Stay Tranquilo - Finding HOPE In The Toughest Times of Your Life w/ Jason Clawson Founder of The Hope Kit

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

In this episode of the Stay Tranquilo Podcast, we speak with founder of The Hope Kit. Sometimes in life things seem to just not make sense. Jason has one of those stories, that makes you really think about things differently. Jason lost both his child and wife within a 2 year span. Jason's wife passed away of cancer, leaving he and his 2 children behind. Confused, angry, sad. All the emotions Jason felt when going through these beyond tough times. Jason speaks on what those moments were like and how he was able to lift himself out of dark moments in his life. He explains the power of a team of people that helped him, the power of the mind, and how "trials lead to treasures." This episode is an emotional one! Hope you guys enjoyed.  Take a listen to the full convo and let us know what you think!    Follow us on social:   Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/staytranquilo/      YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@staytranquilo      LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andre-dunand-200077124/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All righty. What is up, everybody? We are here with Jason Klassen from the Hope Kit. We've got an amazing story to tell a little bit of a different approach. This is actually one of the first virtual podcasts that we've done. So I connected with Jason actually through LinkedIn. He reached out to me a few weeks back, and the story that he had is an amazing one.

that I thought a lot of people should hear, and then kind of the initiatives that he's kind of put on himself based off some of the adversity that he's faced in his life. So he's got an amazing story. But before we get into it, Jason, if you would like to introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit about yourself. Thanks for having me. It's exciting to make this happen.

It really is. So a little bit about me. I'm born and raised in Utah. I have two boys. Well, I recently had, we have two boys and we just recently had a baby a couple weeks ago, which is our miracle baby that was told to us that would never come. So that's part of our journey. But my training is a clinical therapist. I've been doing that for over 15 years, helping people in addiction, recovery, trauma, all kinds of.

of abuse and mental health. So I've been doing that and I just love to help people. I just love my mantra is let's change some lives. And whatever we can do to change some lives, I want to be a part of it and I want to be able to help people find hope again. So that's kind of my mission and my mantra to move forward in my life. I like that. And before we get into a little bit about your story,

How long have you been, how long have you been doing therapy? And what was it that actually got you into being a therapist? I've been doing therapy for about 15 years. And I always say that I didn't choose therapy. Therapy chose me because of some jobs and opportunities that just presented itself. It just kind of led me to where my calling was and where I needed to be, where I worked at a, I did some coaching. And then it led me to working at a residential treatment for adolescents.

And I just followed my heart and what my heart wanted and what I was passionate about. And that led me into meeting with people with addictions. And I'm sitting there going, how did I get here? But I quickly found that people needed awesome people on their side to listen to them. and help him walk the path. And I wanted to be that person. So that's why I do what I do. I love that.

And were you someone that person in a use therapy for yourself? Or was that not even something that you were really doing at the time? I wasn't really doing it. I never did it until I went through this loss of my wife. And then I was like, I need to do this stuff. Yeah. I've been preaching this and helping people and realize I couldn't help my. myself as a therapist.

Yeah, you try to apply a lot of what you kind of preach, but you realize it's harder to actually apply it in your own life, even if you're a believer in it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, so you touched on it. Obviously, you started a foundation called the Hope Kit, and the reason behind that was, I guess, a few years ago, your wife had passed away, and you also had one of your children. that had passed away. Yeah.

I guess rewind to those points in your life and, and kind of tell the people kind of what happened. Your wife had cancer and that ultimately was the reason she passed away. But I would love for you to kind of tell the people what happened to you over the last few years. Yeah, I like to start off by saying there's no way you can prepare for hard events. that's going to make it better or make it easier to deal with. It's part of life and it's just going to come. I think the preparation comes from connecting with amazing people in your life so that when you go through a tragic event,

you have amazing people to walk the path with you. And I think that is so important through the process. But for me, two of the biggest challenges came to my life were through loss. So our first loss came with our baby that we were hoping and pray to come to our family. And we did in vitro where we had to use a doctor to get pregnant because we were unable to get pregnant on our own. And we finally got pregnant after a couple of years of doing the in vitro process. And then about 12 weeks into it, we had a doctor's appointment that didn't go well.

And they said, you needed to go to the hospital and get more. more scans and and talk to this specialist. And the doctor, when we went there, told us that our baby had a thing called anencephaly. And the brain was developing outside of the brain. And in all scenarios, the, the, the baby was, it always ends tragically. So at an early time in our marriage and hoping for the best, doctor says, well, you can either have the baby born early or you could go full turn, but there's risk involved with my wife.

