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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: [00:00:23] It's that kind of day. Check it out. Cause Patti called in and unfortunately Patty lost her voice. As a podcaster or broadcaster or somebody that talks for a living sometimes that happens. And what do we do? We just have to go with the flow. So here we go. What I'm going to do is have a solo show.

So the #PirateBroadcast™ is #interestinpeople doing  #interestingthings. And I'm the one in the room today. Now I know for a fact I have plenty of friends, plenty of people in the community, lots of pirates would probably jump in and join in. However this is a interesting thing that it took place today because today is, or would have been my son's birthday. And I woke up thinking about my son, who for those that know my story, we lost Parker to suicide in 2018. And so every day is a gift. And one of the things that I always have to reflect on is the idea that we don't always know what's going to happen to our day.

No Patti wasn't able to participate today. That's okay. You don't need to get upset about it. You don't need to freak out and know that something is not going to be working exactly the way you imagined it would be or should be, or could be. Being present in the moment and not attaching a story to it that amplifies possibility or obstacles or anything like that, I think is absolutely critical. We take a moment, we pause and say, okay, this is the way it is.

Nick Oh, wow. I'm grateful for you, brother. Love you, man. I I really know that things happen for a reason. There's a lot of things that happen for a reason. So hope your trip was safe. I'll be traveling and continue to be in touch. Good morning, Maurice. I hope you're having an amazing day and an opportunity and good morning. Jeez. Rather hear your story. I'll tell you my story. I thought about this the other day and there's so many times where Kate, I have been... and I know everybody has some story about their life, it's these things that happened to us.

I was having a conversation with Sarah Elkins. If you don't know, Sarah, she's a great individual she's lives in Montana. She puts out some great pictures of while she's out hiking. And we're talking about how we were feeling and I've had so many amazing experiences. And when I say amazing, I don't always mean wonderful.  Like when I broke my hip and it was amazing, it was incredible. It was challenging, painful, and still I was hanging out with my son. And we were on a trip and it was right after my dad's funeral. So it's monumental in my mind. It's an experience of everything combined is bitter sweet and beautiful. And if you look at it through the lens of what can I learn from this? What is it I am going to take away from this experience. Not good or bad, just what am I going to take away from the experience and how can I grow from this lesson that life is teaching me today?

Yeah, there was a time, years ago, younger kid the brush with death kind of experience where I was in the fast cars, driving fast, going fast, doing stupid things. There's four of us in the car traveling well over a hundred miles an hour. I left the highway around the corner, sheared a power pole off. I didn't hit it. I sheared it off at the ground level. Main power line in the County, major occurrence slid across, thousands of feet of ditch and gravel and everything else. A tree trunk stopped me in the front of individual's yard, big old Oak tree stump. About four feet tall in the air, right by my door. And I look at the back seat and the people that were there were no longer there. And fortunately they went out the back window because at the time we weren't wearing seat belts because we were young and stupid. Fortunately they landed in the front yard, in the grass and. Nobody was hurt. Couple of stitches , glass cut. And that experience was one of many, fracturing my skull. Another time that one of those kinds of events, falling three stories, breaking my arm, hitting a tree, mountain biking, totally wrecking my bike. No motorcycle wrecks. My mother actually created a shirt from all of the pairs of pants and Levi's and jeans that I tore up. When I was a kid riding motorcycles, that was before, gear and everything else. So my point is there's a lot of opportunities to learn that life is a gift. Life is something to be cherished. Life is something to be lived, pause and protect the moment. Know that you can wake up with gratitude. You can be present in the moment for someone else and take care of things.

I just want to let you know that with the stream something's going on with the stream. Sorry, let me check in with the chat here. Care to watch a YouTube video. No, I don't necessarily care. Yo, this is a, I've been starting to promote the live stream on Twitch. So you're coming through yo-yo Zackinator, what are you doing? Hello, how are you today? I just want to say hello. Morning Darleen. Thank you so much for being here. I think Tracie made you a moderator on the YouTube channel. We'll have to get more people on YouTube. If you're on YouTube. If you're on the stream or you're watching this live or you're watching the replay checkout and subscribe to the YouTube channel, get notification. Jill Sullivan. You're such a dear. I love your pictures. I love your sunshine. I love your morning pictures. All of the things that you post around that subject. And I keep sending you things. I've been out riding my bike at night and putting images up from the sunset here in Arizona, because the sunsets in Arizona are just they're incredible. It's amazing. So Kate love to introduce you to my friend, Eric Hipple. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Happy birthday. And  it's not my birthday, but I'd love to meet new people all the time. Kate. Russ a gentleman and a scholar always love to have you join in and participate. And I look forward to future episodes and you can relate to this. I had, I was supposed to be on Russ his show for those that don't know. And I want to give Russ a shout out because he's an awesome individual that you should connect with. I was supposed to be on his show and for whatever reason, circumstance or anything else , I ended up being triple booked on some things that I just couldn't avoid. And so I had to bail, which is totally not like me. And I understand that life happens and circumstances happen and things have to take place that we can't avoid and we have to do the best we can with what we have. So Russ thank you for the patience and understanding and consideration in that

