July 18, 2025 • 30 mins
The moment Jeff Acheson's daughter Amber passed away two years ago, his world changed forever. What followed wasn't just grief, but a powerful transformation that's touching countless young lives today.
Through vulnerability and courage, Jeff illuminates the critical distinction between diagnosed mental illness and the broader spectrum of mental health challenges: self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth issues that can silently devastate lives while appearing outwardly functional. His story provides a wake-up call for parents, educators, and anyone who works with young people: sometimes it's not just kids being teenagers.
After Amber's passing, Jeff partnered with Ruling Our Experiences (ROX) to create AMBER's ACES—Advocates and Champions for Expansion—raising $100,000 in its first year to help middle and high school girls develop healthy relationships and strong self-confidence. At $100 per participant for the 12-week program, that's 1,000 young lives potentially changed.
Join us for this deeply moving conversation about turning pain into purpose and discovering how, sometimes, a person's greatest impact comes after they're gone.
Guest Bio:
After 46 years in financial services, investment management, and retirement planning, I’ve chosen to focus the most strategic chapter of my career on entities and professionals I deeply respect—law firms, lawyers, and lobbyists. Our shared commitment to precision, discipline, and excellence makes serving the legal community both a professional and personal mission.
As CEO of the Advanced Strategies Group (ASG), I’m leading a targeted effort to modernize retention and retirement strategies in the legal industry. Too many plans offered them still follow one-size-fits-all templates that ignore the complexity and sophistication today’s legal professionals require. That’s why I developed the Law Firm Benefits and Planning Platform. These solutions are powered by The Attorney’s Edge, our virtual-first planning platform, and ASG MAPS—an investment strategy framework built to optimize 401(k) outcomes for high-balance participants.
I hold seven professional designations as validation of my commitment to being a trusted authority in my field, and I’m a past president of both National Association of Plan Advisors and the American Retirement Association. I also co-authored the NAPA Nonqualified Plan Consultant (NQPC) designation curriculum and serve as a consultant to my peers in this space.
ASG’s history was built beyond the legal sector, but today we’re fully invested in serving it—offering a sophisticated alternative to the status quo.
The focus of my personal life is on pursuing my definition of Ikigai and helping others find theirs in loving memory of my daughter Amber, who couldn't find hers.
Connect with Jeff Acheson:
Amber's ACE's for ROX, LinkedIn
Connect with Theresa and Ivana:
Theresa, True Strategy Consultants: tsc-consultants.com
LinkedIn @treeconti, Insta @tscconsultants
Ivana, Courageous Being: courageousbeing.com
LinkedIn @ivipol, Insta @courbeing
SITP team, Step Into The Pivot: stepintothepivot.com
LinkedIn @step-into-the-pivot, YouTube @StepIntoThePivot
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for being here.
This episode is being broughtto you in two parts.
Let's dive into part one, ourepisode.
Hello everybody and welcome totoday's episode of Step Into the
Pivot.
As you know, we have wonderfulguests on this show with big
stories, and today is nodifferent.
I'm so honored and glad andgrateful to welcome to our show
(00:26):
Mr Jeffrey goes by, jeff Echeson, a really impactful and
influential industry leader.
Jeff, we know you from theretirement industry space.
You have spent over fourdecades as a respected again
that word leader in financialservices in general.
(00:46):
You are very focused on guidingall kinds of retirement and
investment strategies.
I know you do that with a lotof purpose and today you're here
with us to talk about well,change, but not when it comes to
modernizing retirement plans.
(01:06):
I know that you've beenrecently spending also a lot of
time particularly focused onlegal professionals as the CEO
of the Advanced Strategies Group.
But again, the innovation we'regoing to talk about here is
more internal because, as youwill tell us and I'll let Teresa
introduce you a little bit morejournal.
Because, as you will tell usand I'll let Teresa introduce
(01:28):
you a little bit more your mostpowerful pivot came not from
business, but from matterscloser to the heart.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, awesome.
Thanks, jeff, for being here.
We really appreciate it and Ithink we're just going to kind
of jump right in.
But I know it's probably beenright around two years in 2023
that you have said that youbecame a heartbroken dad for
life.
We really want this to be aboutyour story and about Amber's
story, so we're going to kind oflet you tell the story as you
want to tell it, about yourdaughter, amber.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, thank you.
And yes, it has been almostexactly two years, because the
anniversary of my daughter'spassing Amber, who's her name
was this Saturday, two years ago, and pretty much changed the
perspective of where we've been,where you go and those kinds of
(02:22):
things.
And you can't go through thatkind of traumatic experience and
not have some degree of changeone way or another from there.
I think the other thing thatcame into play because we were
very open about what my familywent through with my daughter I
(02:42):
guess for lack of a better termmade other people comfortable or
gave them permission to comeforward and reach out, because
our story is horrific and all ofthose things that we dealt with
.
But we're not the only ones.
There's lots and lots of peoplethat are dealing with those
kinds of issues we'll talk aboutand the impact of death and
(03:06):
mortality and all of the thingsthat play into that.
So I have probably, teresa,over the last two years, had
close to 100 people that havereached out to me in one fashion
or another that felt empoweredto say, hey, can you help me
understand what I'm goingthrough or what I'm dealing with
(03:28):
, or just reaching out alongthose lines, and I always say
we're all in the same storm,just some of us are in different
boats, meaning that some peopleare going faster, some are
slower, some are going incircles, some aren't moving at
all, because everybody processesdifferently.
In our case, my daughter Amberdied two years ago.
(03:50):
She was 37.
It was a combination and aculmination of a lot of
different things.
Ultimately it was healthrelated, as I'll explain in a
minute.
It started with mental healthissues, clear back as far as
middle school, that inretrospect you look back and say
(04:12):
no, she's just being a teenager, she's just being a kid or
temperamental, but it was reallymore than that.
Then, as time went on, againyou think you're on top of
things going on in yourhousehold, but not always.
But her case, alcohol becamethe self-medicating drug of
choice, nothing ever more exoticthan that.
(04:35):
It wasn't heroin.