So that issue is actually happening while the baby was still in the womb. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Got it. Yeah, so at 18 weeks, we chose to have the baby, and the baby obviously didn't make it. And we were introduced to death and grief at an early time in our marriage and our life. and it began to just rock our world. And we had to figure out, like, what are we going to do with this?

And again, nobody prepared us like, what do you do when something happens to you? So we were left just kind of going, how do we do this? And I think when you go through grief, you look around and everybody's happy and living their life and their social media posts. And you're just sitting there saying, nobody cares. Like, everybody else is living their life. and we're just sit here, left with dealing with all these emotions. And it was just, it was, at that point, it was the hardest thing I had to deal with. To be able to pray for something and not have the outcome come out was really hard.

So I remember a neighbor came by and they knew we were struggling and they had this bucket of, it's kind of like the first hope kit that we received, our neighbors delivered this a bucket of yellow fun stuff to be able to help support us and say, we're thinking about you, we care about you. And I thought that,

in that moment, it was helpful. And I took a picture in my brain, and I remembered that because it meant so much to me. So when you're going through a traumatic event, people don't know what to say or do. Yeah.

But for them, they came over and they just sat in our emotion. they just listened to us and they didn't run from them. And I think that was really helpful through that first initial grief process is having someone by your side, listening and just crying with us. And that meant the world to us. And at that point, I said, okay, I know if I bring people in, I could probably get through grief right now.

Yeah. I mean, having a support system and those moments is all you could really ask for because nothing is going to make that situation feel any better than what happened. I mean, it's difficult to loan when it's like, you hear everyone say it when it's like, yeah, you know, your parents grow old and grandparents pass away, but when it's, it's your child, you know, and it's like, to your point, it's something that you had been praying for, the circumstances alone were already difficult and yeah it's it's ultimately a miracle you know the just being on this planet is a miracle and and the fact that you know you had to go that that that's

that can't be easy for anyone and and i think you know you relay around other individuals that may you know have lost a child and you kind of kind of like i guess grieve together because no one's going to be able to relate with what happened to you unless someone else has dealt with something very similar to that. Yeah. So having those people around you is everything. Yeah, I think it took us a couple of years to kind of build ourselves back up and to where we were like, of course.

Okay, we can do this. We can move forward. And I remember we were building a house around the corner and my wife was doing really good about her health and getting things back. And for me, I was a clinical director to run. recovery program. And again, we were just back to, we're helping them in the community and we're doing so much good to everybody around us. And then, and then my wife comes to me and says, hey, I got this lump in my stomach. I don't know what's going on. So how long after your,

your childhood passed away, did that, did that happen? Two years. Two years after. Yeah. So it was, okay, we can handle hard things. Let's get this figured out. And then let's get back to the life we're living. Right. Easy, right? Exactly. I think that was my mentality.

It's like, we got a problem. Let's rally around this. Let's get it figured out. And let's get back to what we were doing because we were coming back into feeling good about where life was going. So through a series of events and tests, We found ourselves at a local hospital doing exploratory surgery because none of the tests or anything kind of told us my wife had cancer. And there wasn't anything that was just red flag. So we did exploratory surgery.

And then I remember sitting in the waiting room. And I remember the doctor coming into the room and looked at me and just said, Jason, I'm so sorry. but your wife has stage four colon cancer. Oh, man. And going from someone that she's healthy, we're young, there's no family history, there's no warning signs, to just getting this bomb dropped in your lap, you're just, it's just like, what? Like, how do you deal with this?

And just floods of emotions just started to pour out because I knew that life was. going to be hard again. And it's just like I knew how I knew it wasn't fair. We're a young family just trying to do good. And and again, it's like, why do we have to go through something so hard? So I remember a moment in the hospital where I, as a father, I was trying to figure out what to do and get all the answers. I mean, my brain was just going a hundred miles and hour like how am I going to pay for this? What I'm going to do for the kids? How long this get treatment? What is treatment? And my brain couldn't shut off. So I remember running after the doctor down the hall and stopping her and saying, what about this? What about this? What about

this? And I remember she stopped me and she said, you know, Jason, you're going to be okay. And I said, I'm not okay. And then she said something that has at the time I didn't like to hear. Of course. But as you hear more of my story, it's become such a big part of my life because she looked at me, Andre, and she said, you know what, Jason, cancer has a way of enhancing your life. Wow. And I was like, I don't want my life to be enhanced. What are you saying? Yeah.

