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137. A Journey of a Lifetime- with Mike Liguori
85 Plays2 years ago
After being on the brink of suicide induced by years of PTSD from fighting in Iraq with the Marines, a series of supernatural interventions saved Mike Liguori’s life. His military service and deployments to a war zone were not by accident.
He had engaged and often ran away from his enemies long before and after the war within the shadow of his past.
His most recent book, The Road Ahead and Miles Behind: A Story of Healing and Redemption Between Father and Son chronicles the story of a cross-country road trip taken during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic with one of the darkest shadows of his past, his relationship with his father.
https://mikeliguori.com/home
https://www.instagram.com/mike.liguori/
https://www.facebook.com/themikeliguori
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for coaching:
https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
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Transcript
Life's Highway Metaphor
00:00:01
Speaker
In life, you will always have the road ahead of you and the miles behind. It will come to you and end one day. For now, there is a bunch of highways ahead of you. They're vast and open. They can be straight or they can be full of twists and turns. You have to keep your eyes on them.
00:00:18
Speaker
Sure, it's good to reflect on the miles and the distance you've come, but don't get caught up in the rearview mirror looking back at everything, particularly the negative stuff. Don't do that with yourself and especially don't do it with your parents. It's never too late to create something new with them.
Introduction to 'Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between'
00:00:36
Speaker
Hello and welcome to grief, gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:44
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:00
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Meet Mike Ligori and His Story of Redemption
00:01:22
Speaker
So excited to have you guys on the podcast today, listening in this new year, starting off the new year with a guest that I'm excited to interview. It's Mike Ligori. I was like, wait a minute, the one thing I didn't talk about before I started recording.
00:01:43
Speaker
Mike is the author of The Road Ahead and Miles Behind, which is a story of healing and redemption between father and son. Welcome, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Podcasting and Founding 'Live Your Truth Media'
00:01:56
Speaker
I am so happy you are. As we were just making sure our mics were working in headsets, you also shared that you are also a podcast producer, so share about that part of your life.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I've been in podcasting for about six years and I am the founder and CEO of Live Your Truth Media. We are a podcast production company and also do marketing consulting for brands, influencers and companies looking to build deeper relationships with their audiences through podcasting. So I've been doing that for a while. I love it. I've worked with everybody from Salesforce, T-Mobile,
00:02:34
Speaker
all the way down to the solopreneur that's looking to possibly potentially leave their corporate job and wants to start producing their own content and sharing their message and building a relationship with new followers and new fans and essentially create a life for themselves.
Upbringing and Military Experience
00:02:52
Speaker
I wish I'd have known that information beforehand, but I'm happy I'm learning about it now. Yeah. Well, it's a time and place for everything. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you. So now let's start off with sharing a little bit about where it is you live as well as where it is you grew up. So let's start there.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I currently live in Scottsdale, Arizona, and I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I'm the oldest of four boys. And I am also a former active duty Marine. I'm a veteran of the Iraq War. I served from 2004 to 2005 for my first tour and then 2005 to 2006 for my second tour. I ended up doing four years in the Marine Corps total from 2002 to 2006.
00:03:40
Speaker
You can't imagine that if you do the math on that, I was a senior in high school when 9-11 happened. For a lot
The Call to Serve and Its Challenges
00:03:49
Speaker
of young men and women at that time frame who are in that time frame who are looking for purpose and what to do next after high school, whether it be college or to go get a job, I was one of the very many people that day who found out that there was a call to arms and a call to service when that day happened. And so instead of,
00:04:09
Speaker
going to play college football and go to the route that I had as an eight-year-old wanting to play at the University of Notre Dame growing up as a young Catholic man in the Bay Area and wanting to go play football at Notre Dame and probably watching the movie Rudy more times than I can possibly imagine.
00:04:33
Speaker
I saw that there was a call for me to go serve in the military and my family actually has a rich history of military service. And so for me, it was feeling like I was fulfilling a legacy for part of my family. And also it was something for me that was very strong. It was very polarizing to be a part of that first wave of men and women who stood outside the recruiting offices and no joke.
00:04:59
Speaker
Probably when I went in within that first week after 9-11, there was a line out the door and every single branch of men and women who were looking
Facing PTSD and Civilian Life Struggles
00:05:06
Speaker
to serve. So I guess we'll just drop in there. We'll just go there.
