Season 5. Episode 7. Heart Transplant Recipient Jay Waddell's journey through health struggles and coming out on the other side

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Jay Waddell is a retired executive, college professor, and life coach. who has fought several health battles in his life, the last one was heart failure and he had to get a heart transplant! He explains his approach and how he wasn't so willing to go through the ordeal at first. Eventually, he did decide to go through with it and now has a new heart. He is writing a book about what he learned and is determined to help others and give them hope when facing big health issues.

Before his heart troubles, Jay had already suffered severe hearing loss and a major stroke. The journey back was grueling, but he prevailed.

Jay was raised on a big dairy farm in Wisconsin and would never suggest that he is brave, but he is.  He teaches us about persistence and getting on with things. And he gives us all hope.

The books that he mentioned as being helpful were "Bittersweet" by Susan Cain,  "A Stroke of Luck," by Kirk Douglass, and "Stroke Rebel," by Linda Radestad.

You can reach Jay at: [e-mail]

His tips for assessing a stroke victim are-- FAST:
F- Face: Can the person smile? Stroke victims usually cannot.
A- Arms -- Ask them if they can life one or both arms. They usually cannot.
S- Speech -- Ask them questions -- their speech will be slurred and slow if they have had a stroke
T- Time -- You have 2 hours to get them to the hospital to get meds to reverse the stroke.

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Original music "Saturday Sway" by Brendan Talian (for all interviews before 2025)

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Lynne. Hello and welcome to The Storied Human.

(00:27):
This is Lynne Thompson. Today Ihave a guest, Jay Waddell, who
has a very varied background.
He's done so many things, andhe's had some health issues that
we're going to hear more aboutlater, but I just wanted to name
a few of the things he's done.
He founded two successfulstartups, medical device
industry and managementconsulting. He led a company

(00:48):
from three employees to 143employees, and had sales of 25
million in three years. He was apartner for 17 years at a
consulting firm, SRG that wascited by Outside Magazine as one
of the 50 best places to work inAmerica. He helped grow the firm
from 12 employees to 150 duringhis tenure, he helped develop

(01:12):
and evangelize several newmedical devices that make a
difference in the world. Hemanaged employees distributed
all over the globe. He's workedin sales for the transportation
industry, and he was, untilrecently, a professor at the
Leeds School of Business at theUniversity of Colorado. Boulder
for a decade, he taught brandstrategy, innovation,

(01:33):
advertising and marketing. He isa life coach. He focuses on
helping people move through thehard stuff in life. Jay emerged
victorious from severe hearingloss, a debilitating stroke,
heart failure and a hearttransplant. And we're going to
have to find out more aboutthat, because that's a lot of
things. Welcome. Jay Waddell,it's

(01:54):
so good to have you. Hi, Lynne,it's great to be here. Thanks so
much for having me on I'mhappy to have you. I forgot to
mention that wealready know each other, and
that we met because we both tookthe same writing course, and now
we're accountability partners,and we speak regularly to keep
each other on track.
It's been great. It has, it has.
It's really been enjoyable.

(02:17):
So sometimes I just like tostart at the beginning. I think
you have a really interestingorigin story. And you come from
country, people from thecountry.
Yeah, well, I'll jump in andyou'll cut me off when you need
to. So I'm a cheesehead. I grewup in the state of Wisconsin. I

(02:38):
grew up in on a dairy farm, andit's really served me well in my
life. I won't dwell on it toolong. I had two brothers and a
sister, my mom and dad, weworked really hard. That wasn't
a negative. It was a positive.
To do a lot of things out in thefields and milk 140 cows morning
and night, and get up early andwork seven days a week was

(02:59):
phenomenal. And so you reallyyou develop a well honed blue
collar work ethic. And you know,lots of little tapes and mantras
that play in my head from myparents and but one of them was
you can outwork anybody. Youknow, they may be smarter,
bigger, stronger, faster, butyou can outwork anybody you

(03:21):
choose to, and that served mewell. And you get up and you put
one foot in front of the othereach day, and you just keep
going. And so it helped me inbusiness, it helped me in
career, and it absolutely helpedme as I hit wheels came off a
few times with some healthstuff. So kind of my roots
really, really have served mewell.

(03:44):
Sounds like a great foundationand just a beautiful way to grow
up.
Really great weather six monthsof the year in Wisconsin.
So are you literally, like oneof those kids that had to milk
the cows before you went toschool?
Yeah? Yeah. We it sounds likestupefying when you hear it. But
by the by the time I was 14years old, we were working 85

(04:06):
hours a week, and that was justnormal. You get up, you get up
at a quarter to five, seven daysa week, and work until 715 730
at night, and you workSaturdays, and you work almost
all of Sunday, you get a lot ofhours in. And my brothers were
doing it. My dad did it. All. Myfriends did it. They lived it on

(04:26):
farms few miles down the road,and you didn't have to think
about it. It's just, it's justwho you were and what you did.
It's an exceptional way to growup. So tell me more, like, what
did, did you want to get awayfrom that? I mean, I know you
went into a different Well,it's, it's, it's, it's
interesting question, my sisterin law, one of my brother's
wives, said, Jay, how did, howdid you escape the farm? Because

(04:49):
it was a big family business. Itwas very successful. And, you
know, it was set up for more ofus to stay, stay involved. I
think for me. I loved sportsbecause, because we had so much
farm work for my two olderbrothers, they get to go out for
one sport, and they had tochoose, and which sport do you
want to go out for? Because therest of the year you've got to

(05:12):
work as the third son, the farmwas more successful and more
stable, and my two brothers wereworking and and so by the time I
was a junior in high school, mymy parents said, okay, they knew
how much I love sports. Theysaid, Jay, if you would like to
go out for two sports, threesports, you can. But here's the

(05:33):
deal, if, if you go out for theteam, by the time the team has
its first baseball game or firstfootball game. If you're not in
the starting lineup, you need toquit the team that you can only
you can only be out if you'regood enough, and you work hard
enough, you know, to really makeit worthwhile Otherwise,

(05:54):
otherwise get back home here andwork. So I, believe me, I was
highly, highly motivated to makethe starting lineup. I bet you
were.
I wasso pretty early on I knew, I
knew I wanted to keep goingthrough college. And I grew up
in a small town of 600 people ina rural community and and out of

(06:16):
my graduating high school class,only six kids went to college,
so it was not the normwhatsoever. And and so I did. I
did go on to school, and youknow, only, only one of my
siblings did, and hardly anybodyfrom where I grew up, but I went
on and got a degree in businessand education. I I wanted to

(06:40):
continue with sports. I wantedto coach high school sports. And
so I did that, and and made,made an amazing a whopping
$8,000 the first year. And anddecided I would move into sales
and and business. And I did,and, you know, doubled my income
in one year, pretty crazy. And,but, but went on to school, and

(07:06):
I've, I ended up, I taught highschool. I I did that for a
while, and, and was in sales,but, but I went back and got a
graduate degree, and, and thatreally opened some doors. And I
was in Madison, Wisconsin, greattown, you know, in my home
state, joined a big medicaldevice company, a global medical

(07:27):
device company. I knew nothingabout medical stuff, but I
learned and, and I was,sometimes you just get plain
lucky. And I got lucky and andgot some jobs working on medical
device product development andhelping create products that
were used in the operating roomto save people's lives. Learned

(07:47):
on the job. And, you know, itstill amazes me. I was so, so
fortunate. I got to work onproducts and used in the
operating room on people, youknow, when, they're in a life
perilous situation, and I get tosit in on surgery 500 times in
19 different countries.