Some people have sufferedthrough those crack.
I mean, everybody has adifferent horror story that
invaded their house.
Ours was plain old alcoholism,driven by vodka in that
particular case.
And that's a sneaky one becauseyou don't always catch it.
Sometimes it's used on purposeand I've given some talks in
(04:59):
some schools about my daughterAmber and what we went through.
It was kind of interesting.
I've had young ladies come up tome after and when I say young
ladies I mean middle school tofreshmen, sophomores, that kind
of thing that say that in theirhousehold it's the alcohol
that's not the problem, or it isthe problem it's not the hard
(05:20):
drugs or the things that get onTV a lot of times, because it's
so socially accepted for alcoholto be around and some people
just do not have the physicalcharacteristics to manage it,
address it, process it and itgets hold of them.
And it's just as many timesthey're no more equipped to
(05:42):
fight it off than any otherdisease that would come along.
But the reason I keep talkingabout it and you know, teresa, I
had a little bit of a twinge oftearing the scab off a minute
ago when you said abrokenhearted dad.
So it's been two years, butit's in my family or my
household.
(06:02):
It's still kind of likeyesterday as we go forward.
And you know time they say youknow, heals all wounds, but it
does not fill all holes.
When you have a hole left bysomeone's passing, it's there
permanently from there, andsometimes it's not as painful or
as hurtful, but it never reallygoes away hurtful but it never
(06:27):
really goes away.
And one of the things that I'mdetermined to do, and I'm very
much into certain differentphilosophies, even apart and
aside from religion, and you'llhear me talk about Ikigai,
you'll hear me talk about Kaizenand some of the Japanese
philosophy, and I'm a sucker fora good metaphor or analogy,
even though I don't know thedifference between the two from
there.
But there's a saying it is youdie twice Once when you
(06:52):
physically leave this world, andthe second time is when the
last person on earth mentionsyour name from there.
So in my daughter's case, Ialways look at it she's not gone
, she's just not here.
Daughter's case, I always lookat it, she's not gone, she's
just not here.
And if I've got anything to doabout it, it's going to be a
very, very long time before hername's not mentioned again.
(07:12):
And that's part of the problemthat we all run into is how do
you process you know, grief, andhow do you work around that
hole that's been left in yourheart.
And for me, which is differentthan my wife and it's different
from my son-in-law and mygrandson and those things, I had
to get that the energy of griefout of me I've got.
(07:34):
I had to use it, I had to putit to work, doing something from
there.
So in retrospect, going back,you know, as my daughter's
progression went along andeverything on the outside she
was happy, she was bubbly, shewas a great person, people loved
her, all those things.
But inside she did not see thesame person that they saw.
(07:57):
And the old saying is thebiggest battle every day is the
person you look at in the mirrorand how do you feel about that
person and do you like who yousee and where it's going.
So she always dealt with.
And I'll go back to differencebetween mental health and mental
illness.
(08:18):
We have a focus a lot of times,particularly in the healthcare
community, on how do you treatvery diagnosed mental illnesses
and medications and so on and soforth.
But mental health is far morepervasive of an issue to deal
with.
When you get into self-esteemand self-worth and imposter
(08:40):
syndrome and confidence and whatam I capable of and how do I be
my own person and control myown destiny and feel good about
that, no matter what comes at mealong those lines.
And in Amber's case, in highschool she was an athlete, went
through college butunfortunately as part of this
(09:05):
mental health issue there werethings going on that we didn't
see on the outside, nor didanybody else, because she was
happy and carefree and bubblyand those things.
But when she was alone that'snot who she was and that's where
the alcohol came in to help herquiet her spirit or quiet her
soul and those kinds of things.
(09:26):
But her body was not built totolerate alcohol.
So that led to eventuallycirrhosis of the liver at a
relatively young age.
And then, unfortunately, inthat progression of things,
there was a couple ofrelationships.
One was a marriage that justweren't healthy for her.
(09:46):
So you know kind of picking thewrong guys to be involved with,
and that didn't help at all.
From there the good news isI've got a wonderful, wonderful
grandson that came out of one ofthose relationships.
But you know she paid the priceof it, and not physical abuse
at all, but mental and emotionalinteractions that just fed into
(10:11):
that self doubt and low selfesteem and then that compounded
the.
You know the self medicatingtype of thing and and you can
talk and coach and and my umEarly days back when I was a
girls fast pitch softball coachand we had one of the better
teams in the state of Ohio andwe recruited from all over and I
(10:35):
coached my daughter on a team.
But I love that coaching aspectso much I even coached after she
was done playing and tookanother round of girls through
the system from about 14, 15 upto their 20s from there.
But I learned some interestinglessons there that I look back
and are applicable to mydaughter in particular, and I
(10:58):
always had one of those that Ihad former players that helped
me coach.
I didn't have other dads as myassistant coaches and those kind
of things.
And I remember distinctly andI've told this story many, many,
many times and I never get anywomen argue with me about it, so
I guess it still remains true.
But we had a tournament we werein and there was probably 60
(11:18):
teams in the tournament and wegot all the way to the
championship game and we lostfrom there and we went over to
sign.
The girls are down and they'rekind of, some of them are crying
and it was a big deal fromthere.
And we went over to sign.
The girls are down and they'rekind of some of them are crying
and it was.
It was a big deal from thereand my two assistant coaches
were former players of mine andI said, you know, I need, I
think it's time to have the talkbecause we had another big
(11:40):
tournament the next week andthey go.
They laughed again it's timefor the talk because they'd
heard it before when they wereplaying from there.
So I went up and now they'resitting there in the ground and
remember they're holdingbaseball bats.
They could beat me at any timethey wanted to from there.
I said you know, I think theproblem is you.
You girls need to be more likeboys.
And all of a sudden they wasnobody was crying and nobody's
(12:02):
looking at the ground.
They're glaring at me at thatpoint, waiting for okay, where
are this?
Way?
They said let me tell you howboys work.
We'll do 10 things and bemiserable, 9 out of 10 times
terrible, and we'll get it rightone time and we'll talk about
it for 30 or 40 years.
