A Baby Born Too Early & A Wife Gone Too Soon: Navigating Grief, God, And Fatherhood

Today, I sit down with Weston Brandon, a man whose story embodies what this show is all about—transforming fear into magnetic momentum. Mr. Brandon walks me through the moment his entire life changed at just twenty-three years old, when he lost his wife only two weeks after the premature birth of their son. As he recounts the shock, grief, and spiritual turmoil that followed, we talk about how moments like these become crossroads where people either collapse or begin to rebuild.

Throughout this episode, we explore the weight of trauma, the power of anchors in faith, and the spiritual reality of being angry with God without abandoning Him. Mr. Brandon shares how his mission work, early spiritual experiences, and the words he found in Scripture became foundation points during the darkest days of his life. We also discuss the harsh reality that many people in crisis search for someone to blame—whether themselves, God, or even their own children—and how self-awareness and intentional healing prevent that resentment from destroying families. 

Later, we get into Mr. Brandon’s journey as a single father navigating grief, identity, and the rediscovery of companionship. He opens up about what it felt like to date again, how he handled others’ judgments, and how prayer, clarity, and emotional work ultimately led him to his wife and the life he is building now. From there, we explore his transition into speaking, coaching, writing, and developing a framework that blends faith, physics, personal responsibility, and emotional healing—culminating in his book, The Overhaul: Fixing Your Mindset and Driving Success. 

https://www.westonbrandon.com/

Website: https://coupleonukes.com

Exodus, Honor Your Heart, & Nulu Knives: https://www.coupleonukes.com/affiliates/

Want to be a guest on Couple O' Nukes? Send me a message on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1726279485588093e83e0e007

Sign Up For A PodMatch Account: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/coupleonukes

*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode, A couple of nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and today we are going to be talking about transforming fear into magnetic momentum. We're gonna be talking about a, the gentleman with us today has a pretty tragic story, yet in the midst of that is hope.

And you know, the subtitle, the show is Rebuilding our Dreams and rebranding our Lives. And so today we're really gonna focus on those, you know, I call them the blind sides of life, right? You don't expect it to happen. And what do we do from there? And so today we have Mr. Western Brandon, so great to have you here.

And could you please share a little bit about yourself? Yeah, thanks man. Excited about this. I was checking out your podcast really like a lot of the stories and the people that you have on here. And it's just a, it's good to hear the people that are going through some rough stuff that have transformed that into.

Positive. I mean, that, that's such a cliche thing to say, you know? Right. But unfortunately, it's a lot less common than we would hope. You know? I think way too many people just let the world kind of beat 'em up, and then they blame the world and don't take responsibility for their own situations. Right. So your, your podcast here is a, a guiding light for anybody that that watches it.

Thank you. So thanks for having me on. Yeah. So a, a little about me. Anybody that has seen me on another podcast or, or goes to my website or anything, you're gonna come across the story of me losing my wife when I was 23. That's like. The signature story, the keystone to like most everything, right? I was 23 years old.

I had served a mission for my church for two years. Previous to that, had come home, found a beautiful young woman to marry, got married, started a career in sales and was doing really good at it. I moved to Texas, actually I was born and raised in Utah. I moved to Texas for that job, was managing territory in Oklahoma and at 23 was, was crushing it.

Everything was, was good. Like everything that I wanted to accomplish in life, I was accomplishing like, I mean, sure there were, there. It was hard, you know, it was a lot of hard work, but there wasn't anything crazy holding me back. You know, I, the world was in my hands, whatever I wanted to do with it. And I had recently gotten a big promotion.

I was making a lot more money and my wife was pregnant. We had a house. Like I knew where the kids were gonna go to school. Like it was all. Ready to go. Right. And then at 25 weeks of her pregnancy, she was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix, which at the time sounded not like a medical term. Sounded an opinion.

Right. But it is a, a medical thing. Basically, she dilated without going into labor. Mm. So at that point, baby can fall out into the birth canal and you don't want that. Right. Baby's supposed to stay in the uterus where it belongs, of course. So she goes to the hospital, gets put on bedrest, holds him in for another week, and then he's coming out Bree after about a week.

So they do an emergency C-section. And I'm working from home now at this time 'cause I'm a lot closer to the hospital there than where my office was at. And so I ran up to the hospital, got there just in time for the birth, and he was miraculously fine, like coming at 26. So he is at 26 weeks at this point.