00:05:11
Speaker
Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that and thank you for serving this country and the people that are in it and that are in it, so thank you. Now, with that comes a lot of different emotions having served in active duty. The emotions that come when you return, all these different
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah. Gosh, I mean, PTSD is very prevalent. Can you talk a little bit about that within your experience? Yeah, absolutely. So after two tours of duty, I came home and found that civilian life was much harder for me to deal with than it was a war zone. And for some of you out there who are not connected to military service members, and some of you that are,
00:06:03
Speaker
The experiences that men and women have when they serve overseas is unique to them, to those individuals. It is very hard for a lot of people to understand. And when men and women come home after seeing the horrific side of human nature, you almost want to avoid it and you almost want to bury it. And you don't really want to confront and deal with it.
00:06:29
Speaker
And for me, I didn't know how to confront and deal with it. I ended up stuffing it away thinking like, you know, I'm fine. I'm going to go to college and get a degree and I'm going to make a ton of money in software sales and everything's going to be okay. Well, it wasn't because in 2007, after I completed my freshman year, I got a letter from the Bush administration, basically saying, um, you have been recalled to go back for a third tour to Iraq.
00:06:57
Speaker
And the moment I got that newsletter in the middle of my campus, right around noon where kids break, here I am this former Marine combat veteran surrounded by 18, 19 year old kids who did not go to the military. And I had a mental breakdown on campus. I started sweating, was paranoid, was anxious, depressed, cocktail of emotions completely happening for me.
00:07:24
Speaker
And I went home immediately, didn't talk to anybody, panicking. And I remember I was driving incredibly fast and I went home and I locked myself in my house and I said, I am not coming out ever again. And I remember my mom came home and I told her what happened. And she said, there's no way in heck we're going to get you to come back. You go back over there. So.
00:07:48
Speaker
A couple days went by, a couple weeks went by, you know, I'm not feeling like myself. I am completely just, I'm just not in a balance at all. And what ends up happening is, is that I decided to finally go to the VA and go get help.
Complex PTSD Diagnosis and Its Impact
00:08:06
Speaker
And that day I got diagnosed with complex PTSD from combat. And I have to tell you that changed my life forever.
00:08:14
Speaker
It changed my viewpoint. It changed the way that I saw the world. And most importantly, it changed the way that I saw myself. And it was very hard for me to be able to connect to people, for people who have experience with PTSD, whether they individually have it or they know somebody that does, avoidance of eye contact is a big thing that happens. And it's usually come from the fear of intimacy.
00:08:41
Speaker
And that for me was one of the biggest things that plagued me. It plagued me in my romantic relationships, it plagued me in my friendships, even plagued me with my own family. The avoidance of eye contact as a symbolism of the avoidance of intimacy, and it all stemmed from the fear of losing them. I'm not wanting to get too close because in the military you have compassion completely ripped from you.
00:09:03
Speaker
Because you have a job to do. There is no room for love and compassion and empathy. It's just not taught. And rightfully so. You are asked to do a job. And sometimes, and most of the time that job is required for you to not have emotions, but rather to do what's being, what's necessary and what's required.
00:09:27
Speaker
Because I'm taking that in because it's so much. And as you were saying, the part of fear of intimacy, that's the first thing I thought. It's like, well, it has to be the fear of losing someone and how that impacts someone that's in a war zone, seeing people die, that it's like, wait, I just had lunch with this guy today, and now
00:09:50
Speaker
they're gone or I just shared my deepest secrets and emotions to this individual and now they're they're no longer here so I can see how that could play a part and like you said so perfectly that everybody's experience
00:10:08
Speaker
Will be different just like with grief Everyone's experience is unique and you cannot necessarily say you understand what you've gone through But of course you can relate to some extent so going to the VA and being with other people that you could connect with in some way because they had experienced something similar to you and
00:10:31
Speaker
How was that for you in your journey? Because there's huge grief in that aspect of having served, not only because you've experienced people dying, that part of the grief, but the part that you are leaving something behind. And like you said, you didn't even know how to act in the real world after being back. So share with that how that support of being with others,
00:10:59
Speaker
connect in your experience shaped you and helped you. Yeah. Well, there's something to be said, you know, to go back to the experience thing. One of the things that I work with a lot with my clients and in terms of the executive consulting side and working with founders and entrepreneurs is one of the things is that, um, is really embracing having them embody their own experience of life.
00:11:24
Speaker
which means essentially you have to give yourself a chance and give yourself space in your life to be human.