(08:09):
No way. That's a song. That'samazing.
I got to see a lot, if I keepcount, I think I fainted six
times, where you're gowned up,it's hot, you're standing on
your feet for hours and andyou're fixated on this surgical
procedure, and next thing youknow, you wake up on the floor.
And so, you know, so I it's notlike I mastered it, and I was

(08:31):
excited every day I got I wasexcited every day I got to gown
up and go into surgery and seemiracles. So that was pretty
fun. That'ssuch an incredible different
place than I'm sure you thoughtyou would end up, you know, just
a business degree, all of asudden, you're part of medical
device development, and you'rein operating rooms all over the

(08:51):
world. That's pretty cool, andthat you were involved in
something that was so impactful,that saved people's lives. That
must have felt amazing. Itwas It did feel really good and
and I feel really fortunate,lucky at the time, I did not
take it for granted, and I neverhave, you know, we're Lynn, I so

(09:14):
believe, and we've talked aboutit, we're just all fellow
travelers on the planet, andwe're just all trying to do the
best we can, you know, and beingin the medical device industry,
you saw people, you saw peoplewho were struggling and didn't
get an equal shake in life andhad hard stuff going on. And so,

(09:35):
you know, I grew up in a waywhere you you felt fortunate for
the things you had and and youtried to help those who were not
as fortunate. So yeah, I feltpretty lucky on that front. And
my wife also grew up not in myhometown, but six miles down the
road in a much bigger town of800 people, in the medical

(09:56):
device company in Madison. They,after a couple of years, offered
me. Job, working in our Londonoffice. My wife had just come
out of of graduate school andwas offered a really great job,
and it was close to Madison. Iwas thinking, we were thinking,
we've got it made, you know,we're this, you know, power
couple, and we've got two greatjobs and, you know, and they're

(10:19):
close to each other, and we'reset. And then I got this job
offer to go overseas, you know,and I feel guilty. I feel so
lucky on stuff that happened forme, you know, you want to
believe you made some of ithappen, but some of it just
things fall the right way. I hadthis chance to go work overseas,
and honest to God, for threedays, did not mention it to my

(10:40):
wife, only because she had justgotten her job offer, and I
thought, I want to be married tothis woman forever. There's no
way in the world I'm going to gotake a job that benefits me if,
if it's going to disrupt hercareer. Because, you know, times
are more liberated now. But man,we're talking, you know, 40 some

(11:03):
years ago, for a female to getahead and land a great job was
hard, and so I thought, I'm notgoing to disrupt her path and
have her be, you know, thetrailing spouse. And so I didn't
mention it. And then I was justready to head out the door for
something. And I said, Oh,honey, um, by the way, I forgot
I've got a job offer in Londonwith the company. And she goes,

(11:26):
what? And so we sat down andtalked about it, and I had to
decide by Friday that within twodays, and she said, You know, I
will always be able to get ajob. We'll figure it out. We
grew up in little, little,little dinky towns. We neither
of us had ever been on anairplane in our life, and we

(11:47):
said, let's, let's go see theworld. And so we made the
choice, you know, almost knowingnothing about the job, and just
said, Let's go do somethingvery, very different. And so
that was what triggered ourchoice what to go overseas and
kind of let go of, you know,this, you know, gravy train we

(12:07):
thought we were on, you know,because, because taking a chance
felt like the right thing to do.
That's amazing.
Because that's a huge change,especially if you've never even
been on a plane, and now you'regoing to go halfway around the
world for a job you barely knowanything about that's that's
some risk taking, right there.

(12:28):
We've never even, we'd nevereven been outside the state of
Wisconsin. And to be honest, Inever felt bad about it. To be
it sounds really weird now thatI reflect on it is, is I do not
ever remember eating in arestaurant with my family. We
never, I know, we never took asingle day of vacation ever in
my life. You know, my family andI didn't feel, I didn't feel one

(12:51):
bit bad about it whatsoever.
That's, that's just, that's howeverybody grew up wherever, how
it was, right? It's, it's onething, if everyone around you is
living differently, that's avery good point. Now, how long
were you in London?
I we lived in London two yearsand and but, but then when we
moved back to the states withthe same company and moved to

(13:12):
another location in Boulder,Colorado, and when we made that
move, my job continued to be aninternational role. I for never
having traveled. I had fiveyears, and my territory was
everything outside the US, so Igot to just travel extensively.
And my wife, it was prechildren, and so we were able

(13:36):
to, we were able to combinework. And I do, I just feel so
lucky and so blessed. You know,I have landed on that train. I
noticed the best people domention luck. I think it's
lovely that you recognize thatand and the you know, to have
gratitude is a great place fromwhich to live your life. So
when, how long did you spend yousaid, two years. What? What did

(14:00):
you have children? Thenwe did our son. We have we have
two children, and a son who's 37a daughter who's 32 and he was
born in London. He was born inthe same hospital as Elton John
and Whiteford, England. He wasborn there, and in two months,
we've moved back. He was twomonths old when we moved back to
the US. Scroll a tiny story hereabout one of my one of my life

(14:24):
philosophies comes out here. Idon't think you've even heard
this one Lynne, which is theconcept of different is good.
And after six months in the UK,this was 1985 it was a tough
transition. We had no familythere. We had left all our
friends behind. You know, Iworked in a place with 900

(14:45):
people, and I was the onlyAmerican. And, wow, we it was a
time where the Brits were notvery happy with Americans and
and so there, there's a bit ofanima. City towards Americans,
and it was cold and it was wet,and it took three months for
British Telecom to install atelephone in our house. So we

(15:07):
had no communications. Therewere only three TV channels.
There were no American sports onTV. My God, how crazy. And so we
were really, really bumming andwe were depressed and we were
homesick, and we my wife and Isat down, and I was on a two
year contract. You know, you'reonly going to be here two years.
And so we hit the six monthmark, and we realized we've just

(15:30):
used and burned up 25% of thisgrand adventure. And we said we
need to reset our life mantraand and so we sat down with
maybe two bottles of wine, andwe decided to to craft a new
life mantra. And we decided,instead of different being bad,

(15:53):
different TV, different weather,different driving on the
different side of the road,different food, we said, I knew
mantra is different, it's good.
I love that. And so we had threequarters of my contract a year
and a half left. And so we justwe used every weekend to travel
and go somewhere within the UKor across the English Channel.

(16:16):
And we just ate up every minuteof of discovery and new things
that we could and when we gotdone with a two year contract in
London, we had a chance with thecompany to move back to Madison,
where we'd rented our house outthe landscaping I'd put in at
all grown up looked great. Goback to a job working for people

(16:39):
I knew intimately, be with allour family and friends and be
back in the town we knew, ormove to a new location with a
company I'd never been west ofthe Mississippi to Boulder,
Colorado and and for a jobworking on products I didn't
know, for a small little startupdivision with 20 people

(17:00):
absolutely foreign. And we said,let's apply our life mantra,
which choice going back toMadison or going to Boulder,
which one is most starklydifferent from what we've been
doing? And it made the choiceeasy. Let's go where we know
nothing. And that's what we did.
I love that sense of adventure,and you were a team that you

(17:20):
both saw it that way, reset yourattitude while you were in
England. Not everybody knows howto do that.
And I, yeah, I would like to saythat I know the magic formula
for doing that. But at the time,at the time, we were in the
middle of something, and weknew, we knew we were, I think
we able to we're able to selfreflect that we knew we had a

(17:45):
gift. We were given a gift oftwo years to go live abroad,
when, when we grew up in littletowns, and we just realized we'd
squandered a quarter of it, we'dsquandered six months and
whining a bit, and we we caughtourselves and said, That is not
what we want to do. So I don'tthink we had a formula other
than thank God we we kind ofrealized and caught ourselves

(18:07):
midstream,and then you kept doing it, even
when you came back, you went toa whole different area of the
country. I've been to Boulder.
It's beautiful.
Boulder's Great. Boulder'sgreat. I get up every day and I
can back out my driveway and Isee the mountains. I don't have
to put on mosquito spray like Idid in Wisconsin every all the
time. And Boulder's been reallygood.

(18:30):
So how long have you been inBoulder? 37
years. Because I it's easy my Iknow how old my son is and and
he was two months old when wemoved here two months old
marker. I have a marker thatdefines how long I've been here.
So what? What happened afterlike, I know you were in the
medical device area, yeah, whathappened after that? Where did

(18:52):
you end up?
Well, I, I continued with thecompany, moved through a few
other jobs, and it things weregoing really, really well. And I
was assigned a new medicaltechnology, pulse oximetry,
which, you know, I'm guessingmany, many people are familiar
with. It's measuring your bloodoxygen. It's the device you put

(19:14):
on your finger. And now it'scommonplace. But I got lucky
enough to be with one of thefirst two companies that that
brought it to market 40 plusyears ago, and we get to
evangelize this life savingtechnology all over the world.
It was very cool to walk inplaces with it and working on

(19:35):
that technology, an engineerfrom outside our company
approached us and said, I've gotan idea for how to make it even
better. And so I was in a roleof kind of screening and and and
vetting outside people withoutside new technology. And so I

(19:56):
reviewed his concepts andtechnology and said to my boss.
Yes, hey, let's start a project.
Let's get this in here, andlet's get going. And my boss
said it, we're a publicly heldcompany. It's the middle of the
year. That would financially bevery disruptive to our company.
Jay, I hear you. I appreciateyou. Like it, but we can't do
that in the middle of the year.
And I was so enamored with thetechnology the the engineer had,

