Transcript
Speaker: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host, Jennifer Muldowney, aka the Glam Reaper herself.
Speaker: On today's episode, we've got this really, really interesting guest.
Speaker: I mean, I probably say that a bit on my guests, but David is definitely someone who has been through trials, tribulations,
Speaker: He has an incredible resume.
Speaker: I just find him a really fascinating guest.
Speaker: He has sent me on the book we talk about in this podcast episode.
Speaker: And we just got it there recently, so I will be reviewing that.
Speaker: And we'll have a follow-up episode with David.
Speaker: But this is definitely one, if you need some inspiration in your life, you don't want to miss.
Speaker: Hi David and welcome to the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I am intrigued to hear all about your story, the triathlons and
Speaker: marathons and I'm going to let you fill us all in on it.
Speaker: I'm fascinated by it, especially with what I do for a living.
Speaker: I think it's going to be a really interesting conversation and I hope all my listeners and watchers will think so too.
Speaker: But it sounds like you've lived an incredible life.
Speaker: Sounds like you've lived a hundred lives where most of us have managed to just about survive this one.
Speaker: So yeah, please introduce yourself, David.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I'm just getting started.
Speaker: I mean, what can you do, right?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Well, thanks for having me on, Jennifer.
Speaker: I appreciate that.
Speaker: And I've only bragged to about a hundred people about the unbelievable name that you gave yourself in your podcast.
Speaker: I mean, it's really, it's really, it's ridiculously clever and unique.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I'm going to tell all my friends that I was able to speak to the glam reader.
Speaker: That's just the best.
Speaker: It really is the best.
Speaker: So tell us, I mean, your story is so crazy.
Speaker: You're an author, a public speaker, an entrepreneur and a philanthropist.
Speaker: I mean, you're so many things, but you've just written a book called The Cycle of Lives.
Speaker: Cancer obviously is a huge feature in what you're doing.
Speaker: I mean, all the Ironman.
Speaker: I ran a marathon once.
Speaker: I will never do another one again.
Speaker: And so I want to hear why you're...
Speaker: doing all of these crazy triathlins and Ironman and stuff.
Speaker: So yeah, like tell us what's what drove you to write the book.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: Yeah, start at the start.
Speaker: Okay, I'll start at the start.
Speaker: Well, I guess there's lots of beginnings and lots of starts, but the start of the start, I think for me was in about like 2003 or so, 2004, I had just had a number of things that didn't
Speaker: brought me to a point in my life where I realized I was really going down the wrong path and not the wrong path like I'm a drug addict or you know I you know abandoned my family nothing like that but just I live my whole life trying to please others and who can't identify with that you know you
Speaker: You work harder to make your boss happy.
Speaker: You try harder to make your spouse happy.
Speaker: You don't do things for you.
Speaker: You want your teacher to think you're good.
Speaker: You want your employees to respect you.
Speaker: You're always looking for other people to give you the validation that you're doing things right.
Speaker: I kind of was that way in my life.
Speaker: Then I also, I was in an abusive and terrible relationship.
Speaker: I had to get out of that.
Speaker: I had young kids.
Speaker: I had lots of stresses at work.
Speaker: I was overweight.
Speaker: I was a smoker.
Speaker: I wasn't athletic.
Speaker: I let stress consume my life.
Speaker: If, if, if I, somebody didn't give me a hole to climb out of, I dug myself the hole so I could climb out of it.
Speaker: You know, I was just a mess.
Speaker: And, you know,
Speaker: All of that was kind of coming to my consciousness at the same time as my sister called me up and said, hey, bro, I've just been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Speaker: And I went, ah, I mean, she's got limited time.
Speaker: And then I guess we all have limited time.
Speaker: And
Speaker: You know, I mean, if you're going to be here, you might as well try to do it on purpose and, you know, take charge of yourself.
Speaker: So that was kind of the start of that part of my life.
Speaker: That was the start of that part of my life, like kind of opening up and trying to do things for myself rather than to please others.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: yeah, I started running, started biking, started swimming.
Speaker: It's good to do those things instead of smoke.
Speaker: And sure enough, I found myself being drawn to endurance athletics.
Speaker: So I started doing longer things like marathons and 50 mile runs and a hundred mile runs and Ironman triathlons and all this crazy stuff.
Speaker: And I wrote a book about that called winning in the middle of the pack.
Speaker: And that thing did really well, but
Speaker: I really wanted to, when I came into the world of seeing people dealing with really severe trauma, especially the trauma around cancer, which is very traumatic, right?
Speaker: I mean, you're around death all the time.
Speaker: Death is
Speaker: It's not the thing we can't really wrap our brains around, but then also shrouded in the mystery of cancer.
Speaker: You know, one person's healthy and gets cancer and dies nine months later.
Speaker: The other person gets cancer and continues to smoke and drink and lives for another 50 years.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker: So it's mystery shrouded in mystery.
