36. Beyond Survival: Nurturing Resilience and Celebrating the Strength of the Survivor Community Round 2!

He covered a cool note before we have an episode 36. It'll bolster our podcast this week, things I wanted to touch on. And I forgot about when we were talking this week about a little bit more continuing on the theme of community, what it looks like what it means to me, what I think it means to others, the gaps that can be filled by building a stronger community, I think there's lots of people doing great work, Michael, in building a community is trying to bring more people together, specifically survivors, that are looking for support from other survivors and sharing what's worked, what hasn't worked, why things have worked. I think it all goes hand in hand with starting to work with Chris, who will be working as a producer on the show with me. And I think we're just going to be able to elevate the show to a whole nother level which are excited about in the coming weeks. That means bringing on some guests getting doing some outreach, reaching out to people who have interesting stories interesting, doing interesting work, whether it's the therapies phase, mental health space, maybe a survivor themselves. There's so many options and people that bring on and talk to you going forward. So yeah, it's really all about creating a safe space for people to voice opinions, thoughts, and hopefully without judgment, and we could all be respectful. That is the goal down the road. Yeah, just really excited about the future. And the rest of this year in particular going into 2024. Again, part of the reason I feel like more survivors need to share their story and their journey is because there are unique challenges facing survivors. Sometimes we talk about them, sometimes we're quieter about them because we're unsure. And I also think that survivors have a unique challenges, it's not the same, the things that we're trying to do, maybe don't happen as quickly as we would have liked or we'd like in general, the pace of life is different of keystroke. And part of the reason I want to build community with survivors is because I'm a survivor of myself doing this show, but also the people that I know, are not necessarily survivors, but have the patience and the empathy to work with survivors. Just because it's a little bit different. I think we all know that there's just differences from the way we wait used to have been to the way we are now. Anyways, unrelated to the stroke in particular. Just wanted to say that it was sad to see that Bobby Knight passed. I know he's a controversial figure in sports. But um, yeah, I just started to see him pass. Anyways, lots of great things about community and continue on the conversation and enjoy episode 36 This week a little sore bye. My name is Schmierer Welcome back to another episode of global search this week is episode 36 of the podcast and I'm fired up as usual, lots of things to talk about last week, we left off we were talking a ton about community and what that that means and what that looks like going forward in the future for the show, for example, working on things and building things, I want to be a part of things I want you to be a part of as a listener of this show. And in thinking more about community over the last couple of days, and last week, I I continue to have thoughts on lots of things facing survivors challenges facing survivors is something I think about each and every week as I think about topics and brainstorm for the future. Whether that future is more immediate or longer term, depending on the time of the year date, how I'm feeling what's going on. Things that come up things that I talked to other Stokes or average about. And I really was listening to a couple of different podcasts and different social media posts throughout this past week. It is a little bit it is now the end of October I believe the world of the world or just in the United States. I don't know what the day is called so tired of these days and months but, you know, world stroke day, I guess world stroke day awareness. I don't I don't know whatever was on the tornado that night this past weekend. And again, I know I should care as a stroke survivor and I do care But I think the challenges that I talked about the challenges that I faced in particular people that might listen to this show, it's more about dealing with having had a stroke, or a significant medical life event. Similar to his stroke, it doesn't have to be a stroke. I think there's lots of similarities amongst, you know, these big challenges that we face as a survivor, however you identify as a driver, or there's a cancer survivor, a stroke survivor, or you maybe you have MS, maybe you have something else. So many things, but I think there are, you know, obviously, there are very big differences. There are also a lot of commonalities, similarities, you know, and it doesn't matter. Honestly, some of the commonalities are everyday life. We all face challenges that overlap in different things. So yeah, it was World stroke day, I didn't put out an episode because I think that's too obvious for that day. The day is important to sort of recognize and reflect. But in all, in all, I mean, my take is, I'm a survivor living every day for the rest of my life as a stroke survivor, and I'm just trying to figure out the best ways to move forward for me, whether that's my personal life, my family life, friends through business, you know, everybody's got their own take. And I am a fan of building awareness. But really, I guess this, the purpose of this show is really, to help people who are have gone through it or are going through it. I mean, we're all once you're a survivor, or a survivor for life, whether you get back to 100%, or you never got 100%, always