(20:21):
and I like the individual, andso he and I started
brainstorming and said, Whydon't I leave my company and
we'll go raise money, fundraiseand we'll start our own company.
This technology is just sogreat. And so that's what we
started contemplating. But myboss and my current employer,

(20:41):
very, very big company, youknow, said, Wait, wait, wait,
wait. And I I felt I liked himso much, and I liked my company,
liked my boss, thatMidwesterner, I felt compelled
to be 100% honest with him. AndI said, Hey, Joe, here's what
I'm doing. And I told you, I'dlove this technology. If we're

(21:01):
going to drag our feet, I can'tsit around for six months. This
is so exciting. We got to getgoing. I told him, I'm starting
to raise money, and I may leavethe company. And he goes, Oh,
please don't do that. You know,I don't want to see you leave. I
don't want to lose, lose thatnew technology. And I read a
book intrapreneuring, notentrepreneuring, but
intrapreneuring With an eye. Andit was modeled after 3m and the

(21:25):
guy who did sticky notes was anemployee and had a huge idea.
You know, how do you how do youhang on? How does a big company
hang on to employees who whohave an entrepreneurial spirit,
have a clever, new, highpotential idea, and how do you
keep them from leaving thecompany? And this author, this
book, talked about ways you canstructure a relationship and

(21:49):
fund that idea and give thatindividual some autonomy. And so
I read that book in two days,and I marked up pages and
earmarked it and dog earedcorners and, and then I gave it
to my boss and said, Look, Joe,here's a way you can keep me,
keep the idea, you know, change,you know, my relationship with

(22:11):
the company, and let me go dothis thing, and everybody will
come out a winner. He said, Youknow, this is, this is awesome.
And, and he said, I'm flying toNew Jersey, talking to our big
boss. And he did, and came backthe next day with the big boss,
and sat down with me and said,so you want to leave the
company, have us set you up in anew company and fund you, you

(22:35):
know, to with a whole millionsof dollars to grow this new
business. And he said, you're atnine and a half years you would
be walking away from a lifetimepension with our company. Jay,
are you really prepared to dothat? And I go, in a heartbeat,
wow. And he said, that is thecorrect answer. And he said,
I'll fund you, you know. Andthey set us up as a company and

(22:58):
and that, you know, you youreferenced my bio, but that was
the company where that engineerand another engineer and I left
started this company, and itgrew very quickly. We went from
three to 143 employees in threeyears. That's like a rocket
ship.
That's hard. Some people don'tsurvive that. Yeah, that's

(23:19):
really tough.
It was, it was hard, and it was,it was the most I've done a lot
of things, I get easily excited,but it maybe was the most
exciting thing, man, you'readding a couple people a week,
and you're just crazy. Yeah,yeah. You're going in every day,
you know? And you've got awhiteboard on the wall. We

(23:40):
started every day with a companymeeting and said, Does anybody
have any reason why we can'tlaunch this product in 14
months? That's how we startedevery day of Why Can't We? Why
not us? And then we said, and wetried to train everybody, every
single day, every single hour ofyour day, say, what is it that I
can do in the next 15 minutesthat will make the most

(24:03):
difference to our companyhitting its objectives. And how
do I best spend the next 15minutes to get there? And if you
if you have every employeethinking every hour in every 15
minute chunk of what they can doto make it more valuable so but
it didn't end like in the bestway did it. No, that
one, there's a lot of twists interms in life. And on this one,

(24:27):
I said we were in a big company,and we left, and they funded us
and set us up as a kind of asatellite company. You know, we
were youngish, and they wereolder and more mature and wise,
with better lawyers. They set upa contract with us that said,
you know, you guys get going,get this thing started. We'll
fund you. We'll give you all themoney that you need. And so they

(24:49):
did, and we cranked it like arocket ship. We got sales up, we
built the factory. And afterthree years and we were just
starting to to hit royalties anda big. Payout, you know, big
financial payout for thesuccess. And they said, you may
not have seen the small print,the fine print, but if I said,
we can take the company backover at any time we want. And so

(25:12):
just as we were hittingphenomenal success, and it would
have translated, you know,financial payoff for us, a much
bigger payoff. They said, We'regoing to take the company back
over. Thanks very much. Youknow, you did a really good job
for us, you know. So it did endwhere it didn't culminate as
quite as successfully, but itwas, it was a phenomenal

(25:36):
success. And so can't feel badwhatsoever
you did so well with it. I mean,I can't believe that kind of
growth. Yeah. And it sounds likeone of those, no matter how it
ended, right? You just knew youcould do that, just to know that
you could do that. So that'ssomething to be proud of. So how
do you pick yourself upafter that? Yeah. So after that,
I'm situated in Boulder,Colorado, and I've now got two

(25:57):
small children. I'm very into,you know, coaching their youth
sports and, you know, readingthem books and hanging with them
and, and so at the same time,I've, I've now got a job hunt. I
found a headhunter and and shesaid, Boy, you've got some great
experience and internationalexperience and startup
experience and big companyexperience, and I can really

(26:19):
help you find great jobs acrossthe country. She started the
process, and she said, Tell mewhat else you're considering.
And I said, Well, there's amanagement consulting firm that
does brand strategy and helpcompanies create new products,
and they're right here inBoulder, you know, five minutes
from me, and I've used them tohelp me grow the company that we

(26:42):
grew quite quickly. That's cool.
Yeah, they've offered me, kindof a standing job offer if I
want to come work with them,because I like them. They like
me. It's already here inBoulder, and my kids are here in
school, and my wife is in townand working here. And so I said,
I've got 90 days before I'm donewith my contract. Let's look

(27:05):
around and you know, see whatelse I can find. And the head
enter said, I'm not even goingto bother because I can tell you
love boulder. I can tell you'reinto your kids. I can tell you
like the people in thismanagement consulting firm, and
so you would put me through alot of paces, find you a job
that would be traveling and doall these things, but you have

(27:29):
what you want, and so I'm noteven going to do it. And so
that's a good job, right? Yeah,it was really wonderful advice
of, don't kick a gift gift horsein the mouth or something like
that. Andvery much. So I love when people
are straightforward with you.
And she didn't want to wasteyour time, but she knew, she
knew you had the best thing foryou. Yeah. So when, when did

(27:51):
your health problems begin? Idon't have a sense of the
timeline, probably.
So I did join that managementconsulting firm, and that's,
that's the company we we grewfrom 12 people when I joined to
150 people over about a 18 yearwindow, probably Oh, a dozen
years into that job. So maybe inmy mid 40s, late 40s, I started

(28:17):
developing hearing loss andpretty profound, and it started
declining pretty quickly. Mymother had a hearing loss, had
to wear hearing aids, and wasnear death. She passed away at
79 her hearing declined so muchthat she would be in a group
dinner and just sit therequietly and not and she was
very, very, very social. Thiswas a lot of my family. She

(28:40):
would just sit withdrawn and notbe able to participate because
you can't, you cannot hear andyou feel stupid and you don't
know how to respond. And so I'dseen that, and I just felt it
closing in on me. In themanagement consulting role I
had, what I did was I sold newbusiness, I cold call a client,

(29:01):
say, can I come and tell youabout our services? I visit them
and do a new business, pitch,interact and then lead a
project, interview people,moderate focus groups and ask
consumers about things you know,put together a plan and a brand
strategy and a final report,present it to a client, and do

(29:23):
brainstorming sessions where I'dfacilitate who has ideas, who
has ideas, and be at awhiteboard and write things
down, and all of a sudden, ifyou cannot hear, you can't do
that. And so all the skill setsrequired for that job, I just
they were gradually declining, Iremember, and it would be so
embarrassing. We did a newbusiness pitch. The founder of

(29:45):
our company, the CEO was along.
We went into a room in aclient's office, and the client
was a real tough cookie. Hewanted to put us through the
paces. He was comparing us withanother perspective consulting
firm. It was. Hot day in Kansas,and it was very humid. They had
an air conditioner in the roomthat was super loud. Oh no, my
hearing is horrific at the time,and I'm the one leading our new

(30:10):
business pitch. And I would sayto this tough cookie of a VP,
could we turn that airconditioner off? It's really
hard to hear. And he goes, ouch.
And so I had to keep going, andI would have to say, I'm sorry.
Could, could you say that again?
Could, could you say that alittle louder? And he was a very
big man, and he got very upset.

