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Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] Every single day. The #PirateBroadcast™ we are out and we are about, and we were talking to another pirate. Mike, Michael, how you doing man?

Mike Padurano: [00:00:19] I'm hanging in there, man. I'm riding the rollercoaster ups and downs and trying to ride the waves as they come.

Russ Johns: [00:00:27] We were talking about it before the show. And as we know, we can't we can't escape the reality of what life will bring to us and all of the nuances of in and out and up and down and back and forth, because it's just going to happen. Life is going to happen for us, and sometimes it's not comfortable happening that's taken place.

Mike Padurano: [00:00:47] It's you know, like I got used to growth, I got used to discomfort. I got used to not being comfortable. And then as soon as I got a little bit comfortable, it's like a new tidal wave came and it was like, I  wasn't ready for it. And the emotions flowed and life just just pulled me down a little bit, but it's okay. You fight through it. What I've learned is avoiding it makes it worse. And since I've made a pledge to myself, just get rid of my escapisms and not really go to any of them. I just sat in it all weekend. And it's cathartic when you do that, right? Like there's power in sitting through it and it hurts stuff. It hurts like hell I gotta tell you, the pain is immense when you allow yourself to feel it. But I think it's the only way we grow. It's the only way we process.

Russ Johns: [00:01:37] And I think a lot of people like you said, there's a lot of people that try to avoid it. They try to escape from it and and there's a number of ways that you can avoid that and really I think it goes along with the entire mental health issues and some of the challenges that we face in society today and especially being a man, there's a lot of people that are going through their own battles and their own challenges and looking to see how they can improve their lives, improve their relationships and improve the way that we're doing things in today's society. And it's not always easy. There's no roadmap that tells us exactly what needs to be done for us.

Mike Padurano: [00:02:20] There's not, right? And being like you said, being a male, it makes it a little bit more difficult sometimes, but luckily I let go of that stigma and I just don't care. Like I don't care what people think and if they think I'm weak and I cry on a live or I get emotional. Saturday was emotionally one of the darkest days of my life. Sorry about the background noise. I'm next to a, I'm at a gas station here trying to do this. Saturday was one of the most emotional days of my life and one of the hardest emotion days I've ever had and I ended up going live on my YouTube Saturday night holding back tears or crying part of the time and there's something cathartic and letting it out and just not hiding. For me getting rid of my escapisms. I've been sober almost 15 years. I used to hide behind porn, strip clubs, women, gambling, almost anything you can imagine. I would escape to it. Even social media. And what I did Saturday was I shut down everything. I just wasn't present in any shape or form to almost anyone actually. My communication was minimal to anyone. I didn't really have much to say to anyone and I  just sat in it and I rode the emotions. It went really dark for a while. Like it went really dark, but I think that's also part of it. A testament to how strong we are when we allow ourselves to be.

Russ Johns: [00:03:31] We're incredibly flexible as human beings and resilient. And I think people fail to realize how much power and authority they have over their own future, taking responsibility for our actions and actually owning up to the things that we've done and the things that we're doing and the things that we need to do is not always a easy pill to swallow. We have things, there's all kinds of things that I kinda took the weekend off myself and took a break from a lot of things just to make sure that I'm checking in with myself we get so involved and engaged in what other people are doing and how we can help each other out and sometimes it's just a good thing to check in with yourself and know that you're okay.

Mike Padurano: [00:04:19] But it's also okay to know if you're not okay. It is okay for you to be where you're at, right? Like sometimes you've just got to take that step back and see where you're at at that moment, because it really is okay to not be okay. It's okay to feel like shit. It's okay to not be in the right space. You got to trust yourself to get through it in some way. And today's still not a great day emotionally. I'm still stressed, but I'm a little bit better. The difference between me and who I was a year ago is I would have just buried it. Now , I just don't very anymore. I wear  my emotions, I'm always putting it out there and no matter what it is and I'm okay being vulnerable with it. I'm okay being honest with it. I need to be because it's part of who I am, it's part of me living into my core values. Hiding stuff like that and pretending that I'm okay when I'm not putting up a front is just not who I am at all and I can't even do it. I just can't even do it anymore.

