35. The Power of Connection: Uniting Stroke Survivors in Community for Inspiration and Recovery

He couple of quick notes before we hop into Episode 35. This week of global server podcast. This week, I talk a lot about community. I apologize, not the most organized episode for sure. But I've been thinking about a lot of things. And one of the things that's been coming to my mind is a community, educating each other, educating those around us. And thinking bigger picture, especially after stroke, it is. Sometimes in the beginning, it's hard to see the forest through the trees or whatever that phrase is. But I'm reading a book by Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's his New York Times bestseller. It's called be useful seven tools for life. It's just a really good book, highly recommended to folks out there who are looking for something different, whatever you may think of Arnold, whatever I've thought of Arnold, I mean, I used to love him. Probably my whole life, the bodybuilding, who has been a big fan of his bodybuilding encyclopedia, big fan of his movies as a kid growing up. He's just a likable guy. I think he, you know, as somebody who's been around the world, I feel a connection to Europe in general spent a lot of time there, in my youth in particular. So I don't know, I just I appreciate Arnold's thoughts on things. I know he's had a, you know, an interesting life and some ups and downs, like we all have. Try not to judge them for it. Really, because I don't know that was it. It's not like I know, I'm not in a place to judge. I just I know what I've seen. And I like a lot of what he talks about, in the book in particular, and having clear vision, really what I've been thinking about his vision after stroke, and what does it mean, for those of us who are still in the middle of life. Some survivors are older, some are younger. It can be, it's a lot to get back on track. So I think as a survivor, sometimes our vision can be short sighted in terms of like, we know we need to get better. And that's good. That's something to work towards. But sometimes you can forget about the bigger picture. So I think just suddenly back in thinking bigger picture thinking about what you want in your life. A lot of things we've talked about before, but I just reiterate it and I've talked a lot about community and community building and it kind of my thoughts on why I'm starting that and why I'm so for it at ACU today with one of my kids and it's exactly how I feel about a community. I feel like I'm a protector, a big guy. I want to help build a community that's thoughtful, that's a shared space. That's a safe space. Anyways, Takara that the episode aired, hope enjoy up to 35 for the global cyber podcast. My name's Schmierer Welcome back to another episode of levels of our podcast this week in Episode 35. We're gonna be chatting about all sorts of things. I do not have a strict agenda this week got a big deep outline for a conversation. Conversation, I guess for this episode, because I've had a lot of things on my mind since we last spoke. Last episode was all about running, I continue to be aggressive with my running, I continue to get yelled at by other people who think I'm doing too much too often. And as usual, I am not listening. But it sparked some interesting thoughts. The reason I love running is because I am able to do it. One, two, I don't hate it. Three, it gives me a lot of time to think and grow. And you know, some people will like walks in nature. Some people like hiking, I never understand the hiking thing. It's not for me. I don't want to hike up a hill and then come back down that same hill. But I guess you could say the same thing about running. You Yeah, lots of time to think I've been thinking about a lot of things. I've been reading some new books. I've been trying to get organized again. I was doing a really good job on this particular show for most of this year, besides a couple of weeks, and I guess we just had one of those weeks last week was Francisco's birthday. I talked about it on my other show. I will never I will I will give away her age but let's just say I'm 40 and she's not younger than me. Eat. So she is the older of the two of us. And if you heard that show, you heard my thoughts on that. It was, it was a weird week. My daughter and I had the same birthday, my other two boys have birthdays on opposite ends of the year, December and April. So my boy is kind of all alone in the month of October. And it was it was a time and a time. By a time I mean a time that I did not enjoy. I don't know, it was super weird. I don't know, I don't want to jump into it too much. But it took a lot off. Well, it was just a lot. Let's put it that way. Kind of through all last week off, but we're back on track. Again, doing different things, this particular episode, the reason I have no agenda is because I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of things going on. So I'm trying to, again, get back on track. I will tell you in the coming weeks, I'm going to start recording with a producer, which I'm excited about because I think it'll be able to be able to elevate this show even further. Give me a little help, I can focus strictly on the show less on the technical, not that this is terribly technical, but you know, I think there is some polish and room for growth. So I'm really excited about that. When we record in November and December, probably bearing on some guests really would like to get a couple of different guests love to have another stroke survivor or to hear their stories get some thought they have on their recovery, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what, what's been helpful, what hasn't been helpful to have a conversation and start to be more involved in the community, the larger community of survivors, because there are so many