00:11:32
Speaker
And for me, a lot of the things that I would say that caused me pain was not being able to create space for the human side, for the human experience of war and not being able to feel like that I had to bear all this weight and responsibility on my own and play this lone wolf role where basically nobody understands
Community and Healing Post-Service
00:11:55
Speaker
me. I'm just a guy that served in the military. How could anybody want to connect with me because they would never understand?
00:12:02
Speaker
And when I was able to identify that the things that got me through the war was not that of my training, it was the shared misery of being out in a war zone 10,000 miles away from home with another guy who was also as miserable 10,000 miles away from his home. And we both had something to frankly complain about and it was nice. But when you get home and you're in normal day to day, you know, you know, American life, it's safe.
00:12:32
Speaker
And there were tons of things that I could complain about, but it wasn't the same. I mean, frankly, I missed my friends. I miss those times that we had. There was a peace and a comfort to it. And despite all the chaos that was around,
00:12:46
Speaker
But during my healing process, I found that it is so important that in any transition of life that we must have somebody that we can relate to and somebody that we can integrate with. So at any transition, whether it's you're going through a death, you're going through a divorce, or even if you're going through a rebirth from a death, and that could be an ego death,
00:13:11
Speaker
It is very important for you to find a community or a tribe that you can connect to, and especially military veterans. Military veterans need to have space where there's other people there that know exactly what it means to be a combat veteran and to integrate back into society. Um, when you talk even from the gender aspect, right? Men and women, men.
00:13:37
Speaker
need to have groups of other men to go be men with, to talk about things that men deal with. And the same thing with women. Women need to go do girls trips. Women need to be together in community. Women need to share experiences with each other. And I'm a big proponent and advocate of that, right? And not just from the veteran sense, but in romantic relationships, in friendships, just in life.
00:14:05
Speaker
whatever stage of life you're in, it is very important for you to find a place where you can softly land and you can be in that support system. And for me, the groups of people that I met that had military experiences was such a profound experience for me. It made things easier. It made me feel like I wasn't alone. And the most important thing was is that I could grieve the death of my friends. And I was very fortunate actually to not lose
00:14:33
Speaker
anybody in my unit during my tours of duty. But I actually lost more friends when I came home to drugs, alcohol, suicide, you name it. And so that to me weighed on me, survivor's guilt. I could have saved them. I could have done something. And that weighed on me a lot, but I was finally able to overcome that through community and tribe of people that understand what that, what it means to be a veteran and deal with those experiences.
00:15:04
Speaker
I love the phrase you said you need a soft landing, that little kind of cushion that in between something that just kind of eases that transition. Again, it doesn't. All these transitions in life are part of life, we're going to have these emotions with something that just makes it
00:15:22
Speaker
Just a tiny bit, you know, less rough would be the case. And these friends that you lost when you got back, these were friends you were in combat with from even just from the PTSD itself and all that, that they died either by suicide or drugs.
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah, I would say just, you know, just to not make any sort of speculation, you know, because it could have not been PTSD at all. It could have just been like, I just don't want to be here anymore. And that's a very common thing for people who see a lot of really tough stuff in part of the human experience. You know, trauma is obviously a big topic of conversation.
00:16:04
Speaker
Uh, out there in society, you see it a lot. Um, I had a, I had a dear friend of mine tell me that he thinks the word of 2023 is going to be trauma and the embracing of that. And I thought that was so interesting to hear that. So, uh, I'll digress from that point, but, but simply for me is, you know, without speculation, I'll never know why.
00:16:26
Speaker
in my life for fact, why my friends went the way that they did. I can only embrace the fact that they're okay now. Even though they're not here in the physical presence, they're okay. And I don't have to bear the weight or the responsibility of something that happened to them.
00:16:51
Speaker
You know, it's not my responsibility that they went out the way that they did. Um, you know, that was, you know, to me, I believe in, in the many ways that that was a contract that they had, you know, with the higher powers or spirit. Um, the reality is, is that, you know, that is their journey. And the only thing I can do is, is re respect and love the time that I had with them and the experience that I had with them.
00:17:16
Speaker
And they taught me a lot that I didn't know that they taught me until circumstances and scenarios in my life presented to me where I needed to implement that lesson. And coincidentally, at that same time, the conversations I have with them 10 years ago, interjected themselves into scenarios with another person that's completely unrelated to them. And it was such a...