Russ Johns: [00:05:11] The other thing about it, Mike, is that there's really, life goes on, right? We can't stop and put things on pause. At least a lot of us have, things that we have to take care of in the world. And, sometimes it gets to the point where we have to put everything on pause just to get clarity on what's taken place and get healthy. And I just know that there's a process that everybody has to go through individually. And like I said, there's no rule book and it's really healthy to go through the process. Understand what is your trigger? What is your escape? What is the reason for that escape and then solve the problem from the source. It's let's clean it up. Let's get it going.

Mike Padurano: [00:05:59] What's ironic, even about nine months ago, I realized that another escape for me was helping people, right? Because you get gratification from helping others and it's such a default for who I am as a person to be a helper for others. And to just either to lift others up that I think that's also part of the reason I just shut down that part of me also, because I just didn't want to. I didn't want to allow myself to fall into those escapes. I didn't want to, I didn't want to tempt myself. I didn't want to put myself in that position. I wanted to just go through it. I was very fortunate, being a single father of three and taking care of these kids 1200 miles from home, almost a year now. It's a lot every day. And I was fortunate. This is a weekend that, their mother had them for 10 hours on Saturday. So it allowed me the time to just stop everything, right? Most days I can't because I don't have a choice. I've got to go pick up the kids, I got to take care of the kids, I've got to get them fed. I gotta get them bathed, it started Friday night, but I took care of them and they were still my priority. But then Saturday, when I had time for myself, I had a whole  to-do list of things to do. And I just looked  at it and I said, I'm not getting anything done. I'm just not going to do a thing because I really... so just break down. I needed to just let it out. Because it multiplies when you bury it, it multiplies when you hide from it. And my court date is in eight days and hopefully I'll be on my way out of here within the next couple of weeks. And I need to get through this shit because once I move to that next phase, my life's going to be completely different and I don't want to carry this baggage forward. I just don't want it anymore.

Russ Johns: [00:07:36] Peel back the onion.

Mike Padurano: [00:07:38] It has a lot of layers, I'll tell you.

Russ Johns: [00:07:41] We all have a lot of layers. I just want to say, give a shout out to a few people that have joined us. Mike, Tracie the always awesome producer of the show. She takes care of me and keeps me honest. She's always working hard to do great work here. I appreciate you. Love you. Tracie. Olivia, good morning, Mike and Russ. Olivia, you're familiar with Olivia. She's always awesome. Long time no see. Jenny Gold is in the house. Jenny good morning. How are you? Hope you're doing well, love the thing that you're doing and keep doing it. Olivia says, I like the addition of the captions nice feature. Yeah. For those that aren't familiar with this, LinkedIn added captions. So if you're watching this from LinkedIn, the live captions are now active and you can watch this or you can read this. So Russ Hedge is in the house. Thanks, Russ, good morning. It's early for you. Thank you for being here. Donna Dunn good morning. Thank you so much for being here. Jenny says love you, Tracie. Russ says, I appreciate your authenticity, Michael. You are a blessing. Thank you so much. Olivia says yes, sometimes Russ you are full on and doing these broadcasts. So finding time to decompress, check in is vital. Yeah. I am. I'm a regular human. There are so many people that, and one of the things that I've buried myself into over the years, Mike, is my work. I'll just work a little harder. All my problems can be solved if I just work a little harder and it's not the answer. It's not, it's never been the answer. It makes me feel good temporarily and it's still not the answer.

Mike Padurano: [00:09:38] It's funny. I've done the same thing. There was a period of years that every time I started getting uncomfortable, I opened a new business. There was one time, I think I had 11 companies because that was the only way I was able to bring my creativity out at that time. And it was creating the business structure, creating the concepts, the ideas to everything, bringing pieces together. There was a period of probably five years where all I did every time I started feeling it creep up, I'd make a new company because I wasn't busy enough. So I had to find another way to be busier. And that's a tough one. That's, because we're so caught up in that financial security and, we need to have certain things and consumerism and all these beliefs that have been conditioned into us through our life. I don't know if there's such a thing as financial security anymore when they're writing trillion dollar checks on it on a monthly basis. It's scary where we're going right now.