Super, super tiny. He weighed one pound to 13 ounces. Wow. And other than that, other than being just way too small, he didn't have any other defects. He didn't have any, I mean, they, they run a ton of tests, right. They, they tested everything and he was fine. So that was a miracle. He didn't even need a breathing tube down his throat like most babies do at that age.

Wow. They had given her some steroids during the time that she was on bed rest. That helped his lungs develop faster. And those obviously worked. And so even though that was an incredibly stressful situation, you know, and me being the breadwinner of my family, I'm obviously stressing about how much this is gonna cost and if I'm gonna be able to, to shoulder that, you know, and, and continue of course to provide for my family like I need to.

But that's, that's not anything that any other. Husband or father or want to be husband or father doesn't think about. So I wasn't really unique in that scenario. Maybe the situation of my son being born that early was a little unique, of course. But in other words, like other people had dealt with that, right?

So I knew, I was like, I'll be all right, we'll figure it out. And tried not to think about it too much. Where everything went absolutely nuts though, was two weeks later, my wife passed away in my arms in our master bathroom from a pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot that gets stuck in your lungs.

And she got that just as a result of just everything going on with her physically during the whole birth process and being on bed rest and being pregnant and all these kinds of things. And she just ended up being a statistic and we were told the likelihood of that happening was really low. But obviously, you know, we ended up on the wrong side of that.

And. Stayed in the hospital with her for like 18 hours or something like that, trying and hoping that things would work out and they didn't. And I eventually had to call it and say like, you know, no response, no brain activity or anything for hours upon hours and have to let it go and Right. Facilitate the whole organ donation process.

And then all of a sudden I'm, so I'm 23, right? Almost 24 and suddenly I'm a single dad. Never planned on that happening, but I'm a widowed single dad and my wife just died. I just watched that whole horrific scene in front of my eyes. You know, anybody that's been present, when somebody passes from not natural causes, it's rough.

It's not a pretty thing to watch and especially when it's someone that you love. And then I'm just thrust into the grief process and. All of this and all this insane responsibility on my shoulders kinda outta nowhere, you know, and shouldering that, that sucked. That was, that was a rough time. You know, so there you go.

That's, that's, that's the key, that's the signature story where everything comes from, right? So everything kind of, you know, sprouted outta that time. But yeah. What do you, what do you got from there? So what I'd like to start with is just the acknowledgement of what you said, which is, you know, people turning negativity into positivity, you know, when it comes to their life circumstances.

And I just wanna highlight the, the negative side of it, which is people who don't, you know, I work in addiction recovery. I've been in the military. A lot of people in the military, for example, they end up really hating their lives and they take it out on all the people around them. It becomes a very toxic work environment, a very hateful place.

It really affects the mental health of everyone around you, especially the new enlisted sailors and soldiers. And you had this. You know, coming into a command climate where leadership hates their life, they make you hate your life, and then the retention and recruiting goes down, and then conditions just continually worsen.

On the addiction side, a lot of people turn to addiction. They cope with alcohol or drugs or whatever it may be. Sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's gambling, and then that ends up taking over their life. It's very important what we do with these turning moments in our life, and I, I'd like to share what I've been sharing, which is doom, Spiro Spero, which is Latin, and that comes from South Carolina, has really popularized it, which is why I breathe.

I hope. I think that's so important because I like to emphasize that as long as you're alive, there is opportunity for change. It may not be fast change, it may not be the change you want, but as long as you're alive, you can still make choices. Whereas, you know, suicide on the other hand is a permanent solution to a temporary issue, and so people lose sight of the permanence of that during, you know, those, those moments.

And I think as a man of God and someone who preaches online. My big question for you is, you talk about working on a, a mission with the church for quite a while before all this happened. How was your faith tested during all of this, through not only having a a premature birth, but then losing your wife?

I mean, most people already. Walking the faith have a, a relationship full of doubts. There are many days where we're like, God, why are we going through this? Or are you even real, let alone when something like that happens? So how did that affect your faith? Well, I mean, that brought it all into question first off, right?

Like being a Christian man, I was taught my whole life about the reason that we're here and what happens after you die and where you go. You know? But I realized now in that situation that, well, it's not like I didn't believe it or anything, but it was, it turned out it was a little bit more of an abstract idea in my head, you know?