Speaker: And in relation to the traumas that we've all had in our lives,
Speaker: I'm losing a parent being abandoned, making bad decisions.
Speaker: How does, I wanted to find out how did those trauma, those traumas in our lives affect the emotional journey of cancer.
Speaker: And I might be wrong on this cause I'm talking to an expert, but I do think if we are lucky enough to get to the end of our lives and reflect, which oftentimes a lot of people that go through a cancer journey are able to get to the end of their lives with some reflection.
Speaker: There's really only two things that people, everything else bubbles downward.
Speaker: The only two things bubble to the top, in my opinion, and in my experience.
Speaker: And that is people's joy at the deep connections and meaningful connections they made in their life.
Speaker: Their friends, their family, their loved ones, the people that they've connected with and the joy that came with that.
Speaker: The other thing that happens is the regret.
Speaker: And it's regret of the people that they didn't form more meaningful relationships with.
Speaker: They let petty things get in the way.
Speaker: They never told somebody they loved them.
Speaker: They did whatever, right?
Speaker: So when you get to the end of the life, if you're fortunate enough to be able to look back, it's those meaningful connections or lack of meaningful connections that kind of mean everything.
Speaker: And so I thought,
Speaker: If I'm able to find a bunch of really evocative, interesting, inspiring, thought-provoking people, get deep into their heads about their traumas, understand how those traumas affected their journey with cancer, and tell that story, I figure that the reader might be better equipped to understand what people are going through
Speaker: or what they might've gone through so that we can help form more meaningful and deeper heart-centered, authentic relationships with the people that we care about, because we're gonna be better equipped to have those conversations.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's the start in the middle and the end.
Speaker: Yeah, it's I mean, there's a couple of things you touched on there that I want to ask about.
Speaker: I guess rewinding back to the start, you know, what the way you described yourself going down that that dark path as such.
Speaker: Honestly, I'd say resonates with probably everybody listening.
Speaker: You know, we've all felt overweight.
Speaker: Half of us probably smoke.
Speaker: I definitely drink.
Speaker: You know, there's a lot of things that we want to improve and we want to change about ourselves.
Speaker: And it's actually one of the things that I'm actually writing my third book about is how death inspires us to live our lives more fully.
Speaker: And you're a prime example of it.
Speaker: It can be hearing about the death of a loved one.
Speaker: hearing about the potential upcoming death of a loved one, even if that inevitability doesn't happen straight away.
Speaker: It's dealing with the process.
Speaker: It can be doing your own funeral pre-plan and facing your own death, which I'm a big fan of, because I do feel like it allows us to fulfill our lives a lot better.
Speaker: So do you think that was really the turning point for you was being faced with that death in your face sort of made you, I mean, you turned your whole life around by going from
Speaker: being, you know, not doing anything to like these Ironmen and the, you know, marathons and all this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, some people probably...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: They're maybe more aware or maybe more advanced than I was.
Speaker: I just I was always pretty aware, but I don't think I I was really good at solving equations, but I couldn't put a simple two plus two together.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, you want to be healthier?
Speaker: Stop smoking.
Speaker: That's pretty simple.
Speaker: But I didn't even hear that equation until, you know, my kids were four years old.
Speaker: Twins.
Speaker: They were four years old.
Speaker: I didn't really understand that equation.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so you just know what you know and you know it and you don't know it before then.
Speaker: But there were a couple of things that happened in my life that gave me some awareness or empathy or allowed me to kind of solve the equation that that is the truth, that there is a limited amount of time that we have.
Speaker: And if you're given something,
Speaker: the ability to live a more purposeful, meaningful, true to yourself life, then you better take advantage of it because time goes by pretty freaking quick.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I was working for a major Wall Street firm during the financial crisis.
Speaker: Without making this story super long, one of the people that I managed was having a really tough time financially and for his clients.
Speaker: Wife, young kids, wonderful guy, talented, just a beautiful human being.
Speaker: But he was under so much stress that he decided the only way out was to jump off a building.
Speaker: And it was absolutely horrible.
Speaker: And what was just floored me.
Speaker: And to this day, I still shake my head saying, I can't believe I didn't understand this before was before a grief counselor could come in and talk to all my employees.
Speaker: I walked around and talked to each of them.
Speaker: And I'd close the door and I'd say, geez, man, Jennifer, can you imagine, you know, that this guy did that?
Speaker: And then, then every single person told me a story, first person of having had suicide in their family and with a friend, with a loved one, with a classmate, with whatever.
Speaker: And I'm just like, what?
Speaker: How is everybody had interaction with suicide?
Speaker: And I'm just like, oh my goodness.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: I think that longer we live, we can either be more in denial about death or we can maybe have a better understanding that it is inevitable and we really don't know.
Speaker: And you better try to live on purpose because if you do sit there and go, oh, shit, it's over.
Speaker: Excuse me.
Speaker: Oh, shoot, it's over.