Now how good we were on thatone given day, way back when I
(12:22):
said you girls, we had 60 teams,we got to the final two, but
you have a tendency to do 10things, do nine of them
exceptionally well I meanstellar and you're focused on
the one time.
We didn't win.
We didn't follow through.
I said we got to number two outof 60.
You should be happy andcelebrate the progress.
(12:44):
Let's celebrate where we got to.
And then there was a proverbialyeah, boys suck, they're stupid,
all that kind of thing, which Iwas relieved because, again,
they had baseball bats.
But I think my daughter was avery, very sensitive soul from
that and everybody is wireddifferently and she was wired
(13:05):
differently from the day she wasborn, being a bit of a colicky
baby and grew out of that.
But one story I tell a lot toois she was working in high
school in a fast food restaurantand working in the window and
you know typical high schooltype job for a young lady or
young man in that situation anda group of boys in a car came
(13:27):
through and their order gotmessed up and they were kind of
the cool kids in the school, youknow type thing and just
berated her about how stupid shewas and the people that worked
there to screw up a simple fastfood order.
And she's so dumb that you knowthat's the.
She's already reached thepinnacle of what her career
opportunities are going to beand all of that.
(13:49):
And I remember getting a callfrom her right after that, just
in tears and saying you know whydo they say things like that,
so mean, and that was so hurtful, and you don't believe they.
You don't believe that, do you?
Don't believe they're right?
And it was just, you know, soulcrushing.
And if fathers could killwithout going to prison.
It'd probably be a differentpath for me in life from that
(14:10):
point.
But you know, I always told mygrandson and nephews don't be
boys like that, and there's awhole saying of part of what we
do about with my daughter'smemory is, you know, kindness
does matter and be kind, andI'll come back to that here in a
minute.
But anyway, as time went on, sheself-medicated.
Fortunately she finally met awonderful guy.
(14:32):
They got married, great guy,still part of our family.
But we were so far down thepath and, as I like to say, that
, on-ramp to the highway of pain, once you're on that on-ramp
it's just hard to get back offof that particular highway.
On ramp, it's just hard to getback off of that particular
highway.
So the cirrhosis of the livercame up.
(14:53):
We were trying to get a livertransplant and she had trouble
staying, you know, clean, as Ilike to say.
So it kept bumping you off thelist and then, unfortunately,
she developed lupus that tookout her kidneys.
So now we've got a double organthing going on.
And then at the very end, againbecause of alcohol, she had
(15:13):
tripped and hit her head and weended up being in the hospital
and I was there for literallyfour months every day, 12 hours
a day, because she had two brainbleeds.
I had to take off a piece ofher skull to do the brain
operation.
So now we've got three organsworking against us in terms of
kidney failure and dialysis, thecirrhosis of the liver, the
(15:36):
brain issues, and then finally,two years, they just came to me
in the hospital and said we'vegot to make some hard decisions.
It's just, you're not going towin this game from there.
And so what are we going to do?
Because I had the powers ofattorney to make the decisions,
because my son-in-law, forobvious emotional reasons, was
(16:00):
just not in a place to do that,and so we made the decisions
that we had to make and we endedup in hospice and, as I said,
the last day of her life I wentin and I really didn't let
anybody else go with me in thatcase because I knew what the
indelible impact that would haveon emotions and memories and
(16:23):
those kinds of things.
But when I went in and I it'skind of you know, cosmic,
heavenly scent, whatever thehospice nurses, which are angels
on earth.
I've got such a respect fornurses, and particularly
hospital, hospice nurses as well.
But they were getting mydaughter ready for what
(16:45):
everybody kind of felt was thelast day, and I had to kind of
sit outside the curtains as theygot her ready, because at this
point she was in afentanyl-induced coma.
And that's one of the things Italk about.
Whether it's alcohol or it'ssocial media, or it's fentanyl
or it's guns or whatever, it mayhave to be used properly
(17:08):
they're wonderful, wonderfulthings.
Used improperly they'll killyou.
From that point, so the onlything that kept her from a very
painful, miserable dying processwas the two liter bag of
fentanyl on a drip.
From that point, so for thelast four days that was just
letting her body shut downwithout excruciating.
(17:31):
You know pain.
But when they pulled back thecurtain she had a nightgown on
and the nightgown across it saidyou know, kindness matters.
And then you have thoseflashbacks to bad relationships,
to working in the fast foodrestaurant, to whatever it may
happen to be with people.
I learned and cemented in mybeing if you will, you don't
(17:54):
know that day what kind of daythey're having, what kind of
life they're leading, what kindof relationship you're in.
You may be the last nice wordthat ever got sent to them and
it reminded me I was alwaysdoing this podcast.
(18:17):
Today and I got on the elevator, uh, in my building this this
morning and, uh, there was anurse, uh, going to work and and
, um, I knew that because itregistered nurse on her thing.
Not that intuitive from there.
I said, but I said, I thought Isaid I want to thank you for,
you know, being a nurse.
I said I know how hard that jobis and I know what it's done
(18:38):
for my family, so I just wantyou to know I appreciate you.
And she looked at me likestunned I mean looking down at
her phone and actually had tolook up and talk to somebody but
it was like wow, and I justwalked away.
I wasn't looking for aconversation or an interaction,
I just wanted to leave her withsomething where kindness matters
as you went forward, her withsomething where you know,
(19:02):
kindness matters as you wentforward.
So then, when you know Amberdid and did pass away.
And then, coming back to what amI going to do with this, I
contacted our local communityfoundation and I said, look, I
got to do something with thisgrief and this energy I have and
I can't just let this be theend.
That's just not who I am andit's not what I'm going to do
(19:22):
with it, and everybody in myfamily will process the way they
need to process and do whatthey want to do, but this is not
.
This can't be that way fromthat point.
So they connected me withruling our experiences and I met
with Lisa Hinkelmann, who's thefounder of it, a PhD from Ohio
State that worked a lot inwomen's crisis hotlines and
(19:45):
helplines and all those kinds ofthings, and her research had
boiled it down to these issuesfor women in particular.
