We're All Insane - My Wife Died During Childbirth

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

#foryou #podcast #sponsored #ad  SPONSORED BY:  BIOPTIMIZERS | https://bioptimizers.com/insane CODE INSANE for 15% off CURED | https://www.curednutrition.com/insane CODE INSANE  Stack my 20% off code INSANE on the 10% off Best Seller Bundle! JASPER | https://jaspr.co CODE INSANE for $300 off Weston shares the heartbreaking story of losing his wife during childbirth — a moment that forever changed his life. From holding his newborn in the NICU to navigating single fatherhood, deep grief, and eventual healing, this conversation explores what it means to keep moving—one step at a time. Weston’s Links: Invite Weston to speak! Reach out via email to: [e-mail] Website: www.westonbrandon.com Get the book "The Overhaul":  www.westonbrandon.com/the-book Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weston.brandon.77 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westonbrandonspeaker TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@westongbrandon YouTube: https://youtube.com/@westonbrandonspeaker LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weston-brandon-62b38b349? 00:00:00 What happens when happiness and heartbreak collide in the same moment? 00:01:00 Why do some medical terms feel unnecessarily harsh? 00:01:40 How early in pregnancy do lungs fully develop? 00:02:15 Can a random social activity change your entire future? 00:03:00 Why do gut feelings sometimes push us in strange directions? 00:03:40 How can playfulness break down walls between strangers? 00:04:30 Why do silly moments often turn into lasting memories? 00:05:20 How does honesty about past mistakes affect relationships? 00:06:20 Why does sharing secrets early build stronger bonds? 00:07:10 Can whirlwind romances really last long term? 00:08:05 Why do some couples choose to marry in secret? 00:09:00 How does financial security influence family planning? 00:09:50 Why do pregnancy complications appear without warning? 00:10:40 How does strict hospital bedrest affect mothers emotionally? 00:11:30 What are the risks of babies born extremely premature? 00:12:20 What is it like to meet a one-pound baby for the first time? 00:13:10 Why don’t all parents bond instantly with their newborns? 00:14:00 How do medical bills add to emotional stress during crises? 00:14:50 What does it feel like to lose a spouse suddenly? 00:15:40 Why are hospital waiting rooms so emotionally heavy? 00:16:30 How can faith both comfort and frustrate after tragedy? 00:17:20 Why is it important to be brutally honest in grief? 00:18:10 What makes children the reason some parents keep living? 00:19:00 Why does moving back home feel like starting life over? 00:19:50 How does grief change the way we see freedom? 00:20:40 Why do complicated feelings toward kids sometimes surface after trauma? 00:21:30 How can intentional presence transform parent-child bonds? 00:22:20 Why does music calm even the tiniest babies? 00:23:10 Can dating apps lead to healing after devastating loss? 00:24:00 Why do second chances in love appear when least expected? Topics: Child Birth, Loss, Widow, Grief, Fatherhood If you have a unique story you'd like to share on the podcast, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ZiHgdoK4PLRAddiB9 or send an email to [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me DeVora. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was Slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. My name's West and Brandon. I'm making it a point to get out and share my story a lot more.

That's why I'm here. So thanks for having me. Of course. The story that most people will recognize first off is my story of losing my wife when I was 23. And it was two weeks after she gave birth to my son at only 26 weeks. I mean, he was super tiny. Fit my hand. Tiny, tiny baby.

And at the time we were living in Texas just north of Dallas. And she had what's called an incompetent cervix, which sounded. pretty judgmental to me at the time calling it that was like but basically what that is is she dilated but didn't go into labor right basically just the door opened and so her ob and the doctor's like you know baby can fall out and you know and you need to you need to go on bed rest so you can keep this baby in there right because uh the biggest thing with baby is the one of the very last things to form in fetal development is their lungs. So it was the biggest thing that they were worried about at the time was his lungs. But our story on like how we met and everything is also, it's a funny,

it's a funny story. I had just gotten back from serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ to Lattery Saints. And I had been home for six months or so and I had signed up to go do door-to-door sales for pest control. I was going to Colorado. And I've been going on dates here and there, you know, and I decided, I was like, well, now that I've signed up to go piece out for four months and go sell some stuff, I'm just going to stop going on dates until I get back from that because I don't want to, like, trip and fall into something that I'm just going to say, never mind and leave for four months, you know. So I tell my mother this and she's like, yeah, we'll see about that.

I'm like, no, I'm not doing it, I promise. And then I was actually at one of the local church buildings for a. meeting and was coming out and there were some people in the they have a gym in there and they were playing volleyball and i loved playing volleyball we played a lot as youth in our church that was like for some reason our youth group liked volleyball more than most of the other youth groups like playing basketball was usually the thing but we played volleyball and so then these people were in there playing volleyball it's like god's been a long time so i've done that this is kind of fun maybe i should now i'm going to go home like i'm tired it's like i've been up super early in the morning and

you know and I go to go out this, in this church building, there's like two sets of double doors, like a breezeway in the middle, right? And I go to go out the first set of double doors and hits me, Spirit tells me, you need to go play volleyball. And I had had experiences plenty times on my mission where God had told me to go down a particular street or talk to a particular person. You know, I had made it my life for two years to try to connect with God and connect with other

people about, you know, God and teaching about Jesus and stuff and had the coolest experience of doing that. So then I wasn't unfamiliar with when, you know, that still small voice had kind of come out of nowhere to tell me to do something. So when it came through and said, go play volleyball, I'm like, what? That's, I never had one like that before. Yeah. You know, I've been told to go knock on this door or walk down the street is what I was used to. So I kind of sat and kind of had this battle in my head. I'm like, eh, what's that? Now I'm going to, I'm going to go home. So then I go through the first set of double doors, go to the second set of double doors, I'm about to open them, and it hits me even harder. And the words that stuck in my head was,

you deserve to play volleyball. I'm like, that's the weirdest, like, message that I've ever got, but okay. So I flip around and I go into this gym. And my, obviously, I didn't know at the time, but my wife's in there. She's playing volleyball. And I played baseball for my whole life and kind of had a thing for softball players, of course. And I recognize that she probably paid softball because when it was her turn to serve, somebody threw the volleyball at her harder than you should ever probably throw something in a woman.

And she caught it like it was nothing. And I don't just, maybe the way that she did, I was like, oh, I think she played softball. So then I'm like paying attention, you know. But I also at the same time, I'm like, I'm here enjoying this, but I'm like, no, I made a commitment. You know, I'm not doing this. But for some reason, I'm just going to hang out in here

because I feel like I'm supposed to be here. And so that game gets over and I join a game and, you know, we're playing volleyball for a while. And then after a while, she starts talking to me and then she starts flirting with me, like super hard. Like she ended up on my team and I'm sitting there standing there. She comes up like starts kicking my foot and like, how are you doing? What's you doing? You know? Yeah.

And I'd never had anybody do that to me before, even in high school before I left on my mission. So that was super weird. I didn't really know how to handle it. Yeah. So I was like answering her questions and wondering what was going to. going on the whole time. And then, but I was like, I really like this girl. This is different. And, but again, I was, I'm like, no, I made a commitment. I'm not doing this. I'm not asking for a number or whatever. Like, if she's around when I get back, then fine. But we get done playing

volleyball and I'm going out. And I remember I was, I had my hat on backwards and I'm at the drinking fountain getting a drink. And she comes and like, shows my face in the water as I'm walking past. And like, got water up my nose. I'm like, what is going on? This is so. weird. I'm like, do I run or do I stay? Like, I don't really know what's going on. She's being so forward. And so I kind of laughed off and go to leave out the, and we go through the doors into the parking lot. And I'm like, I'm really wanting to ask her. I'm like, no, I made a commitment. I got to keep my commitments to myself. And so then she does a whole, well, I had a good time. And like, doing the whole like, heel kick. They like, you know, can we do so? I was like, okay, okay. All right. Well,

what's your number let's we'll we'll talk and then so we ended up going on our first day a couple of days later and uh it was awesome super super fun and at the time she was living in the basement of her grandma's house she had a basement apartment in her house and she had been to college and graduated she was a pharmacy technician at a hospital so she's working full time like and that was just her life until i guess she found you know whatever she else she was supposed to do with her life and in her head she's just deciding that it's time to start looking for a husband, I guess. You know, she's kind of got her things figured out. And I had just gotten off my mission.

I was just barely starting school. And she's a couple years older than me, two years older than me. And I didn't have a, I mean, I had a job, but it was like delivering prescriptions and stuff, like kind of not making a whole lot of money. So then she's like, you know, pursuing this. I'm like, maybe I'll have a sugar mama. She's got all this. She's got things figured out.

She's bought a car. I'm still driving this old beater. So how old was she when you guys met? So I was 21. She was 23. Got it. Okay. And so after our first date, we go to, I go to drop her off back at her place, you know,

her grandma's house, and drop her off on the porch and give her a hug. And I go to pull away and she, like, doesn't let go, really. And I'm looking at it and I can tell, like, she wants to kiss me really, really bad. And I've never experienced anything like this. before, but the way she's looking at me, like the puppy dog guys and stuff, you know, I'm like, ah, so I'm like, whatever. And I just ended up kissing her and then telling her good night and I leave. And then as I'm driving away, I'm like, you idiot, what are you doing? You're going to leave. You know, like you made this commitment. And now you have to go admit to your own mother that she

was right, which I don't want to do. Yeah. You know, and so I was like, well, I had done things in high school that I wasn't proud of. You know, I had issues with pornography and just a bunch of just high schooler stuff and I didn't feel like I was like I kicked most of those but I was like I in our culture like that was really frowned upon and I'm like I got a I got to talk to her about some of the stuff make sure that she knows exactly who she's getting into things with right and make sure that this is okay because also like if we are going to do this I'm going to be gone for four months and do this like long distance thing for the summer and I'm like we got to know who we were dealing with. And I felt really strongly that I kind of felt God was telling me to do that.

So I call her back and I'm like, hey, we got to talk. And she's like, okay, is whatever. She's kind of weird. So I probably like stirred all these thoughts in her head like, oh, what did I do? You know? And but we get back and we end up sitting on the porch and talking to her and tell her. I was like, hey, if we're going to do this, then you're going to, we need to have a conversation. I need to admit some things they're going to be hard to hear about some things I've done in my past. And just so that you know exactly what's going.

So there's no secrets, no red flags that come down the road, kind of come out of left field. Somebody gossips and tells you something about your boyfriend you didn't know or something like that. Like I don't want, I heard horror stories and stuff like that happen. I didn't want any of that to happen. So I'm just going to get it all out right now and you can decide if you're okay with that or not.

So she's like, all right, cool. And so we had the conversation where we both did that. Like all of the shit that's in our soul. Like here's all of the ugly stuff, you know, and just dump it all out. And so we did that. It was like an hour or two hour long conversation of just, you know, vomiting all this crap on each other. And by the time we kind of got everything out on both ends, it turns out it was pretty heavy on both sides, which made me feel less crappy. But by the time we were done, like neither of us was running away.

You know, we're like, okay, well. now we like now we know more about each other than probably like anybody else anywhere does and we've only known each other a different connection too yeah it does and it's like we know more about each other than anybody else with the exception of maybe a couple people does right and so we ended up actually going we hopped in the car and took off somewhere else and ended up sitting in i'm from utah i don't know if i mentioned that for your for your podcast in Utah. Word, Mormon, LDS, whatever spin word you want to use for that. And in our church, we have these place called temples that are different than regular meeting

houses. And we don't even use them on Sundays. Those are places for us to go perform ordinances for ourselves and on behalf of other people that have passed on. So they have the opportunity to accept those if they want to. That's one of our beliefs. And so we're like, let's just go sit in like the parking lot of the temple where we'd, had our own personal cool experiences with God and felt really close to him there.

So let's just go up there and hang out there. For some reason, we kind of felt drawn to that. So we went up and in, I can't remember whose car we drove with it. We just went just went up there and just sat in the parking lot until like two or three o'clock in the morning, just looking at the lights shine on the temple and just talking about life, like what we want to do with ourselves and all this kind of stuff. It never had an experience like that before. And after that, I was like, well, freak if, if, if,

If it keeps going like today did, then I'm probably going to end up marrying this girl. Now, we didn't talk about it then, of course. I didn't just like propose to it right there. But that's kind of where I was like, if this can take, because now, like, there's nothing else that I'm worried about her finding out about because I just got it all out. You know, and hopefully vice versa, it seems that way. So I'm like, I don't really know what else other red flags could come up unless there's a mental illness we don't know about that's going to pop out of nowhere. You know, maybe we should give us some time to see if that happens. But I ended up proposing to her three weeks later.

And we'd spent like every day together. And then we got married six weeks after we met. Super fast. I love it, though. And it's just like a fairy tale story, you know. And the way that we got married was actually a whole other funny story in and of itself. Because we got married on April Fool's Day in Las Vegas. Uh-huh.