and so many different types of people who have had different things, they might have one thing, they might have just had a stroke, they might have had stroke and something else like myself, there's just so many unique stories. And I think we can all learn from sharing with one another. Because reality is I always say there are great therapists who I will have on the show, whether you're a speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, mental health professional, any any anybody working with survivors, and you know, those with maybe disabilities or autoimmune diseases like Ms. Maybe both. Just think there's a lot of opportunity. And I've been thinking a lot about immunity because this show is I think getting better every week. With time, I think we've gotten to a point where I'm pretty consistent, although not so much the last two weeks, but I feel like we're back on track this week. Yeah, this will be released on Thursday. So in theory, we're back on track with the show. Um, and I think having a producer will be just that much better for the show and for, for everybody, whether you're watching or listening, hopefully both, or one or both. And yeah, building up immunity, I've been thinking a ton about community, I've been thinking a little bit about Patreon. Because there's a lot of great podcasts of different genres that utilize Patreon. Something I'm thinking about something I'm considering exploring I have. This year I've had goals, and building this show has been one of them building this show and starting to be I need to get a little more consistent with getting things on YouTube and caught up. Because eventually, it'd be great to just release the audio podcast and the video podcasts or these episodes each week. And I just have to catch up on the older episodes so that I can get that off my plate. And that way, I'm just doing one a week, and it's a little bit easier. So I think I just need to buckle down and do that. If I'm being honest. Because once those are off my plate, it's a lot easier to get one a week, whether it's audio, video, or both. Yeah, that'll be good for the show and good for the community. And again, the reason I'm thinking Patreon is to raise a little money for this show so that I can continue to do things ad free. But, you know, there is the possibility of bringing in some advertisers, even smaller advertisers that are specific to products I love and enjoy and use and that are helpful to other stroke survivors, whether that's mental health professionals, whether it's a product, if it's a device, it's a service, it's a coach to this to that, you know, I think there's a lot of opportunity. And the other thing I've been thinking about a lot this week is building out survivor science, which is the community that I plan on starting at the beginning of the year. And I think as things typically go I had ambitious goals Truth be told, I am a one man show for the most part, I do have a daughter that helps I do have a friend that's going to be producing the show for me for the next couple weeks, in the coming weeks, which will be a good addition. And then we'll see how that goes. I think it'll be positive experience for everybody. I think it'll make the show just that much better. So I'm really looking forward to that. And getting started with that in the coming weeks. But yeah, on this particular episode, like I said, I've been thinking a ton about community. And what that means and what that looks like, because I think what I thought I would do in the beginning of the year has definitely evolved. And I don't mean to say that I've been overthinking things, but I think at times I have. But I've also been very focused on this show and putting that first before community because if I don't have a good show, and we're not producing the content, the community you know, while it might be useful, I may not be what I want it to be. And I guess I've been thinking about a lot of that this week, because just in conjunction happened to be reading Arnold Schwarzenegger his new book, which is called Hang on one second. Be useful seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know. Even I have had thoughts about Arnold over the years, but I really liked the book so far. And despite what you think about Arnold, I think he's had a pretty successful career. From bodybuilding to movies and acting to political office, you know, I don't know a ton about everything he did in California, because obviously I'm not, I don't live there is presence there seem too good. You know, I genuinely don't know enough to be talking about it on a high level. But um, yeah, whatever I think of him, outside of the professional world is different than what may be the reality. And I have no idea. I mean, he's just, he's an interesting guy, who's made some mistakes, who's definitely older and owning up to those mistakes that everybody recognizes. Nobody lives a perfect life. We all make mistakes along the way. And I think taking ownership of those mistakes, and apologizing for them, genuinely not making excuses but acknowledging that mistakes were made. Yeah, I mean, I don't dislike Arnold, I think the book is pretty good. From what I've read. So far. I'm only a couple of chapters. And it's not a huge book. But it's, you know, it's a, it's a really good read of doing it on Audible. So I keep falling asleep. So I keep rewinding, so only two or three chapters in but the first, the first one or two really got to me, because it was like, I was thinking about this from the stroke survivor perspective. And again, some of the things I was thinking about this particular episode, work community, and through community, I was thinking about what it means to be a stroke survivor and educating those around you. Because, again, we get a lot of unsolicited advice, we get a lot of advice from doctors, therapists, the