00:17:44
Speaker
It's been beautiful in a lot of ways in this healing process and this journey to be able to experience that. I appreciate you sharing that and the aspect of knowing that they're okay reminds me a little bit about your conversations with your dad in the car about his own friends and those beliefs that he himself had, how they helped him
00:18:09
Speaker
in his journey of grieving some of his friends dying. So we're going to pivot, which is like that word, right? Did it not become like the most used word probably in the last three years as everybody pivoted in their careers, pivoted? So in this conversation, we're going to pivot into talking about your relationship with your parents and particularly with your dad and this road trip you both took.
Father-Son Relationship and Pivotal Road Trip
00:18:36
Speaker
and how that has completely shifted your relationship before the road trip relationship with dad and after the road trip. So let's talk about your relationship with your father and that day that he asked you to join him on this road trip.
00:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I need to lie down on a chair for a second and you know, where do I start? Okay, so let's bite sizes bite sizes. Let's do a bite size question. You mentioned it's four of you for in the
00:19:11
Speaker
It was two of you, the other two younger, the other two siblings younger. It's your brother and you from your dad and your mom's marriage. And then tell me, because there I kind of, it throws me off when you say the word brothers. And I'm like, wait, I only see one here. So how about you clarify that for me first? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So my dad and mom,
00:19:39
Speaker
had myself and my brother who's a full brother. And then my dad and my mom split and ended up getting, he got remarried and then they had two children. And so those are my half brothers. And so it's funny, I'm one of those people where people say, oh no, they're not my brother, they're my half brother. And I'm like, what difference does it make? They're still your brother or your sister, whether they're half.
00:20:04
Speaker
Just like a step, just like a step, not like a adoptive child, but still be your brother or your, yeah. It was just more for me was the timing of, I'm like, okay, here you're talking about your childhood. I see your dad would pick you and your brother up. You guys would do activities and how even that dynamic shifted a little bit when he started dating and, you know, those kinds of things. And so then I was trying to get that image. Okay.
00:20:32
Speaker
It has two other brothers. Now I'm, now I get it. Now we're all up to speed. Now we're all up to speed. So remind me the order, the birth order of you and your brother, your first year. Yeah. So I'm the oldest. Yeah. So I'm the oldest. And then I have a, I have a brother named James, uh, who's the same as your dad. He has the same name as your dad. Okay. James. And then I have the, the.
00:20:58
Speaker
third oldest, I guess, yeah, the third oldest would be Dante. And then my youngest brother is Kellen and we all spread out across the country. Yeah. And we keep in touch. It's nice. It's, it's very cool. So yeah. Tell us about your relationship with your dad. And then the day he asked you to do this road trip with him. Yeah. So.
00:21:22
Speaker
without going too much into the therapy chair, as I like to call it, right? And rehash all the stuff with my parents. My dad and I have always had a very interesting dynamic. And what I mean by that is, you know, some people think interesting, like, you know, was he off-putting? Was he kind of weird? And I'm like, no. My dad and I had an interesting relationship because we are more alike than we are the same.
00:21:49
Speaker
And when I was a kid, you're born into, when you're a kid and you're born into this world, the first time you open your eyes is to your mom and your dad. And when you're a young boy who teaches you how to be a man, majority of the time, depending on the dynamic of the relationship, it's your father. So my dad was the first man I saw when I was born and he was the one that was around the most.
00:22:14
Speaker
And he was the one that I looked at and said, okay, this is the guy I'm supposed to emulate on how to be a man. Well, what I started noticing was is that despite my dad being around, there was a little bit of an absence from an emotional standpoint. He was very passionate about his work. He's an entrepreneur and he loved what he did.
00:22:43
Speaker
I remember the moments that I had with him, but I always felt like there was a disconnect between us over the years, especially when I was getting hormonal in my teenage years.
00:22:55
Speaker
you know, floods of testosterone raging through me. And I'm like, my dad's, you know, I'm getting finding myself in these states of like, you know, my dad's not working, and he's not at all my games, like I want him to be, or when we're out and doing sporting events, as I talk about in the book, you know, he's there, but he's
00:23:15
Speaker
texting or he's on client calls or he's like, yeah, I'll be in in a second. There were a couple of times I remember distinctly where I would go into the sports arena and we'd always had great seats and I would go into the sports arena and I remember he would come in a little bit later. And it's okay from time to time when that happens because you know that life happens and you know, things get into the way. But when you're a kid and you see it consistently happen,
00:23:45
Speaker
Then it turns into punctuality things. Then it turns into tardiness. Then it turns into, at times, I can't pick you up from school. Your mom's going to come get you. And there was no communication relayed to me. You start having this, a little bit of disdain and this anger and resentment towards him. Like I looked up to you and I feel like you're not emotionally there. So I don't even know if you're truly dependable.
