August 8, 2023 • 41 mins
Fucking. Cancer.
Episode 53, The Emotional Chaos of Cancer, dropped this morning. WHAT an incredible man and an incredible episode.
Whether you have fought through a cancer diagnosis yourself or you know someone who has battled cancer, this is an episode you cannot miss. His story is intense.
After losing his sister to brain cancer, he decided to give others struggling, battling, and cycling through cancer, over 5,000 miles of story-telling across the states to honor them.
David is not only beyond an incredible man, but he is an eloquent and witty writer, amazing speaker, business coach, and now friend.
Love you so much @davidrichman_cycleoflives like beyond. Thank you for gracing me and my listeners with your story. You badass!
You can find David online:
**100% of the net proceeds from the book go to support the charities chosen by the participants. Those organizations are listed on the website and in the book.
WEBSITE:
www.cycleoflives.org
INSTAGRAM:
https://davidrichman_cycleoflives
FACEBOOK:
www.facebook.com/cycleoflives
BOOK:
Cycle of Lives, 15 People's Stories, 5,000 Miles and a Journey Through the Emotional Chaos of Cancer
Episode 53, The Emotional Chaos of Cancer, dropped this morning. WHAT an incredible man and an incredible episode.
Whether you have fought through a cancer diagnosis yourself or you know someone who has battled cancer, this is an episode you cannot miss. His story is intense.
After losing his sister to brain cancer, he decided to give others struggling, battling, and cycling through cancer, over 5,000 miles of story-telling across the states to honor them.
David is not only beyond an incredible man, but he is an eloquent and witty writer, amazing speaker, business coach, and now friend.
Love you so much @davidrichman_cycleoflives like beyond. Thank you for gracing me and my listeners with your story. You badass!
You can find David online:
**100% of the net proceeds from the book go to support the charities chosen by the participants. Those organizations are listed on the website and in the book.
WEBSITE:
www.cycleoflives.org
INSTAGRAM:
https://davidrichman_cycleoflives
FACEBOOK:
www.facebook.com/cycleoflives
BOOK:
Cycle of Lives, 15 People's Stories, 5,000 Miles and a Journey Through the Emotional Chaos of Cancer
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
This is Your Pain Game podcast wherewe talk about the game of living in
and with chronic pain and trauma getinto the heart of how to heal.
I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, ballistic practitioners, loved ones, and
anybody that is interested in having theirvoice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
(00:27):
world that we live in. SoI woke up this morning and asked myself,
how the hell do I endure allof this? Right with my CRPS
and my pain and all of this. How do I endure so much stress
(00:49):
and pain and the feeling of feelinglike suffocated in it sometimes and stifled dreams
things that I thought I'd be doingright now that I can't physically do right
now, right now, right guys, is come in the sadness, the
hurt like past trauma and current traumas. You know, how how do I
endure this? How do I endure? So? I googled endurance and this
(01:11):
is what I do, And thisis what so many of us do.
Right We endure. I endure unpleasantand difficult processes or situations without giving way.
I fall I cry, I losemy mind, but I don't give
up, and I endure the emotionalchaos of my diagnosis and how it has
(01:32):
uprooted every single ounce of my existenceand those in my life as well.
But I was stand that hardship andadversity with as much grace and laughter and
tears as you all know from listeningto this one as I possibly can.
And then there is looking at endurancefrom a different lens, right, the
lens of sport, if you will, the lens of persevering through unbearable conditions
(01:55):
to continue in a long distance raceto a finish line and a fish line
that you kind of set for yourself. Which I love that idea of setting
our own goals, right, Sowe set these finish line for ourselves.
And it's not unlike my guests today. Wow, guys, just get ready
for this wild and crazy animal.We are certainly cut from the same cloth,
that's for sure. So let's getinto this thing today. So we're
(02:19):
going to talk about one of ourfavorite topics, cancer. Right, we've
all been affected in some way,shape or formed by cancer. We've experienced
it, We've looked at straight inthe eye, whether it is from even
if it's far removed. We've hadpeople that are in our lives. I've
talked about my aunt passing away frombrain cancer. Right now, I've got
an uncle who has a brain tumorthat's killing him, who's going to die
at any time, and it's horrible, and we're all affected from it,
(02:42):
right And We've all been on thisemotional journey, and I've dealt with the
chaos that cancer throws at us toendure. And we've talked to so many
people that have endured their cancer diagnosesand have lost many to it. One
of my past guests, in fact, Fitzkohler, is a concertant reminder of
how endurance and perseverance and spirit andspunk helped save her from her cancer diagnosis.
(03:05):
And not everybody is as lucky asshe is. So let's be real.
I mean, cancer is like thequeen of emotional chaos, right.
She injects high doses of fear andanxiety and uncertainty into the life of the
patient and the caregiver and the lovedones. So let's pull her off our
throne and let's talk about it,and how my guest has worked his ass
off to do just that So withoutfurther ado, I'd like to introduce to
(03:27):
you my guests today, David Richmond. Hey, buddy, how are you.
Oh my god, you're like ayou're like a verbal writer as well.
I'm something something. I'm great.Thank you, Lindsey. Really excited
to talk to you. Really,oh, thank you so much so.
David is an author, public speaker, and an endurance athlete whose mission is
to form more meaningful human connections throughstorytelling, and that he does well.
(03:50):
His first book, Winning in theMiddle of the Pack, discussed how to
get more out of ourselves than everimagined. But for our conversation today,
we're talking a little bit about hissecond book, right. It's called Cycle
of Lives. David shares stories ofpeople overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their
emotional journeys with cancer. And hecontinues to do Iron Man try off ones
(04:11):
and recently completed What You'll Hear Aboutin regards to the book, a solo
over five thousand mile bike ride,which is just freaking insane, and we're
going to talk about it. Solet's get started. I'd like to roll
out the red carpet for you,and boy do you deserve it as long
as it's soft. I guess soour feet from all the running. Oh
my gosh, you're insane. Ican't wait to get into this with you.
So I'd like to start talking aboutwhy in the hell did you decide
(04:34):
to get on your bike and rideacross the country right out of the gates.
And let's just take it from there, okay, lindsay so honest,
like where's your just talking? Alot of you know how? Like they
say, like nothing good happens aftertwo in the morning at a party,
Yes, but only epic things happenafter two o'clock in the morning, after
(04:57):
things, So there's nothing good thatcan come out of a stupid gimmick except
for something epic. And I justthought it was a gimmicky. I thought,
like, here's what anything like.Humans are only connected by two things.
We're connected by emotion. Now wemight have different emotional responses, but
we have the same basket of emotionsto draw from. All of us have
those emotions, some can't tap intothem, but we all have the same
(05:20):
basket. The other thing, we'reconnected by a story. And I don't
know a single person alive who ifyou catch somebody eye to eye and you
go, hey, I've got thestory for you. Got to hear the
story. Who doesn't stop to hearthe story. We're all connected by stories,
So I thought, after interviewing thesepeople for a couple of years and
thinking that we're all connected by theemotion, we're connected by stories. What
(05:44):
better way to connect these stories thanto get on my bike and bike zigzagging
to each one of the participants sothat I could connect those stories. So
it kind of came as a gimmickything like, oh, yeah, I
could connect them by getting on mybike. And then all of a sudden,
I realized, holy crab, that'sa fight thousand miles and I only
got X time to do it,and yeah, it's going to be a
pretty big undertaking. But you knowwhat, in retrospect, it was really
(06:06):
an important facet of the book.It's really unbelievable. So this guy wrote
a book about fifteen people's different lives, right, different stories like he's talking
about in relations to their cancer journeys, and all of them are just their
their heart stopping there. I mean, I cried, I laughed, just
because I got to know this dudea little bit. There was a lot
of his smart ass ness. Itreally is an amazing journey, and the
(06:30):
way in which you put it togetherwas really cool. Can we actually talk
about I'm going to backstup just alittle bit because a lot of this came
from what happened to your sister June. So can we talk a little bit
about June for us? Sure,and thank you for that. I'll be
quick about it. But basically,the starting point of this project, and
you're in the starting point of theanswering your question happened with me at a
(06:53):
big transformation point in my life.So I was an overweight smoker, I
was married to an use of alcoholicI had four year old twins. On
one side of the coin, lifewas great. I was running a massive
business for a big Wall Street firm. Life was good. Everything was great.
On the other side of the coin, it was a death trap.
I was making bad decisions. Iwas in a horrible situation and my life
(07:16):
needed to change. And I heardkind of the right words at the right
time and started to go on apath to change my life. Like for
the first time ever. This wasright before I turned forty. Like I
finally like got it, Like Ifinally understood, Like Okay, you got
to live with intention, you gotto try to be your best self.
You gotta lean into who you couldbecome, and you gotta let go of
all the ship and you gotta justlike just go forward. Yeah, And
(07:40):
I see this big, huge journeyahead of me and like, I'm excited
for the first time in my lifeof what I'm going to become. And
right at that same time, Iget a call from my sister who coming
out of a very traumatic childhood.We were very close, very close in
age, and had had overcome alot of difficulty, but she was in
a really great place in her life. And at that exact same time,
she called me up and she said, hey, you know, I got
(08:01):
brain cancer. I'm going to dicehim. And I went, holy crap,
Like, you know, the dichotomyof my finally getting this endless journey
ahead of me where I'm kind ofgoing to figure it all out, and
then her having a very short andvery narrow journey ahead of her, and
it was really touching to me.So I really paid attention and I tried
(08:22):
to figure out how in the worlddid you navigate that. I didn't know
how to navigate either road, butI certainly didn't know how to navigate that
road of like knowing you're going todie and having a beautiful marriage and beautiful
kids and a great circle of friendsand you're really grounded and being your best
self and you know that's going tobe taken away soon? How do you
navigate that? And I wanted tolearn And what I noticed Lindsay was that
(08:46):
not just her, but everybody thatwas around her, or everybody that I
encountered when I did events to raisemoney and I paid attention and I talked
to doctors and I talked to nursesand whatever. I noticed that everybody had
the same common theme at a certainlevel. If they could take care of
stuff, they could deal with thetasks about the cancer, but they couldn't
deal with the emotion of cancer.And how do you start a hard conversation
(09:11):
like I can understand how to helpLindsay physically with some tasks, but how
do I sit down and look Lindsayin the eye and go like, wow,
dude, how are you feeling aboutwhat's going on? Like what's it
like? Like that's hard to do, man, that's hard to do.