Speaker: I'm just saying if you get to the point and not all of us are lucky enough, right?
Speaker: But if you get to the point where you go, I can look back and say I either did or didn't do my best and live my best life.
Speaker: Oftentimes, I think if we don't have that distinct awareness and friendship with death, then we're not going to live our best lives.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because we're in denial about it.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's I mean, there's so many books that I have read now, whether it's
Speaker: around the funeral topic or just death, dying, bereavement.
Speaker: I mean, the top of one coming to mind right now in what you're talking about is the top five regrets of the dying.
Speaker: And it's all about not having spent time with their loved ones, you know, living life with no regrets that they didn't, you know, that they spent more time with family as opposed to in work and,
Speaker: We see it every day, like every day working in funeral home and working with people.
Speaker: Only last night there was a service for a lady who died with breast cancer far too young.
Speaker: She was the same age as me.
Speaker: It was a very emotional service, leaving behind two lovely, gorgeous kids.
Speaker: And I have friends who've had breast cancer who are still struggling with it, my parents.
Speaker: And exactly to your point about suicide, cancer and suicide seem to be the two most prevalent areas
Speaker: forms of death where we're all touched by them and when I say you know there's obviously more prevalent death you know ways that we die but those two seem to have so much trauma attached to them whether it's you've gone through cancer and you've survived
Speaker: it affects everybody in the family and everybody who knows and loves you.
Speaker: Suicide is the same thing.
Speaker: And I've worked, unfortunately, many of both of those cases where there was a suicide.
Speaker: Oh, my God, it was an absolutely horrific one two weeks ago.
Speaker: And it was a young man.
Speaker: He was only 18.
Speaker: And again, to the outsider looking in, had the whole world
Speaker: the whole world, no reason whatsoever.
Speaker: But there was clearly something.
Speaker: And it was just so heartbreaking to watch that family just beat themselves up and just blame themselves, each of them individually.
Speaker: So we really focused on the service and trying to talk about that part of it.
Speaker: But so like your book, it's showing in some ways it's like, I think it's Bonnie something, I can't remember, but the five regrets of the dying, you've almost taken sort of 15 stories of stories
Speaker: people's experience with cancer right that's effectively this one that i did last night this lady who passed away from breast cancer one of my good friends is the exact same age as her who's been battling it for years now i mean i'd say at least six years um and then just in the news back home in uh the uk
Speaker: There was a celebrity who just passed away with breast cancer and she was only diagnosed a year before.
Speaker: So there's just so many different stories.
Speaker: And like, as you said, it's the gentleman from last night and she was on the, she was feeling better, everything.
Speaker: And then suddenly...
Speaker: that was it so it's just it is it's such a I don't want to say fascinating disease because it's probably giving it too much credit you know whom I want to discredit it but it's so so serious it's so it touches us all in so many different ways so you know your book
Speaker: I haven't read it yet.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to reading it because it's like one of the things that I try and do with the Clam Reaper and with what I do at Muldownie Memorials and stuff for a living is we're all so unique.
Speaker: That's the one thing I've been harping on about since I started this over 10 years ago is that every single one of us are unique.
Speaker: My TED talk was about this.
Speaker: Our thumbprints, our tongues, our iris.
Speaker: There's so many parts of us.
Speaker: The chances of being born, I think, are like 400 trillion to one.
Speaker: you know, it's mind boggling.
Speaker: And yet we we go through life on repeat and like sheep and just, you know, and it's the same.
Speaker: I guess that's part of what I'm trying to shake up about the funeral industry.
Speaker: But the same thing with cancer, we're all treated to to a certain extent in the exact same way.
Speaker: We go through the motions, but it doesn't impact us the same way.
Speaker: So is there a story in the 15 that you can maybe talk to that gives it?
Speaker: Yeah, there's a ton of stories in there, both with the book participants and with the people I met along the way.
Speaker: And it's kind of crazy.
Speaker: But what I wanted to do with the 15 stories was I didn't want the stories to be about death.
Speaker: And I didn't want them to all be people that had cancer.
Speaker: I wanted to include those, but I also wanted to be survivors, loved ones, patients, nurses, doctors.
Speaker: I have a couple of doctors in there, a medical professional, a chief medical officer for a health plan, just so that I could get kind of a 360 view on cancer and then the traumas that came with them.
Speaker: So I think by giving people a look at all these different types of people,
Speaker: young, old cancer, one time cancer, five times one is just about the fear of cancer.
Speaker: And so but each one of the stories is is inspirational and unique.
Speaker: And I am absolutely certain that each one of the stories, the reader can scratch their head and go, oh, my gosh, I I run into that situation before or now.
Speaker: Now I know that triggers something in me where maybe I know something more than what I knew before.
Speaker: And each one of the stories does that.
Speaker: I think that what's amazing and what you hope to be able to see in what you do is Terry's story.
