way to to get to that point.
• 23:50
  Yeah.
• 23:50
  And doing it with an open mind.
• 23:52
  That's the other you they kinda have to meet you halfway there or at least be somewhat open
• 23:57
  to to hearing someone else out.
• 24:00
  But I I and I think that that's a not even a skill, a trait that at least I've noticed, you
• 24:08
  know, trying to date as a dude in my twenties that I feel like people have lost or it seems
• 24:13
  to not be very prevalent.
• 24:14
  And I think the fact that podcasts are continuing to grow is a good sign that maybe
• 24:20
  people are starting to move back in the right direction coming out of the the social media
• 24:25
  and short form content kind of phase of the twenty tens.
• 24:31
  The twenty twenties.
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:34
  I got it.
• 24:34
  We're in 2025 now, so that's probably safe to say too.
• 24:37
  Yeah.
• 24:37
  TikTok is still out there booming.
• 24:39
  But
• 24:40
  Yeah.
• 24:40
  Well and and I think what's I don't spend any time on TikTok at all.
• 24:44
  I don't have it on my phone.
• 24:45
  But what I've heard from a lot of people, and especially when it headed towards the shutdown,
• 24:50
  was not only did you know, some people lost their livelihoods and were making, you know, a
• 24:56
  considerable amount of money there, but they had connected with community.
• 25:01
  And I I think it was a lot easier on that app because of their algorithm to find community,
• 25:06
  to find stuff that you were interested in.
• 25:09
  And granted the content was short form, I think it was working.
• 25:13
  And I think it was unlocking some stuff in people and restructuring the way that people's
• 25:18
  brains work.
• 25:20
  And, yeah, we're we're we're kinda getting off those dopamine hits.
• 25:23
  Everybody's just depleted.
• 25:25
  I think that's what it comes down to.
• 25:27
  Well, it's all like we've been at a rave for fucking fifteen years.
• 25:31
  Nobody's got any dopamine left to hit, and you're just kinda left in that that afterglow
• 25:36
  of the party where you're like, man, my life's a fucking mess.
• 25:39
  Can we do something about this now?
• 25:41
  Yeah.
• 25:42
  You're not hangover where you're like, okay.
• 25:44
  What did I just do with my life last night, and what what what adjustments do I need to make
• 25:49
  now moving forward?
• 25:50
  But and it you know, it's not like it's all bad stuff that's on there.
• 25:54
  I do but I recognize there's also educational content on all these platforms and stuff, but
• 26:00
  there's also a lot of hock to a spit on that thing kind of stuff.
• 26:03
  And you're like, alright.
• 26:05
  This isn't helping.
• 26:06
  This is not a net positive for society.
• 26:09
  We are we are trying to counterbalance the Haktua.
• 26:12
  That's why guys like me and you, like, let's put out some really good stuff and and, yeah,
• 26:17
  just keep pulling on them.
• 26:18
  I mean, we went from one show that was running, you know, four, five days a week with content
• 26:23
  to now I have four different feeds, a fifth one on the way, and we're just trying to get as
• 26:28
  many shows out there running daily content and putting it out there.
• 26:31
  And and if not all the episodes find everyone in a day, like, you you can't look at your
• 26:37
  downloads and be negative because that thing that you did today hasn't reached someone yet.
• 26:43
  Like, it takes time for reverberations.
• 26:46
  Like, even if you toss a pebble into a pond, right, if you toss it on the middle of that
• 26:51
  pond, it's gonna take a long time for it to reach you and to get back and then to start
• 26:55
  resonating with other people.
• 26:56
  So I think what you're doing is great.
• 26:58
  Any way that I can support your, podcast and any endeavors that you're going into and and
• 27:04
  causes that are important to you, that's the function of the scene projects to help these
• 27:09
  nonprofits and podcasters get their voice out there.
• 27:13
  And and the blessing of financial stability and all of that, that's gonna come just from doing
• 27:19
  this.
• 27:19
  From naturally being someone who is supporting other people, that's where my success will come
• 27:25
  from, and that's why I won't I won't stop.
• 27:27
  And I'm not gonna become money motivated in this thing now when I've never been money
• 27:32
  motivated in my life.
• 27:34
  Well, and that doesn't chasing that wouldn't lead to genuine genuine conversations.
• 27:41
  Right?
• 27:41
  That's if you're doing it out of a a real interest and a a true rooted passion for it and
• 27:49
  interest in these people that you're talking to, that will it will come.
• 27:52
  You just have to give it time.
• 27:54
  But if you start chasing other things, you're gonna kinda lose motivation for it, and that's
• 27:57
  gonna show, and it the quality of what you're doing would would show accordingly.
• 28:02
  So that's awesome, man.
• 28:05
  Well, you're awesome, Zach.
• 28:06
  I really appreciate your time this morning.
• 28:09
  Why don't you go ahead and tell everybody where they can find the podcast and anything more
• 28:13
  about you, and I'll let you get out of here.
• 28:15
  Yeah.
• 28:16
  Going in blind with Zach Tidwell is available anywhere that you listen to podcasts.
• 28:22
  If you do listen to it and you like it, please subscribe to it, leave a rating and a review.
• 28:26
  That helps me out a lot.
• 28:27
  And, also, if you want to be kept up to date with my book, I do my public speaking website
• 28:32
  and my what will become my author website is ZachTidwell.net.
• 28:38
  And I have a mailing list there.
• 28:39
  It's not spammy.
• 28:41
  I've had it for over a year.
• 28:42
  It is and haven't sent anything out yet.
• 28:44
  It will just be for announcements with the book as that comes out, but you can also reach out
• 28:48
  to me there for book to book me for speaking engagements.
• 28:54
  Can't wait to read the book when it comes out, and I hope I get to sit in the crowd and to
• 28:59
  listen to one of your speaking engagements as well.
• 29:01
  Zach Tidwell, thanks for being part of the
• 29:03
  scene.
• 29:04
  Thank you, sir.