And we didn't tell anybody except our parents, her parents and my parents, in on it. They came down and we just did it at the Clark County Courthouse. But the situation was at the time, it's a different place now, but there was a place called Frontside Firearms Training Institute down there, training resort or something like that. And my family's big into guns and firearms training. It's like a thing that we all do together. It's super fun. And so my dad and my uncle had planned to this trip to go down and take a four-day self-defense class at this place. And me and my cousins were coming and my parents were coming. And then my wife Lauren was coming. Well, not yet wife, but fiancee. Lauren was coming. And we were originally planning to

probably get married in September after I'd gotten back from the door-to-door sale stuff, you know, a few months down the road. But we're planning on doing this trip to Vegas. Already proposed. And one day, like, we were going to go down there on a Thursday, I think. And it was like Monday or Tuesday that I met up with her after work at a restaurant to eat dinner. And she tells me while we're in line to order our food. She says, I have a really important question to ask you. I was like, okay, shoot. She's like, I'll do it when I sit down.

I'm like, well, don't, you should have waited until I, because now I'm worried, like, what the heck you're going to say? But we go sit down and she's like, will you marry me this weekend? I was like, what? You know, like, are you nuts? And I remember I had this big old milkshake in front of me. I'm like, and I sat there like. stern it for like five minutes like wondering am i getting married this weekend like what's going on and

she she says i've already talked to my mom about it like we're all i'm like course you have you've already worked everything out you know and i'm the last one to know but she hasn't actually talked to my parents yet but she's like if you can come up with a good reason why not to then let me know you know so i was like well can i think about it for a second so then for like five or ten minutes i just sat there like trying to eat the shake but i don't even think i took a bite of it just trying to like wondering where my life's going. And I couldn't come with a good reason why not to. So I was like, yeah, I guess.

Let's, let's do it. But I told her, I was like, at the time, I was like, I don't want to do any weird, like, Elvis thing or like something like, let's just make it normal. You know, so we're like, all right, we'll do it to the Clark County courthouse there in Las Vegas. I don't know about you, but oftentimes life just feels like I am constantly hustling.

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plans to come down there. And we go to this, this self-defense training class and I think we ended up getting married like a day or two into it. And when we're going down there, my uncle was, was giving us a heart, he was trying to convince us to get married while we were down there. And of course, we didn't tell him that was the plan and my wife was borrowing a firearm for the class of somebody's she didn't have her own most the rest of us had her own and so he knew that and he's like tell you what if you guys do it while you're here i'll buy her her own i're like that's like 700 bucks right there and i'm like no no but now in my head i'm like crap now like we are going to do it you know yeah i don't want them to but i was we're like no no no we're not going to whatever we're not going to do it so we do it so we do it

and then show up at the, where we all gathered for this class and we're wearing wedding racing. He's like, are you kidding me? You guys actually did it. Are you kidding? Are you faking her right now?

We're like, no, we actually did it. And I like, show him the marriage certificate and everything. He's like, why don't you invite me?

We're like, we already had it planned. It was just us and our parents. She's like, well, now I got to go buy her a gun. We're like, no, we already plan it.

You don't have to do that. He's like, no, I'm a man of my word. So he did. When we were done, he bought her own gun. And so fast forward, we go out and do the door to door sales, and I did pretty well at that. It was number two rookie in our company, and it was really rough at first because she would go back to Utah.

I was in Colorado doing it. She was on a seven-on-seven off rotation with her job. So she'd come back and then come out and then come back. And so being newly married, and now I'm absolutely in love with this person, that was just emotionally rough to have that dynamic there. So get done with the summer. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to do that again. Like, was successful, made some money, but I'm like, let's get a normal job. And so I transitioned into a different sales job that was selling engineering, mechanical

engineering software. And that gave us the opportunity to move to Texas because they had an office out there. So we decided, let's go plan our own routes. And I mean, house prices are nuts now, but this is back in 2019 before they really ballooned. And I remember in Utah, we're looking at townhomes for like 275, 285. And we're like, no, that's too expensive. What's thinking now? I'm like, you idiot.

I know, right. Because now they're like double that. And so we move out to Texas. We're like, let's go rent something. And then maybe we can look at buying a house that's cheaper or something. So we move out there. And I'm working. I had been working on this job for a while by the time we moved out there.

And started doing really well at that. I hit their, they had these goals like Presidents' Club. if you hit certain revenue numbers or whatever, then it's basically how you get a promotion to, you know, at the time I was referring sales opportunities to the outside reps and then hit presents club. We got our Hawaii trip and then I got promoted to have my own territory that was like mine that I was the rep for. And that was like the whole goal. I was like, okay, now that I have this, the amount of money that I should be making should like double. They should be a lot more. So like things are going the way that we've planned. And we got a house that we like. We got everything's

set. She's got a really good job. with awesome people down there. And we decided that, you know what, it's time to start a family. So it took a few months, but she eventually got pregnant. We found it we were having a little boy. And, you know, at 20 weeks having that ultrasound and find out. Actually, no, we didn't even do it with the ultrasound. We did the, there's a genetic blood test you could do where you test for genetic diseases

or deficiency or something, but they can also get the gender of the baby out of there. And I remember we got a letter back with the results from that, and we opened it on Zoom. And she thought she was having a girl. She was so sad that she was having a girl. So then when she found her she was having a boy, she's like, I'm having a boy. Are you serious? And there's a video of her where her voice goes higher pitch than I've ever heard.

She's like, I'm having a boy. Oh my gosh. And so we're super happy, super excited. And this is come March of 2019. I'm just barely getting into the new role of things, just trying to figure it out. And at 25 weeks, she calls me. and says that she's like,

it feels like there's something falling out between my, like this is weird. I don't like this feeling. Something's wrong. So she calls her OB. O.B says go to the ER, get checked out just to make sure things are okay. So she runs to the ER and they check her out and they say,

hey, you're dilated to whatever it was, like seven, eight or nine or like that. And they're like, baby's going to come out into the birth canal if you don't get on. You need to lay down. Like you're not getting up again.

And obviously we need to keep the baby in to keep growing. Yeah. And prior to this, there were no, like, issues with pregnancy or anything. No, nothing. Everything had been, you know, tracking normally. We had a, we had had a couple of miscarriages before that. Okay. She, she had one thing before that was called a blighted ovum, basically, where fetus had attached and gestational sac was formed, but the fetus had, the, whatever's in there had got reabsorbed or, like, didn't, didn't work. So she'd had, she'd passed a couple of miscarriages.

But other than that, like, and at the time when that happened, I remember if anybody listening to this in the future is dealing with miscarriage or first go around, like, that's pretty common. That's like a lot of people have that happen. Yeah. But not a lot of people talked about it. So when it happened to us, we're like, oh, my gosh, this is, I mean, it is still super sad, but we thought that, like, there's something super wrong. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, once we like talk about it, we're like, oh, no, like, they had like almost literally everybody that we talked to.

that had kids had been through that. Yeah. You know, so that was super common. But then, so like second, third or time around, it sticks and it's working, right? So she goes to the hospital with this incompetent cervix they call and say, you're going to be on bed rest until the baby comes, whenever that is. And 40 minus 25 is still a long freaking time. Like three months, right? Three and a half months, if she keeps it full term.

And this is true bed rest, like with a bed pan and everything, can't get up to go to. the bathroom or anything somebody's got to clean everything and so of course that's like emotionally heavy especially for her having to be stuck on bed rest and did they say if this was like had the is this pretty or this can this can this be common or not really is it something that they don't really see often you know what i don't remember okay um it's been common enough that they knew exactly what it happened and i had heard some of the stories that's happening to people but i'm not sure how common it is yeah i've never even heard of it i mean that's crazy Yeah, it's just door opens and baby can fall out, right?

And so she's on bed rest and they tell her that, hey, we're going to start giving you some steroids that are meant specifically to kick the baby's lung development into gear faster. Because that, again, that's one of the last things to develop in a baby. And in the event, he does still come super early. We need those developed as much as possible, right? And so she stays in there and I get permission to work from home because my house is a lot closer to the hospital. where my work office was. So I'm like maybe 20, 30 minutes away from the hospital at my house. And so like the whole time I'm working from home, like my wife is in the hospital,

so then I just work all day and then I go up to the hospital, spend some time with her and then come home, you know. So again, that, that sucked. But it was only for about a week that we had to do that because a week later, so at about 26 weeks, she calls me mid-morning and says, hey, the OB just came in and did the pelvic exam to check and see how things were going. said the baby's kicking his fingers. He's coming out, breach. He's coming out the wrong way. He's supposed to come head first, right?

He's not supposed to be coming at all at this point. Yeah. But when they do come, they're supposed to come head first. And he's coming out feet first. They're like, that's not good. We're going to do an emergency C-section and pulling out. So she says, you better get your butt up here because they're not waiting for you. Right.

And so I hop in my old pickup truck and I floor it up to the hospital. And amazing, I didn't get pulled over. because I topped that as an old diesel pickup truck and it topped out of like 97 which I didn't know it until that day but I found out kind of how how fast it went and got there and I go into where her room had been where all these nurses were usually around and I go on there there there wasn't a soul in there wasn't a obviously they moved my wife and stuff so when I got in there I was like oh duh they probably took her to like operating room or something but I have no idea like no nurses around it's just crickets in this whole place so I'm looking like wandering around like a

lost duck like where's my wife And then one of the nurses that we'd worked with a lot at that point comes around the corner and she sees me. She's like, Weston, come here, hurry. So I book it down there. She says, stand like this and shut up. I was like, okay. So they throw on like the scrubs and the cat and everything on me to prep to go into the OR really fast. And they throw me in there and my wife's on the table.

And they've already got things. You know, they're starting to open her up to get the baby out. And I'm in there for, God, maybe maybe. maybe two minutes at the most before they pull out my son. And he's one pound, 13 ounces. Like so, so, so freaking tiny. You know, and I'm used to seeing babies, even newborn babies that are full term. And they're used to like the swollen face, you know, little fat rolls and stuff.

And he does not look like that. You know, he's super, super skinny. He looks like this little wrinkly alien old man kind of thing. And I was like, is he good? like what this is I don't know what's going on here and they weigh him and I remember they they took him and they took basically plastic wrap and just wrapped him in plastic wrap like all across his head his body's whole thing and they put a little mask on his nose so he could breathe that was the miracle the first miracle of many of course but they're expecting when a baby comes

that early to have to intubate him was shove a breathing tube down their throat into their tracheure in their lungs or something to basically have a machine breathe for him but whatever they had given her for that one. We got his lungs developed quicker and just enough that they didn't need to do that. They just needed a little tiny oxygen mask that clasped over his nose just to give a little bit of pressure to remind him to breathe in. And that was it. So he had that on his nose and then they gave him a little feeding tube.

But then other than that, they wrapped him in plastic wrap like his whole body. I'm like, what is that for? Like it's to help him keep warm. He needs to, you know, he's not really able to maintain his own body temperature at this point. So we have to monitor for him, you know. So they take him into the NICU and it was a little incubator and they said, we're going to run a couple tests really quick, make sure there's nothing else weird going on as long as everything else looks fine, then, you know, 10, 15 minutes will come get you

and you can come in and see him, you know. And so they do that and all the tests go good, like they don't see any other issues with him. He's other than being super tiny and super early, like he's fine. It's incredible. So they let me go in there. And I remember looking at him and like not really processing what's going on, you know, because you got to think from my perspective as her husband and as this little guy's father, I hadn't felt him move at all.

He's still too early to feel that. And, you know, so obviously I believed her she was pregnant. Like she was starting to show there there something going on, right? And had seen this sonogram, I've been there, heard the heartbeat and everything. So like, like, you know. kind of in here that it's happening, but I don't, I don't, there was, like, it hadn't really set yet, whereas my wife had had all these experiences, you know, she could feel him and, you know, she had a relationship with him. And that's what I think is so beautiful about, you know,

becoming a mother is that you have such a bond with this person that you grew inside of you, you know, that I don't, just being a man like biologically, I can't do that. There's nothing I can do about that, you know what I mean? So, And I remember looking at him and I'm like, this is my kid. I'm like, and I remember feeling worried. I'm like, why don't I have this overwhelming love for it? Like, like, I feel something for him. I do, but I like compared to like what my wife is experiencing, like, what's wrong with me?

It's kind of what I'm thinking, you know? And again, come to find out, we're talking to lots of people over the past years, you know. And now that I'm getting out and, you know, doing public speaking. sharing the story more, finding a lot of new dads experience the same thing, you know, and that's very normal. But also, now that I've remarried and had two more kids that did go full term, that's also very different because by the time they're born, I have been able to see and feel a move and talk to me.

Yeah, it gives you more time to... It's a little bit different. Yeah, take it all in. Yeah. So, as my son's in the NICU, my wife gets discharged, like, the next day, I think. You know, they sew her up and let her out. And so then for the next little while, my wife and I are just going up to the hospital after I'm done with work and spending a lot of time up there. And that was also just a super stressful time for both of us, you know, because we're thinking like, like the big thing on my mind being the, I make the most of the money in our family is how the hell am I going to pay for this?

because I'm being told that this state in the NICU is racking up bills like 3,500 to 4 grand a day that he's in there. Not necessarily that I'm going to have to fork out all that myself, but that's like the bills that are stacking on how much it's costing. And even more than that if they have to do, you know, all sorts of stuff. So they're like our estimate is he's probably going to be in here at least two months, you know, and by the time it racks all up on top of everything that's going to be done, it's going to be like over a million dollars. It's going to be billed to our insurance. and stuff. I'm like, so I'm essentially shit in my pants about that.