Speaker: So Terry, I had a hard time writing her story.
Speaker: I'm going to hope she doesn't listen to the podcast because when I was talking to her, I kept thinking that she was pitiful.
Speaker: I had a lot of pity for her and I felt like sympathetic.
Speaker: I felt like, oh my gosh, I don't know how to not make this person's life seem just absolutely onerous and pathetic.
Speaker: And I couldn't imagine how rough she had it.
Speaker: And this is while I'm talking to her, I'm feeling this.
Speaker: So imagine I'm trying to
Speaker: Break through to the reader eventually to hear people's stories like Terry and not judge them as, you know, be, Oh, I've got so much sympathy or, Oh, you know, it's so pitiful because people are so much more than that.
Speaker: But I was geared to thinking that way of her.
Speaker: So she went to a high school where, uh, same high school as my wife.
Speaker: And that's how I met her.
Speaker: where it was only a hundred girls in the private high school graduating class.
Speaker: Five of them had cancer.
Speaker: Five out of a hundred had gotten cancer and several had, you know, of those five had died.
Speaker: And we were going to name the, the, her chapter, what the F is in the holy water.
Speaker: But we, we decided that that might turn some people off, but,
Speaker: Her story is basically her family kind of abandons her.
Speaker: She's a black sheep.
Speaker: She wants to go off and get her education across the country.
Speaker: And her family says, oh, if you do that, you're on your own.
Speaker: Screw you.
Speaker: So she's on her own at 18.
Speaker: She gets cancer a few years later.
Speaker: She becomes a nurse.
Speaker: She gets cancer a few years later and it's bad.
Speaker: She has to get a bone marrow transplant in order to try to survive.
Speaker: Her fiance, when she's on the way to the hospital, calls her up and says, yep, guess what?
Speaker: I've gotten somebody else pregnant.
Speaker: They need me.
Speaker: I wish I could be strong for you.
Speaker: I can't be there.
Speaker: You're on your own.
Speaker: Can you imagine?
Speaker: On the way to the hospital.
Speaker: She had to take a taxi because he wasn't there to drive her and he, she gets his call in the taxi.
Speaker: So if you imagine how lonely of a place that is, so she calls her college roommate who doesn't answer the phone and has now when she finds out that the Terry is cancer can't handle it and disappears forever.
Speaker: Okay, fine.
Speaker: So she makes it through the cancer experience.
Speaker: She gets into a wellness group and a support group to try to deal with the trauma.
Speaker: Every single person in the support group dies.
Speaker: They all have the same cancer.
Speaker: Eventually, over the next several years, every single one of them passes away.
Speaker: And she's sitting here thinking, why me?
Speaker: Why am I living?
Speaker: So she gets, of course, the cancer comes back.
Speaker: She has to have another bone marrow transplant.
Speaker: This is 10 years from the time that her first bone marrow transplant happened.
Speaker: Very rare that she could get a second one, but she did.
Speaker: She's kind of reconciled with her family a little bit.
Speaker: So her mom takes care of her, but her now boyfriend is going to come take care of her for a week.
Speaker: Calls her up from the airport and says, Terry, I'm not strong like you.
Speaker: I can't come see you.
Speaker: I'm bailing.
Speaker: I'm out of here.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: So what does this woman have to live for?
Speaker: Everybody that's ever come into her life has abandoned her when she's needed them.
Speaker: She doesn't have a significant other.
Speaker: She's not going to be able to have kids.
Speaker: She doesn't have a great family.
Speaker: I mean, like what in the world can you say about this woman other than, oh, my God, this is super pathetic.
Speaker: And super sad and just, it's going to bring everybody down and God, this poor woman.
Speaker: And we were talking about it.
Speaker: And what she was wrapping her brain around was this thing of the odds that everybody always gave her.
Speaker: You're going to 5% odds of living.
Speaker: You got a 7% odds of living, a 10, 10% chance of making it through this thing or 5%.
Speaker: And she goes, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to start thinking about this.
Speaker: Everything's 50, 50.
Speaker: I'm either going to have, I'm going to live or I'm going to die.
Speaker: It's 50, 50 chance.
Speaker: I'm either going to find love or I'm not 50, 50 chance.
Speaker: I'm either going to make it through this surgery or not 50, 50 chance.
Speaker: And I love that idea.
Speaker: And so at the end of it, she says to me, I go, Terry, how in the world, like why in the world do you get up every day?
Speaker: Like, how, how are you able to?
Speaker: And she said, look, man, she goes, every day I get up and I go, I'm either going to h ave a good day or I'm not.
Speaker: And I'm like, wow, how incredible is that?
Speaker: How unbelievably inspiring and incredible is it that this woman who's been through so much only wants to get up every day to see if she's got a 50% chance to have a great day.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm like, holy shit, I got no problems.
Speaker: I got no anything.
Speaker: And I shouldn't have pity or a bad about what she's gone through.