00:24:11
Speaker
And that resentment fueled a lot of arguments and disagreements and seeking the emotional validation from him to feel like I mattered. Cause I always felt in competition with his work. It was never ever like, Oh, he likes my other brother more than me. And I'm sure sometimes I was the favorite and the other times my other brothers were the favorite, right? It happens with parents. But what I do know is, is that.
00:24:37
Speaker
It was never me being in a competition with any other human being. It was me being in a competition with his work and I felt like I could never compete. And my personality over the years was never so much of a projecting lashing out. It was always an internal like, why this? And I had a history of depression because of those things that the trauma for me was never feeling truly validated, seen or heard by my dad.
00:25:07
Speaker
So you can imagine that as you go from this young boy who's hurt and who's scared and afraid on a lot of levels to go and joining the Marines, the first thing that he's looking for, and I'm speaking from my perspective because I am the he, is I'm looking for a male role model that's actually going to show up. And when I was 18 years old and I signed up for the Marine Corps, my dad was very proud of me, but I knew on a subconscious level that actually dad, you're, you're not the guy that I was looking for.
00:25:38
Speaker
You were not the guy that I was looking for. What you actually were is the man who raised me to get to this point to go and seek out what it truly meant to be a man. And I'm seeking that in my journey in the Marine Corps of a drill instructor and not one of them, but three of them.
00:25:58
Speaker
And bootcamp is not easy. It is not easy at all. And so imagine you having three men who could scare the living crap out of me on a day-to-day basis for 12 weeks, basically telling me, you're not enough as you are, but we're going to make you into something more. But the thing, Kendra, that I'll tell you that was really fascinating about bootcamp and my father was bootcamp
00:26:24
Speaker
pushed me and those men showed up every single day. They were not late. They were always on time and they were on my, you know what, 24 seven, but they never were late. It was an easy substitution for me to say the Marine Corps was the dad I've never had.
00:26:41
Speaker
So as time goes on, I'm learning the accountability piece. I'm learning how to grow and shape and be this man. I'm going into combat. I don't need to rely on my father for any sort of emotional support at this point. I have men who have actually been shot at in combat or telling me, you're going to be fine. This is how you're going to do. There was a nurturing aspect. When I get out.
00:27:05
Speaker
And my dad was very proud of me during my time in the military service. And I also talk about this in the book that the moment that I got out of the military, it felt like I wore a uniform of depression and shame because I was no longer validated as a Marine. I was just a combat veteran with a mental health disorder. How could any parent be proud of that? And that's what I thought.
00:27:28
Speaker
So I go through my twenties struggling. My twenties were very difficult. I go through my thirties and start trying to carve out a piece of my life for myself. And I start noticing that right around, and I'll be 40 this year and start noticing around the last couple of years that this common theme keeps coming up. What is your father to you? What is he to you?
00:27:56
Speaker
And I couldn't answer that question. I got so like, what do you mean? You know what I mean? It was like meditation downloads and as my mental health was improving, I was opening myself up to receiving more answers and guidance from, you know, what I have named God and as sure as many people do. Like I felt like God was asking me like, what is he to you?
00:28:18
Speaker
And as I was kind of progressing and moving through these seasons of lies and being an entrepreneur, which ironically, my dad's an entrepreneur too. And I was kind of like, I'm going to go out and show him that I know what I'm doing. And I didn't need him. And that was a lot of my resentment. A lot of my anger and frustration was trying to prove him wrong.
00:28:38
Speaker
So right when I'm on the cusp of having a great year of my first year in business, and I'm like, ha, I did it. I was like, now I'm going to show you, I'm going to do 2x in revenue of what I was doing before. And then COVID hit. Tire world shuts down. I'm actually in a Wim Hof retreat, learning how to do breath work in March.
Divine Guidance and Transformative Journey
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm doing my little Wim Hof here. I do that sometimes before I get in the shower, I'm like,
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's the best. It really is. And I absolutely loved it. And I remember when I came out of that retreat, I got so many downloads because for those of you who are familiar with Wim Hof and cold therapy, like your mind does not focus really on anything else except the ice cold freezing water. And then when you're in breath work and meditation that you go really freaking deep. And I started finding out that I needed to let go of something. And maybe this was me letting go of my dad.