(30:32):
It was so embarrassing and sohorrific. And we didn't, and it
was a very big piece ofbusiness, we're trying to win.
And we did not get it. It justgot so I couldn't do my job. And
here I am a partner for 18 yearsand help grow the company to 150
people. And was, I believe,very, very good at what we did,
and all of a sudden I could notdo it. My My boss was a great

(30:55):
guy, and he and my otherpartners carried me for probably
18 months and kept me on board,and then I was going through
some really hard stuff,emotionally with family members,
and just really, reallydifficult, emotional, personal
stuff. And put all thattogether, and I got so I'm sure

(31:16):
I was situationally depressed,and I could not pick up the
phone to call people, and I, Icould no longer generate ideas.
I I lost my extrovertivesuperpowers. I just went down a
rabbit hole. Ultimately, my bossand my partner said, Dude, we we
love you. You know you're notcarrying your weight anymore,

(31:37):
and you, you've got to go.
You've got to go figuresomething else out, because it's
unfair to the other partners,because you, you're not, you're
not carrying your weight forwhat we're paying you. And so I
had to leave the company that II loved what I did for 18 years
and helped grow it, and had towalk away from it. That
must have been incredibly hard,you know, it just adds to the

(32:00):
devastation of your health, youknow, like you're just depressed
enough, and now you've lost yourjob that you love. Yeah?
It, it was very hard, becauseit's it's your identity, it's
your superpowers, and it's youridentity, and it's your ego, and
it's how you see yourself. I'venever lost a job before in my
life, and and that's hard, yeah?
And then I got divorced right inthe middle of that, because hard

(32:22):
stuff going on was really tough,and one of my kids had some
really extremely difficult, lifethreatening health stuff. It was
a hard chapter. It was veryhard,
yeah, and you look back and say,How did I even get through that?
I mean, one of those thingswould be hard, right? You had
several things. So how did youget through that? How'd you come
out the other side? IIt's sometimes I wonder. I, you

(32:42):
know, I think it was at Midwestupbringing of not getting
through it is not a choice, youknow. So what are you going to
do? It's good point, Yep, yeah.
And one of the life mantras thatI kind of got drilled in me and
have adopted is, so what? Now,what? You know, the the so what

(33:03):
is shit happens and and thingshappen to you might have been a
choice of your own, or just badluck. Darn bad luck. You're
allowed to feel your emotions,you know, feel the feelings, but
don't spend too long wallowingin it, and don't spend too long
in a pity party, because that'snot going to change anything. So
luckily, luckily, I think thatgot ingrained. And so the So,

(33:27):
what is you get a little whileto feel those feelings and feel
down or angry or sad or guiltyor whatever, but then you got to
say, now, what? What are, whatare the choices I could make.
You know, what are the pros andcons? What are the trade offs,
and what path forward into thewoods am I going to pick? And

(33:48):
then once I pick it, get on withit. That's what I did after
losing the job, and I scrambled.
And I'd been in Boulder many,many years, and I had some
connections at the university, Ihad a lot of business
experience, and so I reached outand said, Hey, any chance you
have an opening for somebodyteaching in the business school

(34:09):
with my background? Sothankfully, I had cultivated
some relationships. Thankfully,you know, good fortune. They
said, You know, we've got anopening in the fall for
teaching. You know, why don'tyou come up and give a practice
lecture and, you know, to theentire business school and
marketing faculty? And so I did,and it went really well. That's

(34:30):
socool. They said, come on board.
What a great pivot. That is socool. Well, thanks. And was the
hearing still bad? Then, I mean,it's, it's very hard to do any
job hearing. No,it's like, oh yeah, I forgot I
still had the hearing loss. Ohno. So I sort of, I sort of
glossed over that in my practicelecture, and because, because it

(34:53):
was a small group, maybe 20faculty, and they're all sitting
close and. And so I snuckthrough it, but, but then, as I
got my first teachingassignment, they said, You're
You're really a published,polished public speaker, and
you're comfortable with this,and you got lots of experience.
We're going to give you thesebig they were called mega
classes, oh no. And they were250 students per class, and they

(35:18):
said they're really hard. Wedon't have many faculty who can
handle that group and do itwell, and Jay, you'd be great
for it. I was flattered, butscared to death, because, you
know, in a giant lecture hallwith 250 students, they're
sitting way back, I'm lecturingfrom a stage. I can use a
lavalier microphone, and theycan hear me, but you know Lynne,

(35:40):
you know me enough already. Iwant to be highly interactive,
and I want to ask questions andchallenge them, and and, and I
think that's a big key tolearning. It was very hard
standing up on a stage to engagewith students in a cavernous
lecture hall, and they'resitting way in the back and

(36:03):
they're distracted. Andinitially, I let them use
phones, which was stupid. By byweek two, I was walking up and
down the aisles of the lecturehall so that when I asked them a
question, I could lean forward,get real close to the student
that was answering, and I'd havea slim chance of being able to

(36:24):
hear them. And that's a creativesolution. I like that. Well, I
came up with another one. Ithought, that's still not
working well enough. I stillcan't hear them, and I still
have to go. I'm sorry. What'dyou say? Mary? Mary, what was
that? Mary? Could you speaklouder? And the kids got so they
didn't want to raise their handif, you know, if I was going to

(36:44):
badger three four times to speaklouder. The the IT Department
found me a portable microphonesolution where there was, it
looked like a beach ball, andthere was a microphone embedded
in it, and got four of them, andI would float them around the
classroom, like people bumpingthem with their hands, like at a

(37:05):
football game or something. So Iwould say, okay, who's going to
answer to this one? You know,and bounce the microphone over
to Thomas, he's got his hand up,and the microphone would go
over, and he would speak, and itwould be loud enough. And I told
the students, I'm using theseportable microphones, because I
value all your answers so much Iwant you to be able to hear each

(37:27):
other. But youchanged like the whole nature of
the class. It was way more fun.
It was easy to engage, and yousolved your hearing issue. I
love that. So that worked outwell.
That worked out well, and then Igot incredibly lucky, Lynn, my
ear, nose, throat, Doctor, I hadanother health issue, benign

(37:48):
positional vertigo, and it's onewhere you get the crystals get
dislodged in your inner ear, andthey float and get in the wrong
place, and you have extremevertigo, like You can't stand
up, you'll fall down. And so Ihad that. And when I was seeing
my ear, nose, throat doctor, hesaid, Jay, do you know you are a
candidate for surgical procedureto repair your hearing? And I

(38:13):
said, really? And he told meabout it and and he said, but
it's risky. You know, you've gota chance of going 100% deaf. And
I said, Well, let's, let's pickmy worst ear, and let's go for
it. You know, I don't want thetrajectory of declining hearing
I'm on, so let's go for it. Andso we did, I did the procedure,

(38:34):
and I came home, and within twodays, I 90% restored the hearing
in that ear. Honest to God,Lynn, I came home and that
second night with some peopleover for dinner on the back
deck, and there was aconversation, and I had not
heard every word and aconversation in a decade. And

(38:56):
that's amazing. I came in thehouse and it was like eight at
night, and I just came in to getglasses of water for everybody,
and I just stood at my kitchencounter and cried because I'd
gotten my hearing back. And Ithought I had, I thought I had
another 35 years of declininghearing loss and isolation. I

(39:17):
got my hearing back andbut what a moment standing at
the kitchen sink and cryingbecause you realized it's back.
You know, you realized in thatmoment what you what you had
been living without, and that itall, almost all of it, had come
back. Ihad a lot of good fortune. I had
some really hard stuff come myway in life, and we'll talk
about more, but, but I've hadreally phenomenal bounce backs.

(39:39):
Part of them, I think, my owntenacity and and part of them,
you know, it's just our bodiesrespond in different ways, and
the modern miracles of modernmedicine, getting my hearing
back my life in the last 35years would have been very,
very, very different. You took.

(40:00):
Thatrisk too. You were willing to
take that risk. So I think thatsays a lot about you. Oh,
thanks, yeah, yeah. Well, mindyou, when we did it, understood
the potential for success anddeafness and said, Let's just do
one ear. That's smart, yeah,yeah. And I could have gone back

(40:21):
and done the other ear, but Ithought the first one worked
really well, and I'm doing quitewell, so that was enough.
Well, I noticed people do reallywell if they only have one good
ear, yeah,well, and, and we'll talk about,
we'll talk about, you know, thenI had a stroke come down. That's
right. Oh, my God. And sothankfully, it's kind of a

(40:42):
blessing that my hearing gotrecovered, restored in my left
ear, and my my vision, my strokehit the occipital lobe, which
processes your vision, and ithit it, and I lost all my
peripheral vision on this side.
And so my bad eye, where I can'tsee right side, yeah, and my

(41:06):
ear, where I can here is on theall on this side. So when we go
out, my partner and my kids andall my friends know, you know,
Jay wants to sit on a certaincorner at the table because he's
got a good eye and a good earover on the left. And so you
just get used to it. Youdo now, the stroke was that
severe? Was it?