Speaker: I should be motivated and feel inspired by what she goes through.
Speaker: Because I don't wake up every day going, I got a 50-50 chance to have a great day.
Speaker: I don't think that I measure it that way.
Speaker: I just hope sometimes I'm going to have a good day, right?
Speaker: She wakes up every day going, hey, it's a 50-50 chance.
Speaker: I'm going to have a great day.
Speaker: Imagine that.
Speaker: So, you know, sometimes when somebody's going through something and we want to feel sympathetic, we shouldn't feel sympathy for them.
Speaker: Maybe we should try to figure out how they get through what they're going through and maybe try to copy it.
Speaker: Do you know?
Speaker: Like I wanted, I thought when I was interviewing her, Jennifer, I wanted to be less like her.
Speaker: By the time I was done, I wanted to be more like her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, you know, it's what her story is to me.
Speaker: It comes down to and I'm actually always preaching it lately.
Speaker: I've noticed is perspective.
Speaker: Everything can change in a moment if you change your perspective of something.
Speaker: It's you can you can look at something exactly like that glass half full or half empty.
Speaker: There are days that, you know, what I do drags me down, emotionally drains me, you know, whatever it might be or something's not working out and I wish I could do better at it or whatever it might be.
Speaker: And every single one of us battles that doesn't matter what your job is, doesn't matter how perfect your family life might appear to be.
Speaker: how perfect your life in general looks.
Speaker: We all get our ups and downs.
Speaker: But I think the difference, and sometimes my friends call me sort of positive Pollyanna because sometimes I can be a little like turn that frown upside down.
Speaker: And do I believe in that sort of fake positivity?
Speaker: Sometimes you do have to fake it until you make it.
Speaker: As in sometimes I do have to be like, just put a smile on, get the endorphins going and it'll trick your brain into thinking you're happy.
Speaker: And then you'll
Speaker: Because it really does all come down to perspective.
Speaker: You can look at something, even the COVID situation that's happened in the last two years, you can look at it with pure disdain, pure hatred, pure anger, sadness, whatever way you want to look at it.
Speaker: Or we can look at it, opportunity.
Speaker: It brought us closer together in, you know, while physically apart, I certainly was on Zooms and talking to people a lot more than I ever was.
Speaker: You know, it made us...
Speaker: stay more in our homes anything at all any topic any anything you can perspective is is everything and I do find you know sometimes I do I put motivational quotes and things on my Instagram and stuff like that and you know some people you might have I might have a bad day one day you might get oh you should practice what you preach it's a daily battle for all of us and for Terry she's getting up and it's a daily
Speaker: thing that she has to say to herself I've got a 50 50 chance but she's not wrong it could anything could happen to any of us at any point you could have sat in the chair opposite her feeling sorry for her feeling you know sympathy for her you could have walked out and got killed stone dead by a truck
Speaker: Like that's the reality of it.
Speaker: That's the reality of life and death.
Speaker: And so, you know, somebody could battle cancer their entire lives.
Speaker: And and here's actually the other black and white is somebody can battle cancer the entire lives.
Speaker: You could be feeling sorry for them and you could be empathizing with them.
Speaker: And not to say that we shouldn't because it is hideous, but it's all about perspective.
Speaker: Another person in parallel to them could never have had cancer touch their lives.
Speaker: but they might have a miserable existence just because they're a moany hole that gets up every morning and they make everyone's life hell.
Speaker: And they're the person who beeps on the horn and, you know, doesn't say thank you to the bus driver and curses you out if you walk in front of them or whatever.
Speaker: Like, you know, given that opportunity, I think I'd much rather be the person with a brighter attitude and just battling every day.
Speaker: And sometimes it is, it's our internal battles that allow us to be the fighters and the people and the personality that we are.
Speaker: So, yeah,
Speaker: I couldn't agree more with you.
Speaker: And it is so interesting to me what I do for a living because I get to meet people and have these stories daily.
Speaker: And sometimes exactly that, like I feel so sad, like I was at one this morning and I was.
Speaker: officiating it and I was crying during one of the songs and because I was super emotional because I haven't been home to Ireland in two years and it's breaking my heart because I want to see my parents and I want to see my new niece and nephew but as I sat there during the song and I looked at the casket I thought but how lucky I could sit here and wallow in self pity and I was I did allow myself and I do think that's important is to allow ourselves the grief and let that emotion out but then
Speaker: I turned it around and I said, but aren't I lucky that I can hop on a Zoom straight away after this and talk to my mom?
Speaker: This lady is never going to have another conversation with her mom.
Speaker: And so it really is.
Speaker: It's just it's all about perspective.
Speaker: And that's so hard to say to somebody like like the one I did last night where, you know, it's a husband with two small kids and he's just lost his wife.
Speaker: Like, am I going to turn around and start telling him to turn that frown upside down?
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: but it's all about perspective.