I want my life to go back to where it was because I don't want it to be enhanced. I just want to go back to helping people and life with my kids and my wife. And it's just like, gosh, why? And that's where I think I started to just be upset at God and say, why, of course. Why do I have to do this? Like, why? Why? Because, again, I keep going back to like, I'm doing good.

And why do I have to go through hard things? So a big part of terms. turning around and walking down the hallway is I put on this mask of like toughness and masculinity. Right. And I think we do that as males to protect ourselves from the raw emotions that come out. Because when people see us as males emotional, they sometimes they get worried or scared. And I felt like I had to be the strongest person for my wife, strongest for my kids, other family members.

Someone had to be strong. And then on top of, I was still doing therapy, so I still had to be strong for them. So I was wearing just a heavy mask that was just hard to bear. And I remember just trying to do everything and then get my wife to sleep, get my kids taken care of. And when I got everything dead, everything settled at home, then that's where I could take off my mask. Yeah, and you'll feel everything. Put it on the coffee table and just, I just saw them. And just like, this is so hard.

Like, I don't want to do this. Like, how am I going to do this? Yeah. And then I just remember just being so exhausted, I just fall asleep. And then I wake up again, put on my mask and do it again. And that was, that's just what I did, because when you're, in a traumatic event, you just, you just do the best you can. And sometimes.

It's crazy because in those moments, like, life doesn't stop, you know, everything continues. You know, you still have a mortgage to pay for. You still, in your instance, you got your kids to take care of to take up to school. And it's like, how? How does one do that, you know? And it's insane to say. But it's like in those moments you show yourself what you're truly capable of, you know, when your back's against the wall, when nothing makes sense. And it's like those dark, dark moments, it's like, hey, I know this sucks, but we got to figure it out.

And it's like this balancing act of like, you know, and I think you made a great point. It's like not being like this whole soul like tough, like, you know, get up and go do it. But also like you have to mourn and you have to feel those emotions because, you know, you know, If you just bury them and bury them, it's going to end up affecting you in the long run, you know, because you haven't taken the time to really, like, soak that in and realize what it is that's happening. And realize that, hey, you know, what, it is okay, that I'm not feeling okay because of this. And yeah, that's a hard balancing act to, it's a jungle. Yeah, I, I did it for nine months and then my wife passed away.

And then I think I put on some more masks because, okay, now I'm the mom. Reality set in. I'm the mom. I'm the dad. And I just have to be strong again because that's all who my kids had. And was your wife's parents still around or were they had they passed away or they was still around? My wife's parents have always been around and they have been awesome through the process.

Because the only way that you're going to do that is. you know, whether it's friends, family, because you could only do so much. Yeah, it's true. It's like finding your community to be able to help you through that process. And again, I think there was such a wave of support and rallying around me during, after my wife passed away for a couple weeks, after we battled cancer for nine months and then all of a sudden I remember waking up

and everything disappeared the support, the love, the contacts. I'm just like, and for anybody listening, that's the hardest time for people that lose someone is a couple weeks after the funeral is when it's the hardest. And I remember just waking up and saying, I don't want to go to work.

I don't want to face this. And but I didn't have anybody and I didn't want to reach out. I just wanted to just, it just was heavy and hard. And I remember a knock at my door and my son goes, dad, can you make me breakfast? And I was like, dang it. And I got to get up and I got up and I got up and I made breakfast that day. And I just reality began to sink in. And then about nine days after that, my work calls me and says,

hey, I need you back to work. We're struggling over here. And I was just like, can I get a break? Like, this is just more than I can take. So I went to work nine days later after my wife passed. And that's not recommended. So I think for me, I was putting on a mask of just be strong. And if I can go help people,

it's going to help me emotionally, right? That's what they say. Yeah. So I just try to work and mask. And I try to do this for nine months. But I remember coming home and one day my son that was probably a 12th at this time just looks at me and goes, Dad, you come home angry every day. Yeah, you're like, no crap.

I was like, I think. I can't hide it anymore. Like my son is seeing that. My son is struggling. My other son struggling. I was like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. What am I going to do?