00:29:40
Speaker
So COVID hits, I can't get on an airplane, I get in the car and drive, take the last, I think it was like the last two cars from Salt Lake City and I ended up living, I was living in Denver at the time and I ended up driving back to Denver.
00:29:55
Speaker
And Kendra, I had a seven hour, roughly seven hour conversation with God. And it was like, you've got to let something go. You've got to make space for things. Your life's going to completely change. We're not going to tell you what it is, but just be prepared to let things go. And what ended up happening was COVID happened. I shut down and I felt myself changing and moving.
00:30:16
Speaker
and started making over the course of like a six month decision to reflect and develop myself into the person I wanted to become. But my dad kept coming up. And then I got that phone call.
00:30:31
Speaker
And the phone call shocked me. It threw me for a loop because I was ready to tell him, F off. I don't ever want to talk to you again. I just can't. It's just too much of a battle and my life would be better off making space for something else that was mine, that I wasn't seeking any sort of approval from you. It was all mine. But then he said, you and I haven't spent a lot of time with each other and mind you,
00:31:00
Speaker
I didn't ask him to call me. There was no preempt to this. There was only a conversation with God at the time who basically said, we're not going to tell you how you need to let things go, but your life is going to drastically change. And this is the way they showed me. You need to have a conversation with your dad.
00:31:19
Speaker
Now, I'll wrap this up and then we can drop in because I feel like there's so many things you want to ask. Oh, no. I'm just taking it in. I'm taking all this journey. No, no. I mute myself because if not, I'll just be like, oh, and then I have to edit that part. So that's why I'm muted. I'm just taking it in. So continue, Mike. No, absolutely. So he gives me this phone call.
00:31:48
Speaker
And he says, you and I haven't spent a lot of time with each other. How would you like to go on a road trip with me? We'll drive from Las Vegas to Sebring, Florida. There's an automobile race I've always wanted to go to, he said, called the 12 Hours of Sebring. Now, from the time I was 10, roughly, all the way till 37 years old, 36 years old,
00:32:15
Speaker
You're telling me in the midst of the probably one of the worst years in human history for a lot of people, some people were thriving, some people were not.
00:32:26
Speaker
You're now going to ask me to get in a car with you for two hours for the next week, two weeks and drive across country with you and I'm just supposed to sit next to you? What in God's name do you think we're going to talk about? And I was like, no way in hell am I going to get in a car with you, especially a Mercedes Sprinter van. If you guys don't know what that is, it's basically the vehicles that Amazon drives to drop off your packages that we order daily. That's what it is. So.
00:32:56
Speaker
As I was about to get this like huge burst of energy of like, I'm going to tell him, no way, I'm not going. I hear the voice of God in my head. And I know it was the voice of God because it was the same voice that told me six months prior.
00:33:13
Speaker
your life is going to change. It was the one that saved me from myself in the midst of my depression when I was about to take my life. It was the one thing that told me don't go into these certain places and bad things happen. It was the same voice that told me that you probably ran over an IED in landmines more times than you can possibly count and your time is not up yet.
00:33:37
Speaker
It was also the thing that told me that I was going to come home and be okay, but go on a journey of a lifetime. And it was not my job to ask why, it was just my job to be in it. And that was the same voice. And so what happened at this point was I hear this voice.
00:34:00
Speaker
And the voice tells me, Michael, you need to go on this trip with your dad. It's the only one that you may get with him. And I sat with that and I recognized that here's my dad in his mid seventies. We're in the middle of this pandemic. I have no clue.
00:34:21
Speaker
No clue at all how much time I have left with him. And do I really want to live the rest of my life in resentment, anger, and frustration? And if I want any answers to that, I got to go on this trip. And so I went. And we spent 11 days.
00:34:35
Speaker
and we talked about everything. And some of the stories, if you have one that you want me to dive into a little bit before anything else. But yeah, that to me was, I hope that was a good synopsis or overview. That was a perfect, perfect synopsis. And I want to say as I was reading this, now that I know that you're a podcaster,
00:34:55
Speaker
And now I understand why you're so good at asking questions to your dad. You asked such good questions while you were driving. Really, you really did ask him really good questions that really let you know who he was and really get to know more about
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah, about him and connect with him in just a different level than you had. So out of those questions that you asked in that road trip, which was one that his answer surprised you the most or that lets you see
00:35:31
Speaker
this person as more than your dad and really the humanity of your father because that I feel that that's what this journey really allowed you to see is your dad as a human and not just as the role of dad. So if you remember earlier before I started my monologue, my dad and I are more alike than we are the same.