And I think that's true for, for a lot of people that heaven is more an idea. It's, it's more of a, a almost like a story, you know, until someone that you love might actually be there, you don't tend to think about it a whole lot. Right. In my experience. Right. And, you know, while I served a mission for my church, I, I, I talked about that all the time with people.

You know, we're, we're having people that are investigating the church, we're doing service projects and, you know, everything's from a kind of a church and faith perspective. So we're having conversations like that all the time, you know, and we're talking to people that are going through it. And me being, when I was doing this mission, I was 19, 20 years old and talking to people that are, you know, three times my age, who are really going through it and me having hardly any life experience trying to give him some, some hope, you know?

Right. He'd had some powerful experiences on my mission where I had, I had had some rough times on my mission there, there was one time in particular that I was dealing with on our mission. They, they put us in Companionships, where we go, we go two by two. And the, this one brother that I was working with at the time was.

He had just barely started, but he hadn't come out and done it for the right reasons. He more did it 'cause kind of his family expected him to, or, or things like that, you know? Right, right. And he, there was a lot of things that he hadn't really resolved and, and he eventually came to me and finally told me after weeks of, of being really argumentative and combative and me wondering what the heck's going on.

That there were some things that he's like, I need to repent for some things and I'm not out here for the reasons. And, and had to like, go kind of through that process on his own. And during that time. It was so different working with him initially, before he went through that process than any other person that I had been partnered up with.

Because all the other times when we had been trying to teach people and trying to help people, there was a spirit there that would, that would kind of help along that, you know, you could tell God was in the conversation and it worked. Thoughts would come into your mind that, that you wouldn't expect, and they would be just what somebody needed to hear or, or, or something like that, you know, and you could kind of feel like God's with you and, and working with you.

But then during that time with, with that guy, it, it wasn't there. I felt completely alone and abandoned. I had been moved so far away from anybody else that I knew that I, I did feel alone and abandoned. And that got worse and worse and worse over time to the, to the, almost to the point that I had, I had four panic attacks every morning, four days in a row.

So four total, but like one panic attack in the morning and then the next day did it again. 'cause I was so, I felt so alone and so stressed out and I had never experienced anything like that. I thought I was having a heart attack or something. It freaked me out. And I remember going to church that Sunday and I remember going to take the, our sacrament and just listening to the prayer that was being said while they were preparing the sacrament for us and talking about taking upon you the name of Christ and that his spirit will always be with you and those kinds of things.

And I remember listening to that and like trying to really, really commit more intentionally than I ever had before, but really praying like, I'm hurting right now. Like, what's going on? And I remember. When I took the sacrament, like I just felt this weight like lift off of me. And I finally kind of felt Amen.

Like God again, you know? And I was like, holy cow, I can't, like, I forgot what that feels like almost. And it was like, I remember I started crying. I was like, where? Where's this bend for the past month and a half? And that was such a powerful experience for me in that time. That particular experience ended up being a huge anchor for me when I went through the loss of my wife.

Okay. Because the similar feelings of being abandoned. Why is this happening? What did I do? Like I didn't do anything to cause this. What, how is this my fault? What am I doing? You know? And all those, the same questions just worded a little bit differently, start swirling in my head right in, in that situation too.

And having that experience gave me some perspective of how to approach this one, even though it was so much worse. It was so much heavier, but I still had. A preparatory experience, I guess you could say. You know? And I think that God does that with our trials and that he use them to prepare us for other trials coming down the road later, or prepare us to be able to help others with those trials that are gonna come down the road later.

And the day that all of this happened, I had another experience while I was in the ICU that I just opened up the scriptures. 'cause I remember when it was happening, I just kneeled down and prayed and I'm like, if I ever need you to talk to me or tell me something ever again in my life, like this is the biggest moment.

Like, please do not leave me hanging here. You gotta, you gotta talk to me. Tell me something. I didn't really know what was bothering me. Exactly. I mean, obviously my wife is probably not gonna make it at this point when I'm doing this. So I'm worried about that. I'm worried what I'm gonna do. I'm praying for a miracle.

And so. Most of the time when God had, when I felt God speaking to me, it was through scripture and, you know, reading something that, that really hit me or something. So I remember I grabbed my phone, I just had an app, and I, I pulled up scriptures on my phone and just to see, you know, what he would say. And I remember closing my eyes and like tapping just to see whatever it would open up to.