And I made probably a good choice in this moment because I finally realized that the heaviness of what I was holding on to was worse than opening up and telling people and friends that I needed help. So I text 14 in my close. as friends and family and said, can you come to my house? I'm struggling. I need some help. I want to share you how I'm feeling. And I need you there tonight. And I just threw out of Hell Mary and hoped they would show to my house. And all sudden, about $6.50, I'm like, oh, crap, what did I do? Everybody showed up. Everybody showed up. And I called my own intervention. and I'm sitting in my living room and I pulled off my mask and I began to just pour out my heart and tell how hard it was to try to take care of everything and try to support everybody

and try to be happy. And it was an amazing experience because what I realized was there's people in our circle that want to help us, but we have to invite them in. That's very true. And no one knows that you have those problems unless you say something because they're like, okay, hey, he's doing well. He's, you know, he's taking it okay. Yeah, exactly.

They see me like, the boys are still going to school. He's still working. So he must be okay. But I wasn't okay. And then as soon as I gave people permission to know how I was feeling, then that's where they could really start asking harder questions or that's when they could really. really start helping me. And that was a pivotal moment because, again, people observe how you're doing just based on your outward appearance. And if you're putting on a mask, then they think you're

doing good. And the mask is to protect you from feeling those emotions. Yeah. So in that in that moment, I, we, we had a team captain elected. And my team captain was in charge of when I struggling or when I was overwhelmed, I would send my team captain a code word. And the code word meant, can you guys come help me? And everybody in the circle had a job and a responsibility. So when the team captain texts them, then they would run and they would respond quickly to pick up the pieces, take off the stresses or what was bothering me. So I didn't have to take it on alone. So you had my parents coming over and starting to do my laundry. You have a neighbor that's starting to mow my lawn.

You have neighbors that are bringing in meals for me that I didn't have to cook. You had neighbors that would come over and take the kids a couple times a week. You'd have friends that would start texting me and say, how are you doing? And then I'd have friends that would say, hey, we're going to lunch, what day works for you? And they just took the weight and the pressure of the stressors so that I could kind of get back to where I needed. And then you had time for you to even think a little bit to kind of just feel a little bit. Exactly. And be like, hey, okay, this is what's happened now.

Yeah. What am I going to do with this moment and kind of figure out my life a little bit? And they did take it away. They took it from me until I was strong enough to take it back on my own. And I think that's key is we don't want people to take things from you that you can't do because doing them, it helps you become stronger. But you just might need a break to let the emotions just ride out and feel the emotions and cry it out and then say, okay, I feel better. I'm going to get back on track. So and that's what I did is when I would do this healing team.

is what I call it. Setting this up was liberating and allowed me to find the opposite of grief is connection. The opposite of addiction. The opposite of depression is true connection. And when we connect with people and we invite them into our space, they can help us. They can help us take those pressures and those emotional struggles off our plate. and they can walk the path with us. Because we can't do this alone and we can't wait out grief.

We can't wait out depression. We can't wait out addiction. We just have to incorporate people into our lives to help us. And I feel that's the best way to heal whatever you're going through is incorporating people in your life. Yeah, the healing team, like you said. I love that point that you said, the opposite of grief is. connection. And it's true. I mean, I think a lot of us can relate with that. Like when we're in our lowest, yeah, we may need some time for ourselves, but in the long run, we need people around us that are

going to kind of lift us up out of that, out of that dark place and kind of be like, hey, like, let's go to lunch or like, hey, let's go out for a walk or let's go get a workout in. You know, something, whatever it is, just something to kind of like get us feeling human again and feeling somewhat of a resemblance of normality. Because, yeah, it's, very easy in that moment to just get sucked in your head, sucked in with the everyday things of life, and then just never really get back to what makes you feel good. And people can do that for us. I think, Andre, you made a good point. Don't feel like you have to have all the answers for the people. Like you said, just take them to the gym. Like, hey, let's go to the gym. Don't have to talk,

but just go. Yeah. And eventually, as you do stuff consistently, that person's going to open. open up, but just go and do stuff with them. And it's just so awesome to take them out of their spot and, and feel different than what they're always feeling over and over and over again. Yeah, no, definitely. And something that, that, you know, at least for me, because you kind of touched on it, too, it's like, when things like this happen to somebody, it's like, you know, you obviously kind of like get into this, like, victim mindset of like, why is this happening to me? You know, what did I do to deserve this? I've done everything. right my whole life you know how did you kind of like shift that mindset of like from like the

why meet uh to okay this is something that was happening and it was meant to be i guess at some capacity and i was meant to experience this in my life have these experience not just one two experiences in my life and ultimately maybe turn it into something good yeah how did you convince yourself that because you hear it but it's easier said than done when you've gone through that experience because it's very easy to say like this is awful and i did nothing to deserve this i think i i i kind of break it down into some of the questions i begin to ask myself because when you're victim you ask why am i experiencing this and why does my wife have to die why does my wife have to get cancer.