Russ Johns: [00:10:31] The only security that we have is knowing that we can figure it out.

Mike Padurano: [00:10:39] Yeah. And I always say our true value is the value we bring to society. Not our checkbook. I know for a fact that if the currency disappeared tomorrow, I might even end up being more valuable tomorrow than I am today. Just because I bring more value than what my currency and my account debts. I know that for a fact, and I have confidence in myself that it, like you said, I'll figure it out. Whether we're trading slices of bread or whether we're trading bottles of water, because that's what we need or whether it's a different currency. And they're going to superimpose, who knows? Economically speaking, which is a different direction probably for this show, but the numbers that they're doing are staggering and it doesn't make any sense.

Russ Johns: [00:11:17] Yeah. I'm not really understanding everything that's going on around us. And  what I know from my experience and maybe you can add some color to this, is the idea that there's a lot of things that concern me that I can not be worried about because I have no control over what other people do. I have control over what I'm able to do. I'm able to control who I help and how I help them. I control the value that I delivered to the world and I can continue to be kind, considerate, #kindnessiscool. #smilesarefree. I'll still return my shopping carts. Things like that. See if I can add a little bit of value to the world around me beyond that, I don't have the burden of worrying about what's been passed or what's going on in the future. And to some degree, that's liberating. And I still have days where it's not necessarily easy.

Mike Padurano: [00:12:24] Yeah, I can't say I'm there yet. But I'm closer than I've ever been. Over the past few months, I've gotten really good at releasing control over things that I have no control over. And they really consume me like it used to. Some things are more painful than others, but at the same time, the reality is I can only control my reactions and actions. It's like you said, be fine doing the right thing. Being there for others, even if it's just a sounding board, like I can only do these things to the best of my ability and when I know I'm not the right space, I'm going to just shut down. I'm not going to talk to people because I'm just not going to give back the information that's needed. I'm not going to support what they need to hear. And I'd rather say nothing than say the wrong thing. It hurts somebody worse than hurting. Again, it goes back to our value, right? What's our values. And how do we show our values in the world? How do we stand behind our values and be transparent and be honest with ourselves and everyone else. No, that's the reality. You got to own shit when you do it wrong, you've gotta own and be accountable to your actions and reactions because that's all you can do in this world. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody makes bad decisions. You've got to own it. You've just got to own it. And that's the thing. And that's the part that people don't like doing.

Russ Johns: [00:13:39] And one of the bigger challenges that we're running into now is a lot of people haven't taken the time or moved into a space where they could just be by themselves, alone, silence in their own ideas, their own thoughts and decompress. And  disconnect and actually listen to what is going on in their head. And, we're always connected. We're always influenced by noise. We're always connected to the, to social, to news, to everything that's going around us. And it's really difficult nowadays to actually take a walk about and go out into the wilderness and not know what's going on around us and just listen to ourselves and be with ourselves and understand, Hey, what am I responsible for? What do I have control over? What am I feeling? What is it that bothers me? What is it that triggers me? What is it that allows me to be upset? Where do I find joy? How do I navigate this world that I'm living in right now? What do I want to change? All of these answers and questions? Sometimes we get caught up in the environment that we live in and we never take the time to think about it or talk with ourselves about it. So it's really a dangerous space and suicide is prevalent now. There's a lot of people that are just checking out and saying, hey, I don't want to deal with this anymore.