working towards that. So I think, yes, awareness and avoiding a stroke is obviously the ideal scenario for everybody. And there's lots of great people, lots of great research. All helpful things. The goal, obviously, is to hopefully never have to deal honestly, with having a stroke or experiencing a major medical life event. But the reality is, more, probably half of us will face some major medical life event at some point in our life. And I think, again, there's lots of information about avoiding it. And, you know, there's no shortage of topics. But the purpose of this podcast again, is for those who are going through it or dealing with day to day life and the challenges we face as survivors, I think it's it kind of brings me to where, where I'm thinking you're going with this particular episode, I was thinking a lot about, you know, is listening to some of these podcasts. And I just keep thinking about other survivors, you the listeners, the people watching. Again, I'm still behind on the YouTube, but I'm working really hard to kind of get caught up on episodes. So that I can release Audio and Video simultaneously each week I've loved the goal is by the end of the year to get those in a place where that's happening on a regular basis. So yeah, that is the goal. Again, I'm working with a producer in the coming weeks, and I think things will kind of get even more solid going into the next year and ending this year. But yeah, there's so many gaps. I was thinking about this. I was listening to the guys over at the No Show podcast. Mike and Dave. If you've missed that podcast or if you haven't go check it out the no stroke, k n o w, stroke podcast, they have a lot of different kinds of guests. You know, obviously I'm I haven't had guests on this show yet. But I am starting to have guests again, coming up here towards the end of the year. And bringing people on to hear different perspectives, different stories, different different roles, from caretaker to family members to therapists, to other stroke survivors does a wide variety of people to share their story perspective and things that they've learned it will say dead because honestly, I've talked a lot about what I do what I continue to do what I think and you know, never hurts to hear another perspective, something that works for somebody else may work for you. And I just I just want to continue to build that and build a community around the show. And so yeah, I think about I guess guys on the no show podcasts, we're talking about worlds stroke day the other day. There are still a lot of gaps when it comes to strokes. So Recovery stroke, you know, being a stroke survivor or getting back to sort of transitioning from the acute phase, you might, you know, you may be in a hospital, and that suffered a stroke. Hopefully, you get to some kind of short term care, something like Brookes rehab here in Jacksonville, Florida. And the any kind of facility that can help you get to a safe place, you know, after a stroke, hopefully, you're one of the lucky people who don't, aren't affected and able to walk, because that's a big one. Walking is is a huge thing for a lot of stroke survivors. Being able to speak, being able to care for yourself, you know, relatively well, at least, safely. Always a big thing. But I do feel like there are still a lot of gaps in, in the community at large. You know, therapists are always doing the best they can. Even therapy, rehab hospitals are doing kind of the best they can, I think, at least here in the States, you know, we're limited by I don't want to get too far in the weeds, but like insurance is a big thing. People need a certain level of care. And sometimes they're afforded that ability by their insurance. And sometimes the coverage just isn't there, for whatever reason. So there's a lot of gaps. And I continue to think about what are the gaps, I wish I had built better or recognize sooner or, I mean, there's a ton there is because it's not easy to be a stroke survivor and be a parent. You know, so like, my role, my wife was used to us being a team. And when I had my stroke, we quickly became, we're still a team, but a very different team. And that has changed over the last couple of years as I've improved and gotten better, but still really tricky. A lot of times, you know, if somebody's younger, and a parent, obviously, more responsibility falls to the other parent, which can be very difficult to navigate. You know, for some people, it's not terribly difficult in the short term, but it definitely takes a toll. Not everybody is prepared for it, not everybody can handle it. And frankly, they shouldn't have to. I don't think people go into a marriage, thinking the other person's gonna have a stroke a few years into marriage, and that they're gonna be heavily responsible for a lot of things. And you know, we worked it out. I think it's different for different people. And it's hard. I mean, it's hard period, being parents, and raising children. And certainly when one person is deaf, and one person has a stroke survivor with MS, it becomes increasingly difficult. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm not saying my life is any harder or easier than anybody else's. I'm just saying. It has its challenges. And, and I think a lot of families, especially of younger stroke survivors, who might be parents, a bit older parent, even older parents with older children, it's still incredibly difficult. I mean, it's just different. Yeah, I think there's a lot of gaps. I mean, I think when I think back to my stroke in 2019, spending January 2020, in the rehab facility, inpatient rehab full time for about 30 days. You know, that was great. That was amazing. It was a good start. It definitely got me on the right path. And my situation, again, unique, I left, I was out for about a week, and I found myself right back in the hospital. That's of course, when I went in and they weren't sure what I had. They didn't know I didn't have a second stroke, which was good, but it took a little while to figure out oh, this could be brain tumor, it could be this could be that it could be cancer. You know, fortunately for me, it turned out to be a mess, which I think given given the other prognosis at the time, it was probably the best of all the choices because there was definitely something up obviously. And so when it wound up being as I was kind of relieved at that point because I was not prepared to deal with brain cancer or brain tumor or any, any sort of thing like that. Again, I MS is not ideal. But the reality for me with MS is that that is really been a secondary thing. Most of the time that I've been diagnosed with MS. Today, since I was diagnosed kind of has been secondary to my stroke because a lot of the the MS related stuff has been kept at bay. For the most part and reasonably under control best it can be not a lot of flare ups. Not a lot of changes. I do think a lot of that is due to the fact that I've changed my lifestyle, I've kind of settled things down, I reduce inflammation in my body across the board. I know there's a lot of talk about that and cold plunges, and this and that ice baths and things like that. But you know, I can tell you just as a guy that was a big guy that was a smoker and a drinker, hypertension, high blood pressure, getting all these things under control, really has reduced inflammation for me across the board. So the MS, I think, you know, I think a lot of times, it seems random for me, but I think a lot of times, it probably had a lot to do, and this is not medical is this is nobody's research, this is just my assumptions based on what I know, is that because I've been able to reduce a lot of the negative effects I was putting on my body reduce a lot of the inflammation. You know, I think I have the MS reasonably under control, there's never anything good do about it. 100%, but I'm doing the best I can. And making wise choices, just like you know, just like there are former athletes that have had strokes that did everything right, and still had a stroke randomly. You know, and there's people like me who were doing everything wrong. And of course, I had a stroke, because you know, when you're a big guy, and you do a lot of the negative things that you don't think are necessarily negative. And you do them by scale and size. You it just compounds I think. But yeah, again, going back to the purpose of this episode, I think really is thinking about this a lot of thinking out loud this week. This is episode again, Episode 36. And I've been thinking about a community as I'm building things, I am working on some new things that I've been talking about. And you know, there's I've been thinking about what is involved in building a community and how I want to structure things and how I want to build things out and like, what are the gaps that people talking to more people? What are the things that are? What are what are the things that make me I mean, thoughts on what makes the community Good? Make it enjoyable, but also what are the needs of the people at large? You know, I utilize different different tools, social media. And so the public is a cool thing that I like, for doing some research on specific topics, it seems it seems like a lot of people are constantly searching. When it comes to stroke, you know, life expectancy after stroke. And again, that varies depending on age and a lot of health factors. And, you know, are you changing your diet or changing your lifestyle? Are you continuing to do the same thing? So I think that information sometimes gets skewed just based on people's people's lifestyle, and their willingness to either recognize what got them to that, perhaps like myself, like, but sometimes there's people that are in phenomenal shape. I mean, I think back to Michael Johnson, who was you know, in the 92. Net, or maybe yeah, 9296 Olympics, United States prinster sprinter. He was like before Usain Bolt. He was amazing. I remember being excited about those Olympics and watching him as a kid in the 90s growing up, and it was just amazing to watch and to hear years later that he had a stroke at around age 50. was shocking, because that's the kind of person do you never expect to have a stroke? Yeah. You know, so I think that's, that's a that's, that's a big thing. And obviously, that's, that's a good example of you do everything right. And still, unfortunately, find yourself in this situation and it's not easy for anybody. I think it's a little easier if you're already in good shape, and you might have an easier time. I think there is a lot of mindset to that I think anybody who's an athlete or as an athlete mindset or just a strong will and determination to overcome some some people are just I don't want to say it's easier for some people but it may be for some people, it just they might find it. So I wouldn't say it's been easy for me but I think from my own standpoint, it's it's actually has been terribly, terribly difficult and taxing and hard. But over the years, I've slowly started to figure it out. I realized it wasn't gonna be able to fix everything overnight and so I just slowly and steadily which is a new thing for me chipped away at sort of building towards success. And for me that looks different than somebody else and you know me as a superstar I'm not the world's best strokes for Our own, you know what that means or what that looks like. But I just feel like I've started to figure it out over the last couple of years. And that's, again, why I do this podcast, I think that's one of the gaps that we're we are facing as survivors