And I think when we ask why questions, they're unfulfilling and we'll never get the answers. Yeah. And we can stay in this loophole of unfulfilled emotions that will never come when we ask why questions. So for me, I began to ask different questions that allowed me to get the answers I was looking for. And a change was like, what do I need to learn from this? Or what is this trying to teach me? Who do I need to connect with? Or what are the things that will heal my heart?

Like asking what questions? And I think when we ask what questions, we begin seeking the answers and we activate it in our brain. and unconsciously, our brain will start looking for the answers. If we activate the right answers in our head, it's much like whenever people have looked for a new car or they play a game called Slugbug, or when you see a Volkswagen bug, you punch someone. We're all familiar with that concept,

but when we play the game, we activate it in our brain, and we start finding it. cars all over the place. And then when we stop playing the game, we stopped looking for them. So when we start activating questions in our head unconsciously, our healing process is activated and we start looking for answers. Rather than staying stuck in why. Because when we are why, we'll find the saddest show on TV. We'll find the saddest people on social media. We'll go to the grocery store and we'll just gravitate to those people that are just unhappy.

And that's where we'll stay stuck. So I like being able to change our questions. And then don't be afraid to lean into that discomfort just a little bit. You don't have to jump in and make it overwhelming just enough to get a little bit stronger. And then back away. And then get a couple days under your belt and then lean into it just a little bit more. And then back away. and just getting a tolerance gradually stronger through the process.

And over time, you will get stronger and the intensity of your emotions will decrease. And that's going to tell you you're doing better. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I'm a big believer that, and you kind of touched on to it, it's like you kind of do got to lean into those uncomfortable moments and those uncomfortable thoughts and really kind of like feel them out. And it's like, you know, what is this emotion trying to tell me? What is it that I can garner from from this feeling, right?

Because it ultimately is going to build character. It ultimately is going to build the person that you're ultimately supposed to be. And good or bad, we were all put on this planet for a reason, right? And it may not make sense in the moment, but I'm sure now you kind of look back at some of the things that you've dealt with. And you're like, I would not be this person today. if ultimately I didn't go through that. You know, as crappy and as terrible as it was, and no one deserves to go through that.

But we were kind of like we're talking about before, you know, whether you're religious or not, the universe or God is never going to give you something that you ultimately cannot handle. It may feel so heavy and so big in that moment, but it ultimately was given to you because, hey, you are meant now to go provide hope for so many people because you were able to deal with this, right?

You were able to deal with probably ultimately some of the two worst things that could happen to somebody in their life. And now you can go out there and say, hey, I went through this, I learned through this. I felt every single emotion you could possibly feel by going through this. And I want to now help you.

Yeah. I look at my trial as one of my biggest treasures because I believe God, gave gave me this challenge to become the person I'm supposed to be. And now I have the ability to be able to help more people. And that is such a blessing and such a great thing to think about that I'm a different person because I took on the challenge. And I didn't wait for the challenge to get better. I leaned into it and I grew through it.

And I think that's also an important part to think about is growing through your challenge rather than just waiting out for the time to go away because that will be a miserable experience. And nobody's going to want to be around you because you're just so sad. Yeah. And people feed off of other people's energy good and bad. So when was it that you kind of were able to shift into that mindset where you were like, you know what? this is an opportunity to to provide change in other people's life and provide hope in other people's life. I think it was shortly after the healing team, because I knew at that point, I have people to help me. And when things got really hard, I had people to pick me up. And I felt like, okay, I can get

through this because I got people when it's really hard. So I think, I believe I shifted and changed and begin to move in a positive direction. And shortly after that, what I did is I realized my, the memories that I was experiencing with the death of my wife and her cancer, those memories were just on replay for me. And they weren't sustaining our happiness. So I knew I had to make happy memories with my boys. So I actually quit my job. And I took the summer off. And we made a bucket list. And we began to create happy memories where we were connecting with people so that we could begin to live in those memories and not live in the past. And one of those events is we made a lemonade stand because we wanted to raise $100.