You can't start addressing themsolely in 20s and 30s and 40s.
You've got to get to thoseyoung ladies in their middle
school, early high school years,because the environment we're
(20:07):
in today, particularlypost-COVID, is destroying young
people, particularly girls, withpeer pressure and social media
and just all those things comingto be, and that's their whole
program of getting in theseschools and teaching skills and
how to have good relationships,how to have good peer
(20:27):
relationships, how to have goodjob skills and all those kind of
things.
So I said, ok, I want to getinvolved.
I don't know what I can do, butI'm going to do something and
I'm going to try to do reallythree things.
One raise awareness thatsometimes it's just not kids
being teenagers.
There's underlying issues therethat you need to be aware of
(20:50):
and get a hold of and thinkthrough and talk through and
don't walk away from it, becausemost of the time everybody will
work their way through it, butthere's going to be some that we
don't.
So you got to get through themand I'll kind of close later
with a story about that.
And then, number two, I'm goingto raise awareness.
Number two I know a lot ofpeople I'm fortunate to have a
(21:11):
bit of a platform that I can getout there and so we raised
about $100,000 and some thousanddollars in that first year.
And in this program with ROCS,which is the acronym for Ruling
Our Experiences, it takes $100to put one of these young ladies
through their 12-week program.
So it's not a crazy expensivething from there.
(21:33):
It's usually paid for by theschool as part of their
appropriations.
But as we all know, schools arecutting back and they're
looking for funding from thosedifferent things.
So we kind of created thescholarship approach, if you
will, because 100,000 divided by100, we could put a lot of
young girls through thatparticular program.
(21:53):
So my friends across theindustry and my family life and
I'm so grateful to all of themwho wrote checks, sent money and
got involved in this.
And the third thing I'm goingto do is try and raise advocates
for you, because I know a lotof kick-ass women and guys but
women across the country that asI tell this story and I have
(22:16):
people call me identify withAmber and they identify what she
went through and they made itthrough.
But sometimes I've found inhearing stories they haven't
made it all the way through.
They're still flashing back andthey're still carrying that.
I always kind of say.
Life gives you rocks and youcan put those rocks in.
(22:40):
There's no acronym of rocks.
I used to say it was R-O-C-K-S.
But you can put them in abackpack and carry them through
your life and they weigh youdown and slow you down, or you
can take the rocks out and throwthem across the stream of
difficulties and get to theother side much lighter and more
capable of continuing on yourjourney.
(23:00):
From that standpoint, but I'vehad so many men and women who
have come up to me and said I'm30, 40, 50.
One person was 70 years old.
He said my wife is stilldealing with those kinds of
self-esteem and confidenceissues.
And he goes, she's 72 years oldand it's still an issue in our
(23:23):
household from that point intime.
So I just knew I was on theright track from there and then
I along that way had done, butalways have been but Ikigai,
which if you do some reading inthat is really finding your
purpose in life and it's yourdefined purpose, and there's
(23:45):
books on it you can read.
I've recommended a couple ofthem.
There's one book Ikigai forTeens.
Whenever I would talk aboutAmber's program.
I would pass that out and giveit to the girls and put a note
in there that Amber and I wouldbe cheering them on, even though
we may never see them again,just so they know somewhere out
there they got a friend that'scaring about them and looking
(24:07):
forward to them from thatstandpoint as well.
We worked with the folks at ROXor Ruling Our Experience, which
is based in Columbus, ohio, andthey are trying to expand
nationwide.
They've got chapters throughoutthe country, but not all over
the country.
They created AMBER's ACES forRocks.
(24:29):
What ACES stands for isAdvocates and Champions for
Expansion.
What we're really trying to dois one raise awareness.
I'll keep ripping the scab off,I'll keep telling the story,
I'll keep getting emotional andI've had people come up to me
that have said I so appreciateyou not hesitating or being
(24:54):
ashamed or being apologeticabout your daughter's issue.
She suffered from mental healthissues and alcoholism.
But if we don't talk about it,it never gets fixed, it never
gets addressed.
So it's painful every time,it's emotional every time, but
I'm going to keep tearing thescab off and keep talking about
it and that's where we'll avoidthat second death of Amber,
(25:17):
where she's not mentionedoutside of the family anymore.
And to kind of wrap up thislong-winded, run-on sentence
that I'm pretty good at doingfrom that point, I had it at her
funeral and I had so manywonderful colleagues in the
industry that showed up that youdidn't expect and flew in from
(25:40):
Phoenix or flew in from Chicago.
I'm like, what are you doinghere from there?
But this is before we even gotrolling on with what had
happened along those particularlines.
But I told a story about whatwe're trying to do and the story
is that and some people haveheard it, some people haven't is
the story of the starfish andthe young lady.
(26:04):
There's an old man not me atthis point, but an old man
decided to take a walk on thebeach.
He lived up on the bluffs andhe came down the steps onto the
beach and the tide had come inand the tide had gone out and
all these starfish werebasically stranded on the beach,
on the sand, and as the daywent on, the sun was basically
going to bake them and theywould all die from that point.
(26:25):
So there's a very small girlout there picking up the
starfish and throwing them backinto the ocean, one at a time.
Then the old man approached herand said young lady, what are
you?
You're wasting your time.
Look up and down the beach,there's thousands and thousands
of these starfish.
You can't save them all.
What you're doing doesn'tmatter.
(26:47):
And he kept walking and heheard the young girl mumble
behind him and he turned aroundand thought she was being
disrespectful and said what did?
you say and she picked upanother one and threw it into
the water and she goes.
It mattered to that one.
So I think the real key is withthe story we're trying to do
with Amber's Aces for Rocks.
(27:08):
I don't know that will changethe world, will change the
course of modern history, butevery girl that we can get into
that program it may make adifference in the trajectory of
her life, her career, herrelationships.
So, as a couple of my hugesupporters within the industry
Nicole Corning in Phoenix orAaron Hall in Los Angeles, who
(27:31):
have worked to open up Rock'schapters, or D Mayerhofer with
SRP, who's been wonderfullysupportive, hoffer with SRP,
who's been wonderfullysupportive you know we all have
a theme of.