teams, we work with some of it better advice than others. Sometimes, it's well intentioned advice, but it doesn't apply necessarily to us. Be hard to see that at times. And that's all I guess what really resonated with me was the first chapter with Arnold book was is, is have a clear vision. And I think that is, well, one, it's easier said than done. But I think that is something that struck a chord with me. And just kind of thinking about life never prepares you to be a stroke survivor. And once you're a stroke survivor, you depending on the situation, of course and your level of fitness after you know, I mean, there's so many factors but your mental health, your mental stability, your your actual health, physical health, mental health. Where you're at after the stroke, can determine a lot of like, what the next steps are or could be or I hate to use the word should but should be. But again, it's very dependent on what your status is in terms of health in terms of physical health, physical fitness, mental health, what what deficits you're encountering initially after stroke. So it's it's not an easy thing to talk about. But I think getting clear, in terms of a plan definitely is dependent on age because if you are it's just very different. If you're a stroke survivor who's a younger stroke survivor or your boy, you're a teen Major or a young adult in the 20s 30s, like I was 40s like I am now 50s Even you're probably still working in most cases. So there's that if you're older, you know, the plan might look a little different because you have more flexibility in terms of you might already be retired. So while not ideal, it just, it's probably different than somebody that's 20 3040 raising kids, having kids in the middle of kids, you know, again, I always heard like, I say my stroke is like the worst midlife crisis you could have. Because it's like, the exact opposite of what most midlife crisis typically are. I mean, that's really just a joke for me to kind of make fun of myself, and just, you know, nobody would pick that I'd rather be debating between like a Corvette and a sports car and a truck as a midlife crisis, rather than having a stroke and dealing with that. But yeah, I think going back to community and educating those people around you, you know, I think about often giving unsolicited advice, getting various advice and tips and recommendations from doctors, therapists, again, all well intentioned, most are good, very rarely as terrible advice. It's just not always applicable my situation. And again, as you can see, I've come fresh off a running into the recording of this podcast this week, I am sweaty, I just ran, you know, close to 10 miles this morning. Gonna do more later today. And people keep saying you're running too much, you're doing too much. And I keep saying, if I'm not hurting, and I'm not getting hurt, and I'm not pounding my body that aggressively I'm just I'm running differently than you might think. If you're just assuming I'm running a six minute or eight minute mile, you'd be wrong. That is a different pounding that your body might take, then running a little bit slower of a mile, like a 10 minute mile average. You know, that might be a little faster, given the day the weather, my mood is indoors and outdoors on the treadmill is on the street. So many factors that would choose my wearing because that can vary very oddly, that varies quite a bit. Depending on the shoes, depending on my feet. You know, did I write like yesterday, I ran quite a few miles I ran 16.1. But as the lowest mileage total for a day in the month of October for me, might sound ridiculous. So this morning, I was feeling really fresh because I didn't really push it as hard as I'm pushing it all of October, in particular yesterday, so I recovered well, and I felt good this morning. Feeling good today really needed to do less mileage because honestly my toes or a little sore. my toenails look worse than anything I've seen in David Goggins book, right now, the left side in particular, probably gonna lose some more toenails coming up this year. That's just how it goes. It's not terrible, but it's not ideal. The point is, what works for me what works for you what works for anybody doesn't necessarily work for everybody else. And again, that is always the place that I'm coming from on this show. And when I say things, and I give advice, and I say, hey, this works for me, it may work for you. I'm not saying I have all the answers. I don't even pretend to say that I have all the answers. I'm always surprised. By the things that worked for me. I'm surprised that I've gained so much traction with running this year. I committed to it. I kept doing it. I've experienced a lot of things this year, even even in year three and four. Again, December will be four years since my stroke. That's monumental but it's it's a it's a number. It's it's an achievement. It shows me from how far I've come from the beginning to now. And I never thought I'd be running. I never thought I'd be doing a marathon a day. I never thought I'd run 12 marathons in 14 days, the last two weeks. Obviously, I have slowed down a little bit this week, but not a ton. You know, the last two days, I did not run a total of Marathon. But I ran 22 and 16. The last two days today probably hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll get up to a marathon again. But it's not. It doesn't really matter to me. If I get tired. If I run out of time. If I just want to come home and hang out with kids. I'll do that. So I think when you think about the bigger picture. I really liked Arnold's take because sometimes as a stroke smart, I think depending on where you're at life and your goals and the timing the age plays a factor and a lot Different things when it comes to stroke and stroke recovery goals might be wildly different. And