It's stressful. And, but of course, with insurance, there's like out-of-pocket maxes. So we're working with all those numbers. I'm like, okay, well, it's going to be stressful, but we're not going to die, right? There's things. And then he also, because of his birth weight in Texas, if any baby is born under two pounds in the state of Texas, they automatically qualify for Medicaid for the time that they're in the NICU.

So then some state funding can apply for the hospital state, too. So there were other helps that were coming. I was like, all right, we're not going to drown completely. You know, it just might take a minute to pay it off. But then my wife started having these episodes, like walking up to the hospital where she'd be a little bit short of breath. And she's kind of playing out. She's like, I've gotten fat while I'm pregnant.

And I didn't, you know, you just have a thing to catch my breath. So we're like, all right, whatever, take your time. and she was on anxiety medication even before she was pregnant you know she struggled with that so she was thinking also of course this is extremely stressful yeah so you know she's thinking that she's having these little anxiety episodes and stuff um but one day about two weeks later um i'm at home working and she's at home too and she calls me over and says she's having another what she thinks is an anxiety episode of some sort and she's having a hard time catching her breath and she just asked me to come hold her and help her to calm down.

And unfortunately, she was never able to catch her breath again. It just got progressively worse over the next few minutes. And I held her in my arms as she passed away. And I ended up having to do CPR on her until the EMT showed up. And to put it lightly, that sucked. Yeah. You know, they rush her to the hospital. And it's actually a different hospital that they rush her to.

And her parents were in town, luckily. So they came running over and picked me up, and we all ran to the hospital together, following, you know, behind the ambulance. And they take my wife into the ICU and we're just stuck in this little waiting room at the hospital. And there's a separate, like, family waiting room in the ICU. And a social worker is assigned to relay information to waiting family. members based on whatever's happening with people in there. So this lady, the social worker lady, comes in and she tells her like it's been about 30 minutes

since we estimate her heart stopped. We're still doing CPR 30 minutes later, which is way, way, way, way too long to be doing CPR, you know. And they had machines, don't it, you know? And they even had a little machine to do it once they showed up in my house. They hooked it onto a stretcher and it was this, I don't know, air pressure. regulated thing to do CPR for you so they could carry her and it just kept doing that the whole time um but obviously that's way too long and then a couple minutes later she comes back in she says okay

we got a pulse again it's weak but you know we don't have to be doing CPR anymore we're clearing all the equipment and everybody out of the room um so still a bunch of stuff in there we have room to take mom and dad we're going to take them and then once we get a little bit more room cleared out we'll come get you talking to me So they take my in-laws and I'm left there by myself in this waiting room. And that time, that moment in the waiting room was like where everything, I mentioned I had served a mission for two years teaching people about Jesus and trying to share with them a message of the restored gospel. And I thought I, well, I mean, I still did believe that I knew what was true and what wasn't. You know, a big thing we believe is in something called the plan of salvation, which is essentially, like, the whole reason that we're here.

Like, what's the plan? What happens after we die? Those kinds of things. And, you know, in Christianity, we believe we're all going to be resurrected because of Christ's sacrifice for us, right? And in that time by myself in the waiting room, like, that was heavy on my mind. Just the general, like, is that real? Right. I didn't realize that that's what was heavy on my time in the moment

because my mind's going everywhere, a million miles an hour. Can't even track my own thought processes. But I knew in that moment I was like, I need God to talk to me right now. And he'd always done so either through music or through getting into the word. And music felt kind of weird in that scenario. But on my phone, I had an app that had scriptures,

had the Bible and has a book of Mormon and then some other stuff on there. and so I was like I'm just going to open the app in general and start tapping and see where it shows up whether it's in the Bible or some magazine or I don't even care where it's going to open up to I just need to hear him say something and I remember kneeling down and praying and telling him that like if I have ever needed you to talk to me at any point in my life like this is the moment that I need to hear something and I didn't really say it very nice because I wasn't happy you know with him about this whole scenario but I start tapping and you know I close my eyes on tapping on my phone and then I open and it's it's got a it's got a chapter and a verse pulled up and it's in the book of Mormon and it's Alma chapter 40 and the way that that very first verse starts is and I might not get the quote perfect but it says and now my son I have somewhat more to say unto thee for I perceive that thy mind is worried concerning the resurrection of the dead and when I read that it like hit me like a ton of

breaks. I'm like, yeah, that's, obviously that's, that's big on my mind. And so for the next few verses, as I'm reading, it's like every, the next thought that I would have, the next question, the next worry would be answered in the very next verse, you know, and I continued doing that multiple times throughout the rest of, you know, for the weeks and months following this, where something in the Bible would jump out and smack me. It was like, God talking to me, tell me what I need in that moment. But that moment there in the waiting room was him basically giving me the assurance that, yeah, like everything you've worked so hard for me to share and also everything that your

parents would, like all this, this is really, you can lean on this. But it was also kind of in a way saying like, she's not coming back, right? Like, this is part of the plan, even though it really sucks. and while that was a super powerful experience for me and I really felt God in the room and I felt you know this overwhelming love for me in that it didn't fix the anger piece that I had hey I'm Jeremy Schwartz from American Criminal on this season robbery gone wrong or cold-blooded murder either way Boston will never be the same listen to American criminal the murder of Carol Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts, or to get early ad free access, subscribe,

and Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at Americancriminal.com. You know, the, okay, I feel loved and cared for, but I'm still not happy that this is what the plan is. Yeah. You know, and super mad about that. And I don't know where I heard it or who told me or something, but at some point in my life before this, I, the one thought that I remember, kept coming up in the weeks and months following this and when I'm just stuck in this deep

hole of what do I do now, you know, was even if you're super angry at God, let him know, let him, like if you have, don't hold anything back from him, just let him have it all. Even if you have nothing nice to say to him, just say whatever you have to. So honestly, for a couple of months, anytime I was praying, it was, it was kind of switching between begging and screaming at him for a long time. And lucky for me, he could take it, you know. And I felt very, I had experiences in dreams and some other things with my late wife where I'd gone to have a little bit of communication, I thought.

And one of the things that I felt strongly that I needed to do, even though I did not want to at the time I felt it made me feel gross to even think about being in a relationship with another woman other than my late wife I felt very pressure that I needed to keep myself open to that should you know God put somebody there because as a father a father's love is obviously amazing but it's different than a mother's love there's a there's a there's There's a connection that a woman can have with a child that I can't. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just different.

Yeah. Right. And I'm like, if I am being the provider for my child, like obviously my why to keep going, like I can hold him. This is my why, you know, which was kind of a blessing for me that it was so obvious. You know, I could literally look at him and say this is why I, this is why I can't go kill myself and follow my wife, you know, which is what I wanted to do. but I have to stay here for him and I felt very not pressure but I felt prompted that I needed to

keep myself open for that so for the next few months that's kind of on my mind that I needed to keep myself open to that but I'm not really doing anything with it yet but I felt like I whatever I do I can't stay here because all my family and everybody that wants to support most everybody is back in Utah where I grew up all my extended family almost all of my wife's family's there so I feel like I need to go back to Utah where people can help you know yeah and we had a really good like church home in Texas the you know people were being supportive but there's is different you know with family that can help so I packed up all of our stuff we moved back on actually the 4th of July 2019 um

my family came down and we packed up our U-Haul and hauled everything up and I moved back into the basement bedroom of my parents' house where I lived out as a teenager. And so I was like complete all the way back to square one, you know, start over, except now I have this baby. And how is he doing throughout his time in the hospital? Was he, did he end up being there for two months? Yeah. So total time that he spent there was about two and a half months.

So he was born end of March and he was discharged mid-Jul, or excuse me, mid-June. Okay. But other than a couple minor normal things that they expected to happen, like he had a very minor blood infection happened. And a couple little tiny things here and there that they said was pretty much common for all of their nicky babies to have that at some point. Happened, but nothing out of the ordinary. So really they just kept him until he could hold his own temperature. He could eat all of the food that he was supposed to by himself instead of having to have some supplemented through a feeding tube or something. And then hold his own oxygen, right?

keep his own oxygen levels up. And once he hit all three of those markers and held them consistently for a certain amount of time, then they let him come home. And I'm sure that was so difficult in like ways that I feel like words can describe of, you know, after losing your wife, of then having to pick back up of like what I feel like you guys were doing together of like visiting your son there. And, you know, this routine is just like, it's like confusing. It's like now what I mean?

It's like you keep visiting your son who's in the hospital. but now it's just without your wife. Yeah. I basically lived in the NICU with him for two months. Yeah. And I can't even say that I was even there the whole time because something that I didn't realize when it was happening, but I realized in a couple of weeks after my wife had passed away

was there was a little bit of resentment towards my son. Yeah. Obviously not that it's his fault. but I guess in my mind I'd kind of seen that he had replaced my wife. And now it was this little baby that I didn't have a whole lot of experience with. I just replaced somebody that, you know, knew all of the deepest, darkest things about me and still loved me. And now that person was gone and this person that I don't have much of a relationship with is kind of in their place. And like I said, I wasn't having those thoughts at the time.

Like that wasn't actually running through my head, but there was a feeling there of a little bit of resentment that, I didn't pick up on until a couple weeks later. And once I, I don't even know how I recognize it was happening. I just been sitting there and kind of had an aha. Maybe God kind of finally told me, he needed to fix this or something. And once I realized that was happening, I was like, oh, geez, I need to change this. You know, and so I immediately flipped and started spending way more intentional time with him. You know, before I would hold him and stuff, but I'm not really paying attention to him.

You know, I'm all in my head about thinking about, you know, all these other things and things. about my wife and all this and just in this pit of self-pity you know and once i realized that i was like i need to i need to be more intentional with him while i'm holding him and and and put effort into you know loving this kid so that happened very quick you know very very quickly started just absolutely falling love with this little baby and i would play like old western music i actually experimented with different kinds of music that would help him to calm down when you get all fussy and stuff and i play some soft rock or I'd play some gospel music or I'd play some country music or I'd like just start messing with some stuff. And most of it didn't really have much of an effect, but when I would play

old Western music like Marty Robbins and Chris Ladoo and stuff, when I'd play the old Western and older, older country music, then he would calm right down. That is funny. I was like, this little 30 week old baby has preferences in music. Right. You know, I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool. And so yeah, just to have an experience like that and learn. about him and then things, you know, I, you know, immediately built that relationship up pretty

quick and, you know, he's like my best butt today, you know, and he's six now. And still, no, no health issues really, like he gets sick probably the least out of my other kids. Yeah. And he was the one that was super early and they all went like normal full term, you know, other than he's sick, so he has a little bit of an attitude. And my wife that I'm married to now, he gives her a lot of crap, but he's sick. You know, he's just a normal kid. Yeah. But when I come back to Utah initially with him and move back into my basement bedroom

and my house, one of the things that I realized was difficult for me, again, more looking in hindsight that, of course, there's a lot of anger there still, right, about lots of things. But one of the things that I realize and realize a lot of this doing therapy, right? So if there's any men out there, men's mental health awareness month is this month. and so if you need to talk to somebody, do it. I'd feel very, very passionate about that. But one of the things that I realized was that one of the things that I lost that I was kind of grieving in a way that I was angry about leaving or losing

was a big piece of what I felt was my freedom. Because, I mean, when this happened, I'm 23. And as far as I know, your brain doesn't fully develop until you're like 25 or something, right? At least, I think, something like that. And so I'm still, for all intents of purpose, I'm basically still a kid, even when I was married. You know, I was a single making the money. We were just, we were just partying and having a good time, you know. And then all of a sudden it just completely shifts.

And now I'm back home again in a house that's not mine. I'm used to have in my own space. Yeah. And now I'm having to ask my mom for permission to go out again because if I go out, somebody has to watch the baby. So I'm like, hey, can you watch the kid or can, you know? So I basically. kind of felt like really all it's rewind all the way back to like being a teenager again and basically kind of sort of had a curfew a little bit because my mom's or or anybody that's

watching my dad or grandparents or somebody that's watching the baby like I got to be back within a reasonable time to pick up my kid from him and so there was a piece of the childish thing that was still in me that died really quick that was still fighting and this all of a sudden overwhelming responsibility was rough to get used to when it first happened. And so then I mentioned that I had felt prone I needed to keep myself open for another relationship, right? So I downloaded a dating app and the dating app was called Mutual. I didn't even know if it's still a thing or not anymore. It probably is, but it's this app called Mutual.

It's basically Tinder for people in Utah is kind of where it was made, you know? So there was a bunch of different dating apps that I tried a bunch of different ones out. But the one that I ended up meeting the woman I'm married to now was on mutual. And the reason I used it was because when I first, on the dating profiles, I was struggling for a little bit. I was like, do I put information about what happened? Do I not? Like, how do I? I was like, you know what?