You know we're saving as manystarfish as we can, you know,
one at a time as they go along.
So I think we all need apurpose in life, which is what
Ikigai is.
But it can't be all businessand sometimes it's not all
(27:55):
personal.
But in this case, like I said,amber is not here but she's not
gone.
I work for her and she wasnever able to find her ikigai in
life and my family talks aboutit a lot.
You know, sometimes,unfortunately, someone's life
purpose isn't discovered untilthey're after they're gone.
(28:18):
So she continues on and livesthrough all of us and what we're
trying to do and I'm suresomewhere somehow she's looking
down and very proud of her now,of what she has accomplished in
helping other people, becausethat's really all she wanted to
do while she was here.
Unfortunately, maybe her storyhad to be a bigger, different
(28:40):
story and she couldn't be hereto share in it.
So we try to find comfort andsolace in that as we move
forward.
So that's kind of my pivot,where it came over the last I
wouldn't say two years when shepassed two years ago.
That was a culmination of a lotof things over a lot of years,
(29:01):
but we've just tried to turn itinto lessons of evolution and
lessons of learning and just sayhow can we leave the world a
better place, one starfish at atime as we go forward.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Please join us on our next episode for the end of
Saving the Starfish.
Thank you for being here.
This episode is being broughtto you in two parts.
Let's dive into part one, ourepisode.
Hello everybody and welcome totoday's episode of Step Into the
Pivot.
As you know, we have wonderfulguests on this show with big
stories, and today is nodifferent.
I'm so honored and glad andgrateful to welcome to our show
(00:26):
Mr Jeffrey goes by, jeff Echeson, a really impactful and
influential industry leader.
Jeff, we know you from theretirement industry space.
You have spent over fourdecades as a respected again
that word leader in financialservices in general.
(00:46):
You are very focused on guidingall kinds of retirement and
investment strategies.
I know you do that with a lotof purpose and today you're here
with us to talk about well,change, but not when it comes to
modernizing retirement plans.
(01:06):
I know that you've beenrecently spending also a lot of
time particularly focused onlegal professionals as the CEO
of the Advanced Strategies Group.
But again, the innovation we'regoing to talk about here is
more internal because, as youwill tell us and I'll let Teresa
introduce you a little bit morejournal.
Because, as you will tell usand I'll let Teresa introduce
(01:28):
you a little bit more your mostpowerful pivot came not from
business, but from matterscloser to the heart.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, awesome.
Thanks, jeff, for being here.
We really appreciate it and Ithink we're just going to kind
of jump right in.
But I know it's probably beenright around two years in 2023
that you have said that youbecame a heartbroken dad for
life.
We really want this to be aboutyour story and about Amber's
story, so we're going to kind oflet you tell the story as you
want to tell it, about yourdaughter, amber.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, thank you.
And yes, it has been almostexactly two years, because the
anniversary of my daughter'spassing Amber, who's her name
was this Saturday, two years ago, and pretty much changed the
perspective of where we've been,where you go and those kinds of
(02:22):
things.
And you can't go through thatkind of traumatic experience and
not have some degree of changeone way or another from there.
I think the other thing thatcame into play because we were
very open about what my familywent through with my daughter I
(02:42):
guess for lack of a better termmade other people comfortable or
gave them permission to comeforward and reach out, because
our story is horrific and all ofthose things that we dealt with
.
But we're not the only ones.
There's lots and lots of peoplethat are dealing with those
kinds of issues we'll talk aboutand the impact of death and
(03:06):
mortality and all of the thingsthat play into that.
So I have probably, teresa,over the last two years, had
close to 100 people that havereached out to me in one fashion
or another that felt empoweredto say, hey, can you help me
understand what I'm goingthrough or what I'm dealing with
(03:28):
, or just reaching out alongthose lines, and I always say
we're all in the same storm,just some of us are in different
boats, meaning that some peopleare going faster, some are
slower, some are going incircles, some aren't moving at
all, because everybody processesdifferently.
In our case, my daughter Amberdied two years ago.
(03:50):
She was 37.
It was a combination and aculmination of a lot of
different things.
Ultimately it was healthrelated, as I'll explain in a
minute.
It started with mental healthissues, clear back as far as
middle school, that inretrospect you look back and say
(04:12):
no, she's just being a teenager, she's just being a kid or
temperamental, but it was reallymore than that.
Then, as time went on, againyou think you're on top of
things going on in yourhousehold, but not always.
But her case, alcohol becamethe self-medicating drug of
choice, nothing ever more exoticthan that.
(04:35):
It wasn't heroin.
Some people have sufferedthrough those crack.
I mean, everybody has adifferent horror story that
invaded their house.
Ours was plain old alcoholism,driven by vodka in that
particular case.
And that's a sneaky one becauseyou don't always catch it.
Sometimes it's used on purposeand I've given some talks in
(04:59):
some schools about my daughterAmber and what we went through.
It was kind of interesting.
I've had young ladies come up tome after and when I say young
ladies I mean middle school tofreshmen, sophomores, that kind
of thing that say that in theirhousehold it's the alcohol
that's not the problem, or it isthe problem it's not the hard
(05:20):
drugs or the things that get onTV a lot of times, because it's
so socially accepted for alcoholto be around and some people
just do not have the physicalcharacteristics to manage it,
address it, process it and itgets hold of them.
And it's just as many timesthey're no more equipped to
(05:42):
fight it off than any otherdisease that would come along.
But the reason I keep talkingabout it and you know, teresa, I
had a little bit of a twinge oftearing the scab off a minute
ago when you said abrokenhearted dad.
So it's been two years, butit's in my family or my
household.
(06:02):
It's still kind of likeyesterday as we go forward.
And you know time they say youknow, heals all wounds, but it
does not fill all holes.
When you have a hole left bysomeone's passing, it's there
permanently from there, andsometimes it's not as painful or
as hurtful, but it never reallygoes away hurtful but it never
(06:27):
really goes away.