I think it reminded me that I have goals and I've had goals this year more so probably than I've ever had in my life. And while I feel like I could always be making more progress at times, the reality is, I think I'm doing pretty well. Especially for a stroke survivor, things are not as easy as they used to be, I wish they were they made me one day, I do feel like the running for me this year. Is this another level, it has gotten me to like I just feel lighter, healthier, better. You know, it could be some of that keto, there's just a couple of factors that I've kind of elevated. My, my overall fitness and health and diet in ways that have combined to to make me feel better overall. It doesn't always translate into every day, but I feel like 95% of the time, I actually feel a hell of a lot better than I felt the last three years that it could just be the further you get out from your stroke, the more you do change your lifestyle, your health, your stress, managing the different things kind of starting to figure out the bigger picture. Yeah. That'll help contribute to a good experience and just genuinely feeling better. That's going to be different for everybody, of course. But yeah, I think it is also on the on the flip side, when it comes to having a stroke, specially if you're somebody that's II, I would say younger. So IRA, probably that's maybe maybe somebody in their 20s, just starting life, after high school after college, you know that, that 20s are a time 30s and 40s, you might be raising a family starting a family. So there's there's just added pressure, there's you might be married, you might have a spouse or partner you're dealing with that you might be dealing with kids, there's a lot more factors that make things just all that much more challenging, it just adds to it's not something that can't be done, but everything. Again, I've said this before, when you try to do 27 things at once, it usually doesn't work out. It is sort of limiting to one or two things and building those up. And then building on top of more of a building block situation, rather than bringing all the bricks the party. If you think about a Lego set, you build up different sections, and you kind of piece the bigger sections together. You can do it all at once. But it's easier if you do a little bit here a little bit there. Then you take a chunk and you put the chunk with chunk. I think that gets easier with time, it's not always easy to see in the moment. And again, the bigger picture, you know, sometimes I think what I learned from the book, and what I've learned over the years of my stroke survivor story is that you're not gonna be able to change everything in one day. It does take time is so exhausting to hear in the beginning. I think that is because you're just going through it. If you don't recognize. I think for me, it would have been easier to hear that from other stroke survivors in the beginning, rather than hearing it from therapists and people who are in the profession, but like, again, they don't actually, most people in the stroke world, whether it's doctors or therapists are not survivors themselves. So it's a little difficult to hear what they have to say. Even though they've seen it. It's hard to believe it. Kind of some of that might be new dials. Some of that might just be how it is after a stroke. You know, you may not want to hear it. At sure I didn't want to hear any of it in the beginning. I tried to hear it. But I probably wasn't as open minded, as I like to believe because you know, you're just trying to figure it out. You're trying to be like, what are the next steps? And a stroke is not, it's not a puzzle, you don't just take the pieces of put together. It's a little bit more complex. You know, I guess if you want to compare it to a puzzle, it'd be like doing a puzzle upside down and backwards where you're only seeing the brown. Yeah. You're not seeing the picture. You're just seeing the recycled cardboard on the back of a puzzle piece. Actually, that's not the worst analogy. It's it's pretty good. But I'm sorry. Yeah, I wish I had better notes for this podcast. But that, you know, it's just I've said it before, and I believe it continues to be a theme and I think more often than not, it's not talked about enough because again, this is specifically to survivors who might be in their 20s 30s 40s 50s even older But I think generally, you know, if you're retired, this might be a little different. But I guess the same things really apply it just a different phase of life. And I've said it before, it is important to sort of lay out some short term goals, when you have a stroke where you want to get like, if you want to be able to walk, if you can't walk, have your stroke, walking is a big one. For me, it was us regaining the rights to use the right hand right side of my body. And then, of course, with the MS game, the left side as well. So it's a little different for me, but just kind of regaining as much as possible. Because at 37, I, you know, I was lucky to survive. I believe that wholeheartedly, I've changed my life, I've changed a lot of things. And even with all those changes, it does automatically fix everything else. And I would just like to live as normal of a life as possible. And I think I've really tried to get there. And I think at times, I've been very aggressive in my recovery, probably, to my detriment, you know, I don't think people saying I'm running too much, is intended to be bad. But they're also not me. And they don't know all the benefits that I see as that I'm deriving from all the running in I don't need to run as much as I do. But I enjoy it. And I'm not getting hurt again, that those are big things for me if I'm enjoying it, and I'm seeing health benefits across the board. Like I see better spasticity from running, I see. I just feel better. i It's hard to explain, it's hard to articulate. You wouldn't think more miles would be better. And I don't think it always is. But it does seem like one of those things that if if it wasn't working, I wouldn't do it. I would scale back, I would do something different. I mean, that's the way I've kind of approached my entire recovery. I do a thing I listen to people. I try it. I try for X amount of time, you know, the more it works, the more I want to try it, the more I continue to do it. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad. Sometimes I miss a thing. Sometimes I see it later, sometimes I go to a thing, I put it down and I come back to it. There's just been a lot of aha moments. And I feel like as a stroke survivor owe it to myself to try everything. Keep an open mind, keep an open ear listen. Try test, evaluate, repeat. That's not for everybody. That just works for me. I think. Again, one of the things that I I sort of didn't recognize until reading Arnold's book this week is that like, once I had my stroke, my vision for that became very clear. It was like, Alright, I'm a father of three, I'm a husband, my parents had just passed the year before. A lot of responsibility on my plate, a lot of things to figure out, still haven't mastered it. But like the vision, it took me a while to regain the vision I wanted for my life, I think I got Barry. And I think even to this day, I have been very focused on stroke recovery. So much so and aggressively. So that that has been good. But I have sort of neglected some of the parts of my life I have not been as aggressive at finding sponsors for the podcast, I have not been as aggressive with certain aspects of my business as I have, at times I have loaded in different directions and wandered off a little bit more than I would have liked to or should have allowed myself. I think I knew I was doing it at times. And it's okay. I think that is part of being a stroke survivor and being anybody that survived any medical major, major medical life event, I would be no different if you got into a major car accident, and think about Tracy Morgan in his career, and then that Walmart accident that with the truck company on the I think it was the Jersey Turnpike. You know a lot of people in life go through a thing at some point. And it can kind of do derail a lot of things. And I was so focused on my health by family that other things became secondary, and that's okay. They can become secondary, but I think I lost a little bit of like, focus to be quite honest. And I think that can happen to anybody. You have to think you have to be an entrepreneur or business person, you could be working for somebody else. And while that's good, it may not be ultimately what you want or what you is best for you and your your recovery and your life. And sometimes we don't have The flexibility in those choices. And so I think there's a long roundabout way of saying I think I do I often say this take some time think, to collect yourself to put your thoughts reevaluate your goals as a survivor. Do you have annual goals for your recovery, continued recovery, ongoing therapy, again, I go to therapy every year, I use all the therapy allotted to me through my insurance I pay for it might as well. There's that I keep I keep on top of it, doctors, it's sometimes frustrating. But I just I know, I don't want to go through this again, I could, and I know how to manage it better. And I know how to deal with it, I think there's more resources available than even four years ago. But it would not be my preferred method to go through anything ever again, stroke related, like this, the stroke ahead in 2019, to be the one and only person to never say never, and there's no guarantee in life, but I'm going to do everything possible. For myself, my health, my family, to really avoid that. You know, and again, there's no guarantee, it's just, I feel like if I'm running, if I have a good diet, if I have, you know, obviously no drinking, no smoking anymore, those are things that I do, I live very grateful for them to be out of my life. And while I did sort of like, have an aha moment about the vision, it's like, okay, you know, I guess the vision for the last four years has really been recovery, health, fitness, obviously, you want to be good at what you do provide value, bring, you know, I'm continuously building towards that vision it. I guess at times, it gets a little off track, but I think you just have a conversation with itself, and you get back on track. And I think that is, you know, what I'm looking forward to, into the next couple of months into the rest of 2023 and into 2024. And again, I've been thinking about community and what that means for me and the show. And survivors at large because I think I've heard of many communities, I haven't found one in particular that speaks to me, which is why I'm motivated to build a community for other survivors. You know, ideally, it's going to be mostly stroke survivors in the beginning. Our the word survivor is very broad. And I feel like a lot of there's a lot of crossover whether it's cancer survivors, people with MS. I know, we typically call ourselves like MS warriors, because not really like. I mean, I guess you are a survivor. Survivor is such a broad word that it really expands so many things, and with our survivor survivors of abuse, or survivors of all kinds, and I think, again, I genuinely think there's a place for everybody. And I think there's a lot of opportunity for crossover collaboration. And I'm just really excited about building it. And I gotta be honest, people have told me that I get this, this seems like this. I feel like this is the next step. And it was kind of a goal the beginning of this year. I never got it to where I wanted to because I was focused on other things that took more time. But I think we are ramping up to