is that we don't hear enough from other survivors. on what's worked for them, I think there are plenty, there are some and some are harder to find the others, just because that's the way social media and the internet goes like, you know, finding things on Google, some people could have the best websites in the world, and you just never find their information because it gets buried under a plethora of other useless information, or bigger organizations that have bigger teams like new is going to sound bad, but I appreciate what the stroke that are stroked out or the American Heart Association, the big platforms, world stroke, WSO. There's so many different people in places, you know, stroke onward, Epic is one there's, there's a good amount of groups. And they all have their pluses or minuses. And I think for me, some of them lack. They lack sort of the it's good holistic information, it's never bad information, let me put it that way. I don't think anything is put out with bad intent. I don't think anybody is incorrect in their in their information, I just think I think back to my situation, my journey with stroke, I mean, 2018, there was not a lot of I don't even think there was I don't even think I could find a YouTube channel. Really, with anything very helpful. For me, as a younger stroke survivor, as a parent, as somebody in the 30s, that seemed very rare to me. I mean, I learned over time, over the last four years that that is a little bit more common, I started to meet more people. And it does take time, and you got to kind of figure out you know, what you need, what you want, as a survivor or where you want to go, how to navigate that. It's, it's challenging. And I think that's again, that again, I go back to thinking about the community and building it. Like, I think about building things like resources and tools just even if I built a community, and it's not anything more than a resource for other people to find other resources. To be there has a lot of value. You know, again, I'm thinking about a lot of friends and people in networking that I've done over the years, and people that I want to work with, to collaborate with. And there's still plenty of people that I'm in the process of reaching out to, because I feel like, again, the guys over at no stroke have talked about this before on their podcast, that things happen in silos, and I want to kind of not only for myself as a survivor, because I'm still trying to figure things out. And I'm thrilled to still sharing my journey. Anytime I find something useful, whether I always talk about things, whether people, you know, support the channel or podcast or not, like, I'm just gonna provide good resources and tools that I find that I think will benefit other survivors. And if if I can get something out of that great, but if I can just share that information with other people. To me, that is the goal, honestly, like I just, there are things that I wish I knew earlier. sooner. And again, I think I'll probably do this in a separate episode. But I was thinking about family, right. And like, I think we talked about last week, community, community and family are different, and they're different for different reasons. And depending on how you feel about family you know, stroke takes a very big toll on survivors themselves, because you're the individual going through the actual process of being a stroke survivor and dealing with that, but it also affects family and caregivers and caretakers, and immediate family and a little bit of a non immediate family. You know, and I think over the years, things start to change and I'll go into a more next week, but I just feel like you know, family is there for a while but eventually they get tired. People in my own wife and kids are tired of me being a stroke. So are we We Are you done? Are you better yet dad kick. My boys say that in particular because they don't kind of get it yet still there. They're both under 10 My daughter is certainly 21 in a couple weeks she gets it but I see it even with my wife she says I don't know how long are we going to play the strokes are and honestly I'm gonna play the stroke. I am going to play the stroke survivor card and the MS card For the rest of my life, I feel like I've learned that I feel like if you go through a stroke, and you come out the other end, and you change a lot of things. And if you don't want to do something and got to play with the stroke, or play the stroke card, you deserve that. I know it's not going to help. But yeah, I will use I will utilize that forever now. To get me out of things to get me into things, I just, you know, it's hard enough. I feel like I earn that, you know, you do the work, you change your life, you go through, try to come out the other end, you try to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you try to work your way back. Hopefully you get there. Or hopefully, you're always able to work towards whatever that final destination is. And if you're doing that, I feel like you you've earned the right. Like a lot of things in life. You know, I think that is earned over time. But yeah, there's still so many things, going back to filling the gaps. It's like when you come out of is really bad, say way back? Do you come out of inpatient, and then you got to get home and kind of get slowly get back to having life. And that's not so easy. It's not without complications. It's not without hiccups. It's not without issues, there's just a lot of overwhelm. And we've talked about overwhelm on a lot of these episodes. But like, I was thinking about it, you know, it's so much easier said than done. Like they're always, I remember specifically, and because I think I made this mistake is like I relied. You know, they always try to tell you to make sure you're