Because I remember when my neighbors brought over that yellow kit to help us, I thought, I want to do this. debt to someone. So we said, we're going to raise $100 in this lemonade stand. And then we're going to make these baskets and go deliver to two families. And after the lemonade stand was done, we raised $1,500. Holy crap. From a lemonade COVID lemonade stand. And from there, we went to work as far as helping people. So we made 25 initials. kids and we put it on social media and we connected with people that could go and deliver these to these families and we'd go deliver them and we could be the source of strength and help. And my kids would help their kids and offer comfort. And I think that's when I walked out of that first experience of delivering one, I was like, this was one of the most special and memorable experiences of my life.

And I remember getting in the car and go, I want to do this. I want to help people. So we began to start on a journey and begin to do this more and more. And there was a lady in Virginia that reached out and says, I want a bat. I want a kit. I'm struggling. And I was like, how do we get to Virginia? Yeah.

So we designed a box and we filled it up and we sent it to her. And again, we wanted to find peace and joy in helping people. And I found, too, that when you're going through a hard time, taking your pain and your agony and struggles and putting it on the shelf, and going and doing something outside of yourself and helping another person gives you an emotional timeout from what you're feeling. And it can give you a break, a temporary break, and help you feel better. for a short period of time.

But if you do it more often, you're going to get more breaks from that pain. And it's going to give you momentum to feel better. And that's what me and my boys begin to do. And we just started delivering these hope kits all over the place and helping people that were diagnosed with cancer, that lost a loved one and depression and anxiety. And we were just, we felt like we were creating a movement to help people find hope again.

And what do these hope kits actually entail? So if you're going to send one of these, usually what do they have in them? So obviously they've evolved and I've taken my therapy experience and design things that will help people long term. So we have a journal that has a year's worth of journal promptings in there that you could write out your emotions. There's a book that helps you achieve. children's book that helps you process some of that emotion or put things in perspective or have

hard conversations. There's some comfy socks to help you feel comfortable. There's chocolate in there. There's, I think one of my favorite things in there is there's a deck of support cards. So when you go through a hard moment, again, nobody teaches you how to help someone through grief. And people disappear or they don't say anything. So these deck of cards, when you go through a tragic event, you give them to friends. And these cards will tell you what to text and what to say to that person. And it'll help them get out of that emotional discomfort. And it'll help you build your own team to help you walk the journey.

So there's a few other things. But I am so happy that. And do you guys create those cards or is that something that you get from somewhere and then implement it? We designed everything. Wow. That's amazing. So we truly have been inspired. God has kind of led our path and helped us through the process.

But we feel like what I mean, I took the things. When I was going through this, we talked about like as a therapist, you can't look in the mirror and just say, okay Jason let's get through this i i also struggled with any kind of tools to help people get out of that space and i said i don't want people to have to not have the tools to get out of the space so that's that's why we designed and we put together this hope kit that you can send to a friend you can bring it to you to help you get out of that because i don't want people to suffer longer than they have to. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. And you basically are creating a healing team through that, you know, through, through Hope Kit. You know, you are the healing team. And you're part of what

you do is, is with those Hope Kits. So what, what's, you know, so you have the kits. Is there anything else that you guys are planning on doing with the Hope Kitt, I guess, product or anything outside of the kits that you guys are looking to do? We want to do a podcast. Obviously, we're working on that. We are working on having our first Hope conference this year that people can attend and have speakers that share messages of hope. And then what we're doing is creating a grief library

and a library of articles for people. And eventually we hope to have, we've been working on creating an app that's available for people when they go through these things. It has the Hope Kit and all the resources on the phone that will help people get them out of that deep and dark spot. That's amazing. I mean, so it's impressive how, you know, someone like yourself is able to, to, to, turn in what, you know, what happened to you into this. And I think it's going to resonate with so many people and it's something that we continuously need more and more, you know, not only just, you know, from the grand scale of a death in the family or cancer, I, you know, I had a cousin

two years ago, stage four cancer as well. And luckily, she, she made it through. She fought through chemo, you know, and it's like, it's things like that. You're like, it puts shit into perspective. You're like, wow, you know, like the things that I've complained about in my life are minuscule compared to some of the things that other people go through. And again, it goes back to, you know, what we are dealt is never too large or too small. It is exactly what we're supposed to be dealing with in that moment. But, you know, I think we also have to practice a little bit of, like, gratitude on our side and be thankful for our health more often, you know, be thankful for the people around us because without them, you know, and without our health, what are we? You know, what are we doing here? So I love having these conversations because it truly does put things into perspective, not only about the problems that we may face on a daily basis, but also what we're truly capable of in these darkest. moments. And that's that's a great point is we will we will be surprised of what we can overcome.