And one of the things that I'mdetermined to do, and I'm very
much into certain differentphilosophies, even apart and
aside from religion, and you'llhear me talk about Ikigai,
you'll hear me talk about Kaizenand some of the Japanese
philosophy, and I'm a sucker fora good metaphor or analogy,
even though I don't know thedifference between the two from
there.
But there's a saying it is youdie twice Once when you
(06:52):
physically leave this world, andthe second time is when the
last person on earth mentionsyour name from there.
So in my daughter's case, Ialways look at it she's not gone
, she's just not here.
Daughter's case, I always lookat it, she's not gone, she's
just not here.
And if I've got anything to doabout it, it's going to be a
very, very long time before hername's not mentioned again.
(07:12):
And that's part of the problemthat we all run into is how do
you process you know, grief, andhow do you work around that
hole that's been left in yourheart.
And for me, which is differentthan my wife and it's different
from my son-in-law and mygrandson and those things, I had
to get that the energy of griefout of me I've got.
(07:34):
I had to use it, I had to putit to work, doing something from
there.
So in retrospect, going back,you know, as my daughter's
progression went along andeverything on the outside she
was happy, she was bubbly, shewas a great person, people loved
her, all those things.
But inside she did not see thesame person that they saw.
(07:57):
And the old saying is thebiggest battle every day is the
person you look at in the mirrorand how do you feel about that
person and do you like who yousee and where it's going.
So she always dealt with.
And I'll go back to differencebetween mental health and mental
illness.
(08:18):
We have a focus a lot of times,particularly in the healthcare
community, on how do you treatvery diagnosed mental illnesses
and medications and so on and soforth.
But mental health is far morepervasive of an issue to deal
with.
When you get into self-esteemand self-worth and imposter
(08:40):
syndrome and confidence and whatam I capable of and how do I be
my own person and control myown destiny and feel good about
that, no matter what comes at mealong those lines.
And in Amber's case, in highschool she was an athlete, went
through college butunfortunately as part of this
(09:05):
mental health issue there werethings going on that we didn't
see on the outside, nor didanybody else, because she was
happy and carefree and bubblyand those things.
But when she was alone that'snot who she was and that's where
the alcohol came in to help herquiet her spirit or quiet her
soul and those kinds of things.
(09:26):
But her body was not built totolerate alcohol.
So that led to eventuallycirrhosis of the liver at a
relatively young age.
And then, unfortunately, inthat progression of things,
there was a couple ofrelationships.
One was a marriage that justweren't healthy for her.
(09:46):
So you know kind of picking thewrong guys to be involved with,
and that didn't help at all.
From there the good news isI've got a wonderful, wonderful
grandson that came out of one ofthose relationships.
But you know she paid the priceof it, and not physical abuse
at all, but mental and emotionalinteractions that just fed into
(10:11):
that self doubt and low selfesteem and then that compounded
the.
You know the self medicatingtype of thing and and you can
talk and coach and and my umEarly days back when I was a
girls fast pitch softball coachand we had one of the better
teams in the state of Ohio andwe recruited from all over and I
(10:35):
coached my daughter on a team.
But I love that coaching aspectso much I even coached after she
was done playing and tookanother round of girls through
the system from about 14, 15 upto their 20s from there.
But I learned some interestinglessons there that I look back
and are applicable to mydaughter in particular, and I
(10:58):
always had one of those that Ihad former players that helped
me coach.
I didn't have other dads as myassistant coaches and those kind
of things.
And I remember distinctly andI've told this story many, many,
many times and I never get anywomen argue with me about it, so
I guess it still remains true.
But we had a tournament we werein and there was probably 60
(11:18):
teams in the tournament and wegot all the way to the
championship game and we lostfrom there and we went over to
sign.
The girls are down and they'rekind of, some of them are crying
and it was a big deal fromthere.
And we went over to sign.
The girls are down and they'rekind of some of them are crying
and it was.
It was a big deal from thereand my two assistant coaches
were former players of mine andI said, you know, I need, I
think it's time to have the talkbecause we had another big
(11:40):
tournament the next week andthey go.
They laughed again it's timefor the talk because they'd
heard it before when they wereplaying from there.
So I went up and now they'resitting there in the ground and
remember they're holdingbaseball bats.
They could beat me at any timethey wanted to from there.
I said you know, I think theproblem is you.
You girls need to be more likeboys.
And all of a sudden they wasnobody was crying and nobody's
(12:02):
looking at the ground.
They're glaring at me at thatpoint, waiting for okay, where
are this?
Way?
They said let me tell you howboys work.
We'll do 10 things and bemiserable, 9 out of 10 times
terrible, and we'll get it rightone time and we'll talk about
it for 30 or 40 years.
Now how good we were on thatone given day, way back when I
(12:22):
said you girls, we had 60 teams,we got to the final two, but
you have a tendency to do 10things, do nine of them
exceptionally well I meanstellar and you're focused on
the one time.
We didn't win.
We didn't follow through.
I said we got to number two outof 60.
You should be happy andcelebrate the progress.
(12:44):
Let's celebrate where we got to.
And then there was a proverbialyeah, boys suck, they're stupid,
all that kind of thing, which Iwas relieved because, again,
they had baseball bats.
But I think my daughter was avery, very sensitive soul from
that and everybody is wireddifferently and she was wired
(13:05):
differently from the day she wasborn, being a bit of a colicky
baby and grew out of that.
But one story I tell a lot toois she was working in high
school in a fast food restaurantand working in the window and
you know typical high schooltype job for a young lady or
young man in that situation anda group of boys in a car came
(13:27):
through and their order gotmessed up and they were kind of
the cool kids in the school, youknow type thing and just
berated her about how stupid shewas and the people that worked
there to screw up a simple fastfood order.
And she's so dumb that you knowthat's the.
She's already reached thepinnacle of what her career
opportunities are going to beand all of that.
(13:49):
And I remember getting a callfrom her right after that, just
in tears and saying you know whydo they say things like that,
so mean, and that was so hurtful, and you don't believe they.