I don't want that to be a surprise. So I'm just in as much as the character limit will allow in my bio, I'm just going to put like, hey, this is a story. This is where I'm at. There's pictures of me and my son because we're a package. Yeah. You know, so. Like, don't swipe if you're not in it forever, all of it. Yeah, yeah.

So I was like, I don't want anybody that's just looking to hook up or play with me. Yeah. I'm not interested in that at all. So I put all that in the dating profile. And again, this is, so my son's born in March. My wife passes mid-April. And this is like end of July that I'm doing this. So it's fairly quick.

But again, I'm feeling like a pressure and a push inside, even though I don't want to do it. feeling like I should for some reason. So I'm like, all right, I'm just going to do this. And so I start swiping and I'm swiping no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like go through the whole region, every single woman in this app, I just say no to. And I get to the end, I'm like, well, shit. Like, I'm, and I realize, even when I got to the end, I realized like, you know what, the only reason I said no is because they're not the person that I'm looking for.

The person I'm looking for I'm not going to find here, you know. So I got looking in there and luckily they had a premium version where if you paid like 20 bucks a month or something It would tell you if somebody swiped on you so then you could just look through only the people that swiped on you I was like take my money I don't even want to spend any time on this app at all so I just I paid for the premium version Then I turned notifications off because I didn't want to get notified for a minute and I just left it For a few days. I don't know how long But my son the NICU gets them on a really consistent schedule so like every three hours on the dot he wakes up to be fed because that's the kind of schedule that he's on. So it's like two o'clock in the morning. He wakes up screaming needs to be fed.

And I'm there feeding him. And I'm looking at my phone and I kind of feel like I need to, I need to check that. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to. It's like, no, you need to check that. I'm like, I don't want to. No, you need to check that. I'm fine. All right, whatever. So I finished feeding him and I'm about to lay back down and I grab my phone. And I open it up and I go into the app and, you know, there's no notifications because I disabled it so I'm like we'll see if if anybody's in here it's either going to be somebody that's bat shit crazy or it'll be someone that's very highly emotional intention and doesn't want to play any games either yeah you know maybe somebody who's been through some stuff so I'm like how do I tell which one it is and but again this is before I even

open it I'm like I don't even know if anybody's going to even want a piece of this right and So I opened it up and there was like four or five that it's why I'm like that's surprising Okay, well now I need to decide if filter through crazy or if they're cool and so I just send messages out and this is like two o'clock in the morning that I do this and I send a couple messages out and my wife that I'm married to now is one of them and if you ever talk to her What's what's funny she says she doesn't even remember swiping on me she doesn't remember seeing it Yeah And then I was like, oh, thanks.

That's good. You know. But she sees my message later and we start talking. And she had been in a previous marriage before that was not healthy that she had gotten out of and gotten a divorce. And then she had actually served a mission just like I had in Ohio. Okay. And then had come home and was going to school and working and stuff. So given her background, she was not looking for games, right?

and she had been on these dating apps for a while and had been going on dates and the only people that she ended up with was people that just wanted to hook up and not have anything serious. And so she was getting sick of it. She'd actually deleted the app. And then the same day that I had, or within the same couple of days that I had made my profile on there, she had kind of felt God telling her that, no, she needed to open that again. And so she told me that she's like, later, of course, she says she was kind of, having this argument with God like no like all the men on there are just wasting my time and stuff

and so she like so she kind of made this deal she's like I'll give it 24 hours and you don't bring someone in 24 hours I'm never getting on here again and I guess somewhere within that 24 hours is when we got connected in there and so I scheduled some dates with with a couple of these different women and my wife that I am married to now it was the first one that I wanted a date with okay And we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, and we went and at the time hatchet throwing like the big in thing to do. So we went and did that and went and got some ice cream and had a great time and learned a lot about each other. I'm like, this person's really, really cool. I like her a lot.

But before I had went on the date, because I was at least self-aware enough to know that I don't know where my mind is. Yeah. You know, I'm like, I don't know how good my judgment is right now. I don't know how good I'm going to be at reading people. I don't know. I don't feel like anything's broken, but I don't know. So before I went on this, I remember praying again, not super happy with God, so it probably wasn't a super respectful prayer,

but I remember praying anyways and saying, hey, whatever you need Lauren for on the other side, whatever, I'm calling in some PTO, respectfully. And I would like her to come with me on this date and like tell me if she approves kind of a thing like help me feel that in some way because I don't I don't want to make that decision with my mind yeah and so same thing after the date's over and and she's driving away I just said out loud I was like well babe what do you think and when I said that the freaking feeling that I got inside was like holy cow like this fire

lit in my chest like it felt like I got just punched you know I'm like whoa That was, I've had some powerful spiritual experiences when, you know, when I was a teenager and found out God was real for the first time and had, it was like kind of similar to that. I was like, oh my gosh, that's wow. Okay. Well, geez. Like if, I guess if the dates keep going like this one went, then it would progress to being married is kind of what I'm thinking in my head. But I'm like, that is so inappropriate to just go tell somebody that after your first date. Like, no way. And I'm like even kind of shaming myself for thinking that at the moment. I'm like, but based off the feeling that I just had, I was like, this could be. And I didn't feel like I got told like, you need to marry this person. That wasn't the message I got. It was more like if this is reciprocated, if this keeps going, then basically I approve kind of a feeling. Right.

So, and we ended up dating this. Again, we met in our first date was the first part of August sometime. We got married the following March. but after that first date and we scheduled like we decided we're going to we're going to date more consistently we decided that on our first date so then I reached out to the other ladies that I had date scheduled with and I told them I said hey I'm not here to play games I don't want to waste anybody's time but I found a direction that I want to pursue so I'm going to respectfully cancel our date because I don't want to go jump into something that I have no intention of being open

into a possibility with, right? And luckily, all of them were super respectful and very grateful for that. They're like, yeah, I'm not looking to hook up either. So thank you for not wasting my time. And bummer I wasn't the first one was kind of how a lot of the messages went. And so that me and my wife start dating. And she very quick, she basically moved in with us with me and my family.

And she took over, like, her mothering instincts and how good she was at that was, like, mind-blowing. And she just attached to my kid. His name is Vance. She just attached to Vance and basically became his primary caregiver and took a lot of load off of my parents, off my family, and off of me, where, you know, we had some help. And not that, like, she was just trying to be a freaking nursemaid or something like that, but, like, she just naturally wanted to take care of like that.

She's the best mother I could ever ask for for my kids. And she didn't have any kids yet, right? Okay. Nope, she didn't have any kids. But that was her biggest, one of her biggest dreams is to be a wife and a mother. Yeah. And she'd always wanted that. And she had been on some other dates with men that had kids from previous marriages.

And so she was open to that. You know, she wasn't opposed to that. But she latched on to him pretty quick. And we spent every single date together. And then eventually she ended up quitting her job so that I could try to go back to work and she could watch the kid, like, all day. and we're basically sleeping on the couch in my parents' basement this whole time until we got married and uh which is also kind of funny because you know in our very uh christian religious culture

you know like you don't live together before you're married is kind of a thing that like we're taught right and sex before you're married is a no and all these kinds of things right so that then when my fiance, girlfriend, whatever, you want to call her at that time, basically kind of moved in with this. It was like this weird, like, situation where it's like, we're living with my parents, but then she's also here, like, all the time. She technically had an apartment somewhere else, but she was never there. Yeah. She's always over, you know, and we would stay up all night talking, and then the sun would come up, and then she'd have to leave for work. So she probably spent a couple of nights where she never went to bed for, like, two days, you know, and both of us. But she latched on to him pretty quick, and then

we the the conversation on if we were going to get married happened pretty quick also um like with my first wife we i proposed to her three weeks after we met but me and kiersley is her name my my second wife now wife whatever you want to call um we had that conversation about a week probably into dating on accident it wasn't intentional but We were in my parents' basement sitting on the couch and Vance is asleep and we're just talking. And she is sharing me a lot of the stories and experiences of her first marriage and, you know, all these things that were hard to share, honestly. And in my head, I'm thinking, like, I had a great relationship with my first wife. And I'm glad that I did.

And I can't wait to show you what a good relationship looks like. And that's what was going on in my head, but it accidentally started coming out of my mouth. So as she's sitting there talking, I started saying, I was like, I can't wait. And I got like halfway through wait. And I was like, whoa, what are you doing? Like, shut up. And I just bit my tongue. And I was like, nope, I can't say that.

And she knew exactly what I was going to say. So she like starts prying it out of me. She said, I can't wait for what. What are you going to say? And I was like, no, it's fine. It's like, no, tell me. What are you going to say? So I was like, fine.

All right, where do you see this going down? Like, what's going to happen? and she kind of says, she's like, well, if it keeps going the way that it is now, then I guess naturally we would end up getting married at some point. I don't know when, but if this is the trajectory, and so we both agreed, we're like, yeah, that makes sense. So I guess we better have the convert, let's get everything out.

So if there's any red flags that can't, there's no secrets or anything, you know, get all those out. And so we had that conversation right there for another. you know, hour or two, and both of us did the same, just get everything out. So I had to do that twice, which is super uncomfortable, but we got it all out there. And then again, neither of us were running away. Like, we're both like, can you live with that? Like, yeah, I can live with that. And if that comes back to bite me in the ass, you know, 10 years down the road, can you live with that? Yeah, I can live with that. Like, okay. So then that point is how we're like, all right, I guess, uh, I guess we're getting

married at some point. I don't, like, yeah, I guess we are. You know, it's kind of how the conversation went. So then, you know, she starts looking for rings and it was funny as she's like, I don't, I don't want like this big sparkly thing, you know, I want maybe like a different colored one. I don't know. And then she ends up finding the ring that she wants and she's literally the most sparkly

ring in the store. You know, and end up getting that for her and proposed to her. And we set a date to get married like the following year. and that's when we got married. It's in March. And there were some things in between there, some drama with some people, because I also learned in that process that sometimes people attach their grief to you. If a lot of widows, if you ever talk to widows,

they'll probably relate to this very well, that people close to you and especially close to your spouse that you lose, because you're the closest thing that they can get to the person they lost, they tend to attach their own grief journey to you. So if you move forward or start intentionally growing or moving, forward or doing things that they're not or that they're not really ready for you to do in some way that makes them very uncomfortable. So there's a lot of times some dissonance that can happen with people, right? And so we experienced that and there were some emotional things that ended up

happening. But, you know, now having reconciled most all that with everybody, like everything's great now. And my in-laws, my first wife's parents were not one of those. They were very supportive of this whole thing. And our relationship with them now is amazing. And it always has been, but they live in another state neighboring us. And my wife takes all three of our kids and goes and spends like four or five days with them pretty regular, like two or three times a year. They'll go down and have vacation tying up Papa and Gigi's house.

So it's a really cool thing, which is, unfortunately, I found it's a little bit more rare in situations like ours. Sometimes families don't just mess. like that super well and there's you know it gets a little bit more complicated but in ours we're very blessed that you know my kids just have extra grandparents and extra cousins is kind of and they don't even see it as extra they just have a lot right you know but other people looking in at the situation like that's really that's a unique that's a really cool thing right so now you know and one of the things that I had to do I realized I tried to go back to my job in sales but I

I couldn't do it. I used to be super good at it. You know, I'd gotten promoted. I'd done, I'd made their presence club numbers before and, and was good at my job. But then trying to come back after that, what used to, the anxiety and the push for sales to meet quotas and then have all these incentives, right, was used to be super motivating. And I, you know, I fed off of that. But now with everything that's happened, suddenly. possibility is no longer what my soul wants. It's security, right? Because obviously with everything

that happened, that's more important to me now. And for some reason, just picking up the phone to call somebody to try to initiate some type of conversation was like, I can't freaking do it, at least not in that context, right? And so I eventually, I had to leave that and I had to completely change careers and I didn't know where I was going to go. But in talking to my father and some neighbors and some of the people that were in trades careers, I decided that I was going to jump into HVAC and refrigeration. I went back to school, which I was not planning on doing, but I went back to trade school and got another job and applied the same kind of tenacity and work ethic to that as I did the sales and became very good at it, very successful at it, and

worked myself up to making, on average, roughly the same amount of money that I was working, or excuse me, that I was making before I had gotten the promotion, right? right when I was referring the deals. And I was like, I can live, like, I can support a family comfortably off of this. And like, it's not, we're not rich by any means, but like, we're not hurting either. We're like, right? Just barely comfortable, right? And I'd work my butt off to get there.