(41:30):
I sure thought so. And, yeah,and probably, probably around
age 50, I I've been prettyathletic my whole life, and I'm
I'm probably underselling. I'man Exercise guy. I've exercised
five or six days a week prettymuch since I was 14 years old.

(41:51):
Some of it is clearlydisciplined, but some of it is,
I just enjoy moving. You know,there's intrinsic versus
extrinsic reward and motivation.
And for me, exercise isintrinsic. I do it not because,
oh, it'll have all thesebenefits. I do it because I like
moving, and to get up in themorning and get on a spin cycle
and pedal and watch the news ora movie or something, and just,

(42:16):
I like moving. I like walking, Ilike playing tennis, and I just
the act of movement is so good.
So I'd really and I'd been arunner, and I ran three miles,
kind of every other day for 30years in the middle of my life,
all of a sudden, at age 50, Ijust could no longer run. And

(42:37):
you put it down to Huh? I guessthat's old age and but it was
kind of a on off switch where Ijust could no longer run. And I
lost some energy playing tennis.
I recognized it, and I'm nothealthcare Doctor avoidant. And
so I went in and I got tested. Idid stress tests and, you know,

(42:57):
dyes in my system, and brainscans and bone scans and cancer
screening and and dideverything. And I had a rich
history of family heart healthissues. You know, my mother died
of congestive heart failure, mygrandmother, my sister as a
pacemaker, and lots of cousins,and I knew that, and so I didn't

(43:19):
want to be naive, and I told allthat to my doctors. We did all
the appropriate tests, but couldnever put our finger on
anything. But meantime, my myhealth kept slowly winding down
over over that in a 10 yearperiod from age 50 to age 60. At
age 60, it got worse. And I wasteaching at the university, I

(43:44):
had a stretch, oh, I had a fullon stroke. And December of 2015
I really went into a bad heartrhythm, atrial fibrillation,
atrial fibrillation, afib, andreally irregular arrhythmias,
and it wears your heart out, andyour heart muscle is just

(44:05):
pounding so much, and it getsprone to blood clots in it, and
blood clots are what causestrokes. I had several mini
strokes called tias, oh,yeah, trans ischemic, yeah. And
so I would be teaching in aclassroom, and I would black
out, not faint and follow thefloor, but black out and lose my

(44:29):
brain. And I would, gosh, Iwould look up and I've got 75
students in front of me, and Iwould not know who they are or
why they're in Gosh. And I wouldlook at my PowerPoint slides,
which I created, and I thought,what are those? And I'd have two
or three minutes of havingsubtle awareness, but no idea

(44:53):
awareness that I was somewhere,but no idea where I was or what
I was doing. They would ask mequestions, and are you okay? And
I was in a brain fog, and thenin about two three minutes, I'd
come out of it, and they'd say,are you all right? And I said, I
think so. And I'd be tired andexhausted, but I would finish

(45:14):
the lecture and go on with myday and do another couple
lectures. I had this happen acouple of times. Even went to a
doctor. And at the same time, Iwas playing a ton of tennis, and
I had a torn rotator cuff andtorn labrum and bone impingement
in my shoulder, and suchdominating pain I couldn't even
lift my arm like that. And so Iwas in such extreme pain morning

(45:39):
to night that I ignored all theheart symptoms, and I ignored
the tias and the mini strokes,oh, and I would go to the doctor
and say, you know, what can youdo for my painful shoulder? That
was my window. I had 400students that semester and seven
classes, and I'm grading paperstill midnight every night with

(46:00):
one arm with my left hand, oh,my gosh. And I started taking
Ambien so that I could sleepthrough the night. And for me,
Ambien was effective for awhile, but scary. I mean, I'd
find myself wandering out on thestreet, you know, and my gosh,
but it led up to a full onstroke, you know, sitting at a
friend's house and watching aBroncos football game, and the

(46:23):
room closing in and gettingdark, and I couldn't talk and I
couldn't stand, and all of mysymptoms of stroke, you know,
speech, arms, couldn't raise myarms, you know, just slowed down
brain. And I had a full onstroke, and I didn't know the
symptoms, and my friends didnot, and I did not get to the

(46:44):
hospital in time to reverse thestroke. And I thought, I thought
it was, you know, naively,stupidly, very stupidly, you
know, I think I'm a reasonablysmart but I was so stupid in
that I did not know the symptomsof stroke and and under

(47:05):
underestimated the magnitude ofwhat was happening to me.
I think a lot of people do thatwhen you're in it. You know when
it's actually happening to you?
You're just not coming to thatrealization necessarily, and if
your friends weren't educatedabout it. I mean, we just
recently have become aware ofwhat to look for. I think that's
kind of natural. It's hard toknow what's happening when

(47:26):
you're going through it.
Yeah, yeah. And you and, youknow, what are those steps of
grief? You know, denial is oneof them. And yeah, so I'll,
we're on the air. I'll take thetime Lynne to to remind people
of the five, or, excuse me, thefour symptoms of stroke, F, A S
T, F, A S T, and they stand forface, ask the person to smile.

(47:50):
And if you've had a stroke,normally you cannot smile. And
and you know your your mouth isor your face is paralyzed. A is
for arms. You know, can you liftyour arms to the person who's
having an incident? And normallythey cannot lift one or both
arms. S is speech, ask themsimple questions, and if they're

(48:11):
really slowed down and theycannot talk intelligibly. And
then t fast is for time. You gotabout two hours to get to the
hospital. And there are reversaldrugs that can negate and
reverse the effects of a stroke,but only if you get there in
that two to three hour window.
And so, F, A, S, T, face, arms,speech time, you know, I teach

(48:35):
it to a lot of people now.
So glad that you mentioned thatI was going to ask, what are the
signs that's so good, F, A, S,T, so when did you get to the
hospital, or did you go thatnight? Well,
well, I My girlfriend was notwith me. She came and picked me
up. I talked my friends intojust let me lay down, you know,

(48:57):
I think I'll feel better. Youknow, very stupid, very naive.
My girlfriend took me home, andthe next morning, we went into
urgent care, and I thought maybeI did get a painkiller
prescribed for my shoulder pain.
So I thought, I'm having areaction to that painkiller. It
was new in the last couple ofdays, I self diagnosed, not the
right thing to do, and we wentinto urgent care, described my

(49:21):
symptoms, and they said, get tothe emergency room. I think
you've got a stroke. So that'swhat we did. And yes, it was a
stroke. I lost a lot of memory.
I lost a lot of vision. A strokeis neurological. It's a
traumatic brain injury. I wasn'table to process the things I I

(49:42):
couldn't drive for six months.
The system in your in your brainthat automatically closes and
filters your eye so that lightdoesn't flood it was knocked out
for about four months. So anyamount of light, even in a dark
movie theater, I. Had to weardark sunglasses because the
tiniest amount of light causedmy eyes to tear up and hurt

(50:05):
extremely. I was really scared.
And I was scared, you know, mygirl? A, my girlfriend will
leave me. B, I'll never driveagain. C, I'll never get to work
again. You know. D, you know,I'll never play tennis again,
which I love, I'm going to haveimpaired vision, and I'm going
to be all alone. And so thatthat that's where I went, you

(50:28):
know, cognitively for a numberof months. And, you know, my my
girlfriend, just stood up andsaid, you know, stood up
metaphorically, and said, comestay with me. I'll take care of
you and, and it was anincredible you know, and just
the connection we have, and thatwas from 10 years ago, you know,

(50:51):
just from her leaning in and,you know, and just care taking
me, you know, I can just aboutcry now. It's just so amazing.
Sometimesyou don't even know until
something like that happens, youdon't even know how much someone
is there for you. I'm so gladthat she was and that
strengthened your relationship.