It is it's very lonely in theshadows of any diagnosis that's going to affect
you long term, whether it's Imean what my diagnosis is not cancer,
(09:31):
but I it feels like a versionof cancer to me because it is killing
me and slowly and it's driving mebatchtit crazy. But it's a very lonely
place because and it's lonely for thepeople around you too. Like my sweetie's,
he feels helpless and hopeless in somein some cases where it's like he
(09:52):
can't do anything, in those momentswhere I am just dead to the world.
I can't walk, I can't eat, I can't you know, all
of those places when you and whenyou normally look at me and seeing me
and talk to me, I'm thisperson right now, right right. This
person is not here all the time. She shows up. But the darkness
is very, very scary and verylonely. And so it's neat for people
that even give a crop like youhonestly to care to even come into those
(10:16):
dark places with us, because itis scary and it is lonely, and
it's like you said, it's lonely. It's very and not only do you
isolate because you don't want to bringpeople down, and you don't want to
get sympathy, and you don't wantpeople to hold you at a certain level.
I mean, there's a million thingsthat are going on in your head
that why are isolating, and thenthere's also the same amount of things that
(10:37):
are going in other people's heads thatare abandoning you. It's like, I
literally just got a call from afriend of mine. He had a seventeen
year old daughter on the phone,and she said, Hey, I need
your help, and I said,yeah, what's up? And she said,
my friend, his mom just gotdiagnosed with breast cancer. And obviously
I can't talk to him. Obviously, I got to give him time to
(10:58):
figure it out. When do Isay something? And what can I say?
And I'm like, let me tellyou something, dude, Like every
single one of his friends is saying, obviously I need to leave him alone.
Obviously I can't talk to him,And what do you think that makes
him feel? Like, oh mygosh, yeah, he's alone. Yeah,
so obviously you need to talk tohim right now, yeah, and
(11:18):
say, I don't know the hellto say to you. I can't even
imagine what the hell you're going through, but I need to talk to you,
and I need to make sure you'reokay, and I need to let
you know that I care. Yeah, right, because obviously nobody else is
doing that. So it's not onlyjust a very isolating place people oftentimes,
and most of the time they feelabandonment, or to prevent isolation or abandonment,
they just lock everything up inside andnever deal with it. Yeah,
(11:41):
and that doesn't help us form authentic, deep connections. That doesn't that doesn't
fulfill who we need to be inthis life, and and and that can
probably lead to more stuff. Ifyou didn't have an outlet, if you
didn't have somebody that could care,somebody that you could look at soul to
soul and have some type of relieffrom the emotional chaos that you're going through,
it might make things a heck ofa lot worse. Yeah. I
(12:01):
mean, in fact, this pastcouple of weeks have been fairly challenging,
and the pain department over here,not that it isn't normally challenging, but
it's been significantly higher over the pastcouple of weeks. And I know the
reasons why, but man, I'vejust needed to just like sob and cry
and yell and get mad and throwthings to just like, get rid of
some of that junk. Otherwise it'sjust gonna sit inside our bods like that
(12:22):
book, and I say, andall the time, the body keeps a
score, But it is totally true. It's just gonna sit there and keep
traumatizing us more and more if wedon't reach out and touch somebody, you
know, and we have to anddon't be afraid to reach out to your
loved ones and say something. Iwould. I certainly would much rather have
people give a crap and love meand reach out to me and want to
(12:43):
know how I'm doing, then completelyabandoned me and feel like, oh gosh,
I've got to walk on eggshells aroundhe or handle her with kid gloves
and like, dude, it's me, like, no, please be invasive,
show up, be here for me. Yeah, yeah, Lizzie.
I don't know a lot, butI'll tell you one thing I know for
certain. Every single person knows somebodyin their life right now that is going
(13:03):
through something absolutely horribly traumatic. Yep, and you the listener, have not
reached out to them because you're afraid. That's been so much time. I
don't know what to say. Igot so busy, my problems are so
minor. If I start asking,you know, I have really good things
happen and they know it. Sonow I can't call them because it's going
(13:24):
to make them feel bad, Likewhat the hell do I say? Like,
it's better just not to call.They'll be a better time. And
we all know, absolutely one percentguarantee you that there's somebody that's coming up
on an anniversary of a death ofa loved one they had, you know,
a niece that had a major problem. I guarantee you there's somebody out
there that's going I know this person. I should call it, but I
(13:46):
haven't called. I don't know whatthe hell to say. Yeah, and
I'm glad that you brought that up, especially in relation to my problems are
minor, and I would like toaddress that, because it doesn't matter if
your problems are minor in comparison tosomebody else, you still are struggling through
whatever you are struggling with. LikeI have people that are like got my
backers and like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I did not
mean to like complain about pain,because I know you go through far more
(14:07):
than me. I'm like, ohmy god, no, thank god,
someone else, is it pain?Mean, please tell me experience that you're
you're experiencing humanity like the rest ofus are, you know, Like,
don't walk on eggscels around me andwe might be we might push back at
you though, and don't let thatget in the way of you continuously coming
back towards us and giving us love, you know, because we don't know
(14:28):
how to respond either. You know, it's tough, you know, And
I can't speak in regards to cancer, but I can certainly speak in regards
to my version of it. Soin relation to your sister June, I
know that the outcome was not good. What happened and how did that trigger
what you just did with this milesand thousands of miles across our nation.
(14:52):
Yeah, So what happened was thatshe became a board study, which was
a good thing for her because itprolonged her life and increased her care.
I think, and you know that'ssuch a wonderful thing. If you can
get matched up with a you know, a provider or what you drug whatever
that they can make a study outof you, you get more attention.
Right there's they need you and youneed them. Just matching the two is
(15:15):
together. So but eventually, andnot too long after her diagnosis, she
passed, and it was really reallydifficult for the people around her. Her
husband and kids were very close toher, and his family very close to
her. I was very close toher too, but not kind of part
of that part of the inner circle. Her friends took it really really hard.
(15:37):
I mean, it was really toughbecause she was a force of nature,
you know, very lively, youknow, I mean, like you,
she walks into a room and ownsit right, doesn't apologize, just
this issue who she is and andpeople are gravitated to her, and so
that was kind of a bummer andit was a big loss. But we
oftentimes, if there's a silver liningin cancer, we oftentimes can wrap things
up. We can we have theoperatunity to form the deepest, most authentic
(16:03):
connection with those people. It's notgoing to be pleasant all the time,
and we might still be afraid toask questions or to go deep, but
it does give us a chance.In her and I weren't able to talk
about everything, but we were ableto talk about a lot of stuff.
And that was her inviting me totalk to her and me not being afraid
to talk to her, so atleast we got that out, you know,
(16:25):
And after she passed, I reallythought like, well, okay,
well, am I'm making this uplike that. People have a difficulty or
talking, you know, about theabout trauma and especially in relation to earlier
life trauma. You know, howare you dealing with your chronic pain and
the loneliness of that in relation toearlier traumas that you had, right,
(16:47):
because that's very important for me tounderstand what you're going through. I need
to understand what you've been through.And so I wanted to see if I
was my optic. Was that onesituation that I'm blowing up and making a
reality or is that the reality?And I just I'm trying to like finally
discover it. That's the reality.And everybody I spoke to had that at
some level that they that they isolated, They've got a band and they kept
(17:11):
it all inside. They didn't knowwhat to do, They didn't know how
to talk about it or let otherpeople talk to them about it. Just
we just don't have those tools.And so I'm not qualified to solve the
answer of how do we do that? But I thought I was qualified to
be able to open up the curtainand say, you want to connect with
Lindsay, let me tell you whoshe is. Let me let me show
you, Let me show you whoshe is. That way, we might
(17:34):
be able to next time we runinto Lindsay or somebody like her, we
might be able to understand how tobetter connect to them. And and that's
and in the end, that's allthat life's about. Right. But it
is true because you know, wemeet these people in our lives, not
unlike you and me, and youknow, in our own weird way is
through doing episodes on this show.I'm connected to these people, some more
(17:57):
specifically than others that I know.I would be able to reach out to
you in ten fucking years from nowand just be like, what's up,
Like I need an ear, andyou would totally be that person and I
would be the same. That issomething that is innate in me, though,
and I think that a lot ofpeople struggle with that, Like you're
talking about being able to open upand share when it came to childhood,
(18:18):
trauma and trauma all the way througheven my last my last marriage, how
many times am I married? Mytwentieth marriage? Whatever feels that way.
Some days. But you know,going back to all of the different things
that I've happened in my life,Like you're saying, you have to understand
where you came from to understand wherewe are. And that's a challenge because
it is hard to open up andbe vulnerable and share. And that's something
(18:38):
I had to learn to do todo this show because I was like,
if I'm not going to be realand authentic, then I might as well
just stop this immediately because it wouldjust be a lie. And so it's
been challenging to share some of thedark and dirty and twisty stuff that I've
done or things that have happened tome. And I feel so much better
that I'm doing it. Doesn't meanthat it's easy. It's fucking hard.