working on both sides of your body, even if you're only hopefully one side affected from your stroke if, if at all. So I was right side affected. So I was relying heavily on the left side, which to me wasn't bad, because my left side was always my less dominant side. So short term, left side was better than no side, I don't think you'd get an option when you're a parent. And, you know, you're trying to get back to life, and you're trying to live you know, and feel useful, and you want to be able to do things and regain independence. So I think you do tend to rely heavily on the side that's working best. When Yeah, in hindsight, I think maybe using a little bit more on my right side might have been better. You know, my situation was unique, because I wound up going back into the hospital, getting diagnosed with MS. And that left side was also messed up for a bit. So it took me a good six months to really kind of get everything figured out. And that was hard in the beginning, because I'm not patient. I really knew that I had screwed up. And obviously the MS I think was more out of my control than I realized. You know, but I took, there was a bit of a mental tax that I paid. And, you know, over time, I figured it out. And I just think there are still lots of gaps. Because you do impatient if you're lucky enough to have that resource and opportunity. You know, maybe you get 30 days, couple of weeks. And you're okay. But then you kind of even if you go home and you started an outpatient facility, it's just like you get an hour here an hour there. A lot of the work falls on you. And that's if you are in good enough shape to do it. And then you know, you have to rely on family members help and that's okay, I think I lucked out because of COVID. You know, everybody was home, it actually for me kind of was a blessing in a terrible time, it wound up being a blessing because everybody was home. We were kind of all united at home and I had equipment and I was able to do things at home and kind of progress differently than if it had just been say now. And not everybody was stuck at home, it just would have been very different might have been even more taxing on my wife than it wound up being. And so that was kind of a blessing and a curse. For me, again, that's specific to my situation. But again, I think there's so many gaps like people have questions like this, you I talked to my therapist, and they you know, physical therapists and they said do this and like I love my physical therapist, especially since I've been at outpatient you know, I'm trying to get her on as guests for one of the upcoming episodes. And you know, I always go back to this but it's like walking backwards. Like in hindsight I think she she kind of I always knew that there was something to watch we sang but in the reality was I was always giving our shit about walking backwards because I was like, What is the point of this? Like, it doesn't make sense. I'm not working backwards. And I think you You know, in hindsight, it's like, oh, well, if you walk backwards, you're training your muscles in your body in a different way. It's not necessarily because you're going to be walking around backwards in your house, no, who nobody's doing that. That's ridiculous. But it's it's working muscles in a different way. So that you can walk, it's almost like two steps forward, or two steps back to go. One step forward. You know, it just it's like doing squats. Nobody loves squats. But the reality is, if you do squats, and you're really strengthening your legs like that is that is a big exercise to really strengthen legs. That is sometimes hard to see in the moment. And I think that's the same thing with walking backwards. But the reality is, if she just said, Well, I know it's dumb, it seems dumb, but here, it's doing X, Y, and Z. This is why we're practicing it here because safe. And because it's going to help you walk forwards better, believe it or not. That's all I would need. And I think, you know, to that point, there are things that we sometimes even the smartest people, and the best stroke survivors, so weird, but like, anybody who wants to NEA is working hard, working hard on a lot of things. And sometimes you just don't see it in the moment. So you need to talk to somebody, you need to find connection. You know, and you want to find different resources and things. I found things over the last couple years that nobody really brought to my attention. But I wish they had sooner. I might not have listened to but it's nice to have those resources in a spot elected so that you're like, you know, again, I always go back to running because I'm so surprised that I got into running in the last year that it took me 39 years of my life to figure out how to enjoy running, how to fix my breathing. And I'm going back to that because last week, I bought a car dealership here in Florida for my daughter, she needs a new car. fortunate to be lucky to do that. And I was I was telling him like one of the guys at the dealership, he's like, he's like, so you got into running after a couple years and just stroke ever as again. Turns out, I was breathing. I was a mouth breather my whole life. And he laughed at me. And I was like, you know, that is funny that I was a mouth breather. I think I was trying to be funny. But I really as asked me being serious. Because I was a cigarette smoker because I believed in a big guy. It never occurred to me that my breathing was really the sort of root cause of my hatred for running because I just breathe through my mouth and I wasn't like a heavy mouth breather to the point where like it was excessive and I was making weird noises. I just you know, very subtly was not breathing through my nose as well as I put over should have or that was because it was always