(51:11):
Now, this would all be badenough, and these are enough
things to have to deal with, butyou have more.
Well, I'll speak a little bit.
I'll speak a little bitprobably, of all the things I've
done in my life. You know, ifyou were to ask, what are you
most proud of? And I would saymy recovery from stroke, because
it was debilitating, and losingmy memory and driving and tennis

(51:32):
and eyesight, I had anoccupational therapist come to
the house about two weeks afterI got out of the hospital after
a stroke, and she said, Jay,there is something called
neuroplasticity. They used tothink the brain was hardwired.
There are these pathways wheresignals go down. If you damage
them, they can't repair. And nowthey believe there's

(51:56):
neuroplasticity, and it's a lotmore fluid, and things can
change and adapt. You can have asignal in your brain, and
instead of having it blocked, itfinds a new path, just like
water finds a new path. So shetold me that, and gave me some
information, and I studied it, Idecided, and they call it
rewiring your brain, and youfind new neural pathways for

(52:18):
those signals to go. What sheput into my head, and what more
I put into my head was I need tocreate as many stimulus and as
many new signals as I can, asfrequently as I can every day. I
need to stress my brain, andthat will make all those signals
find new pathways, and they'llcreate new neural networks. And

(52:41):
I might even be wrong, but Ithink I'm generally correct in
how I thought about it. And so Idid two to three hours of brain
rewiring every day. I would takea big red bouncy ball like you
use on a grade schoolplayground, and I'd throw it
against the wall 1000 times highand low and right and left, to

(53:02):
make my vision compensate, tomake my brain compensate, to
make those signals find newpathways. When I went for a
walk, I believe movement ismedicine, I'd go for a walk, and
I'm here in Colorado, I wouldfind trails. I knew trails that
are littered with stones thatyou have to step across and

(53:23):
over. They have tree roots. Theleaves are filtering the light
from the sun, so it's hard tosee. Those are the trails that
go on because I wanted the moststimulation possible, and so I
rewired my brain two to threehours a day, I lost a lot of
memory. I couldn't remember thenames of friends and family. I

(53:44):
got out photos. I studiedtraumatic brain injuries, and
it's like the brain has a lot ofgeography, and there are nooks
and crevices and crannycrannies, and so the memories
were still in there, but theywere like in a filing cabinet,
stored away. And so I believed Ineeded to refresh myself. And so

(54:04):
I started looking at my oldlectures, which I couldn't
remember, like old lectures,meaning I'd done them one year
ago, refreshed myself, andlooked at my camera roll on my
phone to to remember my ownrelatives. And so, you know,
that's how I got my memory back.
You know, maybe it would havecome back on its own, but I

(54:25):
worked really, really, really,really hard.
You have every right to be proudof that. My God, most people
don't have that dedication. Twoto three hours a day. You were
determined.
I was I was and on. I reallywanted to play tennis, and so I
went to my tennis club, and mytennis pro, he teaches
wheelchair tennis, so he's intohelping so cool people with

(54:47):
disabilities. He he said, I canteach you strokes and how to
play to overcome I still havevision loss over here, and when
a ball would be hit to myforehand. It goes into a black
hole, into a black void, and itstill does, even a decade later.
And so I need to turn my body,shift my field of vision. And so

(55:09):
I would get on the ball machineand have it hit me 2000 balls a
week. For hours, I would justcreate muscle memory of turning
my body and how to overcome, howto overcome, you know, lost
vision and lost balance and allthose things and stimulate new
neural networks. So that wasthat was a workout. And how long

(55:30):
did it take me to recover? Well,I'm 10 years out, and I believe
I'm back 90% I'll never hit 100%and I lost some memory, I'm sure
that I won't get back. And Ilost vision that I will not get
back, my 90% is pretty good.
Are you kidding? That's amazingto me, and I bet there's people
out there who just haven't donewhat you've done, and are living

(55:51):
with these devastating lossesthat they don't have to so I
hope somebody hears it and tellssomebody and helps them to
understand you can, you canrestore. I think that's amazing.
It's so funny how, you know,we're about the same age, and
what we were taught in school, alot of those things are
different now, and one of them,a great example, is

(56:11):
neuroplasticity. We just had noidea. And we were taught, you
know, very empirically, it'sit's always going to be a loss,
and you're never going torestore that. But there you go.
And I think, I think maybepeople understand it better
because of networks andcomputers. And, you know,
because when you were talking, Iwas thinking, yeah, the the
memories there, but you can'taccess it. You don't have the

(56:32):
the right connection orpermissions for that folder,
thinking of it like a computer.
So that's ridiculous. That storyis amazing.
One other thing Lynne, I'llmention that helped me, and I
think could help others, youknow, and I've had some
problems, but everybody hasproblems, and everybody's
biggest problem is their biggestproblem. It doesn't matter if

(56:58):
it's asthma or cancer or heartfailure or an ingrown toenail,
right? And when I get in thosesituations, I buy books and I
want to hear stories of peoplewho have overcome it. One book I
bought I've read three times. Itwas called the stroke rebel and

(57:18):
a woman, oh, my god, had astroke, way, way, way more
debilitating than mine. Thelevel of her neuroplasticity,
recovery and routine and regimenwas puts mine to shame. And so,
you know, I am proud of mine,and it worked for me, for
everybody. And not everybody'sbody responds the same, but what

(57:40):
she did and how she studied it,and she taught me so much in
terms of, educationally, how thebrain works, resilience wise,
how determined she was to getthrough it. And I would pick her
book up and read it again andagain and going, I can do some
of that.
So good we I'm going to put thatbook in the show notes. Do you

(58:02):
remember her name?
Um, no, but I, I've got the bookand I can, yeah, I'd
like to, I'd like to really passthat on, because that sounded
like it was such a help. One,one other, one that people can
relate to, I'm sure, is, um,Kirk Douglas. And Kirk Douglas,
the great, great actor, he, hehad a very debilitating stroke,
and he wrote a book called Astroke of luck, a stroke of luck

(58:23):
and and he won a lifetimeachievement, you know, from the
Oscar Academy, he was asked tocome and give an acceptance
speech, and his speech was so,so so bad at The time, so
disabled. He he studied, he gota speech coach, and he worked
for like nine months to be ableto say 20 words at at the

(58:46):
acceptance. And I watched that,and I still cry. I watch it, oh
my God, because he can hardlytalk, and he's going bang you.
And just unbelievable. It'sunbelievable. And then he writes
a book called A stroke of luck,you know about his life. So
people amaze me every day. Theyreally do. But this is not the

(59:10):
end of your health issues, and Icannot believe that you've been
through all this. It's kind offreaking me out. I didn't know
all the details about yourstroke recovery, so
alright, I feel like I shouldpick up speed on this stuff. So
I feel like,I feel like, you know, we saved
the big one till the end here.
Yeah, so, so,as I had a stroke at age 60, it

(59:33):
made it fully aware to me that Iwas in congestive heart failure,
and that, gosh, I had inheritedthis, you know, that's why I had
the stroke. I was in a bad heartarrhythmia, atrial fibrillation.
My blood clotted coming out ofthat, I started getting treated
for being in heart failure. Andheart failure means your your

(59:55):
heart does not work aseffectively as a. Should you
know when you hear the wordsheart failure, there's actually
a medical doctor or practicecalled Heart Failure doctor. I
told him, You know, I'm in theworld of branding and marketing.
I said, That's a terrible namefor that. I
always thought it was too myfather had heart failure. And

(01:00:15):
then they tell you thepercentage, right? They have a,
oh, don't worry, you're only 30%Yeah.
So, so I got labeled. You know,America is a world of labels. So
I got labeled. You've got heartfailure, advancing heart
failure. So I had that for 10years, and you treat it through
medications. Initially. There'skind of levels of of attack. One

(01:00:36):
is medications anti arrhythmia,drugs that try to keep your
heart in a good rhythm. And Idid a lot of them, and they
worked for a while, until theydon't. And then the next level
of defense is surgicalintervention. And it's things
like ablations. They go in andmap all the irregular signals in

(01:00:57):
your electrical signals in yourheart, and go in and zap them,
cauterize them, and serum createa like you sear a steak on a
grill. They sear the the heartwall, the heart muscle, so that
those electrical signals cannotcome out and mess up your heart
rhythm. And so they did thatseveral times, and they would
work until they didn't. That'sthe nature of all these it's not

(01:01:20):
just me. They can have greatsuccess and and be helpful for a
number of years or not. And soyou're buying time generally
with heart failure. You know, Idon't want to scare people and I
don't want to make them feelbad, but heart failure is a
tough one, where your heartwears out over time, and you can
prolong it a long time through alot of different therapies and

(01:01:43):
medications, and so that's whatI did. But over that 10 year
window, my heart did wear out,and the medication stopped
working, and the surgicalinterventions and heart valve
replacement surgery, theystopped working. And ultimately,
my doctor heart failure doctorsaid, Jay, you are going to need

(01:02:04):
a heart transplant at some time.
And, my god, yeah, that's what Isaid. You know, probably a
little more dramatically, butmore profanity,
but just unbelievable, right?
You want to hearit's like, how can that be me?
I'm, I'm an Exercise guy,modulated my drinking. You know,
I drank a fair bit in college.