And it opened up scriptures talking about the resurrection. And that hit me. So I didn't realize that that's what I was worried about. I think I kind of already knew that she wasn't gonna make it. And I was, I really wanted a reassurance that everything I believed wasn't just a farce, you know? Right. And while I was there in the ICU reading scriptures talking about the resurrection of the dead and the afterlife and those things, I, what I felt in that waiting room was another, it, it was kind of also kind of his way of saying, yeah, she's not gonna make it and you're gonna have to lean on this kind of a thing, you know, but it, it was a, that.

That experience became the second big anchor to the faith. But going for the months following that, I was so mad. I was, the anger that I had towards God was high. I was not a happy camper with him. Even though I had had those experiences. Right. Those experiences made it so I couldn't deny anything. Like I knew I couldn't, I knew what I felt, I knew what I'd been told, and there was nothing that could happen that could make me believe otherwise.

But I was so mad at him for, for doing it, you know? I'm like, why? That was the biggest question. Why, why did that happen? And what, what the hell am I supposed to do now? You know? And I remember somebody told me sometime that even if you're angry with God, at least don't stop talking to him. If, even if the only thing you can do is just tell him that you're mad at him.

Right. Because believe it or not, he's, he's big enough to take it and he can help you work through it. And it took months, right? It did it. But that's what I had to do for a while until I had some other experiences to, to help start pulling me outta that. And, and some of those experiences are even more recent and that's we're years down the road now for sure.

I think what you said really reminds me of Johnny t, the host of the Refuge Freedom Stories podcast. And I am part of a prayer group with him online. And he always says that, you know it, how it works with faith when you're coming to it is God will put you'll be walking down the road and God will put up a pebble in your way and then a rock, and then the boulder, like he builds you up, as you mentioned, prepares you ahead of time with a greater, greater increase in whatever it may be, to strengthen your faith and your character and to develop you.

And I definitely get the, what I've also learned is, you know, even when I'm angry at God, you know, I know that you kind of, you could be angry. And run away, but it's not gonna change anything. And you can be angry and try to work through the emotions, through the scripture and through prayer and try to get somewhere, because at the end of the day, you can be angry and abandon God and it's only gonna make your life worse.

So it's difficult though, especially in your, if I was in your situation, I would've said, you know, God, there are all these fatherless children being born who, who are unexpected pregnancies. These are wedlock, pregnancies, these are babies that just, you know, like women who didn't even want to be mothers, women who just you know, got pregnant 'cause they got pregnant.

Meanwhile, my wife who wanted to be a mom, we did everything right. We were, the faith is, doesn't get that chance. And so for me, the looking out at the world and, and seeing. You know, that comparison that is, you know, would really fuel my anger being like, because that's historically in the Bible and even in the world, you know, you look around and you see all these wicked people prospering and you're like, God, what about me?

I'm doing everything right. And you know, Philip Anthony Mitchell, he's a pastor in Georgia and Atlanta and you know, he shared about that unanswered prayers. You know, when it comes to, Lord, I'm doing everything right and I'm still single after years. And meanwhile all these other women or men are getting partners left and right and they're doing vow things.

So I think it's, it, it really does test us. And I remember one of the most powerful conversations I ever had on this show was with Kevin Skill, his son committed suicide and he had a conversation with God about it. You know, like. His and that the conversation was so powerful, you know, God said, look, I also lost a son.

And, and that was a, you know, double sided sentence in a cer in the sense that he didn't mean just Jesus Christ, he meant that his son was also his son because we're all children of God. You know, just like, yeah, when your wife passed, you know, God lost a daughter too. So people say, well, God is in charge of death, so he can't, I guess, doesn't have the right to grieve, but I don't think it works that way.

You know, I think it's a lot more complicated than we could ever understand. And I think it's, having those anchors is so important. And I think one of the issues is that a lot of us don't have those anchors in our life. You know, a lot of us have never read the Bible, even as believers. A lot of us were told religion, not taught religion, you know, we grew up.