feeling blocked. Like I don't really have allergies. But I've been noticed since my stroke and Ms. I do have like sort of a continual runny nose. But the net might now be because of all my breathing and nasal breathing techniques and all the things that I do so it's constantly just flushing itself out. There's there's a lot of things to it. It sounds silly, it sounds insane. But like I didn't realize you could unblock your nose so that when I figured that out and I started getting into the oxygen advantage, Patrick McGowan and Wim Hof I just realized like, holy shit, my breathing, you know, it's okay if your mouth breather but there's a lot of there's a lot of downsides to being a mouth breather. You know, you get better oxygenation, you get better. There are lots of benefits to breathing through your nose. And when you breathe properly, slowly, surely figure that out. Get under control, figure some things out. You know, that's how you go from hating running your whole life to really I would just say that me fixing my breathing last year has really opened my eyes to being able to be a runner in a different way enjoy running. You can still breathe through your mouth, believe me when you when you run hard, you know if you're sprinting towards the you know, but ideally, if you're jogging at a good pace, you should be able to breathe in and out through your nose. And there's a lot of benefits to it. I've talked about it a ton on Twitter. I actually have an email course that I'm going to be releasing when I build out the community as well. You know, just to kind of some simple exercises to to address breathing and fixed breathing just things to consider because there's things I never knew about things I've never considered. Things have changed my life. And I think that's that's what community to me is because again, eventually we'll and we'll talk about this next episode, but eventually people will stop This may be my experience, but I feel like people are there for you in the beginning, and then slowly they have to, they have to get back to their lives, you know, and they're hopeful that you're on a path to where you are. You know, I don't think anybody minds if I reach out, but I'm at the point now where, you know, I kind of know enough to figure out things. And if I have questions that I reach out, I talk to people. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. I'm just saying, I don't really have to rely on people as much as I did. Probably years one and two, for sure. You know, where you're in year, three, and four, and hopefully going forward. Again, there's always going to be moments, there's gonna be times where I second guess myself, I have questions. You know, should I try this? Should I try that? Is this working? Is this not working? What What? What are some options here? You know, just like physical therapy this year, I know going back in the beginning of the year, because I was like, Okay, I'm into running. But I'd like to kind of improve and like, what could I do to work on? And again, some of its obviously, to me now, like, obviously, strengthening my legs, doing a lot of leg workouts is helpful, running more is helpful. Still figuring it out? Yeah, I think community is about filling those gaps and finding information, because I think there are so many things from healthcare information from dealing with insurance companies. That's a fun nightmare that I'm sure we've all experienced, in some capacity, getting things covered, getting things not covered, just having a place to come together, share resources, share, you know, if you're going through different things like I want to share people that I have worked with people that I invest time in people that I feel like I've been helpful to me might be helpful to you, whether that whether you're a stroke survivor, running a business, a stroke survivor, or looking for financial help, maybe you need some coaching, which I've done in the past. But again, I'm bringing in friends that are coaches who might be a better fit, you know, because I'm not for everybody, I get that. But I could certainly help point people in the right direction. You know, there's great information with the Heart Association, the world stroke organization, stroke.org, here in the States, tons of great information. But again, it's more about hearing what's working from other survivors, you know, I think all these resources are great. Pulling them together would be even better. Because there's so many things and every story is different. And every stroke is different. And you know, some people may love running, some people might hate running, some people might be mouth breathers as well and not realize it. And you never know what works. And I think pooling those resources and building less siloed communities and kind of thinking bigger picture. And working together is a really big thing that I you know, I've been talking about all year, but the more I think about it now, it's like, yeah, I'm going to be a survivor the rest of my life. That's, that's kind of why I started this podcast, because it's like, you know, I didn't want to talk about it and be anything. Not that I was ashamed of being a stroke survivor, I just didn't want to be known as a stroke survivor, necessarily, but like, that's, for better or worse, that's part of my identity. Now, I'm never not going to be a stroke survivor, I'm going to be that for the rest of my life. And as much as I don't want to, I don't like I really struggle with that at times. Like, I think sometimes people go through a thing, and they kind of lean on that a little bit. And maybe I'm doing that I'm trying to be cognizant of that. You know, I'm very acutely aware of like, you know, people who like running, loves talking about running and they love giving