Mike Padurano: [00:15:09] I got to say the work I've done in the past nine months and that I've really done on myself. If I wouldn't have done that, Saturday would've never happened. I would've never been able to sit in it and sit in silence. The scariest place for me, my whole life was in my head. Because I've done the work and I can see this is what triggered me. This is why it triggered me. Go back to a core root issue. Start working on that. Like it's helped me identify patience. It's helped me really get to the core root problems that I've dealt with my whole life that I've been avoiding my whole life. And it's a lot of self-analysis and a lot of honesty with ourselves, because you've gotta be accountable for our side of it. We've got to own our side. And we can't be accountable for somebody else's side. We can't own their reactions or actions around it. And that is one of the hardest things for me to do because I never want to hurt anybody. I never want to put anybody out there. I never want to put myself in a position that somebody is going to hurt from my message. But I also now know that me being true to me, me being true to my core, me being transparent is being honest about where I'm at and what's going on. And I've got to put myself first when it comes to that, because that's where that worth comes from. That's where that self-esteem comes from. That's where that resilience, true resilience and true strength comes from to be able to fight through those situations when you're in them.  You've got to give yourself that appreciation and it's tough, right? Because suicides are really prevalent right now. And they're going to probably only get worse with the direction, things are going. The retail industry is going to be in a lot of trouble over the next six months. I can't imagine what's going to change that anytime soon. We're at a scary point in time. Really, in some ways I feel like we're 1928 looking at 1929 right now. That's what it feels like. The great depression and just that oblivion, that ignorance is bliss mentality. It's almost what it feels like and the difference between now and then is tax rates are so much lower now. And we're not even in it yet. The governments are already writing checks, enormous checks and I just don't know what's going to change. What's going to happen. What kind of innovation can humanity spring to get us out of this before it gets too deep? Because that's what it's gonna take is human ingenuity and innovation, and finding new ways to do things.

Russ Johns: [00:17:26] One of the things that I know as humanity goes, we're all flying through space in the same rock, right? We're doing exactly what we're doing. And at some point in time, we have to figure this out. History repeats itself, centuries and centuries of civilizations coming and going. At some point in time, you think that as we get smarter and advance in civilization, we would figure it out. And it just seems like it's not quite there yet. And I'm not one to spread doom and gloom or anything like that, however, what I do encourage is not being a victim. We are where we are because of the decisions we made and the choices we took on and owning that, like you said, owning all of those decisions, become who we are. We are the fabric of our decisions, fabric of our choice and being okay with that and saying, hey, I screwed up or I did well or somewhere in between is the truth. And there'll be a victim. I'm just really nervous about some of the things that are taking place around me on the bigger picture of people being victims and needing to be taken care of and, trust me, I know. I've been there and it takes a long time to get out of it and feel like you have control over something. And ultimately, you do have control over something. You have control over your thoughts. You have control over your emotions. You can have control over your mind and you have control over the decisions that you make every day to improve who you were yesterday.

Mike Padurano: [00:19:03] A hundred percent. And it's like you mentioned, the civilization thing is really intriguing to me because for some reason, humanity falls into the same issues, time and time again, right over history. And we go back to greed and gluttony and lust and all these other things that just destroy us as humanity. And now it's amplified because now we have connectivity right now. We can talk to anybody anywhere, and we can just constantly to divide ourselves as a human race. There is one race on this planet and that is the human race and yeah, we're looking for the divisive ways and hate and blame. And it's tragic and I don't know how many times we have to read this. Maybe because it's not in our history books enough, I don't know how many times we have to see this civilizations collapse before we understand that we bring it upon ourselves and the only person that we can control and that is ourself, right? Like you said, I I was a victim my whole life until really these last five months. Like even when I first started doing all this work, I was still in the victim headspace and then I slipped back there. I really do, but I've done a lot of work on myself and I've worked really frigging hard and I deserve where I'm at today to appreciate myself and understand that my decisions are mine. And if I made them, then, I own it.  It's a lot. It is a lot to go through. It is a lot to understand. Own it. It's a tough decision to start that journey, but it's so worth it. It really is. The pain is worth what you get out of it.