And at this point, we got two more kids now. And once I finally reach that, I'm like, oh, okay, I can, I can coast now. I've been firing on all cylinders for five years and working my ass off. And now, now that I've made up feel. like at least mentally I can like relax that I don't have to you know be grinding that hard and now that I'm good at my job and I can just maintain and keep doing that and so I got to do that for about two months um but earlier and and this is just a few months ago so that right now we're june 20 25 right and so this was like probably March of 2024 that I had this experience I was at the time I was

serving in the youth ministry at our church where I was one of the adult leaders in charge of like the 16 to 18 year old boys and we were having this youth activity up at the church building and it gets over and I'm driving home and it had been a fairly spiritual like we had been watching a movie and I had been sharing mission stories with some of the other guys that had also served missions and was kind of on a little bit spiritual higher place and feeling it a little bit and then as I'm driving home, all of a sudden, God comes out of nowhere, and I get this feeling rest on me that I'm going to ask you to do something that you are not ready, you're not spiritually ready to handle. Like, you need to get with the program. You need to be more intentional about your spirituality

stuff. And I had already been kind of bummed with myself that I wasn't as consistent with praying. I wasn't as consistent in studying in the word. And I wasn't as consistent with these things that I wanted to be. and so then this feeling rests on me and it's a similar feeling that I had gotten twice before earlier in life the first one I had gotten right before my first wife passed away I'd gotten a feeling that weighed on me that something really hard was about to happen like I don't know if you want to call it a premonition or something but I remember talking to Lauren about that

and saying hey I got this feeling that something rough's coming down the road I don't know what it is but we just need to be prepared for it and she told me like as long as we're together we'll be fine you know and then well then I wasn't fine because then we weren't together, you know. And then I had gotten another one when I was dating Kier'sley that something rough was coming down and we ended up having, you know, some drama happened before we got married that was really emotionally, especially for her super emotionally rough. And it was for me too. And so then when I get this third one, but it's a little different at the time.

It's more, it's not a something is coming that's going to suck. It's more like something's coming that's going to stretch you a lot. Yeah. Right? And you need to be ready for that. And so I get home and I walk in and I tell Cures, I was like, hey, do you remember those other like things that I experienced? And she's like, yeah, did you get another one? I'm like, well, yes, but it's a little different this time.

This is kind of the feeling that I got. And I don't know what I have no idea what it means. So we're like, okay, well, let's be more consistent about praying together and reading together and like doing all the things. And we're like, all right, cool, break. And didn't change a damn thing. you know you just kind of stay in the same routine yeah and for like the next 10 months I'm thinking of this feeling that I that I had gotten and it's way no man I'm feeling this pole and I'm feeling this pole and feeling this pole like I'm supposed to be doing something

but I don't know what it is and it's driving me nuts and I finally reach in like probably like probably like September or October I finally get a raise that I've been working really hard for and I'm at that comfortable place now I'm like I can finally exhale you know and be okay and I get to breathe for a second for like two months, and then in January, I'm getting done with a job in Utah. The job that I do now is commercial kitchen equipment service, and I was working on the slushy machine at Costco, where they have their frozen lottes and stuff.

And I was fixing that thing in a town called Aurum, Utah. And I got out of Costco, and I come out of there, and I'm driving, and I go to fill up my work truck. I get done filling up with gas, and then the spirit comes out and nowhere says, you need to go see your mom like out of left field and I was like oh crap what's wrong with my mom I hope nothing so I text my wife and I had already told her I was like hey I'm on my way home and then I tell her hey just kidding I need to go see my mom I don't know why but I got a prompt me you need to

go there and she's like okay yeah go whatever you know be home whenever you're gonna be home so I book it up there and my mom's fine she's just doing her workout well there's nothing nothing wrong so then for like the next hour we're just small talk chit-chatting and I'm like twirling my thumb's like what the freak am I doing here? And then she shares with me an experience where, and she's very involved in the youth ministry and her own congregation where she's at too. And what they call the Young Women's Program.

And she tells me of an experience that she had where she was watching, there was a lady, or excuse me, a young woman in what we call our steak, which is a larger regional area. And there was a young girl that had taken her own life. And they were broadcasting the funeral services for people to watch. And she was watching this.

And while she was watching this, she said that she felt this kind of, she felt God tell her that she needed to make a much bigger difference and that she could make a much bigger difference in these girls' lives from things that she had experienced in her life. So she's telling me, she's like, I don't know what the heck that means, but I feel like I got to do something much bigger. And, you know, and as we're talking about that, I'm telling her kind of these feelings that I've been having.

And then while we're having the conversation, it finally sits on me and it hits me. It's like, you need to be a speaker. You need to share your story. And I'm like, oh, freak no. No, no, no, I don't want to do that. Don't want to do that at all. Like, I'd done performing and stuff and singing in stuff in high school and choir groups and theater.

And I wasn't afraid of talking, like being in front of people. But I knew, because there was a guy, or there is a guy, excuse me, there's a guy that lives in my hometown that is, that does speaking professionally. Like, that's his job. His name's Chad Heimus, and he's a quadriplegic. He had a big one-ton bail of hay fall on him and crush him and break his neck and he's been in a wheelchair ever since. But he goes around doing motivational speaking and stuff and he's extremely successful at it. And he's the only guy that I knew that did that.

And so that's kind of the thing that I have in my head. I'm like, holy crap. No, I don't. He's gone a lot. Like, that's a lot of stuff. So I'm like, all stressing out of him. I'm like, what does that even mean? I have no idea how to even start doing that.

Like, what the crap? And so as I'm leaving my mother's after we have this conversation, I was like, I guess I got to do this. And you've got to do something similar. Like I guess we'll figure out, you know, what we're going to do. And so then I remember I texted Chad and I told him, it was as, hey, this is like the super cliff notes version of what just happened. We need to talk and it needs to be in person. I don't want to do it over text or something.

So he responds a little bit later. He told me, I think he said he was in Milwaukee speaking, you know, for like three different days on this tour and was coming back. later that week. So I ended up going to his house and meeting up. And I typed up in like five pages, my whole experience with like all this stuff that had happened to kind of lead up to this point. And gave it to him and he read it. And so I show up after, you know, in the morning. And I told him, I was like, so did you read the thing I saying? He says, yeah, I read it. But why don't you tell me why you're here anyways. I was like, well, that's why I sent it. So he's like, no, I want to hear it from you. I was like, okay. And my wife came with me. And so we kind of rehashed the whole thing. And he told me,

He's like, well, you definitely seem to have received a call kind of the same way that I did on, you know, however many years ago that he did. And he's like, if you're anything like me, then if you don't give it everything you got, then you're going to feel like a failure that you're not doing what you're called to do. And I said, that's exactly right. Yeah, 100%. I just have no clue what to do. Yeah. How do you even do that? So he's like, you need to go joint national speakers association, which is an organization for public speakers.

and there's like chapters in different states. And so he's like, you need to go join our local chapter of that because there's people there that can help you figure out how to do that. And then this, here's a couple names of some specific people that you need to get to know that can help with some things. And gave me a couple directions to start going. And so I was like, all right, I'm just going to and sprint that direction, you know. And I got connected with the lady that actually helped him get his first two books out,

I think, first two books out that he wrote. And so I hired her to help me, coach me through writing a book. and doing all that. And the book just launched today's the, as a recording, we're on June 8th. So on June 5th, the book launched. And it's top new release in all three of its categories, which is awesome. Super cool. But getting out there and sharing the story has been a stretch.

And that's why I reached out to you. I was like, I need avenues to share this, right? How do I, how do I do this? So I was like, what are some options to? kind of share stories. So what I did was I made a post on some community Facebook pages. I'm like, this is what I feel like my life's mission has to be. I don't know what the heck that even means. Does anybody have any ideas? You know, so then people are like, oh, you should go talk to this person. And actually more than one person said, you should go talk to this girl

named Debra. And she has this thing called, we're all insane where people share crazy-ass stories. And you have a crazy-ass story. So you should reach out to her. And I was like, okay, I'd never seen your podcast or anything. So I looked it up and I started watching this. episodes, I'm like, there's some crazy stuff on it. It's like, this would probably fit pretty well. So then that's when I emailed you. I was saying, here's my story if you think this is cool. So, you know, now we're here. And I just barely started sharing, like just earlier this week, I was speaking in front of this large group of teenage boys at like a religious church camp out thing, right? And I share my story of what had happened. And remember the adult leaders over these

these boys that were running this camp. They told me that the previous year they'd had a kind of a bad experience in a little bit with kind of how it went because they have, you know, obviously they have a bunch of activities and then they try to bring in the spiritual aspect. And like one of the things that they do is up on this trail, they'll have different spots where they have pieces of the Savior's life and it ends up with him on the cross at the end. And there's people, you know, talking about it. So the boys kind of go through this progression and learn about like the last week of the Savior,

like the New Testament story, right? And then after that, they come and eat dinner and then they have like a, what they call a testimony meeting where people can share like, you know, what they've been feeling or what they believe in things and kind of, you know, build off of each other. And I guess the previous year, the teenage boys had kind of just turned that into a joking giggle fest and it didn't really go super well. And so they're like, we don't want to talk to how.

We don't really know how this is going to go. So just a heads up, maybe. I don't know if you can help hopefully rain these boys in kind of a thing, you know. And so I'm like, we'll see. We'll see how this goes. So I share my story and it goes super well. And one of the, one of my favorite parts about speaking is I can see everybody's face, but they all can't see anybody's face.

So none of them think that anybody can see them, but I can see them. Yeah. Right. So I can see the facial expressions and I can see how people are reacting to what I'm sharing. And it's like lifetime feedback on obviously, how well I'm doing, but then also being able to see the change in people as you're talking, as you're sharing the story. And I see at first a lot of these teenage boys are like, whatever.

You know, we've had a lot of these speakers that just come and talk and whatever. And usually they're just somebody kind of just lecturing us, you know. So at first they're like, yeah, whatever. And they're not allowed to have their phones. They don't have their phones, but they're like, you know, playing with sticks. I'm like just not really paying attention. I just start talking to them. And then all of a sudden they start listening as I share my story of being in their same shoes

and kind of take them through the progression of when I lost my wife. And then as it's going, all of a sudden I'm seeing all these like 14, 15, 16, 17-year-old boys like crying. You know, and like that was powerful for me. But then the most powerful thing at the end was we were having this devotional. And then they had arranged to have their little testimony meeting right after. And after I get done Sharon and I had talked to him a lot about like how I hear God talking to me and how I'd learned that that works for me. And I told him, I was like, your biggest thing is you need to figure out how that works for you.

And you guys have questions. I know all of you do. Some of you are here just because it's fun. Some of you are here because your parents force you to be here. Some of you know, there's a bunch of different reasons why some of you are here. But you all have questions of your own. And it might just be like, should I even care about this? Some of you do believe, but you're going through a really rough time and have other questions related to that.

But you can't go to your neighbor for questions. You can't go to social media for your answers. You can't go to your friends for your. answer you can't go to any person for really your answers now there's people that can can guide you along that can give you their perspective and it could be helpful and maybe sometimes an answer might come through what somebody says but really the answer for it to really hit has to come from him right so I'm like the times that I had felt god talked to me the most was when I was in quiet stillness and I think the biggest problem with as you and even adults say but especially with youth today is that they never have

quiet stillness because the first opportunity for that to have quiet stillness, the phone comes out and they immediately go to social media, they go to whatever, and they're just filling in that quiet space so God never has a chance to get a word in. So I'm talking to him about this. I'm like, you guys need to give God an opportunity. So right now, for the next 10 minutes, nobody's allowed to say a single word. And if you feel like you need to go out and you need to pray, you need to ask some questions, or if you feel like somebody needs to pray for you, then you have youth leaders here that are meant to help you with that some of you have parents here you know grab somebody and and tell them that you don't even have to tell them why if you don't want to you just tell them that you need

somebody to pray for you and as as i give this invitation i'm like okay so now for the next 10 minutes nobody's allowed to say a single word you guys have questions go get your answers right now and i was like i guess we're going to see how this goes i'm kind of expecting everybody just kind of sit there and like whatever you know kind of but the most amazing thing happened like 15, I think 10 to 15 different boys stood up, walked off the amphitheater, and then there's a big grass field right behind it, and they all knelt down like 15, 20, 25 feet apart from each other. Like teenage boys, you know, going up there and started praying. And some of them are crying and like having these really cool experiences. And a lot of them are like, you know, like go hide behind a tree, you know, kind of thing.

But, you know, I'm watching as I go sit down and I see these boys go out and. start praying and then I turn and I look up into the amphitheater and again I can see everybody's faces and there's some boys kind of like looking around and there's other boys you know praying here but then there's some guys that are having the same moment for themselves there in the amphitheater you know and there's probably another 20 30 of them that are having that experience inside the amphitheater and that was like the biggest answer to me like there's a reason that you have to share your story because things that you've been with can help not only these boys but a bunch of other people, right?