(19:00):
It is hard, and it's sad, and it's challenging. But man,
am I feeling more blessed that I'vechosen to go that route than do what
I've done my whole life, whichis stuff it down and hide it and
pretend that nothing was going on.Yeah, and if you're not able to
lean into that like deep real self, I mean how many times I do
this? Oftentimes I wonder, like, you know, like I knew that
person for twenty years and they're notin my life anymore. And you know
(19:22):
what, there's nothing I'm missing.I don't have a single, deep,
meaningful like memory of whatever, andI wasted twenty years. And then I
think about this one tiny, littlefive minute interaction with some stranger that has
never left me in twenty years,and I go, oh, my god,
like, how ridiculous is it thatyou can have that shallow of a
(19:47):
connection on purpose and that deep ofa connection on purpose, And it doesn't
matter if it's five minutes or twentyyears, right, And so that's what
I was fascinated by, is justthe ability to see someone and the honor
that I got in writing this bookreally was not everybody could do it,
and I certainly couldn't get everything outof everyone, and not everybody could could
(20:11):
could come prepared to give me whatI needed. But everybody that made the
book. Multiple times in our conversationsthey would look me in the eye.
Well, we were always talking onthe phone, but I could tell they
would be looking at me, andif we were sitting next to each other,
but they took a deep breath andthey went, you know, I've
never really ever talked about that.It's empowering, isn't it. I've never
(20:32):
dealt with X. I've never toldit. Can I tell you something I've
never told anyone? Yeah? Yeah, I need to know that because I
read on that and I loved thatabout the book, because you went through
the motions of that in the book, talking about how you got people to
tell their stories and how they wereyou know, like, oh, I'm
not sure about the hesitation that somany of them had, and you chose
(20:56):
fifteen different stories. I can't imaginehow many you act really had. As
I was reading that, I wasjust like, oh, my gosh,
like he's he must have like moreand more and more. How did you
go about finding the people for I'mjust going to call them guests, the
guests in your book, the stories, the stories in your book. How
did you go about finding these peopleand how did you choose I mean,
(21:18):
my gosh, so these stories arejust I mean, you must have just
heard, well, at least frommy experience reading your book, you heard
the stories and stories and stories thatweren't even part of your book, but
you you know, you threw inyou know, here and there where you
talk to somebody else that was tellingthem about a story that helped you.
Even in that bike story, yougot to talk. There's so many things
I want to talk about. Youwere going all over the place. No,
no, I understand your question.So let me tell you what my
(21:41):
thought process was. So I figure, if you talk to fifteen women about
breast cancer and how they dealt withbreast cancer, that it would maybe give
you a wider perspective on dealing withthat. If you dealt with fifteen people
that were encountering early onset Alzheimer's,you could kind of maybe get a better
My thought process was this, Idon't want to solve for a problem.
(22:04):
What I want to do is Ilooked at it. Imagine up wheel on
a bicycle. That's a cycle oflives. I imagine a wheel on a
bicycle, and it's separated into amillion sections by all those spokes in the
wheel, right, And so whatI wanted to do was to fill in
each one of those sections by goingI want young, old in between.
(22:25):
I want patient, doctor, nurse, caregiver. I wanted them to encounter
cancer at a young age. Iwanted to have them encounter cancer at an
old age. I wanted it tobe just a fear of cancer or having
lived with cancer five different times intheir adult life. I wanted all types
of cancer, severity, everything thatcould so I could shine a light on
as many facets. And then whatmade me pick the people was to fill
(22:49):
in more spokes of what kind oftraumas did you overcome? Because I can
identify with failed marriages, I canidentify with being in an abusive relationship,
I can identify with having shitty parents. I can identify with a lot of
things. I might not be ableto identify with what's it like as a
woman getting breast cancer? Okay,but I can understand how maybe because you
(23:10):
were you grew up in a householdthat was brutal, like my household was
brutal, I might understand how youmight not be able to open up about
things I might understand, you know, So I wanted What I wanted to
do is cover as many sections inthe in the wheel as possible, so
that I could fill it all inso we can understand the human experience.
And so when I when I pickedstories, they needed to have enough differentiation
(23:33):
from all the other stories that thatthat it would cover the whole human experience,
because I don't want to try tosolve for a problem. I just
want to be able to show peoplewhat what lies behind the kurt, what
what have people gone through? Andwhat are they going through? And boy,
we have no idea? Yeah,well you accomplished just that. And
I'm not blowing sunshine up your askyour buddy. It tickles, but no,
(23:57):
it was. It's just a remarkableidea if I believest from my perspective,
and I really enjoyed it. Wasthere any story, particularly in your
book that stood out more than others? I mean, I know that's a
tough question. They're all they're sosad and so tragic, and also at
the same time so incredibly uplifting andpositive. I'll tell you the one I
(24:18):
think that really gave me a newway of thinking about everything was the story
of a woman who when she foundout that she had been diagnosed with brain
cancer a tumor the size of agrapefruit, and that she was being wheeled
into surgery which she might not comeout of, and she was going to
(24:41):
leave her husband and six kids behind. And when her husband told her what
was going on, because they hadno idea, when her husband told her
what was going on, she said, thank God, it's cancer. And
her greatest emotion from cancer was gratitude. And I'm like, how is that
even possible? Right? And it'snot. It's just it's not right.
(25:03):
It's not possible. How could iteven be possible? And don't give me
something like, oh, you know, God gives you what you can handle
them. But but literally she criedtears of joy and gratitude for hearing that.
And I couldn't wrap my brain aroundit until I really understood the story.
And each story kind of gave methat, like when, like why
can't you have a positive emotion likegratitude knowing that you are being willed into
(25:26):
surgery, and like what's the storybehind that? The story, to be
really really brief, is twenty fiveyears of a marriage, tons of therapy,
six kids, lost one at eighteenmonths. I mean, they have
come through the ringer of these people, and they're very fortunate, very successful
in life, financially and otherwise.But she started going downhill mentally, and
(25:51):
so much to a point that shedecided, in a moment of clarity during
a tremendous amount of casts, thatshe was the problem and the only way
that we can keep our family togetheris to put me in a mental institution.
Well, and she's the one thathad to come to the realization that
she was going crazy, she wasthe problem, and she had to extricate
(26:14):
herself from her beautiful life and putherself in a mental institution to get better
because it was her. And whenthey put her in the institution, they
put her through a battery of tests. Within twenty four hours, they called
up her husband and said, she'sgot a tumor the size of a great
food. It's always going to makeme cry. And she said, thank
god, it's cancer. Oh mygosh. So how are you not going
(26:37):
to allow somebody to feel gratitude?How are you going to tell them how
to feel about what they're going throughbecause you have no idea what they're going
through. And so those are thekind of stories that made me think,
like, like, if I cantell the story the way that it needs
to be told, which is let'sjust strip it all bear and tell everybody
what you've been through, it mightmake me understand next time when you say
(27:00):
something I think is freaking stupid,like, oh my god, I'm so
grateful that my leg got cut offthat I'm not going to look at you
like you're like you're a moron.Yeah, I mean it's even like even
when I use this example here andthere, but it's like when we're driving,
we all get pissed off of peoplethat are on the road. Right.
People are doing stupid shit left andriving around us. They're texting,
they're doing their makeup, they're shaving, they're drinking, they're eating what they're
(27:22):
like doing an entire day's work intheir car while they're driving. It drives
me nuts. But you've got somepeople that you know, their hands are
on their wheel and they're speeding throughand I keep thinking in my head like
maybe their wife is in the backseatgiving birth and they're on the ray of
the hospital, or maybe they justfound out that they have cancer, or
maybe they just found out that theirdaughter was in a car accident and their
rushing. So, I mean,there might they might not all be assholes
(27:42):
around us, right, Like,we all have to give each other some
grace that there might be some stuffgoing on in their lives that are causing
them to behave this way. Thatdoesn't necessarily give everybody a free pass to
drive like an a hole. ButI'm just saying it is a good representation
and an example. If we don'tknow what's going on around us, we
just don't, you know, andwe need to be a little bit more
loving in regards to it, that'sfor sure. I just kind of started
(28:06):
being able to verbalize this lately.But the universe is a great mirror,
right, and it reflects what wesee. And if I see people as
one dimensional, then the universe isgoing to show me that people are one
dimensional. And that's okay because that'sthat's just the way I'm viewing the world.
That's what I'm seeing. So that'swhat get reflected back on me.
If I have a deeper understanding thatpeople are multidimensional and that there is more
(28:30):
to the story and that maybe Idon't know everything, then guess what,
the universe is going to show methat people are multidimensional. I don't know
that, right, and so soit's it's important. And each one of
these stories has given me at leastone, but probably two or three or
four really points of reference to howamazing people are and what the things that
(28:52):
they've gone through. And I triedmy hardest in telling these stories so that
people could sit back go oh yeah, So when you say you're okay,
it really doesn't mean that right now. Of course. It's just like when
women say to you, you menin our lives were fine, We're fine,
I'm fine. That does not meanwe're fine, by the way.
(29:14):
I mean could very rarely, veryrarely, very really. So okay,
So let's get to the actual bikingpart of this, because that is like
a whole other part of this bookobviously, because you're telling these stories of
these people and then you're getting intothe nitty gritty of what you're doing on
the daily. Well, first ofall, let's talk about why you got
on a bike and why you wantedto go do this crazy ass thing that
(29:37):
you just did and put it intothis book. But why did you get
behind on a bike of all things? Because I hate cyclists, by the
way, and I'm pointing out him, I love you, but I'm like,
come on, I don't want toshare the road with you. Drive
me crazy, But why why youdid this? And give us like I
want? I wanted you to tellthe story about the Texas and the bridge
(29:57):
because that is just insane. Iliterally felt like I was there with you.
You wrote it so eloquently. Okay, So, first of all,
one out of every ten drivers isa total jerk. Let's be honest.
