0. Lovable Survivor Podcast Introduction

Hey what's up everybody, my name is Will Schmierer. And this is The Lovable Survivor Podcast, where I am going to show you how to navigate the next steps of your recovery journey to go from good enough to unstoppable if I don't really love the term AF but trying to be nice, trying to be good. I'm trying not to swear right out the gate. But yeah, I had a stroke in December of 2019. I went to rehab, physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, the whole therapy gang, in January of 2020, came home for a week, went back thought I was having a second stroke. Turns out, I got diagnosed in February of 2020. With Ms. So I got to do rehab a second time in 2020. All before COVID happened. For the last two years, I've been trying to navigate life and the journey of recovery. For a father of three a husband, I had some ups and downs, some struggles, some successes. And really what I found after three years is that, well, after two years, things were good, but good only good enough, they were not great. And I really wanted to figure out how to get to the next level. So the last six months, half of last 2020 or 2022. I'm sorry, I spent kind of time reorganizing my businesses, restructuring things kind of going on a weird journey that I've never anticipated never expected to go on. And, you know, with that, I started to question things, research things, brainstorm ideas, look into the science behind things, experiment those and really go through those scientific method. And from there, I analyze and now what I'm doing with this podcast, which is changing a little bit from the global idea to the global survivor, because it is survivor focused. And I want to share stories of my journey and my successes and with that, hopefully get to meet other cool people who have also been on a journey with either stroke recovery, brain injury, I've also been diagnosed, like I said, with Ms. So survivor is a broad term, but I think you know, for now, really focusing on brain injury survivors with that traumatic brain injury or some kind of alternative. So again, survivor is a broad word or broad term, but um, you know, kind of, and then really where the focus is, the original hesitation was, I did not want to get super medical but so we'll try to stay away from that a bit. But we'll dive into the science and the why and the how, and really just share stories, because a lot of what is out there is all sounds very scientific, I've found in my experience in my research, it's all good information. But it's hard to process as a stroke survivor. I think anybody who's had a little bit of a brain tweak or hiccup or whatever you want to call it, you know, it can be difficult sometimes. And so I want to be honest about sharing that journey. And really help people help me, you know, what I want aim to do is actually, as a survivor help other survivors, I think we all if you're listening to this, you're probably at a state of like, you could be anywhere along the journey, to be honest, because it's we're gonna go back in time, things I would do differently things I wish I knew sooner, things of still figuring out, sharing all those kinds of things along the way. And really navigating that second chance. You know, for me, it really was a second chance for you and might be a little different. But again, what I found in my research was that there's a lot of great medical information, people sharing things, but not necessarily survivors using those things and talking about them and sharing what works and what doesn't. And there's a lot of a lot of things along the way. As you probably well know, you've probably experienced some kind of thing. I think we all do with social media, we all hear different things. Things that work for one people, a person does not necessarily work for another. I sure I'm sure it's how positive that's going to be the case here. But I think when I realized last year, I was definitely at a place that why we consider good enough. And being that I was turning 40 and I am now 40 I just realized good enough was a great place to get to. But now I'm kind of going on that next next level, I want to get to that next step, I want to become unstoppable. I want to get back. You know, I may never get there. I think anybody who has been through a significant life event knows they may never get back there. But the goal is to try to get back to where I remember being, you know, up to the day, before my stroke, and before getting diagnosed with MS and all these things that I've been through. So, again, it's really just sharing the journey by a survivor, myself, being the survivor and sharing it with other survivors so that they can maybe find a clue or a way to look because the honest truth is what you go through a medical life and really become a survivor of any kind. You're at the mercy of guests and check in like, your own sort of thing and there's somebody help you navigate that. So, again, the goal of podcasts will be to help people navigate and get to where they want to be faster. It may not help it may not happen. But that is the goal. So I look forward to next episodes, and that'll be kind of where we go