With it as a routine. Our parents didn't raise us on, here's why you pray. It was, you're gonna pray with us. It's not, here's why you go to church. It's like, we're going to church. There's not a cultivation of a passion and wanting to know God. And so I think having those anchors is so important and, and what I find, and I want everyone listening to pay attention to this part is if you don't have anchors in your life of faith, or if you feel like you can't recognize them, whatever it may be, I find that spending time in the faith-based community and hearing other people's testimonies and their stories and their anchors can be very powerful and uplifting, especially when you're going through rough times, hearing about answered prayers.

And these stories of encouragement are super powerful. I know with the Bible, those, there are plenty of faith anchors in the Bible, but a lot of us feel disconnected from it. It's so long ago, or it doesn't even seem real to us. And so I really encourage you, whether it's online or in your community. Share with one another, your testimonies and your answered prayers.

Even if it's a simple answered prayer, it can encourage someone in significant ways. And, and that's what we need, is that continual daily encouragement. Because every day wears us down, every day tests our faith, and every day the enemy attacks us. And so really encourage everyone to share your stories and answer prayers with one another and, and be praying for one another and asking for those.

And then, Mr. Brandon, one thing I do wanna ask, I, you know, it doesn't seem to be the case, but I know with some pregnancies that result in the passing of the mother, the father develops resentment or negative feelings toward the child and this can manifest as even abusing the child. I definitely don't think that's the case with you, but were there any feelings of any negative feelings of any kind toward your child because of, you know.

Essentially blaming the, the child for the, the passing of your wife. Did you deal with any of those emotions at all? A hundred percent. I didn't realize I was going through it at the time. Luckily it was very short-lived. And I'm glad you brought that up because that is absolutely a common thing for, for fathers to experience.

And I've talked to some mothers that experienced that as well. You know, my situation was, my, my wife passed away two weeks after my son was born, and then my son had to stay in the NICU for a while after that. He was still in the NICU for another two months before he came home. Right. And luckily I was able to, I was able to, to recognize that that was happening before I even got him outta the NICU and brought him home.

But what, what helped me to recognize it was happening, well, actually, the, the, the whole reason that I even realized it was in the nicu, you know, he's, he's in his incubator for, for the most part, but then the nurses in the NICU will tell you that you should do skin to skin contact with your baby. You'll wanna hold 'em. There's, right. It helps their development, helps 'em, bond, helps, those kinds of things. Especially with mom, but with dad too. And so my wife was doing that, you know, 90% of the time I did a little bit before she passed away, but she was getting, you know, most of that.

And, and that's, that's, you know, they want that, they want dad to do it a little bit. But mom is really in those early stages. Mom is the one they really need to attach to pretty good. So after she passes away and at, at that point, I'm just going up to the hospital by myself. Often some, my in-laws are with me sometimes and some other family every once in a while.

But a lot of times I'm, I'm alone because I just kind of feel an obligation to be there. I don't really. Why I'm there. Exactly. Like subconsciously I'm not having those thoughts, but Right. Just going there because I don't know what else to do. You know? And I, I know that somebody listening to this was like, well, maybe it was because you loved your son.

You somehow like maybe get a little angry that I say it that way. And yes, that was a hundred percent true, but in the moment, in the depths of the pain when it was really, really fresh right there in the first two weeks probably, I didn't realize that I was experiencing that, that subconsciously in my brain, my son had kind of replaced my wife.

This person that I loved so much and had such a, such an intimate relationship with, was gone and something in the back of my brain that I couldn't put actual words to connected him arriving to her leaving and that there was a cause and effect relationship there of, of some sort. Right. And. I never, I never despised him.

I never did anything. I actually really liked looking at him, and I felt so sad for him that, that he didn't have his mom. I was heartbroken over it, but for some reason I didn't want to hold him. They would ask me to do skin to skin contact with him, and I was just like, eh. Like there was something about that that I was like, I don't, I don't want to.

And the NICU nurse were like, well, you really should, like, like, not, not just for you, but for him too. It helps his development and things and bonding and things. Like he really needs that from, from, from somebody. From, from mom or dad. And given mom's not here, you're it. You know? And I was just like, nah, I, I don't, not feeling it.

You know? And that went on for a few days and, i, I don't, I don't know how long. It might have been a week or two. And then there was one day, I'm, I'm sitting in the super uncomfortable rocking chair there, hair in the hospital room just kind of looking at my kid and, and the nurse comes and asked me if I wanna do skin to skin contact again.