do some some more work. I'm working on some collaborations that I could bring into the community so that it can be a shared space for survivors and bring in some friends of mine that maybe aren't necessarily survivors, but there are good resources or good people that people that I like, I mean, the cool thing about running communities, for those that don't know, or haven't heard my other show, like I've worked in you know, I've lived up and down the East Coast. I grew up in Jersey, New York. Oh, he's a big guy. I'm six foot eight 325 pounds. Although I don't know I keep saying 325 Because I'm not I'm way under 300. Now, I'm on my way, but under 300 For the first time in years, a decade probably. Anyways, used to be head of security at ima nightclubs worked as private security. I am the protector amongst my group of friends. I've always been one of if not the biggest person in my friend groups. I have one friend who is taller than me. He's seven, but he wasn't a friend until later in life when I lived in Virginia. And things were very different. So yeah, I'm used to being the protector of my friends. Because I have a lot of female friends I have a lot of male friends. I was tall as big as guy. And that's something that resonates with me. I've been kind of in that role my whole life protecting my family. Even when it was just my parents and my sisters growing up then obviously became my family now which is my wife and my daughter and my my two sons. So like yeah, running community is speaks to me. I think maybe there's a lot of reasons why Being a big guy being sort of, I was always the center of attention whether I wanted to or not because of just physically imposing. And then yeah, like to make people laugh like that, make sure everybody's having a good time. Not really known as an extrovert, but I definitely have tendencies in moments when I feel good. But I feel like if if anybody's fit to run the community, especially when it comes to stroke survivors, survivors in general, protecting those around me, making a safe space, protect his base, you know, I'm all in. And so like I said, I'm in the early stages of sort of bringing some resources together, because what I realized throughout this year was that one, I wasn't ready to do it. As soon as I had been talking about, it's the beginning of the year. But it really genuinely only now in the headspace and physical space to really open it up. So I'm going to start to that and like, get some collaborations on board and hopefully open some doors and start small, in the month of November, and see how we can grow it together and what sort of resources and what opportunities people are looking for in a stroke survivor community? What kind of help because there's so many different people that I talked to whether it's other survivors, sometimes it's family members, I find that family members typically have questions, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think as a survivor, sometimes you just want to talk to other survivors. Happy to give suggestions, tips and tricks, certainly to other family members for handling stroke. But it's such a unique thing for each individual stroke survivor and their family. You know, most of that advice typically, tends to be generic. But so putting resources together, building out the blog, I have tons of free resource continue to do this podcast for free or join Patreon, potentially, but you go that route. And then you know, the community is war is building connection, building friendships, having guests on this podcast is having a space a safe space to talk to other people who are going through this because having a stroke, at any age is is a lot. Like I said, nobody's planning on ever having a stroke catches all of us off guard, I don't think I don't think I've never known anybody to be like, Yeah, I know, I'm gonna have a stroke. Like, that's not the thing. So yeah, I think the long and short of it is I'm realizing now is the time to start having these conversations to really get serious about building the larger community. Building this show a bit more. You know, again, to just make it a better resource for stroke survivors, because I feel like the vision is now clearer, more clear to me, it may not be the broadest biggest goal, but I think it is, the next step for me, is to really help other people get through this. For whatever reason, I just feel a calling to it, I feel like I've figured some things out. Much, to my surprise, to be honest, like, I'm surprised at where I'm at going into year four. And I just know that if I can get down from 500 pounds to 285. Go from hating running to loving, running, fix by breathing, continue to do raise of family that is you know, my kids are my kids. I love them dearly. But sometimes, you know, they passed me off, but their teachers seem to love them. Sometimes. You know, I don't think I'm doing the worst job. I think I obviously I'm very candid and open about the mistakes that I've made that I continue to make things that I've learned from those mistakes, I share my stories, it never was time to Buddy, what to do, I just want to say, Hey, if you are experiencing this, or you're living this way, or you've done this, you can change that. If you want to, here's how I did it, this might work for you. And honestly, the intent is never to what I do may not work for you at all. But hopefully what I do is spark some sort of intentional spark for you. It gives a little bit of a gateway to a path that is maybe worth exploring. Maybe it's nothing I brought up but a thought that I have shared with you on this show leads you to a path and then maybe you could share that what worked like a conversation on episode 35 of your podcast, or my podcast sparked an idea and I didn't see it going this way. But here's what happened. And you know, if that's something that's