all their two cents about running. And what I always appreciate is a runner who's like, yeah, this worked for me, I'd never used to be into running but now I'm into running. I don't love races, but I just like running daily, by myself or with my wife or with a spouse or with a partner with a friend or whatever. And like, you know, this works for me, maybe maybe you have a similar story and this this will work for you. It's like why I talked about breathing because like that was sort of the thing that opened my eyes to like, Oh, crap, if I fix by breathing turns out and I actually hate running nearly as much as I thought. And again, I just spoke about this on the previous episode. It definitely took a little while to get over that hump where I was like, Okay, this is okay, this is not bad, you know, slowly and steadily I kind of gained traction and built up stamina and found that I really enjoyed it. And I love running now because it makes me feel good, feel good and in ways that I have not felt since my stroke and MS diagnosis back in 2018 2020. So I keep doing it because I keep feeling amazing. Nobody is as shocked as I am. I mean I could not be more surprised. And I think the people that know me best but also not be more surprised because I just always seem like I would never be that guy. And here we are. I'm like I know. But don't run races, I don't care about metals, I'm not doing it for anybody else. Not doing it to be the best or the fastest or the strongest, or prove anything to anybody. I'm just doing it because I enjoy it and makes me feel good. And the same thing with breathing. I do a lot of breathing exercises, people think it's silly, I get it. I used to think it was silly to as like I need to breathe, but turns out I do. Because if you're a mouth breather your whole life only, not only is that taxing on your body. It also prevents you from probably becoming a better runner and athlete. who wish I knew that when I was a kid, because maybe maybe that would have propelled maybe that would have been enough at the time to propel me to the next level of sports, instead of just kind of slowly slipping out of the sports world into regular life. But yeah, I think communities so interesting to me, and again, I'm building something out. I'm building survivor science on a new platform. I haven't released the website yet, but I am building it out on ghosts, which is interesting to me because I used to work in WordPress for probably 15 years. So love WordPress, but really excited to try a new platform. And I think for me, ghosts will allow me to be more competent in writing more because it is more of a writer creator platform. Not that WordPress isn't I think I just been stagnant in WordPress, because I've taken it for granted for so long. So I took advantage of there's a great company called Magic pages. You know, it's it's run by a young guy from over in Austria, I believe. And he's just somebody I follow on Twitter, I look them up, I should have put a link in the show notes. But um, yeah, really, really interested in building a collection of resources and really kind of taking that next step in the greater journey, which I've been doing all year, to be honest, but I hate that term. But I think, you know, it's clear to me now that I can build resources that can build these things that I enjoy building, I enjoy talking about them. I'm I guess I'm always into sharing because I'm just always surprised at what I'm learning and what I what I think I know and what I wind up not saying that, Oh, what is obvious now, but like I didn't even realize it was right in front of me the whole time. And again, to me, it's about filling in those gaps. It's there's tons of great physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, tons of good resources. But I still think there's a lot of opportunity for stroke survivors to step up and share and collaborate. And again, I I'm really into collaboration, because of course, I want to make money just like anybody else. But I feel like collaboration is key. I feel like if anybody is capable of building a big spawn safe space, you know, I joked about a last episode, kind of being their bodyguard working in security. Being six feet 325 pounds is kind of unique. Period. I just feel like, yeah, why not? And again, I want to bring people together. I like I like the possibility I like learning from each other I like I like, I just feel like people keep talking about including myself. And I'm Yeah, it's time it's time to fill those gaps. It's time to build something different. It's time to build something new. It's time to really bring people together in a world that is constantly divided, and constantly all over the place. And so, yeah, I'm really excited about the future. I'm excited about things coming up. I'm excited about next week and start to work with my buddy Chris, on producing this show. I think it's just gonna get that much better starting next week, bringing in some guests really, hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we'll start having guests. So I'm really, really, really excited for that. I think, again, it's going to be guests, you know, some survivors, some therapists, some some different kinds of people from different walks of life, people that are family members of stroke survivors who have been through it. And their experiences, maybe, again, it's just about pulling insights and filling those gaps because I feel like I didn't really talk about all the gaps, but I just feel like there are lots of gaps still. in need, even if it's not a gap, it doesn't have to be a gap. It's just another perspective, I think is really always a great thing. It's not a bad thing. And the more we can come together and build something together and something useful, having a safe