Absolutely. And then the biggest that I knew was like I had prayed super hard before I talked to these boys. I was like, help. If there's just one, please help me to not want glory in this of myself because that's a natural thing. Like I want to get good feedback. I want to know that I'm doing a good job and, you know, kind of these selfish

thoughts and I have to catch myself. I'm like, that's not why you're here. You're here for these boys. So please just help one boy to have an experience with you. and help me at least help me to see that so that I know that it worked, right? And so then I see this and there's like 50 of them having this experience. I'm like, that's a huge win in and of itself. But then after that, you know, and I finally, after 10 minutes, I finally go up on my case,

this is my least favorite part of this, but I have to cut this off and, you know, invite you guys to come back in this amphitheater. And now, you know, we're going to essentially give people an opportunity to share whatever is on their mind or what experience they had if you feel like you need to and you want to. And one of the things that the youth leaders had told me the previous year was not only was it kind of a giggle joke fest, but a lot of the leaders had to come in and fill empty time. And like it was just kind of a rough time. But this time there were like 10 to 15 boys in line to come up and grab the microphone

to start talking to all the other boys. And none of the adult leaders even had a chance to get in because these boys were lining up to do it. For 45 minutes, they were in line to do this. And one of the boys got up and he said he was, I think he was 14, maybe 15. And he gets up and he says, the biggest question I've had for God because I've been raised in kind of the church scene and been taught these things. And I'd had experience, but I'd been the biggest question on my mind had been like, what's the point? Why even go on? Like kind of having some self-harm or suicidal thoughts or something like that.

he didn't go into detail, but he said, so that was the biggest thing. And I feel like I needed to go pray about it after hearing Brother Brandon, they called me up there to go to go talk to God about it. So I went out in the field and he says, I knelt down and I prayed and I asked God. I'm like, what's the point? Like, do even know that I'm here or anything? And he's like, the feeling that I got, he's like, God just came down and told me in my heart that like, yes, you matter to me.

me and there's a reason and I have something very specific for you to do and he's like and it took me forever to get the next question out but I asked him what is that and he said just be patient like I'm working on you and you'll get to that so then he come up and he shares that and he says so I was I was thinking that it wasn't even worth it to be on this earth anymore until until now and now I know that there's a reason I'm here and I don't think I'm gonna I don't I'm not having that thought anymore and I think I'm going to stick around was basically what he said and I'm like I hadn't really gotten emotional with with most of until they said that and then I'm like bawling you know I'm like did we just save a kid's life that nobody knew was was talking that was having these thoughts so then of course

I'm like I and his youth leaders there I was like you better freaking get with this kid and make sure that he's you know because he's having this experience now but who knows what his home life is like or you know and and make sure that you're you're helping these kids so then I leave there and just the biggest thing that has had been on my mind before this and then even a little bit after was and getting out there and sharing my story, one of my flaws, I think, and we probably all struggle with this, is that we care way too much

what people think about us and their opinions about our motivations for doing things, right? And I'll be honest, there's some people that thought that I just came up with this idea that I wanted to make money off of my wife's death. You know, and I saw a financial avenue for doing that.

At the moment, I haven't made a cent doing it. I'm just getting started doing that. I mean, we did just sell a decent number. book sold like 70 or 80 books but it takes a few months for that to hit and even then that's only going to be like five or six hundred bucks in royalties maybe doesn't cover I'm like over 20 grand in the whole in the investments for doing this so far and the training and coaching I've paid for so I'm like no like hopefully it pays off at some point maybe because if you can like people will pay for a transformational experience on behalf of other people whether that's in the corporate world

or religious world or something. So if you can provide that, then maybe there's opportunity for that for sure. But that would be nice, you know, to be able to afford to do this full-time, takes money. So that would be nice if that came in and I could do this full-time

because that's what I really feel like my calling is. But the biggest, like I didn't even want to do this at first. I just reached what was comfortable and it was easy, you know, just go to work nine to five and come home and hang out with my family. I don't have to think about it. Like, you know, and in my head, I'm like, you know, the guys that own this company, they're going to retire. And so there's probably, I'll event, if I've been here long enough, then I'm going to step into that. It's kind of logically, you know, however many years down the road.

So I'm kind of got this long-term plan. I'm like, again, think I've got it all figured out. My whole life is going to go this way. Yeah. And now I'm figuring out like how do I balance like I'm going to have to balance keeping this job and doing this. And if I keep the job that I have now for forever and I do this on the side and that's enough, then I'm happy doing that. Or if, you know, a few years down the line it turns into doing this full time or who knows? You know what I mean?

But that experience with those boys and the fact that I was simply a conduit for a life-changing experience for. what looked like 50 of them was like that was the end like it doesn't matter like 10% of everybody that meets you or knows you is probably going to freaking hate what you're doing for whatever personal reasons they have and um in speaking to other people that have gotten to know that are kind of in the speaking world and and do that have had a lot of similar experiences um the people that i've met and the friends that i've made in stepping in to do this have been been huge, like the quality of people that are helping me and supporting me and pushing me to do it or like next level. And every single one of them, when I finally open up, I'm like,

this is kind of what I'm like, have you ever experienced something like this? And they're like, let me tell you a story. Yeah. You know, and they all have one like that. And so I'm realizing, again, that's normal. I'm not alone in that. And I'm sure you probably have had similar experience with doing your podcast and who knows, maybe old friends or acquaintances or family or they're like what the hell is she doing it you know who knows but uh yeah that's i guess in a nutshell that's the whole story and that's that's what we're doing now and i think you know there's so many different aspects that you've shared that i feel like are so important you know one of them being even just the silence aspect you know i think that no matter what you believe or where you are in

life, that's something that especially with the younger generations is so rare. You know, we're not taught to just be alone in silence at times and just be with ourselves, be with our own thoughts. And that's so important when it comes to growing and healing and discovering yourself. You know, life is so fast-paced. And especially now with social media, it's like we can constantly scroll, we can constantly consume our brains and our mind with distraction, you know, whether it be, music or like it's like a lot of people they feel uncomfortable in silence they always have to have music playing they always have to be on the phone they always have to be texting or scrolling or something and we're not taught how important it is sometimes even if it is just five 10 minutes

of just letting ourselves feel it you know feel what's going on around us feel everything and then I think when we open ourselves up to that we open ourselves up to these spiritual experiences And it's crazy to me how many people go through life and never experience those things because really we aren't taught that that's important and how special silence can be. And I think that experience that you had also shows it doesn't even have to be alone. You know, you can have all these people around you, but just to have that moment of quiet in your own mind, it doesn't matter what's going on around you. It's just like it's a very.

self-healing experience that you can have within yourself anywhere you are, you know, in the car at home and the shower. It really doesn't matter. Um, so I think that is something that is so important. And I think it's so amazing that that's something that you include in your story. Because, you know, I think even right there it shows this isn't about just your story. It's about helping people find themselves and their purpose as well. And I think that that can be a misconception for people. It's like even what you said of, of course there's going to be people that think like, you know, he's just sharing his story and what happened to him for his own reasons, whatever people want to say. But to me, that goes to show it. It's not even, like, your story is,

I think your personal experience and your story was your, was your drive and your, your anchor to it. But, you know, it does so much more than that. It's, it's not the story that's going to change someone's life. It's, it's you speaking out and then having these different experiences that you're giving to people throughout this that I think are really going to be fundamental and change people's lives. And, you know, I think as well, you personally had that moment after losing your wife where you were like, what's the point? So it's like, imagine if you had a opportunity where you were one of those boys, you know, those younger boys where you're sitting there and hearing something. And that could just be the message that you needed to hear in that.

moment. And thankfully, yeah, like you, I think you have always been extremely strong in your faith and everything where I think you have been so in touch with everything spiritually that you were able to get these messages, you know, and you're very open to them, which is incredible. But not everybody is like that. Not everybody has enough faith and belief that they're like, this is a message. I'm open to it and I'm going to follow it. Some people need to be sat down and hear it from another human being and be like, huh, that's what I've been asking for. And this is my message right here. And I think there's so many different aspects in life that, and different ways that people receive messages. But sometimes your voice is going to be that for people because maybe they,

they don't have that moment within themselves where they have enough time to just be silent and receive it and be open to it on their own. They need another person to encourage that. And that's okay. I think that that's what, you know, that's going to be what you're there for sometimes. And there's so many just different aspects of your story and of your experience that I think can really touch people and guide people on the path that they need to be on. And I tell people all the time, I mean, like I was telling you before we got started, there's no story that's too big or too small. I think that everyone has a story. Even if somebody doesn't have a traumatic experience, everyone has, you know, stories and experiences and life-changing events. that should be spoken about.

And I think especially men, even to this day, I think enough men don't share their story. Oh, yeah. So to hear a man share their story and get vulnerable and open up and show emotion, it's important. I think it shows other men, young men, older men, whatever it may be, that it's okay to be emotional. It's okay to speak.

It's okay to share what's happened to you and not be ashamed of it. You know, and I always tell people, you know, to break this stigma of staying silent about things that are sometimes frowned upon. I mean, even the moment that you spoke about right after your son was born and feeling that like that confusion of like, why don't I feel more? You know, that's something also that it's like some people might be scared to be honest about. But it's so many people feel that. So I think it's so important to talk about it. There's no shame and nothing wrong in, you know, having these experiences and these feelings.

I think the more we talk about it, the more normalized it is and the more that we can figure out how to fix things. Like if nobody speaks up and nobody talks about things, how are we supposed to get through it? How are we supposed to understand why these things happen or how to, you know, really understand like this complex brain that we have? And it's so interesting to me. Like I said, how many different avenues, I feel like your story could go and how many different ways it could help people. It's really incredible.

I think the, even if you're not religious, right, the silence part is how you get in touch with even who you are. Absolutely. If you don't allow yourself silence to get to know yourself. Like I think the why so many people feel so lonely even in the our modern world where like we're more connected technically I guess we're more connected than ever like this podcast is one example on social media and you know all these things that you know like I was just telling you before this I'd I'd never use TikTok but people tell them like you need to start putting some stuff on TikTok so I'd put a video here put a video there it gets like 150 views 300

interviews. On a really good day, I was like, wow, that one got a thousand views. That one's really good. And then I finally just shared a clip of me speaking to an actual different youth group is actually just a bunch of teenage girls. It was at a girls camp that they invited me to come share my story yet. And all I did was take the little clip where I had shared just the piece of where I had lost my wife and that little experience and share that. And of course, that's emotionally hooking. And then that one blows up. That one's like over 100,000 views now, which for me I'm like holy crap right you know my whole profile is like 300 views 200 views 100 views and then 100 000 views on this one you know and so just in an example of that like I just connected

with 100,000 different people but even when you have experiences like that I think so many people still feel so disconnected from people because they're not connected with themselves yeah right and if you don't have that time to be silent and still and look deeply within yourself If you can't connect with yourself, then you don't have anything to connect with other people. Absolutely. Right? In my book and the framework that I came up with that I teach was when I wrote the book, I was like there's all these particular items that I feel super passionate about teaching people that or,

and really where it came from was when I was both in the sales job and then also in my new job that I had in commercial service stuff was training some of the new employees. And so they would, either in the sales thing, I would walk them through and help them and mentor them and stuff, or in the, there's more blue collar job. They would ride with me to service calls and stuff. And I learned that a lot of times the practical knowledge that we're trying to get them to learn. Like, for example, in this job, electrical is huge. We have to understand electrical theory and electrical controls because everything runs off of electrical controls. So trying to help them understand how electrical controls work and things.

A lot of times, it's really hard for them to grasp that because there's a lot of. lot of character development that has to happen first for some weird reason that's blocking the learning process for them because they're still so disconnected with themselves so a lot of the conversations ended up happening would quickly more from like you know training technical knowledge to having conversations where I'm like hey I'm gonna I'm gonna make some assumptions real quick about your upbringing and I want you to tell me if I'm right or not and so you know, we're on this three-hour car ride to go do the service job. And I'm just telling I'm like, I'm assuming now that I've been seeing you for about a month, your relationship

with your dad was something like this or your relationship with these people or maybe you had some of these experiences and this, that, and the other. And like 95 out of 100 times I hit the nail on the head because I could see that in some people. And I don't know if that's a gift or just because I've been through kind of the same thing or not. But they're like, holy crap, how do you know that? I'm like, you, you, in how you, and how you, in how you talking how you behave. I can tell just maybe not right at first, but because I've been around you a lot, I can see some of these things. And then the conversation start talking into, well, how do we overcome that first? And then we can come back to more of the technical and all

stuff. So then as I'm writing a book, a lot of that has ended up in the book. And to bring it back to when I said a framework, I was thinking like, here's all these things that I've learned in, I guess, essentially coaching these guys on life, I guess, like life coach. these dudes that I'm trying to train and I have a bunch of these things. So I was like, how do I communicate all of that in like an easier to communicate way? Like, is there some type of an acronym I can come up with or is there some type of friend? Like, what do I do this? So I join, again, National Speakers Association, our local chapter based off of advice from Chad. And I enroll in what they have the call their Speakers Academy. And it's like weekly meetings for a little while where they're

helping you structure back end of things and all this kind of stuff. But the very first meeting I go to is like, hey, you're going to get up in front of all of us for three minutes and give us like a super short version of whatever your keynote speech is. So here we go. And I'm like, I don't even know. I have no clue. I haven't even thought about this. So then one of the other guys there was like, well, well, here, let's, you know, write down, or actually let's start typing out all these things that you want to teach that you want to talk about. And then we'll throw it in a chat GPT and see you can come up with a little system. And so we did that. And it took us like 10 or 15 minutes of like, no, that's not quite it. That's not quite it. Like tweaking in and doing all this kind of stuff. And it finally