happened, I'd love to hear that. Sorry. So again, I think this show is moving in the right direction. I'm excited about the next couple of weeks, couple months coming up throughout the through the end of the year working with producer who I love I mentioned but I will wait to mention. So we start officially working together. Just because I didn't mean to ask him if he wanted me to mention anything or quiet about it. So yeah. What what, in summary of this episode, I think, reminder to, we have to, you know, in and then again, that's part of what I was thinking about with community is, it's not so easy to educate yourself and those around you. As a survivor, it can be very lonely. I think finding that community finding one that fits for you. You may, you may, I mean, I think if you're like, if you watch the show, if you listen to this show, we might have some crossover, and I want to make it affordable, I don't want to make it unaffordable. And I'm, I'm sort of planning that out now and seeing what people would benefit from, I'm thinking about a couple of different models I've given, I'm down to two that I have in my head, the Patreon thing just kind of rolled in. And I'm kind of thinking about that, as an aside, I don't know if I'm gonna roll it in together. But again, things I'm thinking about because I think it is lonely being a survivor, there are moments where we all could use an extra set of hands, an extra set of help. Again, the part of the community that I'm starting to like is bringing in some friends and collaboration opportunities for them. And, and by that I mean like resources that they resources and opportunities for other creators to share with, particularly with survivors. And I think there's something unique to survivors. Because things take a little bit more time, things are a little bit more difficult. Typically for us, depending on your level of deficit poststroke. You know, it can be something as simple and as difficult as taking notes. For me typing is not what it used to be, I can't type 100 miles an hour without looking like that's just another thing. So typing an email is more difficult for me than speaking, using type to tape for an email. My emails tend to get long now because I use talk to tape and I don't really edit that tape. So I think some people find them annoying sometimes. But it's the best way I can be efficient. You know, and I know we have thoughts on that as to whether I just man up, so to speak and just type slower to develop the typing again. But it's a give and take. It's always a process for me in that regard. Walesa, yeah. Again, with the community, it's, it's about building connection with other survivors. It's about having some resources that we don't all think about. It's it's about building a space and a place where we have some shared resources, shared stories, things that are working things that are not working, maybe we're different things or thinking about our like, weekly, weekly, or monthly calls like accountability calls, book clubs, just the things that you want to have in any community, but like with fellow survivors, and obviously the level of participation is going to be dependent on each and every person. And yeah, I'm just really excited about it. I'm really motivated to talk more people bring in, like I said, there's resources of all different kinds, whether it's people that are building a tool that might be like, like I've said it many times audio pen.ai is a great tool, or I think anybody who is a stroke survivor who maybe can't type as fast as they used to, you can talk into a microphone and basically, very similar to otter that AI can like, take your notes and translate them. Is it perfect, not always, but it gets it out. I would say audio panda AI is probably the best tool for recording audio and putting your jumbled thoughts like view, I'll do a 15 minute recording of just random ass thoughts. And it'll just kind of succinctly put my notes together. And here's the best part it it does a nice job of that. But it also transcribes that entire 15 minutes. So if there was something that I said in that 14 minutes that I remember that I said where I look back through and they didn't grab it in the notes, it's still there for me to find. So it's a really handy tool. And again, there are so many other things that I've come across in the last couple of years, whether it's a CFO, it's recommend recommendations, check their books and books, book club, like to so many tools. And I'm inspired to build this community bigger because because again, I've listened to other podcasts I've listened to. I've talked about no stroke podcast many times. So to reconnect with those guys over there. There are podcasts but everything is so siloed that it really need. I feel things need to come together. In a bigger better way, for survivors, maybe maybe it's just younger survivors who are more, you know, I'm not. When I think about the community, I think about whoever wants to be a part of the community kind of, but I do think it's I'm really focusing on people who want to make significant change. Like, I think that's pretty clear from this podcast. If you don't want to make changes in your life, you're just not going to make them you're probably not going to watch or listen to this show. So it's probably a needless thing to say. But yeah, focusing on people that I can't help is just something I'm not wasting my time with anymore. Like, if, if, if you're frustrated, and you don't know where to start, and you want to change things in your life, obviously, you're somebody who probably I want to talk to. But if you're just like, I give up, I don't want to try. I'm just gonna do this like I do. I know somebody who's a survivor, who had a stroke, and they just continued to make the bad choice. And I'm always sort of when I hear that I'm always surprised. And