space, you know, you don't have to proceed. When I say community I mean having a safe safe place a safe, safe, safe space, where people come together, people to ask questions, people will be curious. People ask, Hey, I tried this because my doctor recommended it and it didn't work. Has anybody tried something similar like nobody's doctor, but like everybody, everybody has a particular experience. And I think sharing that is so valuable. I just want to encourage it. And I want to build something that we can all learn and can better and grow together with when it doesn't matter if you're a survivor, a family member or caregiver, or you're just somebody who, who might be interested in working with the these family members, these community members do move, you're just an advocate in the healthcare. Yeah, there's just so many opportunities, so many things up so excited about for the future coming up. So again, I think we'll wrap it up, because I just heard the kids come home for the day. But yeah, next week, we will be we will not be going live. I don't know I was about to say that. But we'll be recording an episode. I'm working with dress. Really excited about that. Hopefully he doesn't mind because I'm sure I'm gonna have him chime in here and there on the next couple episodes since he will be producing the show. And yeah, I don't want to say with any certainty, but I think we can dive into a little bit more what I was talking about with family and see if we can wrap up this community thing and kind of get something going here in the next several weeks. Just kind of soft wants to community and see where we can take it I'm really excited. And yeah, as always, I think actually, before we hop off let's Let's chat a little bit about Mmm hmm. Let me make some more recommendations. Um, I feel like I've been watching Netflix. What have I been watching? Oh, Ducati. Pretty interesting. Just watch two or three episodes surprise. I did not binge the whole thing. Continuing, alright. It never takes me this long to read a book but our old book I keep reading a chapter falling asleep having to reread the chapter. Or we listened to the chapter falling asleep. Really? So I'm gonna say Arnold's book. I know he's talked about it last week, but it's it. I like it. I love I think I know what I love about Arnold. Arnold is Austrian with Austria is a very unique country. Kind of wedged in there in Central Europe. A lot of German influence. I just love that. I love that German goes back to my heritage. I'm German. I love that straightforwardness. I love cutting through the bullshit. I love not sugarcoating things. And, and to be clear, I like people who don't sugarcoat things. And I like when things are kind of based on some sort of reasonably scientific proven thing. I don't mind if people have an opinion, but I don't like when my opinions are stated as science versus actual science. And to that point, I will say, if you ask for four or five people, a quick survey that is slightly more scientific than surveying zero people. So what I really liked about the Arnold book is that it just straightforward cuts through the bullshit. I mean, again, I've said this at nauseam on previous episodes, other shows, whatever you think about Arnold, I just I just liked this book a lot. I like his take on things I just I appreciate open. I just feel like Arnold is honest, because he just doesn't have to not be honest anymore. And so, yeah, it's a refreshing take. That I really enjoy. And again, I think that is probably due to the fact that my mother was very much this way. My father was very much this way. I'm very much this way. I think it's very northeast New York, New Jersey. Nobody's got time for bullshit. no sugarcoating it. Just say what you mean mean what you say? If you're wrong, own up to it, if you're right, great. If we wrong, it's okay. Just do. It doesn't matter. I just I just I love the way he tells the story. And I always appreciate when I don't mind if an author doesn't read their book. But I always like when they say why they haven't. If they don't, and I always appreciate when they do if they can. So yeah, this is just another great book by an interesting person. I just, you know, I think we all make mistakes in life. I think we all go through some things. I think our own sort of owns up to it. From what I can tell, for the most part. Don't distrust Arnold. And yeah, it's a $20 book. It's not a $5,000 course. So it's a very different thing. And Leah read I highly recommend it. Again, got got it on Netflix pretty good. I'm not really watching a whole bunch of stuff serious see how football is going this weekend. But yeah, again next week we'll be working with Chris. And hopefully I have some news on both Stryver Science website and the survivors science community at large. And yeah, just continue to keep rolling. And I hope that you are doing well. I hope you are getting ready for the holiday season because we are now in November. So things are about to get busy. So it's a great time to start work reducer for the next couple of weeks trying to get some things in order. But I'm really excited about the future and I hope Yeah, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, you know, always email the podcast podcast at love Wolf thriver.com. All the notes are in the show notes. As always with these episodes, and yeah, hit me up on social if you have questions, if you have comments, concerns, anything you want to talk about. You know, I'm always a DM away. I know that's a little creepy these days. But yeah, just hit me up on Instagram, Twitter, predominantly, I am on Facebook, although I have not created a facebook group page. Something I'm working on as well. Trying to do all the things falling short as usual. But yeah, hope you have a great week.