Speaker: You can, and I've said this even in my first book, I would rather people be thankful for the, at the time, 33 years they knew me than the 60 that they won't if I passed away in that moment.
Speaker: And I think most of us as human beings,
Speaker: feel similar, that we'd rather leave our mark in a positive way on this planet than anything else.
Speaker: So kudos to you.
Speaker: And that book sounds amazing.
Speaker: I'm definitely going to have to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is an interesting set of ideas that you bring up and you talk about.
Speaker: And I certainly purposefully focus on that word perspective.
Speaker: In fact, one time I was running in the desert and I spent four hours in 115 degree heat running in
Speaker: in the first half of a 50 mile race where the only thing i thought of was the word perspective and what what it meant in all of its major crazy forms but i'm not a preachy kind of guy but i think that one thing i've learned for sure i have lived a pretty incredible life i think a lot of people have lived more incredible lives but i'm pretty happy with the lessons i've learned i've had people making millions and millions of dollars that have been under my employment they make millions of dollars
Speaker: I've seen them break down in fear and tears in front of me because they're afraid of something.
Speaker: I've seen the least capable person conquer the most capable things.
Speaker: I've learned that when you walk into a room, it's not trite.
Speaker: I'm telling you, this is an absolute truth.
Speaker: When you walk into a big enough room, there's always somebody that has it better.
Speaker: There's always somebody that has it worse.
Speaker: There's always somebody better looking.
Speaker: There's somebody richer.
Speaker: There's somebody poor.
Speaker: There's somebody had a busier day than you.
Speaker: There's somebody that's better at doing things than you.
Speaker: I don't care what you want to do.
Speaker: You want to measure yourself against other people.
Speaker: You can go through that exercise and it's an unending exercise all day long.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: You're never going to be the pinnacle of the top of anything.
Speaker: You're never going to be the, the bottom of the depth of anything ever, ever.
Speaker: Somebody's got it worse.
Speaker: Somebody's got it better.
Speaker: That's the truth.
Speaker: And so if you stop doing that and just saying, am I being the best that I can be?
Speaker: Am I doing the best that I can do?
Speaker: Then you're good.
Speaker: I mean, I'm telling you, then you're good.
Speaker: That comes with forgiveness.
Speaker: It comes with self-forgiveness.
Speaker: You know, I used to beat myself up for doing the wrong thing or not doing the right thing.
Speaker: And I don't do that anymore because if you're trying, you're doing your best you can do, right?
Speaker: You're just learning and you're growing.
Speaker: And if you're looking forward and you're hoping to do things better for other people and hoping to do things, you know, less bad for yourself, whatever, as long as you're, you've got the right perspective, as long as you got some empathy, as long as you're
Speaker: paying attention and you're grounded and you're listening and you're heart centered just live your life man stop worrying about all this other nonsense just go about living your life be the best you yeah i know that sounds preachy but it's it's you know it's true it's absolutely true yeah it's like it's really and utterly true it's we've only we
Speaker: It doesn't matter what your family situation, doesn't matter if you're a mom or a dad and you've kids that rely on you and none of that matters.
Speaker: The only thing you've got control of is you in your physical body and your mental mind and your spirit.
Speaker: It's the only thing you can control over in this life.
Speaker: And even at that, you don't get 100% control over that.
Speaker: But I actually want to touch on, just because I'm reading it at the moment, I try and read sort of business books, sometimes funeral books.
Speaker: And I like to lighten up then with some fiction because sometimes that can get all a bit sort of, again, all about perspective.
Speaker: I'm reading Tim Ferriss, one of his books.
Speaker: because I want to come back to all of your accomplishments like you've done a couple of as you do 24 hour runs are you insane I just want to yeah I think I could be I could be technically classified as good yeah I did a marathon and I did it oh god is it 15 years ago now
Speaker: And I will never do it again.
Speaker: As in, it was an incredible experience.
Speaker: I'm delighted I did it.
Speaker: My grandmother actually passed away the weekend.
Speaker: We were super close.
Speaker: I actually talk about that in a lot of my TED Talks or when I'm interviewed because it was an absolutely astounding impact on me and why I do what I do.
Speaker: But I remember running and I hit the wall at the 18th mile.
Speaker: And I started having panic attacks, which I had never, ever suffered with before.
Speaker: And my grandmother had gone into hospital with panic attacks and she never came out.
Speaker: And at the time that I hit it,
Speaker: hit the 18th mile, hit the wall.
Speaker: Apparently her funeral was happening right at the same time in Ireland.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I super believe in all that.
Speaker: And I remember when I finally crossed the finish line, I felt like I'd carried a boulder for the last, like, what is it?
Speaker: 26.2.
Speaker: So the last 8.2 miles.
Speaker: So I'm fascinated by people who do this and enjoy it.
Speaker: So what's wrong with you?
Speaker: There is something wrong.
Speaker: No, I do enjoy it.