00:35:59
Speaker
And that's when I started to accept him and love him for where he was at. And a lot of us tolerate our parents. And I want to remind everybody here that from my perspective, tolerance does not equal love.
00:36:12
Speaker
And so it is very important for you to decide if you're contemplating in terms of, you know, healing your relationship with your parents or you are a parent and you find that you're in conflict with your child. One of the things that I would highly suggest to you is being able to see where the other person is at. And I think Stephen Covey has a great quote that says, seek to understand before you seek to be understood. And I remember that. And with my dad, what I found out was when I listened to him, when I accepted him for who he was,
00:36:42
Speaker
It doesn't mean I have to love him, but it does mean I have to accept him if I want to move forward with my life. And one of the things that I found that he said to me that really made me appreciate him as the human that he is was, I'm so proud of you and I'm sorry I didn't tell you enough of that.
00:37:02
Speaker
Imagine how different my life would have changed. Eddie had said that more after all those years of feeling like that I was always in competition with his business and I was always in competition with what he was trying to do.
00:37:16
Speaker
And one of the things that really showed that connection then now is this undivided attention that you really did have with him in these 11 days, which was something you couldn't get from him when you were a child. Because like you said, you were in competition with
00:37:33
Speaker
his work and he couldn't make it to games. But here you are, 11 days, really undivided attention with your dad and connection. And it was just such beautiful moments. And let's touch upon the part went back to kind of going back to grief. When you start asking him about his friends and and their and their some of them having died and those connections and that reflection, even about of yourself.
00:38:01
Speaker
What were some of the things that your dad would say regarding his own grief journey of having lost these friends that you feel you took on you for yourself as well? I learned that death is the ultimate surrender. And I learned that
00:38:22
Speaker
In life, it is so important for you to have people to run the race with. And I've used this whole analogy. We were talking about it before and I'm so glad that you picked out that passage.
Lessons in Surrender and Forgiveness
00:38:35
Speaker
But for me, death is the ultimate surrender. And at some point in time, we're all not going to be here. We just don't know when.
00:38:43
Speaker
And grief is a completely natural part of process. It's non-dualistic. There's life and there's death and it's the cycle and that's the way it is. And I think my dad, what he came to grips to was the fact that his friends were with him for as long as they needed to be for as long as they could. And they passed. And he's still sad about that because those men had such a profound impact on his belief system,
00:39:13
Speaker
his personality and his perspectives. But the most important thing I think he found was he experienced love from what he considered his brothers in Christ. He found love for himself through that and being embraced in his spirituality. And I think what he found was forgiveness.
00:39:33
Speaker
And that was the thing that I learned too on this was the intricacies and the powers of forgiveness. And that was the one thing that made me really reflect on the surrender piece and also the forgiveness piece that I talk a lot about in my work and a lot of my content today is the willing to let go and forgive those and forgive yourself in order to make space to create more.
00:39:59
Speaker
My gosh, how am I going to choose what part I use as my little promo clip at the beginning? I do not know. Because of course you always have something in your head that you have planned, yet it doesn't always go as it is because that's how life is. You've said so many beautiful, poignant moments. Let me ask you.
00:40:17
Speaker
In terms of your connection with your dad, because this is something how many times a week or how many times in a month would you talk to him on the phone prior to the trip? And how many times do you talk to him now?
00:40:31
Speaker
I would probably say we would talk maybe once every two weeks. And, uh, we talk now probably three, four times a week. We actually just talked this morning before, um, before I jumped on this podcast and you know, he always laughs at me. He's like, he's like, Hey, remember go easy on me. He's like, you know, don't beat me up too much. And I'm like, dad, it's okay.
00:40:54
Speaker
And I love it because he was part of the book because he writes the foreword in your book. So you get to see the glimpse and perspective of your dad. And he says something of like, son, if you write this, like make sure tell people to what is it? Talk to their parents. Yeah. Yeah. Go see their parents. Go see their parents. Yeah. That he he, you know, emphasizes that.
00:41:18
Speaker
I love the different vulnerable moments that you share, but there's so many, but that experience you guys had at SpaceX and being able to witness your dad having one of his child dreams come true and experiencing it with him and you guys in this journey there being able to experience this launch. And I want to make sure that the readers kind of experience that for themselves too. I don't want to give too much of that.