Okay, only one. Let's behonest. One out of every ten cyclists
thinks they own the road. Ifeel like it's nine out of time.
No, it's really not. It'sreally not. Not focusing on the one
(30:19):
and take care for the nine becauseokay, carry on the road. It
is scary reading this book, maybenot want to ever be on the road
outside of a car. And I'vedriven through every state in this nation,
as well as all through Canada,so I understand the open road is scary,
that's for sure. I'm still traumatizedby it. But again, in
the in the vein of not wantingto be myopic and creating my own reality,
(30:42):
I said, okay, well yougot these all these stories and okay,
yeah there, okay, but maybeyou attracted those stories and there's really
only fifteen people that have a deepbattle with the emotional chaos of cancer.
Right, And then I said,well, if you get any bike and
you go check it out, maybemaybe you'll find out if you're right or
wrong. And every single day,lending every single day I ran into someone
(31:04):
or multiple someone's who was like,you know, I was at work the
other day and somebody told me thattheir uncle got cancer and I don't know
how to say, so I justlaughed and I tell I'm avoiding them.
What the hell do I say,right, or something like that, And
it was just shocking to me that, I mean, every single day,
I can't even tell you, thestories are endless on everybody resonated with this
(31:29):
idea of I don't want to sayto people or I don't know how to
let people say something to me,like I'm not going to open up to
them because I'm not going to bringthem down and I don't want their sympathy
and right yea. So it waskind of cool because on the bike ride
I did that, I discovered thatwe're all just that we're all just that
we just don't know what to say, we don't have the tools, and
so that kind of fueled me tocontinue to do the bike ride. But
(31:53):
I was on interstates most of thetime because I had to get from point
A to point beach day. Iwas on a schedule. The hotels were
mostly donated. I think all butone or two nights were donated, and
I was visiting a lot of placesalong the way and a lot of people
along the way, so I didn'thave a chance to take an extra day
off or whatever. So I hadto get from start to finish each day,
(32:14):
you know, in a very specificmanner, which made it really,
really tough. It made it reallytough. And I learned a million lessons
out there, and other lessons thatI had learned in life were exclamation point,
you know, like underlying bold yep, yep, that was the lesson
that you learned, and it's moretrue now, yeah, And being alone
with yourself and in your head andyou know, in the dark and in
(32:36):
the rain and all of the thingsthat you went through, like whoa like
that, being with yourself takes alot of It actually takes a lot of
strength to be alone with yourself,at least from my perspective, it does.
And I learned a lot out there. I definitely learned a lot,
and I saw a lot, andI'm very grateful for the opportunity. I
learned two of the most valuable lessonsof my life out there. One of
(32:58):
those was that I had perfectly finegrieved my my sister. I was totally
fine with having dealt with that loss, right, Like, I felt pretty
good about it. But I realizedthat the one thing I didn't grieve was
that nobody knew me as a kid, right, Nobody knew what I had
(33:20):
been through, and it was notgood. She was the one person.
She was the one person that Icould have said, hey, you remember
when we were a little kid andthis shitty thing happened, and how nobody
nobody else get that. That's oneof the things about sibling loss. I
mean, every kind of lost isbrutal, but that's one of the things
about sibling loss is that the peoplethat know you as a little kid and
(33:40):
know what you've been through, andlike, you don't have to convince them
that what happened happened. Yeah,yeah, you know, your parents didn't
see it that way, your friendsdidn't see it that way, the grandparents
didn't no way. So I hadto grieve that and that was a that
was a really eye opening thing whereI was just like, Okay, I
gotta figure out what it's like thatnobody but the person that's dad will ever
(34:01):
know what I went through. You'vegot to tell the Texas Bridge story.
Come on, oh, my gosh, all right, well insane. It
was after Texas. It was inLouisiana. Oh, Louisiana. Texas was
a long road. Texas was along that was nine or ten days biking
through tech Yeah, because through Idig Zach through Texas as well, but
(34:23):
on a bike in September in Texasand the heat and the wind is just
gross. But the four mile Bridgeso really quick. So what happened was
because the four mile Bridge. Yeah, I'm on I'm on the high I'm
on highways, and so, uh, there's no shoulder, there's no sometimes
there's your shoulder. But when Iget on this this bridge, like I
(34:44):
feel like I'm gonna die. LikeI literally feel it because it's ominous.
There's these thunderstorms and you know it'slike cars are barreling by, and I'm
like, what the hell? Andthere's got to visualize this. So as
I and my buddy it called meahead of time and told me, hey,
there's there's just like Harry Bridge,a couple of miles long. Don't
worry about it, you'll be fine. So when I get on, I
(35:04):
realized there's no shoulder. And Idon't know if you know this, but
pay attention to this next time you'redriving. When you're out in the rural
areas, nobody drives in the leftlane. Everybody drives in the right lane,
which if there's not a shoulder,means they're driving over you, right.
And so what I had to dowas I had to get off my
bike. I had to lift itup. It was big, a heavy
metal bike. I had to steponto a little tiny little curve that's protecting
(35:28):
a bridge that if I fell overthe bridge, I'd fall into the swamp,
you know, one hundred feet belowme and get eaten by alligators for
sure. And I had to leanmy bike over the bridge and let the
car pass me so it didn't swipeme. And then I put the bike
down, buckle back in, andthen and take off again and look behind
me. And I got driving raincoming at me, and I'd look behind
all ship there's more cars coming.I had to hug jump up onto the
(35:52):
curb, lean over against the rail, not too far because I didn't want
to fall over. And then I'mlike thinking to myself, do I text
my wife so she knows where Idied? Do I just like making a
mystery, Like how am I gonnagive her a closure, like like like
a is it gonna torture her?And know I died from the fall or
I got to eat by alligators orI got hit by a card and then
(36:13):
all of a sudden, trucks arecoming and it's raining and it's like,
I think I'm gonna die. AndI finally get to the other side of
the bridge. It took me likea half hour or something because of all
that popping on and up. AndI talked to this this lady at the
convenience store. I'm just wiped out. It's like eleven o'clock at night.
I'm just fried. I think Iescaped death like three times. And I
said, man, that that twomile bridge was tough, and she goes,
(36:36):
you mean four mile bridge And I'mlike, yeah, because your buddy
said it's two miles Like whatever,dude, whatever. She's like, and
she goes, she goes, shelooks at me like this. She goes,
uh, so you cannot go acrossthat bridge on your bike And I
go, yeah, but I justdid. I go You'll be crazy.
You're crazy, David well Man.There are many many stories like that throughout
(37:00):
the book, and it just itmakes it so interesting because you're not just
talking about cancer. You're talking aboutthe entire journey of your bike ride and
how you were processing all these It'ssuch a wonderful read. And I'm not
just saying that because you know,it's not like I'm making any money off
of this. Well, also,you look at one hundred percent of the
proceeds from the book go to theto the cancer focused charities that were chosen
by the book participants. Or I'mnot making any money off there. You
(37:22):
took that from me. I wasgoing to say that, well, well,
as long as we were talking aboutwho's making money, Yeah, that's
solid point. Solid point. Butyeah, so Cycle of Lives is the
book, guys, and you absolutelyneed to grab a copy of it.
It's on Amazon. What have youall? Have? Everything in show notes,
how to find him social both ofhis books. Do you have anything
else coming up for you? Areyou writing more? Are you writing as
(37:45):
well as writing? What are youdoing? What's coming up for you?
Oh? Well, so yeah,I'm always writing books. I've got like
four or five in the in theworks right now. I had written a
few others too, and some ofthem were industry type books and durs atalytic
type books or what ever. Butyeah, I'm hopeful that one of these
days I'll have more time to folkmake it the focus of my life.
But there's there's no money in books, you know, unless you're freaking Stephen
(38:08):
King or something like that, youknow, or James Patterson. There's no
money in books really, or youknow, if you're open winfree you and
then you write a book about runninga marathon, is open winfree You've got
ten million in sales already, soright, yeah, yeah, so there's
really not a lot of money inbooks. And I would love to you
know, I mean, when youdo something well and you love doing it,
but you also have to make moneyat it, so yeah, yeah,
(38:29):
whatever whatever, Yeah, but itis. It's been so wonderful a
to meet you and bida, haveread your book and c to have been
with you today. I mean,this is just wonderful. I mean I
could talk to you for like anothertwo hours, so well, I can't
do that. I can't do itwhen it's relevant. We'll talk some more,
right, it sounds good. Thankyou so very much for joining us.
Is there anything that you'd like toleave our listeners with before we hit
(38:50):
the dusty trail here. Oh mygosh. I could leave them with a
lot of nuggets. I'd say oneis, if you do read, thank
you for reading. There's the onlyway that we are inspired as writers is
because we think that maybe somebody outthere could be touched by what we write.
So if you do read, letthe author know that you appreciated their
work. Unless there was crap,then just don't let them know it was
crap. And U yeah, soI guess that's it. Just keep doing
(39:14):
what you're doing. Look, peoplewon't talk about hard subjects, and the
last thing that I think you wouldwant from the little bit of time that
we've I've known each other is forsomebody to look at you all puppy dog
eye going oh I'm sorry. Ohyeah, you're dealing with that, right.
I literally like to put yourself outthere and allow people an opportunity to
(39:34):
understand how to relate to you.Gives you a better opportunity to relate to
them. And honestly, isn't thatThe greatest joy in life is to is
to do that. So keep doingwhat you're doing. It's really amazing.
I love that. Thank you sovery much. I appreciate your time today
being with us and you guys.I like I said, I'll put everything
in show notes for us and insocial media you can find his book.
It's called Cycle of Lives. Again, one hundred percent of the net proceeds
(39:57):
go to support the charities that werechosen by the participant that we're within his
book. You can find him onsocial I'll put that in social media as
well. You can find him atDavid Hifen Richmond dot com as well.