Speaker: But I'll tell you what, it is a very easy way to constantly prove that we're capable of more than what we think we are.
Speaker: And going on that theme we talked about earlier, Jennifer, where maybe I did things for other people or to not for myself, but to please others or impress others or whatever.
Speaker: I want to see what I'm capable of.
Speaker: And did I set my goals high enough for me?
Speaker: You know, like, like I always thought I did a good job because I was happy with, you know, I wanted to fulfill what I was trying to do.
Speaker: I really wasn't.
Speaker: I was trying to fulfill what, what I needed to for the job.
Speaker: If I was trying to fulfill what I needed to, for me, I would have done 10 times as much.
Speaker: Cause I, I hold myself to a much higher standard.
Speaker: And so as long as I can,
Speaker: I'm going to continue to see how far I can go, how much I can do.
Speaker: And I'll tell you, I remember if I could tell you a super quick story.
Speaker: I remember the exact moment when that thought came into my head.
Speaker: I was doing the first endurance athletic event I did.
Speaker: Don't laugh at the thought of me in spandex on rollerblades, but I did an 87 mile rollerblade race.
Speaker: 87 miles because i'm an idiot so i did it in georgia up and down all these hills right and i was nowhere near capable of doing it it was so far above what i could do and you think oh rollerblading no you try to put on rollerblades and rollerblade for six or eight or nine hours it's impossible i don't think i'd manage five minutes so kudos to you
Speaker: Yeah, so I'm heading up this hill on my rollerblades and I'm going side by side with each foot and I literally, I can't move.
Speaker: I can't take another step.
Speaker: And I turn my wheels perpendicular to the hill so I don't fly down and I'm bent over on my knees and I'm out of breath and my legs are burning and I'm sweating so profusely that it's white.
Speaker: The sweat is white from all the salt.
Speaker: All the salt coming up.
Speaker: And it's making this little line on the asphalt below.
Speaker: And I'm looking down there and I'm seeing this line and I'm just going, oh my God, I can't take another step.
Speaker: It's not possible.
Speaker: But I still have like 50 odd miles to go.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So I'm either going to quit at which point I'm always going to know I'm a quitter or I could go.
Speaker: just take one step past that line that's right there on the ground.
Speaker: If you take one step past there, you're gonna find out something new about yourself.
Speaker: Everything you know about yourself goes away.
Speaker: You find out something new.
Speaker: And then I go, then you take another step and that's something new.
Speaker: Every time I go further and harder and push myself to another level is something I discover about.
Speaker: I've never known that about myself.
Speaker: And so that's what makes me do those things.
Speaker: So for this book,
Speaker: So when I say I want to connect people through stories, I figure what better way to connect all the people in the story than to jump on my bicycle and go see the people for the first time since I had been talking to them on the phone for a few years.
Speaker: So I did a 4,700 mile bike ride in 45 days.
Speaker: So about 120 miles a day.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: from LA down up and down through Texas, down Florida, make it a left turn and finish them in your second home in New York city.
Speaker: I finished there.
Speaker: So I did 4,700 miles in 45 days, like every single day getting up and, you know, biking a hundred, 120 miles.
Speaker: By the end of it, I was physically, I was a wreck, but, and push myself probably as hard as I could push myself physically.
Speaker: But every single day on that bike ride, I met tons of people who reinforced this idea that they don't know how to talk to people about what, you know, what they're going through about the emotional side of this trauma.
Speaker: And so it was, it was, it was pretty inspirational.
Speaker: Yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker: And
Speaker: You know, again, I'm really kind of pulling us back to you and I are so different in terms of like, you know, and I joke and I'm mentioning Jess, but are you insane?
Speaker: But one of the things I learned from doing the marathon was I was so proud of myself for having done it, for having achieved it.
Speaker: I had no inclination and have no inclination of doing any more.
Speaker: But that's OK, too.
Speaker: We each have these different boundaries that we can push and challenge ourselves.
Speaker: And it can be the smallest little thing.
Speaker: It really can.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be major marathons or anything like that.
Speaker: It's each giving us our own little challenges and our own little things to overcome.
Speaker: And it's, you know, whether it's these people who they're challenged to overcome every day is to get out of bed.
Speaker: As you said, put that one step out of the bed.
Speaker: Maybe that's Monday.
Speaker: Maybe Tuesday is put both feet on the floor.
Speaker: Maybe Wednesday is walk to the fridge.
Speaker: Something I regularly do.
Speaker: Thursday, you know, it's about taking it and putting it into your own.
Speaker: perspective putting it into your own life applying it to yourself because you've only got one life so stop living it in the minds of the media and you should look like this and you should look like that and you should do this and you should do that and i mean if we were all the same carbon copies of each other it'd be a very boring world we'd be living in so you know it'd be it'd be terrible and you know what i say every day i meet people where i go man
Speaker: I have no idea how they do that.
Speaker: I get to think about it like you.