 You're touching my heart, hugs and keep smiling different. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's okay. I know February is tough. I'm not going to lie. My sister, Shelly, not Sheila, my sister, Shelly. She was thrown from a horse when she was 15 fractured her skull, on life support an organ donor and donated a lot of organs. Fortunately. Good cause. Because I believe in it. I'm an organ donor. I think you should be too, but that's a personal choice. And so her birthday's in February . Parker lost to suicide two years ago, Cinco de Mayo, celebration, it's like just decided it was his time. So he left. And Jill, my other younger sister, 30, she died. She and her husband were in Hong Kong, Japan someplace. I don't know. So I don't recall. Heart just stopped. Her body just  decided to leav, to check out. And when I say #kindnessiscool and all of these are in February, by the way, I know it's a short month is black history month. And a lot of things to celebrate in my life. Those days are a little bit poignant, challenging, reflection. Things that you have to think about and enjoy and appreciate what you have. A little #gratitude. So when I have #gratitude and I have #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree, it means something, it truly means something. And people that are spreading hate. Okay. It's just not worth it, it takes way too much energy. It takes way too much time. And it absolutely positively gets you nowhere. So I have a little kindness empathy.

Russ says we definitely learn and grow from our experience in life lessons, learn and grow. I'm sure, absolutely everything that happens to us can be perceived as a story. Jill Sullivan. I felt the same one when I tore my meniscus in my knee and had to have surgery. So I know what you're going through. It's a huge learning experience, awakening with #gratitude. Absolutely. We all have circumstance. It took two years for my arm, I had staph infection. I actually had to have what is called a Groshon catheter, which is essentially they cut your chest open and then stick a stint, basically in your artery, your aorta right next to your heart so they can drop IV every hour with antibiotics to fight the infection. I've actually had E-coli. I wanted to die. I had never been so sick in my life. E-coli can be very fatal. It can be very fatal. There is no fatal and very fatal. I hope someone else besides myself sees humor in that.  It's really important for us to understand that life is precious. We can all have bad days. We can all have bad moments. We can all take and feel sorry for ourselves. Feel terrible about something or get angry at someone. And it's just a moment. It's just a feeling. Feel the feeling, but don't attach a story to it. Don't attach it that, don't blame and don't be a victim. There's so many people out there in the news and in media that they want to be a victim. They want someone to take care of them there. Ain't nobody going to come and take care of you. Be responsible. Yeah. Be responsible.

 Tracie you are a gift to me. And I just want to acknowledge your your support. Tracie is the producer of the show, and I want to, I'll take a moment at the end and talk about some of the power of the live stream and some of the things that has done for me and to me, and the things I've created as a result. It's really important. Foley Hart. Oh, I haven't  seen you in  forever. I love you. How are you doing? I hope you're well thank you for serving our country too, by the way. Thank you for being so raw and sharing your experiences with us, your beautiful perspective on them. Absolutely positively. It's an honor to be able to share some experiences that I would not want people to go through for themselves, pause and protect the moment powerful. We have an opportunity, I put the hashtag out there and #makeitmatter and we all have an opportunity to #makeitmatter. We all have an opportunity to make a difference, be a hero in somebody's life, even if it's your own. Know what you want to stand up for, what that is and savor every moment you're worth it. You are a gift.

Darleen says, wow, you have a lot of lives. So many blessings. As tragic as some of my circumstances have been. I wouldn't trade them for the world. I wouldn't trade them for a world. I was thinking about this, my friend, Jim Erickson, we used to in the summertime, in the spring, early spring, we used to go around and offer to clean out people's garages and haul away their stuff, and we would take that stuff and we would load it up and sort through it and we'd take stuff to the swap meet and then make money. And then we'd take a trip some place. We went one time we went to Oregon. That's when I knew that I wanted to live in Portland, Oregon, and we were on the beach at I don't know if it was cannon beach or seaside. One of the beaches and we were from Utah, stupid Inlanders, that have never been to the coast before. High school age. It was in high school when we were doing this, we'd take a trip and oftendo an adventure. So we'd go traveling around the countryside. And we got out on the beach, we were running down the beach and all of a sudden this thing called the tide came in. So there's cliffs all around us. All of a sudden the water's coming up and it's coming up fast and all of a sudden we're locked in and we can't get out and the only way is up. So we started climbing this cliff, which is, it was probably stupid. This is before cell phones or anything like that. So you do or die climbing this cliff up there and we ended up having to take... fortunately, we both had belts. And so we had to take each other's belts and connect them together and work our way up this mountain side with rocks and limbs and everything else to get out. And there was about a six foot section of the top and I was able to get up on top and then take our belts and I was able to reach down and get Jim and fortunately we were able to get out of there. Stupid kids was like, wow, that was an adventure. And it was hundreds of feet to the ground. Had we fallen down it would be down into the water, bouncing off the cliff, and I'm sure that we'd be washed out to shore off, off, someplace and we'd be fish food. But ultimately you look back on those experiences and, you have lived, you have had something that you can actually care about. So many blessings. Thank you so much. And I just really know that life is important.  Life is absolutely gift. I had a brush with death, car accident at 19, and I'm blessed to be alive today and thank God for life's blessings and opportunities. Yeah. Brendon Burchard starts his story with a car accident, did I live, did I love did I matter? Yeah. Make it matter. We all matter.