All the information is there about himbeing an author, a motivational speaker,
and trainer and consultant, and youcan find more about him and his journey
across the United States of America talkingto all of these wild and crazy people
(40:20):
and opening up their hearts to him. And I'm just grateful for the people
that did that for you and forus as well. So thank you so
much for your time today. Youare exclusively invited to share this emotionally chaotic
VIP pain journey together. Let's getto the heart of how to heal with
you by my side. Do youknow someone who is living in and with
chronic pain or might be going throughsomething as terrible as cancer. If you
(40:44):
do Please send them our way hereto the Pain Game Podcast. I'd love
to connect with them and hear theirheartfelt stories of strength and wisdom and amazing
awesomeness and review. Stop what you'redoing and hop on a Spotify and Apple
and give us a quick review.We would love to have the community of
listeners helped traffic to the show sothat we can continue to help others on
their journeys through trauma and pain together. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever
(41:07):
you digest your podcast content, wewill be there. Visit us at the
Pain Game podcast dot com, andfollow us on all the socials. Thanks
for listening, my little VIPs.Catch you on the other side.
This is Your Pain Game podcast wherewe talk about the game of living in
and with chronic pain and trauma getinto the heart of how to heal.
I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, ballistic practitioners, loved ones, and
anybody that is interested in having theirvoice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
(00:27):
world that we live in. SoI woke up this morning and asked myself,
how the hell do I endure allof this? Right with my CRPS
and my pain and all of this. How do I endure so much stress
(00:49):
and pain and the feeling of feelinglike suffocated in it sometimes and stifled dreams
things that I thought I'd be doingright now that I can't physically do right
now, right now, right guys, is come in the sadness, the
hurt like past trauma and current traumas. You know, how how do I
endure this? How do I endure? So? I googled endurance and this
(01:11):
is what I do, And thisis what so many of us do.
Right We endure. I endure unpleasantand difficult processes or situations without giving way.
I fall I cry, I losemy mind, but I don't give
up, and I endure the emotionalchaos of my diagnosis and how it has
(01:32):
uprooted every single ounce of my existenceand those in my life as well.
But I was stand that hardship andadversity with as much grace and laughter and
tears as you all know from listeningto this one as I possibly can.
And then there is looking at endurancefrom a different lens, right, the
lens of sport, if you will, the lens of persevering through unbearable conditions
(01:55):
to continue in a long distance raceto a finish line and a fish line
that you kind of set for yourself. Which I love that idea of setting
our own goals, right, Sowe set these finish line for ourselves.
And it's not unlike my guests today. Wow, guys, just get ready
for this wild and crazy animal.We are certainly cut from the same cloth,
that's for sure. So let's getinto this thing today. So we're
(02:19):
going to talk about one of ourfavorite topics, cancer. Right, we've
all been affected in some way,shape or formed by cancer. We've experienced
it, We've looked at straight inthe eye, whether it is from even
if it's far removed. We've hadpeople that are in our lives. I've
talked about my aunt passing away frombrain cancer. Right now, I've got
an uncle who has a brain tumorthat's killing him, who's going to die
at any time, and it's horrible, and we're all affected from it,
(02:42):
right And We've all been on thisemotional journey, and I've dealt with the
chaos that cancer throws at us toendure. And we've talked to so many
people that have endured their cancer diagnosesand have lost many to it. One
of my past guests, in fact, Fitzkohler, is a concertant reminder of
how endurance and perseverance and spirit andspunk helped save her from her cancer diagnosis.
(03:05):
And not everybody is as lucky asshe is. So let's be real.
I mean, cancer is like thequeen of emotional chaos, right.
She injects high doses of fear andanxiety and uncertainty into the life of the
patient and the caregiver and the lovedones. So let's pull her off our
throne and let's talk about it,and how my guest has worked his ass
off to do just that So withoutfurther ado, I'd like to introduce to
(03:27):
you my guests today, David Richmond. Hey, buddy, how are you.
Oh my god, you're like ayou're like a verbal writer as well.
I'm something something. I'm great.Thank you, Lindsey. Really excited
to talk to you. Really,oh, thank you so much so.
David is an author, public speaker, and an endurance athlete whose mission is
to form more meaningful human connections throughstorytelling, and that he does well.
(03:50):
His first book, Winning in theMiddle of the Pack, discussed how to
get more out of ourselves than everimagined. But for our conversation today,
we're talking a little bit about hissecond book, right. It's called Cycle
of Lives. David shares stories ofpeople overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their
emotional journeys with cancer. And hecontinues to do Iron Man try off ones
(04:11):
and recently completed What You'll Hear Aboutin regards to the book, a solo
over five thousand mile bike ride,which is just freaking insane, and we're
going to talk about it. Solet's get started. I'd like to roll
out the red carpet for you,and boy do you deserve it as long
as it's soft. I guess soour feet from all the running. Oh
my gosh, you're insane. Ican't wait to get into this with you.
So I'd like to start talking aboutwhy in the hell did you decide
(04:34):
to get on your bike and rideacross the country right out of the gates.
And let's just take it from there, okay, lindsay so honest,
like where's your just talking? Alot of you know how? Like they
say, like nothing good happens aftertwo in the morning at a party,
Yes, but only epic things happenafter two o'clock in the morning, after
(04:57):
things, So there's nothing good thatcan come out of a stupid gimmick except
for something epic. And I justthought it was a gimmicky. I thought,
like, here's what anything like.Humans are only connected by two things.
We're connected by emotion. Now wemight have different emotional responses, but
we have the same basket of emotionsto draw from. All of us have
those emotions, some can't tap intothem, but we all have the same
(05:20):
basket. The other thing, we'reconnected by a story. And I don't
know a single person alive who ifyou catch somebody eye to eye and you
go, hey, I've got thestory for you. Got to hear the
story. Who doesn't stop to hearthe story. We're all connected by stories,
So I thought, after interviewing thesepeople for a couple of years and
thinking that we're all connected by theemotion, we're connected by stories. What
(05:44):
better way to connect these stories thanto get on my bike and bike zigzagging
to each one of the participants sothat I could connect those stories. So
it kind of came as a gimmickything like, oh, yeah, I
could connect them by getting on mybike. And then all of a sudden,
I realized, holy crab, that'sa fight thousand miles and I only
got X time to do it,and yeah, it's going to be a
pretty big undertaking. But you knowwhat, in retrospect, it was really
(06:06):
an important facet of the book.It's really unbelievable. So this guy wrote
a book about fifteen people's different lives, right, different stories like he's talking
about in relations to their cancer journeys, and all of them are just their
their heart stopping there. I mean, I cried, I laughed, just
because I got to know this dudea little bit. There was a lot
of his smart ass ness. Itreally is an amazing journey, and the
(06:30):
way in which you put it togetherwas really cool. Can we actually talk
about I'm going to backstup just alittle bit because a lot of this came
from what happened to your sister June. So can we talk a little bit
about June for us? Sure,and thank you for that. I'll be
quick about it. But basically,the starting point of this project, and
you're in the starting point of theanswering your question happened with me at a
(06:53):
big transformation point in my life.So I was an overweight smoker, I
was married to an use of alcoholicI had four year old twins. On
one side of the coin, lifewas great. I was running a massive
business for a big Wall Street firm. Life was good. Everything was great.
On the other side of the coin, it was a death trap.
I was making bad decisions. Iwas in a horrible situation and my life
(07:16):
needed to change. And I heardkind of the right words at the right
time and started to go on apath to change my life. Like for
the first time ever. This wasright before I turned forty. Like I
finally like got it, Like Ifinally understood, Like Okay, you got
to live with intention, you gotto try to be your best self.
You gotta lean into who you couldbecome, and you gotta let go of
all the ship and you gotta justlike just go forward. Yeah, And
(07:40):
I see this big, huge journeyahead of me and like, I'm excited
for the first time in my lifeof what I'm going to become. And
right at that same time, Iget a call from my sister who coming
out of a very traumatic childhood.We were very close, very close in
age, and had had overcome alot of difficulty, but she was in
a really great place in her life. And at that exact same time,
she called me up and she said, hey, you know, I got
(08:01):
brain cancer. I'm going to dicehim. And I went, holy crap,
Like, you know, the dichotomyof my finally getting this endless journey
ahead of me where I'm kind ofgoing to figure it all out, and
then her having a very short andvery narrow journey ahead of her, and
it was really touching to me.So I really paid attention and I tried
(08:22):
to figure out how in the worlddid you navigate that. I didn't know
how to navigate either road, butI certainly didn't know how to navigate that
road of like knowing you're going todie and having a beautiful marriage and beautiful
kids and a great circle of friendsand you're really grounded and being your best
self and you know that's going tobe taken away soon? How do you
navigate that? And I wanted tolearn And what I noticed Lindsay was that
(08:46):
not just her, but everybody thatwas around her, or everybody that I
encountered when I did events to raisemoney and I paid attention and I talked
to doctors and I talked to nursesand whatever. I noticed that everybody had
the same common theme at a certainlevel. If they could take care of
stuff, they could deal with thetasks about the cancer, but they couldn't
deal with the emotion of cancer.And how do you start a hard conversation
(09:11):
like I can understand how to helpLindsay physically with some tasks, but how
do I sit down and look Lindsayin the eye and go like, wow,
dude, how are you feeling aboutwhat's going on? Like what's it
like? Like that's hard to do, man, that's hard to do.
It is it's very lonely in theshadows of any diagnosis that's going to affect
you long term, whether it's Imean what my diagnosis is not cancer,
(09:31):
but I it feels like a versionof cancer to me because it is killing
me and slowly and it's driving mebatchtit crazy. But it's a very lonely
place because and it's lonely for thepeople around you too. Like my sweetie's,
he feels helpless and hopeless in somein some cases where it's like he
(09:52):
can't do anything, in those momentswhere I am just dead to the world.