You don't believe that, do you?
Don't believe they're right?
And it was just, you know, soulcrushing.
And if fathers could killwithout going to prison.
It'd probably be a differentpath for me in life from that
(14:10):
point.
But you know, I always told mygrandson and nephews don't be
boys like that, and there's awhole saying of part of what we
do about with my daughter'smemory is, you know, kindness
does matter and be kind, andI'll come back to that here in a
minute.
But anyway, as time went on, sheself-medicated.
Fortunately she finally met awonderful guy.
(14:32):
They got married, great guy,still part of our family.
But we were so far down thepath and, as I like to say, that
, on-ramp to the highway of pain, once you're on that on-ramp
it's just hard to get back offof that particular highway.
On ramp, it's just hard to getback off of that particular
highway.
So the cirrhosis of the livercame up.
(14:53):
We were trying to get a livertransplant and she had trouble
staying, you know, clean, as Ilike to say.
So it kept bumping you off thelist and then, unfortunately,
she developed lupus that tookout her kidneys.
So now we've got a double organthing going on.
And then at the very end, againbecause of alcohol, she had
(15:13):
tripped and hit her head and weended up being in the hospital
and I was there for literallyfour months every day, 12 hours
a day, because she had two brainbleeds.
I had to take off a piece ofher skull to do the brain
operation.
So now we've got three organsworking against us in terms of
kidney failure and dialysis, thecirrhosis of the liver, the
(15:36):
brain issues, and then finally,two years, they just came to me
in the hospital and said we'vegot to make some hard decisions.
It's just, you're not going towin this game from there.
And so what are we going to do?
Because I had the powers ofattorney to make the decisions,
because my son-in-law, forobvious emotional reasons, was
(16:00):
just not in a place to do that,and so we made the decisions
that we had to make and we endedup in hospice and, as I said,
the last day of her life I wentin and I really didn't let
anybody else go with me in thatcase because I knew what the
indelible impact that would haveon emotions and memories and
(16:23):
those kinds of things.
But when I went in and I it'skind of you know, cosmic,
heavenly scent, whatever thehospice nurses, which are angels
on earth.
I've got such a respect fornurses, and particularly
hospital, hospice nurses as well.
But they were getting mydaughter ready for what
(16:45):
everybody kind of felt was thelast day, and I had to kind of
sit outside the curtains as theygot her ready, because at this
point she was in afentanyl-induced coma.
And that's one of the things Italk about.
Whether it's alcohol or it'ssocial media, or it's fentanyl
or it's guns or whatever, it mayhave to be used properly
(17:08):
they're wonderful, wonderfulthings.
Used improperly they'll killyou.
From that point, so the onlything that kept her from a very
painful, miserable dying processwas the two liter bag of
fentanyl on a drip.
From that point, so for thelast four days that was just
letting her body shut downwithout excruciating.
(17:31):
You know pain.
But when they pulled back thecurtain she had a nightgown on
and the nightgown across it saidyou know, kindness matters.
And then you have thoseflashbacks to bad relationships,
to working in the fast foodrestaurant, to whatever it may
happen to be with people.
I learned and cemented in mybeing if you will, you don't
(17:54):
know that day what kind of daythey're having, what kind of
life they're leading, what kindof relationship you're in.
You may be the last nice wordthat ever got sent to them and
it reminded me I was alwaysdoing this podcast.
(18:17):
Today and I got on the elevator, uh, in my building this this
morning and, uh, there was anurse, uh, going to work and and
, um, I knew that because itregistered nurse on her thing.
Not that intuitive from there.
I said, but I said, I thought Isaid I want to thank you for,
you know, being a nurse.
I said I know how hard that jobis and I know what it's done
(18:38):
for my family, so I just wantyou to know I appreciate you.
And she looked at me likestunned I mean looking down at
her phone and actually had tolook up and talk to somebody but
it was like wow, and I justwalked away.
I wasn't looking for aconversation or an interaction,
I just wanted to leave her withsomething where kindness matters
as you went forward, her withsomething where you know,
(19:02):
kindness matters as you wentforward.
So then, when you know Amberdid and did pass away.
And then, coming back to what amI going to do with this, I
contacted our local communityfoundation and I said, look, I
got to do something with thisgrief and this energy I have and
I can't just let this be theend.
That's just not who I am andit's not what I'm going to do
(19:22):
with it, and everybody in myfamily will process the way they
need to process and do whatthey want to do, but this is not
.
This can't be that way fromthat point.
So they connected me withruling our experiences and I met
with Lisa Hinkelmann, who's thefounder of it, a PhD from Ohio
State that worked a lot inwomen's crisis hotlines and
(19:45):
helplines and all those kinds ofthings, and her research had
boiled it down to these issuesfor women in particular.
You can't start addressing themsolely in 20s and 30s and 40s.
You've got to get to thoseyoung ladies in their middle
school, early high school years,because the environment we're
(20:07):
in today, particularlypost-COVID, is destroying young
people, particularly girls, withpeer pressure and social media
and just all those things comingto be, and that's their whole
program of getting in theseschools and teaching skills and
how to have good relationships,how to have good peer
(20:27):
relationships, how to have goodjob skills and all those kind of
things.
So I said, ok, I want to getinvolved.
I don't know what I can do, butI'm going to do something and
I'm going to try to do reallythree things.
One raise awareness thatsometimes it's just not kids
being teenagers.
There's underlying issues therethat you need to be aware of
(20:50):
and get a hold of and thinkthrough and talk through and
don't walk away from it, becausemost of the time everybody will
work their way through it, butthere's going to be some that we
don't.
So you got to get through themand I'll kind of close later
with a story about that.
And then, number two, I'm goingto raise awareness.
Number two I know a lot ofpeople I'm fortunate to have a
(21:11):
bit of a platform that I can getout there and so we raised
about $100,000 and some thousanddollars in that first year.
And in this program with ROCS,which is the acronym for Ruling
Our Experiences, it takes $100to put one of these young ladies
through their 12-week program.
So it's not a crazy expensivething from there.