(01:02:28):
Man, I drank quite a bit incollege and but I've tapered it
down over the years and keptexercising and stayed fit and
didn't smoke. And I thought,can't be me. Lo and behold, it
was. Ithink that's a great point that
we have to make. I think it's awonderful point that you always
did everything right. You haveamazing discipline, you've
always been healthy, you'vealways been athletic. Sometimes
that's we can't control whathappens to us, you know. And you

(01:02:50):
were probably, well, you wereprobably healthier longer
because of your great habits.
But yeah, sometimes thingshappen, and it's not our fault
at all,and we can circle back to that
about, you know, you think youknow. And you and I talked
earlier, Lynne, somehow you leadyourself to believe that you're
in control exactly, and and youain't, you know, you can

(01:03:14):
influence, but not control. Andso I think good habits that
influenced and staved offthings, but I had heart health
issues and and turns out, evenbeyond a rich history of heart
issues, I had a geneticmutation, which I just found out
about a year ago, which a cousintested who has the same problems

(01:03:37):
I did. I've got, I've got, like,nine cousins with the same heart
issues I have. She did genetictesting and found out we she has
a gene mutation that leads tocardiomyopathy and a lot of
heart disease. She said, cousinJay, I suggest you and your
sister, Donna, cousin Donna,that you guys take this genetic

(01:03:59):
test, and so we did, and thatwas just over a year ago. My two
brothers tested negative, youknow, knock on wood, thankfully.
And my sister and I testedpositive. So we are carriers of
the gene. We got thecardiomyopathy. We have
defibrillators, pacemakers inour chest. My mother had it and
passed away from it mygrandmother, you know, goodness,

(01:04:21):
half of 11 out of 23 cousins allhad the same gene mutation. So
it's my healthy habits were aninfluence, but not a control.
So, and that is so true. I mean,I I'm a control freak. I mean,
I'm working on it, but it's soeasy to think you are in
control. You know, you see theevidence the way you want to,

(01:04:43):
like, Oh, I do this so, youknow, I don't have this problem.
So it must be something I'mdoing, right? But that's just,
you know, wishful thinking, Ithink most of the time. So what
did you feel like you were notgoing to get I mean, how did you
wrestle with that idea that youmight need a heart transplant?
Well, so. My doctor, great guy,and so I've been with him for 10
years, you know, because I'vebeen in heart failure for that

(01:05:05):
long. And he's local and and soI trust him implicitly, and he's
very honest and very direct andvery knowledgeable, and he kept
putting it off into the future.
You can deal with health stuffwhen it's not here and now as
much. And so I could kind ofstay in denial and avoidance,
but it started going down muchmore. He said, you're probably
going to need a transplant. AndI said, you know, thanks, but no

(01:05:27):
thanks. I've led a good life.
I've had a really good run. Ithought there'll be more
inheritance for my kids if Idie. Now I reconciled. I
reconciled a belief in anafterlife. I've got a glorious
belief that I'm going to be aspirit guide and be able to time
travel and teleport, you know,around the world and onboard

(01:05:48):
people as they move into thespirit world. And I'll be able
to connect with my kids. So if Iforgo the transplant, because
that looks hard. Looks reallyhard for somebody who's been
through stuff, I thought, Idon't need more of it. I'm
tired. Heart failure reallywears you out. And you are so
tired you're taking two, threehours of naps a day. I thought,

(01:06:09):
I am just worn out, you know?
And if I want to just go tosleep and not get a heart
transplant, you know? I namedthings. I named it. That option,
door A is the slow wind down.
I'll just do the slow wind down.
Get run out of gas, run out ofenergy, fall asleep and be a
spirit guide. Option B is, doorB is, roll the dice, you know.
Door B is, get a transplant. Youknow, take all these

(01:06:34):
immunosuppressant drugs, go intothe hospital a lot. Have it be
really scary, pull my family,you know, through all this
stress, and get upside and it'slike, no thanks. And so that's
how I thought about things, youknow, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm taking
up to it, yeah, I'm taking twoyears of stressful, worrying,
and I just condensed it intoabout 60 seconds.

(01:06:57):
Oh my gosh. But that's what wasgoing on. Well, it makes sense,
right? I mean, you probably wereworn out by all the work you did
coming back from the stroke, andnow you're tired all the time
and dealing with the heartfailure, you probably just were
not up for it. So that was thething. You're
making peace with it, right? Andthen I went in December 16 of
2023 so nine months ago, I wentinto an appointment with my

(01:07:19):
heart failure doc. And he says,I have good news and bad news.
He he had asked me to go downand meet with the heart
transplant evaluation team inDenver. He said, I know you're
still thinking you don't want todo it, but go down and meet with
them. Get yourselfknowledgeable, be an informed
consumer. It's your health. Hesaid, Jay, I work with many

(01:07:40):
patients, your heart health maygo down even faster, and you may
want to change your mind. And ifyou don't create the option to
have a heart transplant, youwon't, you won't even have that,
that choice. And so I thought,I'm a smart guy, that makes
sense. So I did the transplantevaluation. It's, it's eight

(01:08:01):
hours a day for three full daysand a psychological and
financial support. And, youknow, medical testing, and they
don't take everybody you yourbody has to be, you know, in
shape to accept a heart. Youneed to be the right blood type.
You need to have financialsupport and insurance, and you
need a support network. Ifyou're on your own, they say

(01:08:24):
there are not enough hearts togo around. And if you don't
have, if you're not going tomake good use of a heart,
they'll say, we want to save itfor somebody else who can make
better use of it. And 20% ofpeople pass away without
receiving a new heart, supplyand demand is an issue. Let me
give a plug for everybody onyour driver's license, please

(01:08:44):
sign up to be an organ donor,because there are not enough
hearts, kidneys and livers to goaround for people. He told me
that, and on December 16, I'mseeing him. He says, Jay, I have
good news and and not so goodnews for you. He says, The good
news is you got on thetransplant wait list, barely.
And he says barely, because youask so many questions when you

(01:09:09):
went through the three days ofevaluation, they don't think
you're very enthusiastic aboutgetting a heart transplant. They
want, they want somebody who's,you know, excited about it and
sees it in a certain way, andand you seem trepidatious and
hesitant. And I said, Well,that's because I am and and he
says, he said, their team of 32people I talked to and

(01:09:35):
interviewed me, their teamrejected me and said, Not I'm
sick. I was 68 years old at thetime. The cutoff is generally 70
to get a new heart. You know,they're not going to give a new
heart to somebody, you know,who's got limited runway left.
He said, I advocated for you.
And he said I told the team, howresilient you are, how

(01:09:58):
disciplined, how dedicated.
Created, and you just happen toask a lot of questions, but that
once you decide you want to geta new heart, and you decide
you're all in you know, you willbe the best patient they ever
had. And and so he talked himinto getting me on the list.
That was the good news,but that he's so that he knew
you so well too, that he couldspeak to with confidence that

(01:10:21):
you would be wonderful, that youwould comply, that you would do
all you needed to do. So that's,that's, you know, a real plug
for knowing your doctor welland him knowing me well. Yeah,
exactly, exactly. So,oh my gosh. So all of a sudden,
now it's real. Sonow he gave me the the harder
news, he said, and I know youthought you had 12 to 18 months

(01:10:42):
of of the slow wind down and andyour your heart failure slowly,
gradually declining, and you'rejust running out of energy and
stamina. He said, that's nolonger the case. All all the
diagnostic tests that we ran aspart of the transplant
evaluation indicate that I'mtrying to find remember his

(01:11:05):
exact words, the the trajectoryof your heart status is downward
and extreme, and the wordtrajectory just stuck in my
mind, the trajectory of yourheart decline is extreme, and
you won't be able to walk out toget your mail fairly soon, and
you're going to be hospitalizedand on a balloon pump, and it

(01:11:28):
will not be pretty at all. Andso take, take the concept of the
slow wind down out of your mind.
He said. So instead of having 12to 18 months to decide on a new
heart. It was a Friday afternoonat 4pm he says, You got till
Monday morning, morning todecide. Yeah, so that that that

(01:11:52):
kicked, that kicked my decisionprocess into gear. I'll, I'll
condense it, you know, I, I'm abusiness consultant, and and,
and so I kicked in gear, youknow, I'm going to make a list
of pros and cons and trade offsand probabilities and statistics
and and so I did. I made thismassive grid, you know, of all

(01:12:13):
those things hard or if I don't,and I found myself with analysis
paralysis, you know, that thatwas not getting me to a
decision. And then I thoughtback, how will I make a
decision? And I had a client whowas 20 years older than me, and
a wonderful man and and wise.
You know, sometimes in your lifeyou meet a sage, a guru, and

(01:12:35):
somebody who's just wise thatthat man was, and he told me,
another way to make decisionsis, he says, if you got a couple
hard choices to make, he says,Try both of them on, like, like
a coat of clothes. Oh, and hesaid, Put on decision number one
and and put it on and see how itfits and how it feels, and just

(01:12:57):
kind of walk around the room andlet yourself feel and experience
it, and What emotions do youhave? And and so I tried his
technique with both my choices.
And first I did the slow winddown and and I put on that coat
of clothes and walked around theroom and went for a walk with my

(01:13:21):
puppy dog, and, and I thought,you know, I can be, I can really
have equanimity, imperturbablecalm. And I've, I've reconciled
my belief about the afterlife,and I'm going to be a spirit
guide and, and I think that'sgoing to be a good gig, and I
will be an example to mychildren of how stoic I can be.