I can't walk, I can't eat, I can't you know, all
of those places when you and whenyou normally look at me and seeing me
and talk to me, I'm thisperson right now, right right. This
person is not here all the time. She shows up. But the darkness
is very, very scary and verylonely. And so it's neat for people
that even give a crop like youhonestly to care to even come into those
(10:16):
dark places with us, because itis scary and it is lonely, and
it's like you said, it's lonely. It's very and not only do you
isolate because you don't want to bringpeople down, and you don't want to
get sympathy, and you don't wantpeople to hold you at a certain level.
I mean, there's a million thingsthat are going on in your head
that why are isolating, and thenthere's also the same amount of things that
(10:37):
are going in other people's heads thatare abandoning you. It's like, I
literally just got a call from afriend of mine. He had a seventeen
year old daughter on the phone,and she said, Hey, I need
your help, and I said,yeah, what's up? And she said,
my friend, his mom just gotdiagnosed with breast cancer. And obviously
I can't talk to him. Obviously, I got to give him time to
(10:58):
figure it out. When do Isay something? And what can I say?
And I'm like, let me tellyou something, dude, Like every
single one of his friends is saying, obviously I need to leave him alone.
Obviously I can't talk to him,And what do you think that makes
him feel? Like, oh mygosh, yeah, he's alone. Yeah,
so obviously you need to talk tohim right now, yeah, and
(11:18):
say, I don't know the hellto say to you. I can't even
imagine what the hell you're going through, but I need to talk to you,
and I need to make sure you'reokay, and I need to let
you know that I care. Yeah, right, because obviously nobody else is
doing that. So it's not onlyjust a very isolating place people oftentimes,
and most of the time they feelabandonment, or to prevent isolation or abandonment,
they just lock everything up inside andnever deal with it. Yeah,
(11:41):
and that doesn't help us form authentic, deep connections. That doesn't that doesn't
fulfill who we need to be inthis life, and and and that can
probably lead to more stuff. Ifyou didn't have an outlet, if you
didn't have somebody that could care,somebody that you could look at soul to
soul and have some type of relieffrom the emotional chaos that you're going through,
it might make things a heck ofa lot worse. Yeah. I
(12:01):
mean, in fact, this pastcouple of weeks have been fairly challenging,
and the pain department over here,not that it isn't normally challenging, but
it's been significantly higher over the pastcouple of weeks. And I know the
reasons why, but man, I'vejust needed to just like sob and cry
and yell and get mad and throwthings to just like, get rid of
some of that junk. Otherwise it'sjust gonna sit inside our bods like that
(12:22):
book, and I say, andall the time, the body keeps a
score, But it is totally true. It's just gonna sit there and keep
traumatizing us more and more if wedon't reach out and touch somebody, you
know, and we have to anddon't be afraid to reach out to your
loved ones and say something. Iwould. I certainly would much rather have
people give a crap and love meand reach out to me and want to
(12:43):
know how I'm doing, then completelyabandoned me and feel like, oh gosh,
I've got to walk on eggshells aroundhe or handle her with kid gloves
and like, dude, it's me, like, no, please be invasive,
show up, be here for me. Yeah, yeah, Lizzie.
I don't know a lot, butI'll tell you one thing I know for
certain. Every single person knows somebodyin their life right now that is going
(13:03):
through something absolutely horribly traumatic. Yep, and you the listener, have not
reached out to them because you're afraid. That's been so much time. I
don't know what to say. Igot so busy, my problems are so
minor. If I start asking,you know, I have really good things
happen and they know it. Sonow I can't call them because it's going
(13:24):
to make them feel bad, Likewhat the hell do I say? Like,
it's better just not to call.They'll be a better time. And
we all know, absolutely one percentguarantee you that there's somebody that's coming up
on an anniversary of a death ofa loved one they had, you know,
a niece that had a major problem. I guarantee you there's somebody out
there that's going I know this person. I should call it, but I
(13:46):
haven't called. I don't know whatthe hell to say. Yeah, and
I'm glad that you brought that up, especially in relation to my problems are
minor, and I would like toaddress that, because it doesn't matter if
your problems are minor in comparison tosomebody else, you still are struggling through
whatever you are struggling with. LikeI have people that are like got my
backers and like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I did not
mean to like complain about pain,because I know you go through far more
(14:07):
than me. I'm like, ohmy god, no, thank god,
someone else, is it pain?Mean, please tell me experience that you're
you're experiencing humanity like the rest ofus are, you know, Like,
don't walk on eggscels around me andwe might be we might push back at
you though, and don't let thatget in the way of you continuously coming
back towards us and giving us love, you know, because we don't know
(14:28):
how to respond either. You know, it's tough, you know, And
I can't speak in regards to cancer, but I can certainly speak in regards
to my version of it. Soin relation to your sister June, I
know that the outcome was not good. What happened and how did that trigger
what you just did with this milesand thousands of miles across our nation.
(14:52):
Yeah, So what happened was thatshe became a board study, which was
a good thing for her because itprolonged her life and increased her care.
I think, and you know that'ssuch a wonderful thing. If you can
get matched up with a you know, a provider or what you drug whatever
that they can make a study outof you, you get more attention.
Right there's they need you and youneed them. Just matching the two is
(15:15):
together. So but eventually, andnot too long after her diagnosis, she
passed, and it was really reallydifficult for the people around her. Her
husband and kids were very close toher, and his family very close to
her. I was very close toher too, but not kind of part
of that part of the inner circle. Her friends took it really really hard.
(15:37):
I mean, it was really toughbecause she was a force of nature,
you know, very lively, youknow, I mean, like you,
she walks into a room and ownsit right, doesn't apologize, just
this issue who she is and andpeople are gravitated to her, and so
that was kind of a bummer andit was a big loss. But we
oftentimes, if there's a silver liningin cancer, we oftentimes can wrap things
up. We can we have theoperatunity to form the deepest, most authentic
(16:03):
connection with those people. It's notgoing to be pleasant all the time,
and we might still be afraid toask questions or to go deep, but
it does give us a chance.In her and I weren't able to talk
about everything, but we were ableto talk about a lot of stuff.
And that was her inviting me totalk to her and me not being afraid
to talk to her, so atleast we got that out, you know,
(16:25):
And after she passed, I reallythought like, well, okay,
well, am I'm making this uplike that. People have a difficulty or
talking, you know, about theabout trauma and especially in relation to earlier
life trauma. You know, howare you dealing with your chronic pain and
the loneliness of that in relation toearlier traumas that you had, right,
(16:47):
because that's very important for me tounderstand what you're going through. I need
to understand what you've been through.And so I wanted to see if I
was my optic. Was that onesituation that I'm blowing up and making a
reality or is that the reality?And I just I'm trying to like finally
discover it. That's the reality.And everybody I spoke to had that at
some level that they that they isolated, They've got a band and they kept
(17:11):
it all inside. They didn't knowwhat to do, They didn't know how
to talk about it or let otherpeople talk to them about it. Just
we just don't have those tools.And so I'm not qualified to solve the
answer of how do we do that? But I thought I was qualified to
be able to open up the curtainand say, you want to connect with
Lindsay, let me tell you whoshe is. Let me let me show
you, Let me show you whoshe is. That way, we might
(17:34):
be able to next time we runinto Lindsay or somebody like her, we
might be able to understand how tobetter connect to them. And and that's
and in the end, that's allthat life's about. Right. But it
is true because you know, wemeet these people in our lives, not
unlike you and me, and youknow, in our own weird way is
through doing episodes on this show.I'm connected to these people, some more
(17:57):
specifically than others that I know.I would be able to reach out to
you in ten fucking years from nowand just be like, what's up,
Like I need an ear, andyou would totally be that person and I
would be the same. That issomething that is innate in me, though,
and I think that a lot ofpeople struggle with that, Like you're
talking about being able to open upand share when it came to childhood,
(18:18):
trauma and trauma all the way througheven my last my last marriage, how
many times am I married? Mytwentieth marriage? Whatever feels that way.
Some days. But you know,going back to all of the different things
that I've happened in my life,Like you're saying, you have to understand
where you came from to understand wherewe are. And that's a challenge because
it is hard to open up andbe vulnerable and share. And that's something
(18:38):
I had to learn to do todo this show because I was like,
if I'm not going to be realand authentic, then I might as well
just stop this immediately because it wouldjust be a lie. And so it's
been challenging to share some of thedark and dirty and twisty stuff that I've
done or things that have happened tome. And I feel so much better
that I'm doing it. Doesn't meanthat it's easy. It's fucking hard.
(19:00):
It is hard, and it's sad, and it's challenging. But man,
am I feeling more blessed that I'vechosen to go that route than do what
I've done my whole life, whichis stuff it down and hide it and
pretend that nothing was going on.Yeah, and if you're not able to
lean into that like deep real self, I mean how many times I do
this? Oftentimes I wonder, like, you know, like I knew that
person for twenty years and they're notin my life anymore. And you know
(19:22):
what, there's nothing I'm missing.I don't have a single, deep,
meaningful like memory of whatever, andI wasted twenty years. And then I
think about this one tiny, littlefive minute interaction with some stranger that has
never left me in twenty years,and I go, oh, my god,
like, how ridiculous is it thatyou can have that shallow of a
(19:47):
connection on purpose and that deep ofa connection on purpose, And it doesn't
matter if it's five minutes or twentyyears, right, And so that's what
I was fascinated by, is justthe ability to see someone and the honor
that I got in writing this bookreally was not everybody could do it,
and I certainly couldn't get everything outof everyone, and not everybody could could
(20:11):
could come prepared to give me whatI needed. But everybody that made the
book. Multiple times in our conversationsthey would look me in the eye.