00:41:44
Speaker
It is just beautiful and I just want to just honor you for not only having shared your vulnerable story of your dynamics, but also inspiring now others to know that there is hope to heal relationships that you might feel
00:42:01
Speaker
that don't have a place in your life, because the reality is you're a different person now than you were before, and therefore another individual could be a different person now than they were before too. So there is hope for relationships to heal. Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I would like to just share with your audience, and I know we're coming up on time here, is that
00:42:26
Speaker
One of my favorite quotes that I've heard is, life presents you with circumstances and people to reveal to you where you are not free. And that quote really hit me hard on this journey because as I've heard that quote time and time again, I remember that for me, I really want to give myself the opportunity to achieve freedom in my life. Freedom from constraint, whether it be my own or from something I perceive as resistance.
00:42:54
Speaker
And what I found was, and what I have found, I should say, is that your parents are resistance for a lot of you, at least for me. Our parents are resistance. They keep us at times, we say, oh, I can't make money because my mom says weird things about me purchasing things and it impacts us. And rightfully so, our parents raised us.
00:43:19
Speaker
But there's an absolutely beautiful way to reframe this. And the way to reframe this is that you are your own entity or your own individual and you have your own choices and your parents did the best they could with what they had at the time that they had it to raise you.
00:43:36
Speaker
Whether they're limited in their beliefs or not, they're doing the best that they could and they will continue to do so. If you can make space and you can forgive and love them for where they're at in that, you will be more free than you can possibly ever imagine. So I just wanted to share that with your audience is that it's never too late to have something with your parents and it's never too late for you to experience something different with them.
00:44:01
Speaker
and connecting in their humanity too, like in who they are, like how you did in your journey. I think that that is one way we can get through. And in the things that we do have in common that are not just also just sports and this or that, but it's like, what are our regrets? What are our biggest fears? What are these other big questions are also the ones we can connect with in a deeper level.
00:44:25
Speaker
I want to ask you, is there anything else I have not asked that you want to make sure that you add to the listeners that you contribute to the listeners? Yeah. I think just the other thing is, is that if you want to connect with me, find out more information. And I post a lot of content on Instagram and Twitter, and I also have a lot of information about the work that I do on my website at mikelegori.com.
00:44:51
Speaker
Um, and then also I'd love for anybody out there, if it's interests you or you feel called to it, um, anybody who wants to choose to buy the book, it would be, it would mean a lot to me. Um, this book has just been, this book has just been really great to see how many people have just, it's impacted and lives it's changed. And even conversations with their parents has changed.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yes. And again, it's The Road Ahead and Miles Behind by Mike LaGore. And you can find it on Amazon or going to your website. You could find the link there also to go. And I'll make sure to add those right here in the profile notes. And as we kind of end, if you can please read as we're ending. Yeah.
00:45:28
Speaker
The part on 127, in life you will always, that part, I think it just wraps a lot of what your title of your book is, please. Thank you, Mike. In life, you will always have the road ahead of you and the miles behind. It will come to you and end one day. For now,
00:45:50
Speaker
There is a bunch of highways ahead of you. They're vast and open. They can be straight or they can be full of twists and turns. You have to keep your eyes on them. Sure, it's good to reflect on the miles and the distance you've come.
00:46:02
Speaker
But don't get caught up in the rear view mirror looking back at everything, particularly the negative stuff. Don't do that with yourself and especially don't do it with your parents. It's never too late to create something new with them. I thought it was way too late for dad and me to have anything at all. That road trip saved us. The road taught us that we can coexist. We can be different and be the same. We can love each other. My hope is that what you will read will help you see your parents differently, like how I got to see my dad.
00:46:32
Speaker
For Dad and I, we look back at the miles we put on in our relationship and on the trip with contentment. We look forward to the road ahead, a different path. And he and I have started new and fresh as men, as friends, as father and son.
00:46:48
Speaker
Beautiful. A bow to this conversation. And I could probably keep on asking more questions. We'll have to do it again. We'll have to do it again. Your other book. Because I think you could go deep into another book with everything also regarding your marine experience. So this was one chapter of your whole probably. Yes.
00:47:09
Speaker
line of books that you'll probably be coming up with. And you got to do an audio book to this. Oh, that's happening. Okay. Your voice is perfect, of course, for your own narration. So thank you once again. This was Mike Legori, the author of The Road Ahead and Miles Behind. And we are so happy that you're here. I am so happy. And my listeners are so grateful that you're here too. So thank you. Thank you, Kendra.
00:47:42
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:48:11
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.