spat went out that was pretty close. And it's the acronym is drive. And what it spat out was discovery. I can't remember the first couple of words that when I first talked about. And I've morphed it since then. But now it's discover, resolve, invest, visualize and elevate. And that's the system on how you dive in and basically how you force success in your life the way that you wanted to look. The first thing is you have to be able to make those connections with people, right? And you have to discover things about yourself to be able to do that. And you have to have stillness and quiet time with yourself to be able to do that. And I encourage everybody in the book that I write to work with God to do that, right, and how I was able to do that. And there's so

many things that you have to discover. I mean, that could be a 12-sided dice on how many different, you know, areas of life that you have to do some discovery on. But some of the big ones that I talk about is obviously discovering your strengths and weaknesses, but also the strengths and weaknesses that you don't know you have, right? And then discovering in particular what masks you wear based and what I've discovered about myself and then also the people that I've worked with is that we put these masks on and a lot of times there to hide the wounds we received when we were younger that we haven't really worked through. And we kind of put on this facade of who we would rather be rather than who we actually are. And we have to be able to pull that mask off and be actually authentic and figure out

deeper in ourselves who that is so then we can project actually who we are. And then if you're able to figure out who you are on a much deeper level like that, then you can actually have effective connection with people. Right. And then once you've discovered these things, then resolve, obviously you've got to resolve some of those, right? And develop strong resolve to keep working on that. You can't just, you know, do it once. This is the drive thing is more of a ever-evolving system, right? And once you've discovered and resolved enough, now you should be able to, if you really sit in stillness, if you're at a point in life, you're like, what do I do now? Maybe you've lost your job. Maybe you lost your spouse like I did, or maybe,

you know, had something happen. You're like, what the crap do I do now? If you can discover and resolve enough, then you get to a point where you can finally hear your soul speaking to you or God speaking to you or whatever you want to call it of a direction that you're being pulled. And I say like Simon Seneca is a pretty famous like motivational speaker guy and his big thing is like start with your why or find your why, right? And that why, like find your why kind of thing like that makes sense but it didn't resonate with me a whole lot because especially the time when I had lost my wife like my wife. Like my why was in my hand, right?

I could hold this little baby. But it still didn't answer the question for me. You know, so I was like, how do you do that? And I realized that the question, why, I guess, could be an acronym in and of itself. And that is of a question that you're trying to answer of what hails you. And in order to actually start picking up the signal of what hails you, you have to remove all of the crap in the way. All of, you have to pull the mask off. You have to, you know, do a lot of discover and resolve so that you can start to hear

what hails you and that's really discover what hails you right what direction is that and you're not going to know exactly what direction like you're telling me before like your podcast took a little bit of a shift even when you first started right it very very rarely goes exactly where you think it's going to go when you first start but you're never going to know what that is until you start moving towards it and then you start to get a better idea of what that looks like right and once you once you can actually feel a direction like this is pulling me in this general direction, then it's time to invest in yourself, like as heavy as you can, in whatever direction that is. And it doesn't matter if it's perfect or not, but as long as it's

that way, if you go that way, then you're not going to get anywhere. But as long as you're going generally that direction, it's going to work, right? And so when I change careers, I mean, that's basically what I did. I figured out the direction that was handling me at that point was security for my family and the avenue that I felt I should do that was through trade school. And I didn't know what job I was going to get, but I said, let's go. let's go get a student loan and quit this other job. So I was out of a job for a month or two and just had to make it work. You know, put myself in a do-or-dice scenario and invest it in myself.

And then the next layer of that framework, I guess, is visualize. And that's how you actually make your investment payoff and make sure that you're still staying within realm of whatever that direction is, right? Is actually visualize yourself having made it there. And there's some super, super cool things that I've learned since I lost. my wife and a lot of it resonates with me. As I mentioned, we study a lot of electrical stuff in my field of like magnets and electricity and how they're, you know, they all work together. And your mind and your heart produce an electromagnetic field. Like we've been able to measure brain waves

for decades and decades, right? That's not a new thing. We know that that happens. But there's been some studies in more recent years, particularly you could find them if you look up the Heart Math Institute, do a lot of studies on this. The electromagnetic field that your heart produces is like thousands of times stronger than the one that your mind does. And there's actually neurons in your heart, not just in your brain.

Like neurons that have a lot to do with both memory and emotion are physically in your heart, not just in your brain. And they actually talk to each other. Yeah. It's not just a one way from your mind controlling your heart, right?

And the biggest problem that I think people have is that their mind does not believe the same things that their heart does. they'll tell themselves that you know i should do this or this but then in their heart they don't believe that they can't right the way that you can start to fix that is with visualize and you actually put yourself mentally as as vividly in as much detail as possible having already met the goal and then in particular the way that you get your mind and your heart to believe the same thing and emit basically kind of the same frequency kind of thing is you intentionally feel gratitude for having made it the

on the Heart Math Institute is doing some of these studies, they found that the most stable and strong electromagnetic field that your body would put out, the particular mindset or emotion that was present when it was the strongest and most stable was authenticity. And gratitude was close behind it. And they also kind of work hand in hand

because it's hard to be grateful if you're not authentic, right? So if you're thinking, like, your body, and we can measure it with equipment. Like, it's not just a theory thing. Yeah. measurable stuff where like several feet away several feet away you can measure this electromagnetic field in this electromagnetic frequency that's coming off of your body and when you're

feeling conflict or you're feeling doubt and fear that's when those feelings get or excuse me that's when those the frequencies that your heart and your mind are putting out get distorted and dissonant and they're not stable, right? There's a lot of when those feelings are happening. And those, one of the reasons this resonated with me so much is because I had to go, in school, we had to dive into a molecular level how energy transfer happens. Because in HVAC, that's really what an HVAC technician is, is just a heat transfer scientist because we're taking heat energy from inside your house and we're packaging it and we're pumping

it outside and we're spitting it out there where we don't care if the heat energy is out there. Right? We have to understand on a molecular level, how does that work? And it happens through vibration. Because molecules, even in like a solid table or in the air, they're all moving, right? And in solid states of matter, they're even still vibrating. And there's a frequency to them. They all vibrate at the same rate.

If things vibrate differently, then they'll all, then the things that are vibrating at a different frequency will move over to a different area to be with other things that are vibrating at the same frequency. And you can, like, you can watch that happen. if like the machines like shaking all these marbles and everything will start to align right and that literally happens on a molecular level and that's how energy is transferred through that's how heat is transferred so we take heat energy that's traveling through these molecules and vibrating at a certain frequency and they bump into other molecules and that's how we transfer the energy into this package

we pump it through little copper tubing in your house and then we have a big old fan out there and those molecules bump into the air molecules heat them up and then it gets spit outside that's like really 101 there's refrigeration for you right and so as because i already understand this when i'm starting to dive deeper into this for for ourselves like is it any wonder that you can walk into a room and without even seeing and obviously there's going to be a lot of nonverbal communication like things that you see in body language and think okay of course that plays role into it but there's a whole other element people can walk into a room and immediately feel like the energy there yeah right Like there's a an argument just happened or or maybe it's the complete opposite.

Like this is a really like there's a lot of love here. I feel you know, you can just feel it. Right. And some people think that's just because of the the visual cues you're picking. I'm like, no, it's more than that. Like there's actual like the electromagnetic field that your body produces interacts with other electromagnetic fields of other people. And we know that just because of actual magnets. And we can see how those magnetic fields interact with each other.

So then you think of that from a personal point of view And it doesn't even matter if you think of this in a literal sense or a metaphorical sense Like the result is the same when you're visualizing where you're going and you're putting yourself there And especially if you're writing down in as much vivid like you're painting the picture of what it looks like once you're there Then this and this are getting on the same page right your heart and your mind are getting on the same page and you express gratitude and then that gets Your field of influence or whatever you want to call it being as strong and stable for the things that you want and other things that are conducive to that are attracted to it. Yeah, it's like creating a mind movie.

Exactly. And I believe that God has created this world with a lot of, all of the natural laws are his, like he made him. And this is how he built the world to work. And we have an opportunity, as long as he's okay with it, to partner with him a little bit on creating our own reality. Right? obviously if there's a different plan then he's in control of everything he can he can do whatever

he's going to do right but i've found that if i come up with a plan first and then i pray about it and i ask god like hey this is what i think i should do this is what i feel pretty strongly about and this is the plan that i have to go for it i would appreciate a confirmation that this is right but even if i'm even if i don't get one i'm going to go forward with it anyways and just assume that no news is good news but if i shouldn't do this then please tell me as soon as possible and i found that sometimes he lets me go down the path a little bit before he makes a correction because now i can actually see why that's the wrong way to go instead of just tell me right up front and then always wondering yeah you know what i mean but other times there have been times

like no actually that shouldn't be right and then sometimes i get a confirmation right there like no that is definitely what you should that's a good you should stick with that and other times i don't get anything and in those times that I don't get anything, like I said, I assume that's permission to go forward until I receive, until I receive correction otherwise, and sometimes it's a while before I do. And so that's how I approach it. And then the way that I think about it is that visualized and I put myself there and I make that happen. Some people call that manifesting or whatever, you know. Call it whatever you want.

It freaking works. And the last piece of that is elevate. I believe God's purpose is to bring us all back to him at some point. point, right? And if our success helps him to accomplish that, then I believe he's all for that and that he's going to put in some effort to help you with whatever that looks like, right? If that, if your purpose helps him accomplish his purposes, then you're kind of more on the same team, right? But I've noticed that the catalyst to making yourself as successful as possible, not only is the visualized part, that's super huge, but then intentionally elevating as many people as you can

along the way as you elevate yourself, right? Elevating your environment, elevating your thoughts and your emotions and your own faith, but also helping other people to do the same, then I don't know what it is about that exactly or how that works, but that just propels you so much faster in reaching your own goals and bringing other people along for the ride. So a lot of sharing my story and coming on here to do that is to try to do that, you know. Like here's this admittedly shitty situation that I've been in what I did with it from there. And now this is what I'm trying to do and try to lift as many people as I can along the way and try to at least be a good example of somebody that has been through a fire and been able to come out of it not feeling bitter and angry and just resentful towards everything.

Because unfortunately, having associated with, you know, widows and widowers is like my circle of people that I know. a lot of people in those areas from Facebook groups and other things. There's unfortunately a lot of people in those worlds, even five, 10, 15 years down the road are still. They're stuck. They're stuck. And it breaks my heart and talking to other people that have had experiences more like me that put a lot of intentional work into moving forward and healing that it takes work.

But there's light on the other side of that, but you have to go, you know, God's not going to. You have to want it to, you know, like I think, unfortunately. I think the way like our brains it's easier for us to crave this negativity and and stay stuck somewhere because that's the emotions that we become so familiar with. And I think that you have to want it for yourself to find that light and get and overcome it. But I think that for a lot of people because it takes work, they don't they don't want to deal with it. They don't want to deal with the hard emotions.

They don't want to get through it because sometimes. it's easier to stay where you are, but that's because they don't, they don't see how good it can be when you conquer it. You get through it and you can, there is always light, you know, and there is always a purpose and a reason. And it might not seem like it in those moments, you know, but there's always a, there's always a reason. And I wanted to ask you, before I forget, what was the cause of death for your wife? Oh, I don't think you ever mentioned that. I'm glad you mention that is pulmonary embolism okay which is for anybody that doesn't know is a blood clot that gets stuck in your lungs okay she uh two weeks afterwards it usually it develops in the deep

leg veins down below your knees somewhere and it did the same for her because again she's on bed risk for a long time so immobility just makes your your blood kind of sit in there more than pumping like it should be from movement makes you a little bit more at risk for blood clots being pregnant in and of itself makes a little bit more at risk for blood clots Surgery, traumatic something, makes you a higher risk for blood clots. So it's like all these things kind of compound. So they knew that there was a risk of that. And they, at the hospital, they'll have these massager things that can put on your legs to

like move your legs around and try to break up the blood so that that doesn't happen. But unfortunately, she just ended up being one of the statistics that got one, you know. And I'm glad you mentioned about the, you know, feeling like they just kind of want to stay there in that stuck mode. But what I've also learned is that a lot of people, like they want to, but they have no idea how or where. You know, they don't have, I guess, the tools on how to do that because they don't, they don't, when I tell people that there's a trumpet somewhere way off in the distance calling

you to something and they sit there and think, they're like, I don't hear that. And that's a real thing. And the reason that people can't hear that is, because there's so much stuff in front of their face that, remember, the discover and there's all they have to do on themselves, that they haven't gotten through the weeds of their own soul to be able to root that out to the point that they can actually pick up on that. And I think a lot of that does start with stillness.

I don't think people realize how simple these tools are. And that's like the most, the craziest thing because, like, yes, I think, you know, you can read books, you can read, you can do all this research and understanding. And I think a lot of times reading something, or hearing this information can be helpful, can help you break it down and understand it. But in the grand scheme of things, I really do think that it's all natural. Like all of these things are very just natural things. It's not like some crazy thing you have to do, you know, to achieve this.