Well, we were always talking onthe phone, but I could tell they
would be looking at me, andif we were sitting next to each other,
but they took a deep breath andthey went, you know, I've
never really ever talked about that.It's empowering, isn't it. I've never
(20:32):
dealt with X. I've never toldit. Can I tell you something I've
never told anyone? Yeah? Yeah, I need to know that because I
read on that and I loved thatabout the book, because you went through
the motions of that in the book, talking about how you got people to
tell their stories and how they wereyou know, like, oh, I'm
not sure about the hesitation that somany of them had, and you chose
(20:56):
fifteen different stories. I can't imaginehow many you act really had. As
I was reading that, I wasjust like, oh, my gosh,
like he's he must have like moreand more and more. How did you
go about finding the people for I'mjust going to call them guests, the
guests in your book, the stories, the stories in your book. How
did you go about finding these peopleand how did you choose I mean,
(21:18):
my gosh, so these stories arejust I mean, you must have just
heard, well, at least frommy experience reading your book, you heard
the stories and stories and stories thatweren't even part of your book, but
you you know, you threw inyou know, here and there where you
talk to somebody else that was tellingthem about a story that helped you.
Even in that bike story, yougot to talk. There's so many things
I want to talk about. Youwere going all over the place. No,
no, I understand your question.So let me tell you what my
(21:41):
thought process was. So I figure, if you talk to fifteen women about
breast cancer and how they dealt withbreast cancer, that it would maybe give
you a wider perspective on dealing withthat. If you dealt with fifteen people
that were encountering early onset Alzheimer's,you could kind of maybe get a better
My thought process was this, Idon't want to solve for a problem.
(22:04):
What I want to do is Ilooked at it. Imagine up wheel on
a bicycle. That's a cycle oflives. I imagine a wheel on a
bicycle, and it's separated into amillion sections by all those spokes in the
wheel, right, And so whatI wanted to do was to fill in
each one of those sections by goingI want young, old in between.
(22:25):
I want patient, doctor, nurse, caregiver. I wanted them to encounter
cancer at a young age. Iwanted to have them encounter cancer at an
old age. I wanted it tobe just a fear of cancer or having
lived with cancer five different times intheir adult life. I wanted all types
of cancer, severity, everything thatcould so I could shine a light on
as many facets. And then whatmade me pick the people was to fill
(22:49):
in more spokes of what kind oftraumas did you overcome? Because I can
identify with failed marriages, I canidentify with being in an abusive relationship,
I can identify with having shitty parents. I can identify with a lot of
things. I might not be ableto identify with what's it like as a
woman getting breast cancer? Okay,but I can understand how maybe because you
(23:10):
were you grew up in a householdthat was brutal, like my household was
brutal, I might understand how youmight not be able to open up about
things I might understand, you know, So I wanted What I wanted to
do is cover as many sections inthe in the wheel as possible, so
that I could fill it all inso we can understand the human experience.
And so when I when I pickedstories, they needed to have enough differentiation
(23:33):
from all the other stories that thatthat it would cover the whole human experience,
because I don't want to try tosolve for a problem. I just
want to be able to show peoplewhat what lies behind the kurt, what
what have people gone through? Andwhat are they going through? And boy,
we have no idea? Yeah,well you accomplished just that. And
I'm not blowing sunshine up your askyour buddy. It tickles, but no,
(23:57):
it was. It's just a remarkableidea if I believest from my perspective,
and I really enjoyed it. Wasthere any story, particularly in your
book that stood out more than others? I mean, I know that's a
tough question. They're all they're sosad and so tragic, and also at
the same time so incredibly uplifting andpositive. I'll tell you the one I
(24:18):
think that really gave me a newway of thinking about everything was the story
of a woman who when she foundout that she had been diagnosed with brain
cancer a tumor the size of agrapefruit, and that she was being wheeled
into surgery which she might not comeout of, and she was going to
(24:41):
leave her husband and six kids behind. And when her husband told her what
was going on, because they hadno idea, when her husband told her
what was going on, she said, thank God, it's cancer. And
her greatest emotion from cancer was gratitude. And I'm like, how is that
even possible? Right? And it'snot. It's just it's not right.
(25:03):
It's not possible. How could iteven be possible? And don't give me
something like, oh, you know, God gives you what you can handle
them. But but literally she criedtears of joy and gratitude for hearing that.
And I couldn't wrap my brain aroundit until I really understood the story.
And each story kind of gave methat, like when, like why
can't you have a positive emotion likegratitude knowing that you are being willed into
(25:26):
surgery, and like what's the storybehind that? The story, to be
really really brief, is twenty fiveyears of a marriage, tons of therapy,
six kids, lost one at eighteenmonths. I mean, they have
come through the ringer of these people, and they're very fortunate, very successful
in life, financially and otherwise.But she started going downhill mentally, and
(25:51):
so much to a point that shedecided, in a moment of clarity during
a tremendous amount of casts, thatshe was the problem and the only way
that we can keep our family togetheris to put me in a mental institution.
Well, and she's the one thathad to come to the realization that
she was going crazy, she wasthe problem, and she had to extricate
(26:14):
herself from her beautiful life and putherself in a mental institution to get better
because it was her. And whenthey put her in the institution, they
put her through a battery of tests. Within twenty four hours, they called
up her husband and said, she'sgot a tumor the size of a great
food. It's always going to makeme cry. And she said, thank
god, it's cancer. Oh mygosh. So how are you not going
(26:37):
to allow somebody to feel gratitude?How are you going to tell them how
to feel about what they're going throughbecause you have no idea what they're going
through. And so those are thekind of stories that made me think,
like, like, if I cantell the story the way that it needs
to be told, which is let'sjust strip it all bear and tell everybody
what you've been through, it mightmake me understand next time when you say
(27:00):
something I think is freaking stupid,like, oh my god, I'm so
grateful that my leg got cut offthat I'm not going to look at you
like you're like you're a moron.Yeah, I mean it's even like even
when I use this example here andthere, but it's like when we're driving,
we all get pissed off of peoplethat are on the road. Right.
People are doing stupid shit left andriving around us. They're texting,
they're doing their makeup, they're shaving, they're drinking, they're eating what they're
(27:22):
like doing an entire day's work intheir car while they're driving. It drives
me nuts. But you've got somepeople that you know, their hands are
on their wheel and they're speeding throughand I keep thinking in my head like
maybe their wife is in the backseatgiving birth and they're on the ray of
the hospital, or maybe they justfound out that they have cancer, or
maybe they just found out that theirdaughter was in a car accident and their
rushing. So, I mean,there might they might not all be assholes
(27:42):
around us, right, Like,we all have to give each other some
grace that there might be some stuffgoing on in their lives that are causing
them to behave this way. Thatdoesn't necessarily give everybody a free pass to
drive like an a hole. ButI'm just saying it is a good representation
and an example. If we don'tknow what's going on around us, we
just don't, you know, andwe need to be a little bit more
loving in regards to it, that'sfor sure. I just kind of started
(28:06):
being able to verbalize this lately.But the universe is a great mirror,
right, and it reflects what wesee. And if I see people as
one dimensional, then the universe isgoing to show me that people are one
dimensional. And that's okay because that'sthat's just the way I'm viewing the world.
That's what I'm seeing. So that'swhat get reflected back on me.
If I have a deeper understanding thatpeople are multidimensional and that there is more
(28:30):
to the story and that maybe Idon't know everything, then guess what,
the universe is going to show methat people are multidimensional. I don't know
that, right, and so soit's it's important. And each one of
these stories has given me at leastone, but probably two or three or
four really points of reference to howamazing people are and what the things that
(28:52):
they've gone through. And I triedmy hardest in telling these stories so that
people could sit back go oh yeah, So when you say you're okay,
it really doesn't mean that right now. Of course. It's just like when
women say to you, you menin our lives were fine, We're fine,
I'm fine. That does not meanwe're fine, by the way.
(29:14):
I mean could very rarely, veryrarely, very really. So okay,
So let's get to the actual bikingpart of this, because that is like
a whole other part of this bookobviously, because you're telling these stories of
these people and then you're getting intothe nitty gritty of what you're doing on
the daily. Well, first ofall, let's talk about why you got
on a bike and why you wantedto go do this crazy ass thing that
(29:37):
you just did and put it intothis book. But why did you get
behind on a bike of all things? Because I hate cyclists, by the
way, and I'm pointing out him, I love you, but I'm like,
come on, I don't want toshare the road with you. Drive
me crazy, But why why youdid this? And give us like I
want? I wanted you to tellthe story about the Texas and the bridge
(29:57):
because that is just insane. Iliterally felt like I was there with you.
You wrote it so eloquently. Okay, So, first of all,
one out of every ten drivers isa total jerk. Let's be honest.
Okay, only one. Let's behonest. One out of every ten cyclists
thinks they own the road. Ifeel like it's nine out of time.
No, it's really not. It'sreally not. Not focusing on the one
(30:19):
and take care for the nine becauseokay, carry on the road. It
is scary reading this book, maybenot want to ever be on the road
outside of a car. And I'vedriven through every state in this nation,
as well as all through Canada,so I understand the open road is scary,
that's for sure. I'm still traumatizedby it. But again, in
the in the vein of not wantingto be myopic and creating my own reality,
(30:42):
I said, okay, well yougot these all these stories and okay,
yeah there, okay, but maybeyou attracted those stories and there's really
only fifteen people that have a deepbattle with the emotional chaos of cancer.
Right, And then I said,well, if you get any bike and
you go check it out, maybemaybe you'll find out if you're right or
wrong. And every single day,lending every single day I ran into someone
(31:04):
or multiple someone's who was like,you know, I was at work the
other day and somebody told me thattheir uncle got cancer and I don't know
how to say, so I justlaughed and I tell I'm avoiding them.