(01:13:42):
And I thought, and how does thatfeel? And I thought, that's kind
of a downer that doesn't feellike much fun. And can I be
good? And can I show people howgood I would be at it? Yeah. And
I thought, Okay, let's try onthe other one. And I put on this
code of close of roll the dice.
And my personality type is ahigh extrovert in adventure, the

(01:14:06):
enthusiast. I welcome discovery.
I lean into uncertainty. I wantnew experiences. This feels so
good. There is so much here.
I've never had a hearttransplant and and only three
and a half 1000 people a yearget a heart transplant. And so
I'm in a small, just this tiny,small, exclusive club, almost

(01:14:28):
nobody's in and and I'm in a newtribe, and I might live and I
might die, and I'm going to beon drugs, I might hallucinate,
and I'm going to feel pain, I'mgoing to endure suffering. And
BB King, the great blues singer,said you can't sing the blues
unless you pay your dues. Andthis is me and, and I'm so
excited, and I felt myselfsurging with adrenaline, wearing

(01:14:52):
that coat of clothes, get aheart transplant, dude. And, and
it just. Became obvious to me,you know, very in a matter of of
one day, that that this is whatI'm going to do, and there's no
guarantees, but there's noguarantees in life anyway. Yeah,
you know, none of us have aguarantee for tomorrow, exactly.

(01:15:15):
And this was your ultimateadventure. You realize it was an
adventure as painful and asweird as it could be, and it was
hard. It was an adventure, andthat's what you're about. So
it has been all of that, and Idid get a lot of suffering, and
I did get a lot ofhallucinations, and I have got a
lot of side effects, and theydiminish over time. I'm eight

(01:15:37):
months out from my transplant,and it gets better all the time.
You know, I still take a lot ofimmunosuppressant and nasty
drugs, but they are going downall the time. I am in a tribe.
I'm in a heart transplantrecipient tribe. There's only
30,000 people alive in Americawith a new heart in their chest,
and I'm one of them. There's aFacebook support group with

(01:16:00):
11,000 people in like me, andevery day it's very active.
There's hundreds of posts everyday. And there are posts like,
Hey, I'm on a wait list. I'mreally scared. What is it like
those of you who've had a hearttransplant? What advice can you
give me? Anybody have regrets?
And they'll post that at 11am ona Tuesday, and they will have

(01:16:21):
220 responses within two days.
That's amazing. And thecommunity reaches out and said,
You know, John, I was where youwere two years ago, and it is
scary and it is hard, and youcan do it. And the level of
support and honesty and intimacyand vulnerability in this tribe

(01:16:45):
is off the charts. That'sso good. It's so good that you
found that because it's just ahuge thing to go through and
then, like you had pointed outafterwards, is really hard.
Like, people don't think aboutthat. It's like, it's not like,
Oh, now I have a new heart. Ican just move forward. It you
have to go through, I'll jumpthrough a lot of hoops to get
better. And people, the morethey know about it, the better.

(01:17:07):
Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. One of thethings, and it's how you and I
met, Lynne, is, is through abook writing workshop. I've,
I've got more time. I'm retired,and I've had this, you know, BB
King stimulation. I've paid somedues, and I got stimulated.
And you're not going to wasteyour time. That's what I love

(01:17:29):
about you. You're not going towaste your time. You are
grateful for what time you'vebeen given. Yeah,
I It is you. And I have read,you know, the book by Susan Kane
called bittersweet, which talksabout you don't get all ponies
and rainbows in life. You knowyou're going to get a mix of ups
and downs and twists and turnsand good stuff and hard stuff.

(01:17:52):
Don't gloss over the hard stuff,but lean into it. Learn a lesson
from it, and it will provoke youand stimulate you. What do you
get from it? And what is theupside of loss? When I first
read that in in her book, it'sweird language, the upside of
loss. And so I thought about it.
And, you know, with all myhealth stuff, you know, I really
don't, I think I've led anabsolute blessed life, you know.

(01:18:15):
So I don't sit around going, Ohman, I got a bad, you know, I
got a gene mutation and heartdisease and, you know, stroke
and heart transplant. I thinkwhat an unbelievable,
believable, lucky, exciting,interesting, take a, you know,
trap, a path less traveled lifeI've had. And what is the upside
of all the hard health stuff?

(01:18:37):
And it's, it's, it's made mereflect a lot more. It's dialed
up, as you said, it's dialed upmy gratitude. It's it's my
empathy for my fellow man. Weall go through really hard shit,
and it hurts and it makes youcry, and but we're all doing it,
so we reach out to each other,and it can just bring so much

(01:19:01):
meaning and purpose. When youfeel bad, it helps. You know
what good feels like? That'sexactly right.
It adds a depth and a richnessto the good things. You just
don't have that same like, ifyou think about when you were
younger, you didn't appreciatein the same way you do now,
because there wasn't that depthand richness of having

(01:19:22):
experienced loss to add thosecolors and that, that
unbelievable depth of richness,of this of the sadness makes the
joy so much sweeter. And that'sa lot of what's in her book,
what I loved is that dichotomy.
You know, it's it's just, it'slife, right? It's love and it's
loss, and it not necessarilybalanced, just it's a rocky ride

(01:19:44):
sometimes. But I look forward todoing this again when your book
is out and I hear about it. Um,thank you so much. Is there
anything else you would likepeople to know?
No, no. And the I'll just I'llspeak to an area I'm working on

(01:20:04):
now, which is the concept ofhope. Hope. How do you and so
I'm buying books. And my natureof of learning things is, think
about it. Think of my ownexperience, and then buy some
books from other learned peoplewho've moved through it and
studied it more than I have. Andso I'm buying books and reading

(01:20:25):
about hope and stories of peoplein situations where it looked
hopeless and and you know,Victor Frankel, you know, in in
a holocaust camp, you know, thattype of thing. How do you find
hope in the face of overwhelmingodds. And I think about, you
know, What? What? What can Igive to the world from my range

(01:20:48):
of experiences, just, just asyou are, as you write a book and
and trying to get my arms aroundhope, and I have no I have no
belief that I'm going to come upwith the answer for anything,
and that I will ever write abook that says, and here are the
seven tips to do, to do this ordo that. That's bullshit. You

(01:21:09):
know, I can share the thingsthat helped me, and they may or
may not help you, and suggestthings, and you can try your
own. And maybe I can give yousome tools, and you can develop
your own. But even bigger, thatI can give hope. I went through
some hard stuff and came out theother side and, and if I found a
way, and other people have founda way, you know that that's what

(01:21:32):
I hope to work on, is hope. Idon't have my arms around it,
yet,I love that and, and it's so
meaningful, if you've beenthrough things to try to reach
out and help other people, youknow, and just say, look, I
learned this, and this workedand this didn't. And you're
always going to attract certainpeople will get the lesson, you
know, certain people will, andcertain people might not, but

(01:21:52):
you know, it's not meant foreverybody. It's meant for people
that it resonates with. So it'svery much worth doing. And
you're not the expert, andthere's not 15 ways, but you
know, it's it's very connectingwith other people. It's that
connective, wonderful sharing ofinformation, and if anybody can
take anything from it, it'sworth it.

(01:22:14):
Why go through all these things?
Ialways say, why go through your
life if you can't share what youlearned? So you certainly are
doing that. Thank you for comingon. And I'll put the info in the
show notes, and we'll talk toyou probably next,
I don't know, maybe in sixmonths. Alrighty.
Thank you so much. Reallyenjoyed it. Appreciate it. Have

(01:22:36):
a have a good weekend. Bye. Youtoo. Bye. Bye. Don't