But we have to we have to put forth the effort. Exactly. It takes a level of effort and attention that we need to put on ourselves. And again, I, I, it took me a while. Some people get out of it sooner. But remember, I had to reach out to my team. I had to be open and honest. I had to get out of my comfort zone. It's to be vulnerable. I had to quit my job. I mean, I had to do a lot of hard things that were scary. But that brought so much peace as I use them often and frequently.

And it brought me so much comfort in my life. Yeah, I can imagine. And a lot of people don't do that. They just, you go through a hard time and you just try to wait it out. And it's such a lonely spot to just wait it out. And you feel like you're the only person going through what you're feeling. You're feeling those emotions and you're not. Like there's so many people that can help you, but you've got to be, I always say, vulnerability invites vulnerability.

As an aspect of community, it's like the more people you realize like, hey, I'm not the only one that's dealt with this. Or I'm not the only one that's feeling sad or feeling angry, you know, whatever it may be. Because sometimes people, they don't even know why they may be sad or why they may be angry, right? And that's an issue in itself. But the more you kind of resonate, okay, hey, I'm not alone through this journey. I'm not the only one that's feeling this. And I got plenty of people that are here to help me get out of it. It does make, it helps you get out of that.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we got a couple things before. And it's just a question that you can answer or you don't have to. answer, but it's a question that I, I'm curious about. If, if, if, if, if there was something that you could tell your wife today, what, what would that be? Oh, that's, that's powerful. I mean, there's a lot of things I would say, like, um, I would say I miss you. Um, I'm grateful for you. Um, I continue to honor you by helping people. And that's the way that I keep you in my life is by helping people find hope again.

And that's how I stay connected to my wife. And that's how I continue to keep her in my life and really strengthen our relationship. Because of what I do and how I do it is just to honor my wife. And it's just what she would have done. And that's what I would want to tell her. And I think you're doing a beyond amazing job for doing what you're doing. And I'm super happy that we connected because it's an awesome story. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate you. So one more question. Obviously, the podcast is called Stay Tranquilo. And a lot of what we, you know, what we preach is around mental health and, you know, similar to today's conversation, you know, what are some of the things that you kind of deal with and how do you overcome it so to you what does it mean to stay tranquilo and how do you think you've maybe approached that in in your journey i i i really think it's there's there's a term my wife has introduced me to is is uh i forgot

face the storm. And I think as soon as we lean into that storm and that discomfort is our greatest person and our greatest self will become what will be, we'll be able to come out of it our best

self. But we need to choose to face it head on rather than avoid what is happening. So. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I mean, you go.

You've got to dig deep and just tell yourself that it's going to be okay at the end of the day. And the more that you could provide that hope for yourself, look what you're able to do today. So awesome. Well, I was a pleasure connecting with you. I was a pleasure having that conversation. And I very appreciate the transparency and you, you know, going out there and telling your story. where can people, you know, find you so they can continue to see your journey, see the things that you're going to do. If they wanted a Hope Kit, where can they find one?

Our website is hope kit.com. So seven letters. HopeKit.com. It's really easy to find. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Hope Kit. And frankly, if this has touched you, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at jason at hope kit.com.

I would love to hear how this message is helped and how I can continue to help you. So. Yeah, well, we'll make sure to obviously share all the links as well on our end so people can find it. We'll touch all that. So if you're listening, it'll be in our bio as well and in the descriptions. So you could find it. And yes, I, you know, I think I found a friend and Jason just from the, this conversation today. So, you know, I think we'll definitely be in touch. And I'm happy to

continue to spread your message and the things that you're doing. So thank you so much for your time today. You bet. Thank you, my friend. All right, my man. Well, it's a pleasure. Again, thanks so much for your time. And we'll definitely be in touch. Thank you. If you guys, you know, appreciate everyone for listening on today's episode. Again, feel free to reach out to Jason and definitely take the time to listen to his upcoming podcast and hopefully the next few months. So thank you guys. Awesome.