Speaker: I go, oh my God, being around death and wanting to throw all these, you know, planning for people's deaths and just like being involved in what would be a little bit of celebration sometimes, but mostly it's just devastation and just wretchedness of emotion.
Speaker: And then you, and you look forward to that every hour.
Speaker: How the hell do you do that?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So we all have that.
Speaker: How do we do that?
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: Like, you know, people look at me and go, dude, you know, cause I got, I got, I'm doing an Ironman in, in, in two weeks in, in Tennessee.
Speaker: A couple of days ago, I went for an 18 mile run and it was 102 degrees out.
Speaker: People go, dude, why in the world?
Speaker: I could never do that.
Speaker: I go, no, you could.
Speaker: You're just choosing not to.
Speaker: It's not better or worse.
Speaker: It's just different.
Speaker: I'm just doing what I do.
Speaker: You do what you do.
Speaker: Because I don't understand you and you don't understand me, but we're not supposed to.
Speaker: You're living your life.
Speaker: I'm living mine.
Speaker: Don't worry about it.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: And that's what makes the world go round.
Speaker: It does, but I really have learned, Jennifer, that living a meaningful life is really if you're just living it on purpose.
Speaker: Just living it on purpose.
Speaker: Living your life on purpose.
Speaker: The famous author, Anne Rand, she had this concept that your choice to do something is really a choice to not do a thousand other things.
Speaker: You could be doing something else than talking to me right now.
Speaker: And that's I appreciate that.
Speaker: And I could be doing other things, but talking to you right now.
Speaker: And I appreciate that.
Speaker: If you're going to choose to do the things that you do, you might as well do them on purpose.
Speaker: You might as well do them authentically grounded in the best possible way when you can.
Speaker: Because this hour that we're spending together, how much time it's never we're never going to get that hour back.
Speaker: So we might let you know that more than anybody.
Speaker: if we can live on purpose, if we can, if we can be our most authentic and best selves for us and do what really makes us happy, gives us meaning, then that is everything.
Speaker: That is absolutely.
Speaker: And I think that's the perfect line to end with.
Speaker: Absolutely to live on purpose.
Speaker: David, I could sit here and chat to you all, all day and night, but like, it's a fascinating life you've chosen and your perspective on life and how
Speaker: I think everybody should check out this book.
Speaker: I'm certainly going to pick up a copy and we'll leave all the links for where everybody can get both books.
Speaker: Is there just the two?
Speaker: Just those two, unless you like to read about business.
Speaker: OK, well, I do.
Speaker: So I do.
Speaker: I love me.
Speaker: I'm reading.
Speaker: I have Tim Ferriss's book, The Humongous One, The Secrets of Titans or something.
Speaker: So I'm I'm going through that chapter by chapter and the some I love and some I'm not really sold on.
Speaker: Then I have, what have I got?
Speaker: I've got Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Speaker: I've got Sinead O'Connor, an Irish woman.
Speaker: I'm reading her memoir at the moment.
Speaker: So I like to keep kind of a few different, when it comes to my nonfiction books, I like to kind of take a slice of each of them.
Speaker: And then my fiction, I get right in there.
Speaker: But everyone should check out your books.
Speaker: We'll leave all the links.
Speaker: And thank you so much for coming on and being a guest.
Speaker: And, you know, hopefully we'll have you back on again when the book is a bestseller.
Speaker: And it did hit Amazon number one bestseller in its category.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Congratulations.
Speaker: It was the number one cancer book at the end of the year.
Speaker: So even, you know, even I'm just kind of already thinking like even if, you know, potentially in the future, maybe in a month or two could get you on with one of your one of the stories, maybe one of the interviewees.
Speaker: That would be amazing.
Speaker: awesome they're great stories yeah that would be amazing and you know given what I do for a living as well I think it could be open up a really interesting conversation and a lot of people are going through that and might want to hear the different perspectives that the three of us might have so we will keep everybody informed about that but um David thank you so much for being my guest and yeah we'll we'll we'll get back to you soon
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker: I love the idea of, uh, of you bringing, um, more, uh, lightness and, and kind of, um, a purposeful action towards, towards death and the celebrating of life and bringing death out of the darkness.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'm going to live off of... Even if sometimes I'll have to wear black.
Speaker: Yeah, right?
Speaker: But I'm going to live off of... I just spent an hour with the Glam Reaper.
Speaker: I'm going to live off that for weeks.
Speaker: You're certainly not getting that hour back, so... No, I'm going to be bragging about it, so thanks for your time.
Speaker: I definitely take a lot of inspiration from David and the people that he spoke to.
Speaker: And as I said, I do have his book in my possession right now.
Speaker: So I will be following up with an episode with David and all those people and their stories.
Speaker: So I'm looking forward to getting tucked into it.
Speaker: Any guests or anybody that you think we should interview on the Glam Reaper podcast, please go ahead and email us glamreaperpodcast at gmail.com.