And she's, she's like, really trying. She's like, I know, just please do it. And I'm like, I'll do it when I'm good and ready and I ain't ready right now. So she leaves. And I remember sitting there in that chair and I finally had, it was pr I think it was the spirit. I think it was God kinda whispering to me.

And I remember thinking like, this isn't normal. Like what's, there's, there's something going on in, in my head that I don't like that's, that's causing this and give myself a little grace because I'm starting to beat myself up about it. I'm like, what the hell is wrong with me? Why don't I want to hold my kid?

Right. I remember sitting there. Kind of praying and meditating and thinking, I didn't move outta that chair for I don't know how long. Just really thinking like, what is going on inside of me? There's, there's something disconnected here. What is it? And I was, I was pondering and, and meditating on it. I finally had that thought come.

And like I said, I don't know if it was me or God putting that thought in my mind either. It doesn't matter either way. 'cause it accomplished the same thing, so I probably shouldn't give myself too much credit. It probably was him. And had that thought was, you're, you're feeling some resent, I think I'm feeling some resentment towards him because it's like he replaced my wife and IMI remember making that little connection there, sitting in that chair.

And I remember when, when that thought came across my mind, I just felt like across my whole body, this kind of weird warmth, excitement, like aha moment. Like, oh, but a physical like almost gave me goosebumps going. I was like, oh my gosh. Right. That's. That's probably what's happening. And so I was like, that is not okay.

I gotta fix that right now. And I was like, do you, I gotta hold him. I'm gonna hold him as much as you'll allow me and you'll have to prime outta my arms kind of a thing. So then I, you know, I got up and I, I went and found the NICU nurse was like, can I hold him now? And I kind of saw like the relief on their face, like, oh, thank God he's finally coming around, you know?

And so then, then I would hold him as much as they would let me, until he needed to go back under the Billy Rubin lights in there for, to help him with jaundice or things like that. And I started being way more intentional about trying to learn more about him and learn more about his personality and how he behaved when he was uncomfortable, why he was uncomfortable.

And I remember I remember having this, this big aha moment where the NICU nurse finally got through to me and she's like, you know, babies sometimes cry for reasons other than being hungry or needing a diaper change. And I'm like. Really, you know, 23-year-old kid. I'm like, I don't know this, I don't know anything about babies.

And she's like, sometimes they might just be grumpy, sometimes they might just be in bad moods or something like this. She just like you, you know? I'm like, holy cow, he's a person. He has, you know, mood swings, right? So then I started experimenting and I'm like, how can I, how can I help him get in a better mood when he's kinda just in this agitated mood?

I remember playing different styles of music and trying to figure out like, maybe, maybe he likes something and tried different kinds of music and like, ah, he doesn't like that. Doesn't like that. And then I played some old Western music. I played some Marty Robbins, and he calmed right down. And I played some, I played a, I remember one song that he really liked was Islands in the Stream by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

I played that song and he'd calm right down. Like he loved it. And I'm like, alright man, after my own heart. You know? Like that was cool because I grew up listening to that music. I grew up on a cattle ranch out in a little teeny town in Utah. I grew up around Angus cattle and when I was at Grandpa's house, that was all that was playing was the old Gunfighter Western music, you know?

Right. So that was, it was really cool. And I actually named my son after my great-grandfather who ran, whose ranch I lived and worked on. So that, that kind of connection there was, was really cool for me to learn. And I learned that if I wanted more connection with my son, and I guess it works for anybody in general, if you want more connection with somebody, learn more about them.

And when you learn more about them, then you feel more connected with 'em. So, you know, over the next couple of, couple, few weeks until he got outta the nicu, I was doing that more intentionally and then I felt just. This overwhelming love for my son that has not gone anywhere, you know? And now I have two other kids, and same with them.

So that's a long answer to your question, but No, that was perfect. That was, that was exactly what we need to hear. You know, I think people must be thinking to themselves, some people like, well, of course, of course you would love your kid. And, and if not, then the death was in vain. But I, when I was serving in the military, I came across a, a woman I was friends with, and her father, her mother had passed away giving birth to her, and she ended up looking just like her mom later in life, especially after her teenage years.

And the father had slipped into addiction and stuff like that, of course. And he, he would beat her, you know, how dare you look like the woman whose life you took, you know, like those mindsets can develop, especially when alcohol and drugs get involved and, you know, so she ended up dying her hair, trying to change how she looked, because when she Yeah, looked like her mom.