What the hell do I say,right, or something like that, And
it was just shocking to me that, I mean, every single day,
I can't even tell you, thestories are endless on everybody resonated with this
(31:29):
idea of I don't want to sayto people or I don't know how to
let people say something to me,like I'm not going to open up to
them because I'm not going to bringthem down and I don't want their sympathy
and right yea. So it waskind of cool because on the bike ride
I did that, I discovered thatwe're all just that we're all just that
we just don't know what to say, we don't have the tools, and
so that kind of fueled me tocontinue to do the bike ride. But
(31:53):
I was on interstates most of thetime because I had to get from point
A to point beach day. Iwas on a schedule. The hotels were
mostly donated. I think all butone or two nights were donated, and
I was visiting a lot of placesalong the way and a lot of people
along the way, so I didn'thave a chance to take an extra day
off or whatever. So I hadto get from start to finish each day,
(32:14):
you know, in a very specificmanner, which made it really,
really tough. It made it reallytough. And I learned a million lessons
out there, and other lessons thatI had learned in life were exclamation point,
you know, like underlying bold yep, yep, that was the lesson
that you learned, and it's moretrue now, yeah, And being alone
with yourself and in your head andyou know, in the dark and in
(32:36):
the rain and all of the thingsthat you went through, like whoa like
that, being with yourself takes alot of It actually takes a lot of
strength to be alone with yourself,at least from my perspective, it does.
And I learned a lot out there. I definitely learned a lot,
and I saw a lot, andI'm very grateful for the opportunity. I
learned two of the most valuable lessonsof my life out there. One of
(32:58):
those was that I had perfectly finegrieved my my sister. I was totally
fine with having dealt with that loss, right, Like, I felt pretty
good about it. But I realizedthat the one thing I didn't grieve was
that nobody knew me as a kid, right, Nobody knew what I had
(33:20):
been through, and it was notgood. She was the one person.
She was the one person that Icould have said, hey, you remember
when we were a little kid andthis shitty thing happened, and how nobody
nobody else get that. That's oneof the things about sibling loss. I
mean, every kind of lost isbrutal, but that's one of the things
about sibling loss is that the peoplethat know you as a little kid and
(33:40):
know what you've been through, andlike, you don't have to convince them
that what happened happened. Yeah,yeah, you know, your parents didn't
see it that way, your friendsdidn't see it that way, the grandparents
didn't no way. So I hadto grieve that and that was a that
was a really eye opening thing whereI was just like, Okay, I
gotta figure out what it's like thatnobody but the person that's dad will ever
(34:01):
know what I went through. You'vegot to tell the Texas Bridge story.
Come on, oh, my gosh, all right, well insane. It
was after Texas. It was inLouisiana. Oh, Louisiana. Texas was
a long road. Texas was along that was nine or ten days biking
through tech Yeah, because through Idig Zach through Texas as well, but
(34:23):
on a bike in September in Texasand the heat and the wind is just
gross. But the four mile Bridgeso really quick. So what happened was
because the four mile Bridge. Yeah, I'm on I'm on the high I'm
on highways, and so, uh, there's no shoulder, there's no sometimes
there's your shoulder. But when Iget on this this bridge, like I
(34:44):
feel like I'm gonna die. LikeI literally feel it because it's ominous.
There's these thunderstorms and you know it'slike cars are barreling by, and I'm
like, what the hell? Andthere's got to visualize this. So as
I and my buddy it called meahead of time and told me, hey,
there's there's just like Harry Bridge,a couple of miles long. Don't
worry about it, you'll be fine. So when I get on, I
(35:04):
realized there's no shoulder. And Idon't know if you know this, but
pay attention to this next time you'redriving. When you're out in the rural
areas, nobody drives in the leftlane. Everybody drives in the right lane,
which if there's not a shoulder,means they're driving over you, right.
And so what I had to dowas I had to get off my
bike. I had to lift itup. It was big, a heavy
metal bike. I had to steponto a little tiny little curve that's protecting
(35:28):
a bridge that if I fell overthe bridge, I'd fall into the swamp,
you know, one hundred feet belowme and get eaten by alligators for
sure. And I had to leanmy bike over the bridge and let the
car pass me so it didn't swipeme. And then I put the bike
down, buckle back in, andthen and take off again and look behind
me. And I got driving raincoming at me, and I'd look behind
all ship there's more cars coming.I had to hug jump up onto the
(35:52):
curb, lean over against the rail, not too far because I didn't want
to fall over. And then I'mlike thinking to myself, do I text
my wife so she knows where Idied? Do I just like making a
mystery, Like how am I gonnagive her a closure, like like like
a is it gonna torture her?And know I died from the fall or
I got to eat by alligators orI got hit by a card and then
(36:13):
all of a sudden, trucks arecoming and it's raining and it's like,
I think I'm gonna die. AndI finally get to the other side of
the bridge. It took me likea half hour or something because of all
that popping on and up. AndI talked to this this lady at the
convenience store. I'm just wiped out. It's like eleven o'clock at night.
I'm just fried. I think Iescaped death like three times. And I
said, man, that that twomile bridge was tough, and she goes,
(36:36):
you mean four mile bridge And I'mlike, yeah, because your buddy
said it's two miles Like whatever,dude, whatever. She's like, and
she goes, she goes, shelooks at me like this. She goes,
uh, so you cannot go acrossthat bridge on your bike And I
go, yeah, but I justdid. I go You'll be crazy.
You're crazy, David well Man.There are many many stories like that throughout
(37:00):
the book, and it just itmakes it so interesting because you're not just
talking about cancer. You're talking aboutthe entire journey of your bike ride and
how you were processing all these It'ssuch a wonderful read. And I'm not
just saying that because you know,it's not like I'm making any money off
of this. Well, also,you look at one hundred percent of the
proceeds from the book go to theto the cancer focused charities that were chosen
by the book participants. Or I'mnot making any money off there. You
(37:22):
took that from me. I wasgoing to say that, well, well,
as long as we were talking aboutwho's making money, Yeah, that's
solid point. Solid point. Butyeah, so Cycle of Lives is the
book, guys, and you absolutelyneed to grab a copy of it.
It's on Amazon. What have youall? Have? Everything in show notes,
how to find him social both ofhis books. Do you have anything
else coming up for you? Areyou writing more? Are you writing as
(37:45):
well as writing? What are youdoing? What's coming up for you?
Oh? Well, so yeah,I'm always writing books. I've got like
four or five in the in theworks right now. I had written a
few others too, and some ofthem were industry type books and durs atalytic
type books or what ever. Butyeah, I'm hopeful that one of these
days I'll have more time to folkmake it the focus of my life.
But there's there's no money in books, you know, unless you're freaking Stephen
(38:08):
King or something like that, youknow, or James Patterson. There's no
money in books really, or youknow, if you're open winfree you and
then you write a book about runninga marathon, is open winfree You've got
ten million in sales already, soright, yeah, yeah, so there's
really not a lot of money inbooks. And I would love to you
know, I mean, when youdo something well and you love doing it,
but you also have to make moneyat it, so yeah, yeah,
(38:29):
whatever whatever, Yeah, but itis. It's been so wonderful a
to meet you and bida, haveread your book and c to have been
with you today. I mean,this is just wonderful. I mean I
could talk to you for like anothertwo hours, so well, I can't
do that. I can't do itwhen it's relevant. We'll talk some more,
right, it sounds good. Thankyou so very much for joining us.
Is there anything that you'd like toleave our listeners with before we hit
(38:50):
the dusty trail here. Oh mygosh. I could leave them with a
lot of nuggets. I'd say oneis, if you do read, thank
you for reading. There's the onlyway that we are inspired as writers is
because we think that maybe somebody outthere could be touched by what we write.
So if you do read, letthe author know that you appreciated their
work. Unless there was crap,then just don't let them know it was
crap. And U yeah, soI guess that's it. Just keep doing
(39:14):
what you're doing. Look, peoplewon't talk about hard subjects, and the
last thing that I think you wouldwant from the little bit of time that
we've I've known each other is forsomebody to look at you all puppy dog
eye going oh I'm sorry. Ohyeah, you're dealing with that, right.
I literally like to put yourself outthere and allow people an opportunity to
(39:34):
understand how to relate to you.Gives you a better opportunity to relate to
them. And honestly, isn't thatThe greatest joy in life is to is
to do that. So keep doingwhat you're doing. It's really amazing.
I love that. Thank you sovery much. I appreciate your time today
being with us and you guys.I like I said, I'll put everything
in show notes for us and insocial media you can find his book.
It's called Cycle of Lives. Again, one hundred percent of the net proceeds
(39:57):
go to support the charities that werechosen by the participant that we're within his
book. You can find him onsocial I'll put that in social media as
well. You can find him atDavid Hifen Richmond dot com as well.
All the information is there about himbeing an author, a motivational speaker,
and trainer and consultant, and youcan find more about him and his journey
across the United States of America talkingto all of these wild and crazy people
(40:20):
and opening up their hearts to him. And I'm just grateful for the people
that did that for you and forus as well. So thank you so
much for your time today. Youare exclusively invited to share this emotionally chaotic
VIP pain journey together. Let's getto the heart of how to heal with
you by my side. Do youknow someone who is living in and with
chronic pain or might be going throughsomething as terrible as cancer. If you
(40:44):
do Please send them our way hereto the Pain Game Podcast. I'd love
to connect with them and hear theirheartfelt stories of strength and wisdom and amazing
awesomeness and review. Stop what you'redoing and hop on a Spotify and Apple
and give us a quick review.We would love to have the community of
listeners helped traffic to the show sothat we can continue to help others on
their journeys through trauma and pain together. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever
(41:07):
you digest your podcast content, wewill be there. Visit us at the
Pain Game podcast dot com, andfollow us on all the socials. Thanks
for listening, my little VIPs.Catch you on the other side.
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