(21:33):
It's usually paid for by theschool as part of their
appropriations.
But as we all know, schools arecutting back and they're
looking for funding from thosedifferent things.
So we kind of created thescholarship approach, if you
will, because 100,000 divided by100, we could put a lot of
young girls through thatparticular program.
(21:53):
So my friends across theindustry and my family life and
I'm so grateful to all of themwho wrote checks, sent money and
got involved in this.
And the third thing I'm goingto do is try and raise advocates
for you, because I know a lotof kick-ass women and guys but
women across the country that asI tell this story and I have
(22:16):
people call me identify withAmber and they identify what she
went through and they made itthrough.
But sometimes I've found inhearing stories they haven't
made it all the way through.
They're still flashing back andthey're still carrying that.
I always kind of say.
Life gives you rocks and youcan put those rocks in.
(22:40):
There's no acronym of rocks.
I used to say it was R-O-C-K-S.
But you can put them in abackpack and carry them through
your life and they weigh youdown and slow you down, or you
can take the rocks out and throwthem across the stream of
difficulties and get to theother side much lighter and more
capable of continuing on yourjourney.
(23:00):
From that standpoint, but I'vehad so many men and women who
have come up to me and said I'm30, 40, 50.
One person was 70 years old.
He said my wife is stilldealing with those kinds of
self-esteem and confidenceissues.
And he goes, she's 72 years oldand it's still an issue in our
(23:23):
household from that point intime.
So I just knew I was on theright track from there and then
I along that way had done, butalways have been but Ikigai,
which if you do some reading inthat is really finding your
purpose in life and it's yourdefined purpose, and there's
(23:45):
books on it you can read.
I've recommended a couple ofthem.
There's one book Ikigai forTeens.
Whenever I would talk aboutAmber's program.
I would pass that out and giveit to the girls and put a note
in there that Amber and I wouldbe cheering them on, even though
we may never see them again,just so they know somewhere out
there they got a friend that'scaring about them and looking
(24:07):
forward to them from thatstandpoint as well.
We worked with the folks at ROXor Ruling Our Experience, which
is based in Columbus, ohio, andthey are trying to expand
nationwide.
They've got chapters throughoutthe country, but not all over
the country.
They created AMBER's ACES forRocks.
(24:29):
What ACES stands for isAdvocates and Champions for
Expansion.
What we're really trying to dois one raise awareness.
I'll keep ripping the scab off,I'll keep telling the story,
I'll keep getting emotional andI've had people come up to me
that have said I so appreciateyou not hesitating or being
(24:54):
ashamed or being apologeticabout your daughter's issue.
She suffered from mental healthissues and alcoholism.
But if we don't talk about it,it never gets fixed, it never
gets addressed.
So it's painful every time,it's emotional every time, but
I'm going to keep tearing thescab off and keep talking about
it and that's where we'll avoidthat second death of Amber,
(25:17):
where she's not mentionedoutside of the family anymore.
And to kind of wrap up thislong-winded, run-on sentence
that I'm pretty good at doingfrom that point, I had it at her
funeral and I had so manywonderful colleagues in the
industry that showed up that youdidn't expect and flew in from
(25:40):
Phoenix or flew in from Chicago.
I'm like, what are you doinghere from there?
But this is before we even gotrolling on with what had
happened along those particularlines.
But I told a story about whatwe're trying to do and the story
is that and some people haveheard it, some people haven't is
the story of the starfish andthe young lady.
(26:04):
There's an old man not me atthis point, but an old man
decided to take a walk on thebeach.
He lived up on the bluffs andhe came down the steps onto the
beach and the tide had come inand the tide had gone out and
all these starfish werebasically stranded on the beach,
on the sand, and as the daywent on, the sun was basically
going to bake them and theywould all die from that point.
(26:25):
So there's a very small girlout there picking up the
starfish and throwing them backinto the ocean, one at a time.
Then the old man approached herand said young lady, what are
you?
You're wasting your time.
Look up and down the beach,there's thousands and thousands
of these starfish.
You can't save them all.
What you're doing doesn'tmatter.
(26:47):
And he kept walking and heheard the young girl mumble
behind him and he turned aroundand thought she was being
disrespectful and said what did?
you say and she picked upanother one and threw it into
the water and she goes.
It mattered to that one.
So I think the real key is withthe story we're trying to do
with Amber's Aces for Rocks.
(27:08):
I don't know that will changethe world, will change the
course of modern history, butevery girl that we can get into
that program it may make adifference in the trajectory of
her life, her career, herrelationships.
So, as a couple of my hugesupporters within the industry
Nicole Corning in Phoenix orAaron Hall in Los Angeles, who
(27:31):
have worked to open up Rock'schapters, or D Mayerhofer with
SRP, who's been wonderfullysupportive, hoffer with SRP,
who's been wonderfullysupportive you know we all have
a theme of.
You know we're saving as manystarfish as we can, you know,
one at a time as they go along.
So I think we all need apurpose in life, which is what
Ikigai is.
But it can't be all businessand sometimes it's not all
(27:55):
personal.
But in this case, like I said,amber is not here but she's not
gone.
I work for her and she wasnever able to find her ikigai in
life and my family talks aboutit a lot.
You know, sometimes,unfortunately, someone's life
purpose isn't discovered untilthey're after they're gone.
(28:18):
So she continues on and livesthrough all of us and what we're
trying to do and I'm suresomewhere somehow she's looking
down and very proud of her now,of what she has accomplished in
helping other people, becausethat's really all she wanted to
do while she was here.
Unfortunately, maybe her storyhad to be a bigger, different
(28:40):
story and she couldn't be hereto share in it.
So we try to find comfort andsolace in that as we move
forward.
So that's kind of my pivot,where it came over the last I
wouldn't say two years when shepassed two years ago.
That was a culmination of a lotof things over a lot of years,
(29:01):
but we've just tried to turn itinto lessons of evolution and
lessons of learning and just sayhow can we leave the world a
better place, one starfish at atime as we go forward.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Please join us on our next episode for the end of
Saving the Starfish.
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Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
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