Russ Johns: [00:20:43] Yeah. Olivia's says, love that. The only true security we have is we figure it out. That's absolutely true. Donna Dunn says, Russ, you are right. We can only control what comes from us. Absolutely. Mike Baker, victims victimize others, as they blame everyone for everything. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. And responsibility and maturity. Absolutely positively true. The thing that I'm really reflecting on, as you're saying, all of these things is that like myself, I've always thought in the mindset of using my pain as fuel for my future. Lost my son to suicide, lost my dad last year, been divorced, lost jobs, lost careers, lost money, been homeless, all of these things that have impacted my life in a positive and a negative way. And for me, when I look back on them, Mike, they're all experiences that have delivered the DNA of who I am now, and I'm thinking to myself, at the time some of these things were incredibly uncomfortable. Incredibly uncomfortable. And I wanted to just run away. I wanted to avoid the pain that I was going through. And because I didn't, now it becomes the fuel for my future. And I'm far from perfect. I'm far from where I think I can imagine where I want to be. And one of the biggest challenges I have, and this is probably a topic for another show is that some of the ideas, the places where I said, I want to get to this place. And once I get to this place, I'm going to be everything in life is going to be good. Life is going to be happy. And then when I got there, it was a nightmare. And so this illusion of knowing what the future will deliver in your happiness, to me, has been the least amount of security that I've had in my life. And so finding joy every day and knowing that I can figure things out that will allow me to live a joyful and happy life and fulfilling life and be able to connect with people like yourself and talk about real issues that are out there every single day. That's what's important to me. And no, I don't have a mansion and a yacht. And the reality is I don't want a mansion and a yacht cause it's different problems, bigger issues. And so how do you think through that now that you've gone through this work on yourself and being able to navigate some of the thoughts in your head?

Mike Padurano: [00:23:27] Okay. So first thing I did was got rid of goals. I don't believe in goals. Okay. Because like you said, when you would set something and you get there, you always felt disappointed. For me, I would set something, get there and even exceed it a little bit and then it would be like what do I do now? And then I felt like I had to start the process over. So the way that works, it really doesn't fulfill me. So what I did was I switched to a legacy goal, because I can't complete that until I'm dead. And there is no starting again at that point with this lifetime. So that's to elevate humanity through knowledge and understanding and it has a big enough scope, but a focused enough scope that I can do any of the things that I'm working on or any new opportunities that come my way and I can adapt and move and be agile into those ventures and situations and circumstances, really uplifts humanity as well, or is setting happiness as a situation. I still sometimes get caught up in that. Like I still sometimes see things, shiny objects, something that I think, oh, this will make me really happy in the end. And it's like you said, it's usually a let down. Because my expectations aren't real, they're based on this scenario that doesn't exist. So I've learned to just start looking at scenarios that do exist, not ones that don't. I'm starting to just see things for what they are and not what I want them to be. And I've made that mistake a lot as I've gone through this work, because I keep thinking I'm getting somewhere, let me make this decision. And it's oh, I'm not there yet. Oh shit. Let's take a step back, because I've got to unwrap this a little, and that's what I'm doing. I'm making steps forward, I'm making decisions that aren't necessarily forward and I've got to adapt to it.

Russ Johns: [00:25:05] Yeah. As always, and the way I explain it to a lot of people is I'm just a work in progress and today's what I'm working on. And as we know that tomorrow is not guaranteed, nor is it promised. Life is frail and we are resilient. And if you can live in the resilience of your life and become resilient with everything that you do say, and. Expect then, being comfortable and being content with what you have is not a bad thing. And it's not to say that you can't go over big audacious goals and missions and intent. I love listening to my intentions. Here's a direction I'm going.  It's like you're riding down the road and saying, hey, if I can get to the next telephone pole, I'll be okay. It's okay, I'm going to do that and just do one step at a time and make it okay. But I love the idea that we're making progress. I love the opportunity to hang out with you, Mike. And I look forward to future conversations because as always, it's great to connect and keep us posted on what your progress is and what you're doing then.

Mike Padurano: [00:26:19] Definitely man. And it's time to have you on my show. Once I get settled after I'm done with this court thing and settled wherever I'm going. So sometime in April,  I'll have you on.

Russ Johns: [00:26:26] Anytime, brother. Thank you so much for showing up. Go about your day. Have a great one. Get back and be productive and I look forward to our next conversation, Mike.

Mike Padurano: [00:26:37] You, too, Russ. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Russ Johns: [00:26:40] Yeah. And everyone, if you found this valuable  it touched you in any way, shape or form, share it out with somebody that needs to hear it. Were all about the connections, the conversations and also collaboration. We all have something that we can do to add value. We have a gift, we have a message. We have a mission in life and we're all here to help each other out in my opinion, because #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and I want you to go out and #enjoyyourday. Thanks, Mike, be in touch.

Mike Padurano: [00:27:12] Thanks, Russ.  Appreciate you.

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