I'm a little disheartened. I don't give it a ton of thought, because I don't want to think about that too much. I just hope that one day that person changes their mind, and they want to turn things around. But not everybody does, unfortunately. So I don't know, I know I'm all over the place doesn't have a great outline. For this particular episode. I just really wanted to get on and chat because I was a little behind. I wanted to know that we're back on track. Today, hopefully. And then going forward in November, I may do an episode next week, I may take off next week. That is TBD. Because I'd like to get caught up on videos over on YouTube, I have like five or six episodes that pick up the 28. So I gotta 29 pays 30. But I can get them all up one day for the next week. I would definitely record another episode next week before we start with my friend and producer the following early November. Again, if you'd like to be a guest, please reach out podcast at local survivor.com. Just reached out, I'm going to put a form on the website saying that I got to really do it. I'm interested in talking to anybody who's a survivor who's got an interesting story. Interesting Take, take on things that have worked for you things that you've been surprised about during your recovery, that might be beneficial to other people. problems you've encountered anything, honestly, anything, anything and everything I'm open to. Obviously, depends. We may need to have a quick conversation and see if we're a good fit for the podcast together. But in general, really interested in meeting other survivors building out this community, focusing on that, getting the videos on YouTube. Again, I don't have a ton of recommendations to speak. I will say Oh, always the podcast scene on YouTube. Your mom's has that whole Tom Segura and Christina P their whole setup podcast, Whitney. All the usual Santi no Tim Dylan gray podcast. Little bit of a different show over there. Couple of great books. Case for keto. If you if you haven't heard me talk about that on the other show. I think it is an interesting read it. I think keto is definitely not for everybody. But I think if you're somebody who's tried some different diets throughout your life, you might consider giving it a try, especially if you're a little bit of the bigger persuasion and you love a carb and you love. But you think you want to maybe if your body doesn't respond the same way as other body types to carbs. Obviously with keto, it would be helpful to not drink because there's a lot of carbs and drinking empty carbs. Removing bread is surprisingly for me, it wasn't terribly difficult. It was just like, oh, I don't really need to eat bread and I could make some changes to take bread out of my life. Easier said than done. As always. I think I've said that for a couple weeks now. But yeah, continue to do. I did knock myself out a keynote last week when my wife had her birthday cake and I could not resist. try really hard. But that carrot cake with cream cheese frosting does it got man out of Quito I went. Hopefully by the end of this week, we'll be back into ketosis because I've honestly noticed a difference of not being in Quito this week. And it's it's been fine, but it's for me as a bigger, big boy who could still stand to lose quite a bit of poundage. Um, yeah, Tito's seems to work well for me. I know I'm dragging on but I just do think that's a great book. I don't think it's for everybody. I think if you're a really thin individual, he knows probably not for you. But if you're somebody that's bigger that's tried some different things and they haven't worked. You know, again, I think any diet you stick to genuinely will work. If you stick to it, I think if you don't stick to a particular diet, it's just harder. And, and I've been surprised that how forcing myself to really stick to and try keto has worked out pretty well and I genuinely don't really miss the car, but I was actually just pissed at myself for eating that cake last week. But, you know, you pay a lot of money for a little birthday cake and it's hard to resist. It's hard. I mean, I could have said no, but as I bucket up to, you know, for a month like, I want a piece of carrot cake, and I'm gonna have it both that said, I you know, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting ice cream much more appealing to me than Halloween candy, which is coming up soon. So I think I will be fine in the Halloween phase. Because I see my kids eat Halloween candy, and I just want to vomit. To be quite honest. So Halloween is my favorite holiday. I know kids love it. It's great. I know they have a great time. Set it for them. Especially my youngest. He loves Halloween. He loves dressing up. So I'm excited to talk about that next week. I'm sure I'll have lots of thoughts on that on next week's episode. But again, the Arnold books so far, so good, really enjoy it. Again, no matter what you think of Arnold, I think it's genuinely from what I've read so far is a good book. To shot. Yeah. If you don't want to buy the audible book, you know, it's on Audible. It's it's got a Kindle version for 10 bucks. Again, it'll be useful seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seven tools, seven chapters pretty, pretty quick read for the most part, it would probably already be done with it if I would just listen to it straight through. But yeah, I'm enjoying it. I recommend it. And I don't know if I'll be back hopefully next week, but if not, definitely in next two weeks. We'll be back with producer back. Good lighting. I can't wait to have produce on the show. I think it's just gonna elevate the show that much more. Hopefully I'll get caught up this week over on YouTube. I would love to be rolling into the end of the year on a high note but either way, I can't wait to be back with you. And until next week.