It's like, and like I said, of course, reading it and understanding it and breaking it down the way that you have is extremely helpful and beneficial. And some people's brains operate in that way where they know. need to hear that to understand it to move forward. But I do think that there should be hope for people to know that we all have these tools within ourselves. I think it's just about being ready to discover these things within ourselves and to really put in the work to be the best versions of ourselves and put in the work to conquer the things we've been through, you know, kind of deep dive and get through these things that have happened to us in life. And to,

to not let them define us. I think a lot of people too, they think that what has happened to them it is something they need to identify with, but that's not the case, you know, just because we've gone through things that doesn't define who we are, that doesn't shape our personality. We have the ability to become any version of ourselves that we want to be. And I think in a way, you know, could that be viewed as a mask at some points? But that's where I think like you mentioned as well, as long as you're authentic to yourself, you know, then it's okay. You know, you can want to be and strive to be the best version of yourself. And almost, I think it kind of goes back to what you were saying as well with the visualization. You can visualize this version of yourself that you want to be

and truly become that an authentic way. You know, at first it might kind of appear as a mask because you're like, I want to be this, but I'm not this yet. But I think in a way, it's a really good way to strive to be this version of yourself that you want to be for you and for those around you. You know, the best, the best version of yourself that you can be is, is the one that puts in that work for yourself. You know, if you are good for yourself, then you're good for others. And I think that, you know, once again, you are a prime example of that. I think that you, you display that in so many different ways. And I think it's really important as well that you do kind of have this knowledge, I guess if you want to call it like scientific, you know,

where you can break it. You can break it down in a way that I think makes people understand it where it doesn't have to do with, with, I guess, a religion or anything either because I think that people can also be turned off by that. They're going to, if they don't agree with it, they're just going to shut down and be like, I don't believe this. I don't agree with it. I don't want to hear it.

But at the end of the day, no matter what you want to call it or what term you want to use, it's all. the same, you know, and that's something that I've realized. There's so many different books that I've read, whether it's like these philosophical books or books that are based on religion or books that are based on manifestation. At the end of the day, they all are saying the same thing. So whatever you want to call it, you know, at the end of the day, you have to be in stillness with yourself to find yourself and to be able to hear what's going on around you. You know, I think, and when I say that too, a lot of people don't understand they might think like physically hear it,

But sometimes it's hearing things like it's what's coming to you. Like once again, whether you want to call it God intuition or whatever, it's very much there. You know, we have all of these things. We have all these tools. And it's not these things we need to seek out. It's just it's within us if we're open to it. And I think more people need to be open to it. And I think once again, you know, besides all of that, the more people that are open

and share their stories and their experiences, I think the more people will learn about these things and want to be open with themselves and want to discover the best versions of themselves that are very much possible and out there. And something else I wanted to mention is, you know, I think a lot of times in life we might feel called to do something and we shut it down or turn away from it because we don't have the experience or the knowledge around it. But, you know, I'm not the expert on that. So why am I going to? Right. And, you know, like I was saying before, no one's an expert on anything until they do it. And once you do it and once you do it in your own way, because I don't think there's a blueprint for anything. I think that everyone, you know, you could have five people that do the same job, but they all do it differently and they all rock at it, you know, in their own way. So I think that there is no such thing as being a professional at anything until you do it and you learn what a professional looks like on your own. You know, you're able to kind of formulate.

that. And I think, of course, it's great to take different tools from other people that, you know, have the knowledge and experience. You can never have too much knowledge. You can never take too much advice or, you know, anything like that. I think that's great. But at the same time, I think you've got to give yourself some credit and be like, you know, I'm going to figure out what works for me and what doesn't. You know, you might do something, go down one path and be like, eh, it just doesn't feel right. Even though that might work for 20 other people, that doesn't mean it's going to work for you. It has to feel right to you that also goes right back to the authenticity aspect of things like do what feels right i think have an open mind have an open heart and just follow what feels good and if it doesn't

don't quit don't let it stop you but just like be open to shifting things around until you find what works for you yeah and i said the i guess maybe the more scientific background that i i share with that and i talk a lot about that in the book too like i split the book into three sections the first and my intended audience with the book is men yeah and particularly either young men that are maybe graduating high school asking the same question what do i do now basically any man that's asking the now what question right maybe they had the rug pulled out from under them like i didn't are asking the now what but in those three sections anticipating men or my audience i kind of use and the name of the book is called the overhaul fixing your mindset and driving success

i should make sure to mention that in case somebody wants to do it maybe i'll send you the Yes, I was going to say, please send me any links you want, like TikTok, book, whatever you have. We'll make sure it's all in the description for people. Below the video or whatever, it'll be there so you can find it. But in the book, I split into three sections in the first section I call Ignition. And that's where I'm explaining, like, kind of more the scientific background perspective that I have on how that stuff works. And that's what I love about it is because if you're super religious and spiritual like I am, this stuff still makes a lot of sense. or if you're not.

It still makes sense. Yeah. It still makes a lot of sense. Like in the Bible when in James one, I think, it says, where he's saying basically you need to ask in faith believing that you'll receive, nothing wavering and it will be given to you. Like is that not the same thing as asking, like visualizing yourself as having God at there and making your heart and your mind

believe the same thing to attract those things to you. Like whether God like crafts this thing and throws it through the atmosphere to give it to you, or he's given you the tools to, and he's just teaching you how to think to bring it to yourself. Either way, isn't he still answering the prayer in that way? Or if you're not religious, isn't that still just manifestation? Yeah. Right? Is that I don't really care how you think about it.

That's just how it works. Right. And that's, you have to get some things rooted out of yourself and do a lot of hard work in there to be able to do that effectively. So that your heart on your mind actually do believe the same thing. but once you work through that and you get to that point, then insane things start happening. Absolutely. The coolest stuff.

And the right people at the right time come in and, you know, you can say like, I'm manifesting all these things or God's blessing me with all these things. I think it's a perfect mix of both myself. Yeah. But, you know, that's why I'm grateful you had me on here. Of course. I love to hear your story.

It was incredible. Making it a point to like do coaching with this stuff now. Like we're, one thing my and i mentioned my mother before right that she felt pressured i guess or prompted to do this for for people um she's we actually formed a company together in lc just recently so like we don't even have a website for anything i have my website is westonbrandon brandon com for like my book and speaking and stuff but eventually we're building this little little coaching thing we call the brandon institute that's our last name brandon so we've owned brandon

Institute and what I'm currently trying to put together, this is another thing that just recently I felt pretty strongly prompted to do and it's freaking me out, honestly. But again, all the right people are coming in to make this work. Obviously, I want to help as many people as I can who are going through experiences similar to me where they had the rug pulled out from under them. They need resources to help because some of the things that would have helped a ton had I known to look for them or known that they were available or had they been offered to me was things like someone to just sit and go through all the paperwork with me. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like all the insurance, all, like there's so, so, so much paperwork. There was so hard to keep track of. And then also like finances.

Like my finances weren't terrible, but I didn't have a lot of things super organized. And then when that stuff goes like blows everything up and it's like, if I could have had somebody sit down with me and like over, I guess if you're going off the name of my book, overhaul my finances kind of thing, you know, and overhaul so many things.

and then someone to come in and just clean up my whole house, like deep clean everything. If I would have paid something, I didn't even think of that. Yeah. You know, like, yes, there's people to do that.

But when you're in it, you don't think about it because your mind is so occupied. It's like, how can we, how can we put together this one big package where we offer, obviously, everything that I teach and help people to,

to dive into themselves and learn how to do this and figure out what hails them and what direction to invest in themselves. And I've got the guy that actually did my therapy, I was super, super blessed when I got it. He was a neighbor of my parents and owns his own practice. And for the first couple of months, he did it for free. And then I paid him for a little while to continue going.

So he's coming in and working with me to be kind of the clinical background. If I have people come in that need help with this, like, we're going to be doing retreats for guys to come and like dive into that drive framework like super deep and get rid of all the distractions and work on that. And then I got another guy that's a life coach that I actually went to a men's retreat that he was presenting at. and it was phenomenal. That dude's story is crazy insane. Like, I'm going to tell you need to go on Devere's podcast. And he's done podcast interviews about it. Like, he'll tell you first.

He was a, he's like, I can't remember the words that he used, but when he was given this thing, he's like, I used to be a dirt bag and all this kind of, like, I had multiple affairs of my wife and I was like just a terrible, terrible person and had to go through like recovery for sex addiction and like all this kind of stuff. And his wife's still with him. And now they go around, and now they're like motivational speaking.

And like doing, and just their story is so freaking cool. And so he said, he's like, yeah, absolutely. I'm in on this to help, you know, maybe come presenter or help walk guys through this, like deep self-discovery stuff. And then like the whole home cleaning, like there's a neighbor of mine that just started her whole house cleaning thing. And I was like, dude, like, I need your help to, like, throw a value ad for in for guys that want to jump in on this.

So like, all of these pieces of things that I wish I would have had, I'm trying to gather and put into one package in addition to, like doing these big multi-day retreats and having all these guys come together and just help like men that have the that were just like me that were successful that had it all together had the money had the family had the world you know whatever yeah and then all of a sudden no like blows up if there was one place that they could go just be like overhaul everything as quickly as possible and fix as much as we can then that's what I'm trying to put together like how can we do as much as possible in a short amount of time as possible and put that all together in one thing. So I don't have it all put together

yet. But I started a little Facebook group and I'm like, so like trying to do till like some people don't need to go that deep. They just need a little pep talk or something like. So I'm like in the Facebook group, like maybe we'll do, you know, a couple, maybe a couple times a month, they'll get on there for a couple hours and just like take them through kind of what I did with the boys, you know, take them through the drive-thering, have them to, you know, have some stillness with themselves and figure some things out. And if that's all they need, then great. Cool. But if there's anybody in there like, dude, Like, do you have more? Like, do you have, like, is their coach or something?

Like, yeah, we have that. And that's what we're trying to build is, like, basically, put in some tiered things for people that want to dive into it deeper, should they feel the need to. And so hopefully by the time this podcast publishes, I'll actually have something tangible that I can offer people for that. And it would be cool. But that's what we're working on now.

The book just came out. And hopefully we'll be traveling around sharing this story a lot more and a little of other places. I love it. Seriously. And you did an incredible job. Really. Thank you. Thank you so much for wanting to come on here. I appreciate it. And, you know, like I said, I think I always, obviously my platform, I feel like I have a lot of women. But I always love, whenever I get men reaching out, I'm like, bring it on, come on. Because it's like it's more rare, you know, to hear a man just get vulnerable and open up and kind of share what they've been through and how they felt. And I just think that, you know, even if men, I don't think it's so much even.

that they are scared to do it at all. I think it's just more so like they might think like, eh, what's the point? You know, like, who is it really going to help? But it really, it helps so many people. And there, even if there's silent viewers or listeners, there are probably so many people as well that they, you might not get that direct response of like, you saved my life or you help me, but you still did, you know, even if you, and that's, that's, I think, a really important aspect as well of everything. And I appreciate it so much that you wanted to come on here. And like I said you really did an incredible job you should be very proud of yourself thank you yeah men men don't talk about it and i think it's just because this we're not as natural about that women seem to be a

little bit more community like emotionally connect with each other and a lot of men are just like just freaking hardcore you know kind of thing and when when we finally get into an environment where there's some brotherhood and we can be vulnerable with each other and safe yeah and do that then amazing things happen like i mentioned the guy that went and spoke that was at a men's retreat for three days on diving deep into yourself and like dudes were bawling all over the place and it was when you first show up and people are hugging each other like people like you go to shake their hand they're like no give me a hug yeah it's incredible to see that this shift in in the perspective of things and then they go for a couple days and then by the end of that like we're all freaking you know

yeah tight yeah yeah i love it texting each other all the time and stuff so it's it's important though it builds a community and it it's important for people to feel like they have this safe environment if they need it, you know? Because it, like we said, the world is so fast-paced. I think it's easy to feel like, yeah, nobody understands, nobody gets me, or what's the point of talking about it? But I think that when you find that and you discover that community and that there's actually people that get it and that can relate to you, I think it does just create this incredible experience in so many different aspects. So I think you're doing something incredible incredible for sure. Thanks. I want to give those guys that retreat that I went to a shadow

because they go around other countries. Their organization is called Warrior Heart. I can't remember if it's like dot org or dot com. I was going to say, any resources, anything you want, send it to me and I'll put it all in there. Yeah. I'm not on staff with them at all.

I just went to one of them and I was like, this is freaking changed my life. And the next one, I'm like, I'm dragging my dad to it. Oh, I love it. So if there's any men out there, I guess in the spirit of men's mental health awareness, that if there's some Christian men out there

that feel like they've left their heart behind somewhere and need to find it again, those guys, that retreat is, there's nothing better for that. And then the retreats and things that we're going to try to put together on like the drive thing that obviously includes some of that, but it's going to go deeper into like investing yourself and actually get traction and start moving and fixing some things that might include financial or career, whatever, then we're going to be putting together something like that. So I'll have links you can click on and, you know, it'll be awesome. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much again. Seriously, I appreciate it.