Oh Tracie come back. Darleen and said, I made another account. I made the other account moderator, whichever one you were chatting on the other day. The DJ one, so hopefully we'll get it straightened out. Kate O'Hare, Eric story, NFL player, whose son committed suicide helps football and military victims with mental health. Glad you're laughing. I am laughing because I survived. I thrived when I was in the hospital and it's all perspective. I was in the hospital ICU, I had been damaged, torn, and recovering from my fall, which I nearly lost my arm. And a small child, a kid said, hey mom, that guy jumped off the sign. He was watching me. And fortunately he saw me and  called the called an ambulance. And I was still conscious and in shock and fading fast and they got me to the hospital. And when I was in ICU, there was a young man across the hall and another room that he had lost his...oh, he was a logger and a tree came down and crushed his foot, his lower leg, and they were going to have to amputate and he was on suicide watch and I'm thinking to myself, if I lost my arm, it would be unfortunate. And I'm glad I have a life. I'm glad I'm alive. And he saw it as my life is over because I lost my leg and it really dawned on me that we have a choice. We have a choice about how we see our circumstance, and I think it's incredibly powerful to see it as an opportunity. See it as a gift. See it as a way that we can appreciate everything we have. And I know that it could be taken away in a fraction of a second. So when I say #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree and #makeitmatter. I mean it.

Howard Kaufman. Good morning. My friend, I wake up and I appreciate your products and services.  Love your products and I use them every day. And if you're not connected with Howard, go connect with Howard. He makes mouthwash and toothpaste and he's here in Phoenix. He's an entrepreneur, that's an amazing individual. And one of my superheroes. Thank you for reminding us about being #grateful. Thank you for building the pirate community on all the #inspiration and support. Thank you, Howard. That means a lot. I received that. I appreciate you. #PirateBroadcast™. Thank you. I appreciate you. Silverfox Talks Darleen you're awesome. I can make you a mod instead, if you prefer. I don't know. What's best. Angie good morning. Hope you had a wonderful day with your mom and her birthday. I hope she's doing well. I hope you're staying positive. I know life circumstances  don't always provide us with the expectations we have or want or desire. However, every day I get up, I appreciate it. Love you, Jill. I love this one. Climbing a cliff. Yikes. I needed your stories this morning. Yeah. I have a lot of stories with Jim. A lot of them have to, how to have to do when he was driving, he would take a moment and there were times where we were followed by police officers getting pulled over and he didn't believe me. He didn't believe that it was like, no, I said, don't turn here. There's a cop right behind us. It's like in the middle of nowhere by the grand Canyon. And he was turning a left, making an illegal left turn and there was a cop right by him and said, don't do the turn. There's a cop right by. He's like you're full of crap. So he turns and here we come, the lights. So I have a lot of stories like that, that just really amazing. Amen. Thank you so much. So I just really, I really appreciate you and everyone that joins the #PirateBroadcast™. I know that everybody's life is busy and it's not my goal to impact thousands of people, it's to impact those that need it today. And when they show up and when you show up, it means a lot to me. And I truly appreciate every moment you share and you pop in and you say hi, and as we continue to grow this thing, I would love to have you subscribe to the YouTube channel, Facebook, the podcast, leave a review on the podcast. I guess it does something to this thing called the algorithm that makes it more popular. So more people can see it. And if you found this valuable, I would love to have you share it. Not because it feeds my ego, but it feeds the algorithm that allows people to see it. And if more people can hear it and more people can understand what life is about and the gifts that were what we have to thrive in, not survive, but thrive in. And we can learn from each other, start a conversation, be inspired by somebody, find some #motivation in our day. It's not a terrible thing.

Hopefully I brought value to your day and hopefully that you can share it and be a hero to somebody else today. I encourage you to go out and do something for yourself. Take a pause, reflect on what life is really about and savor the moment. Take a deep breath and know that we're here for a reason. You may not know your reason at this moment in time. However, you matter to someone, I promise you, you matter to me. So go out, #enjoytheday and know that things do happen for a reason. Sometimes we may not understand the reason at the time. We might not understand why it's happening for us, not to us and just take a moment and learn from it.

Anyway, I love helping people. I love providing value and support. And I will continue to do so until I am no longer here. And I hope that you go about your day and know that life is a beautiful thing. People need to know that you care. People need to know that you're available to them. So go out and do it because the reason #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday. Love y'all.

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