And it's a shame because to her. I guess it was special to her that she looked like her mom. Like, wow, you know, my mom passed on giving birth to me and I, I looked just like her. Like to her it was something special and it got villainized in, in her life. And so that's, that's why I brought up because it's, it's very important, like you said, if you let that resentment build and go unresolved, it can, you know, and, and ultimately the child is not at fault, you know?

And, but it's, it's obviously easy to with it. You want to find something to blame. Right. You know? And you know, that's, that's part of the reason why people get mad at God. You know, they, if they, they, you gotta either blame God or, or the child or, or whatever else. And it's, it's, I think it's most frustrating when things aren't in your control.

You know, like for me personally, I like for, I, I'll give a very basic example. I don't really like team sports because I could be performing my best training every day and then some kids on the team and he doesn't want to really participate. He's parents made him go there and we lose. And it's like all my hard work is for nothing.

But if I cause the teen to lose, you know, like, that's terrible. I like individual sports. It's all on me. So if I do good, it's my, it's, it's, you know, my credit. And if I do bad, it's my fault. I never wanna ruin anything for anyone else. But, so like that kind of stuff, when it's not in your control, it's like, who do you blame?

And then, so a, a lot of times it's God or the child gets to default. Now you mentioned having other children and I, you know, I was going through your social media and I saw that you did fall in love again and get married, which obviously a lot of people are gonna have comments about that process, especially the timeline.

So I'd love for you to go over, over that and, and talk about that, because I know there's a lot of people who are gonna say, Hey, you can't just, you know, be whittled for life. You know, you know, you gotta move on at some point. And then obviously there are gonna be people who say, you know, you're moving on too soon.

Everyone's gonna have their own opinion. But I'm very, I'd love to know how your thought process and feelings were during all of that. Yeah, that was an interesting time. And you're a hundred percent right. Like, it doesn't matter what you do, you're gonna piss some people off a hundred percent. Right.

You know, and there, there are are people that, I've been on some other podcasts. I went on the, we're all Insane podcast run by Devora and she's got seven, 800,000 subscribers on YouTube. Mostly, mostly young women and girls that are our primary audience. And they, they had some comments. I was not popular in that comment section.

I tell you what. Holy cow. Because the, the biggest problem people have is like, I, I moved forward so fast. Mm-hmm. It was three and a half months later that I met my chapter two, my, my second wife, right after my, my first wife had passed. So yeah, that's quick. But also all of the people who are angry about that, not a single one of them is widowed.

Very fair. I've never been, I've never had anybody that's been widowed be upset with that kind of timeline. And I'm not even the fastest, not by a long shot. Oh, not at all. I just went we were talking before, before we started recording, I was just in San Antonio this week. Right. I was speaking at a conference and it was a widows and widowers conference.

And part of the conference I was, I was talking to some other people that do a lot of research in, in those, in those worlds and for widowers, the men who are widowed, it is very common for them to get remarried in under two years. Extremely common, like the vast majority of them do. Mm. And there's a lot of discussion around why that is.

And there's a lot of men shaming that men can't be alone and they, they need a woman to take care of them. And, you know, all these kinds of things. And maybe there is a little bit of a truth to that. Like, I really need companionship to not like just puddle. I need someone to take care of. As, as a husband and a father, part of my, part of, I, I believe the divine identity that I have for my father in heaven is that I am a provider and a protector.

Mm-hmm. You know, and when I lose the things that I'm providing for and protecting for, I lose my entire purpose. You know? So I think that that probably pulls into it too. But my experience was after my, after my son was discharged from the nicu, I took him home. I'm still living in Texas. Right. And I remember thinking like, well, now what?

You know, that's, that's the big question. Now what? And I prayed about it and prayed about it, wasn't getting an answer. And I remember one day I was praying about it and I was actually in the Dallas. Temple. I'm member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Lattery Saints. And so I, I go to the temple where we have, it's a special building where we have to worship that you have to have a temple recommended to go in and, and have a certain standard of worthiness to be there because it's a very, very, very spiritual place for us.

And so I go in there and I go into a place called the Celestial Room, and I'm praying, and I had gotten answers there before, and I could feel the spirit there. I could feel like I didn't feel like I was alone there. I didn't feel like I was being abandoned, but I wasn't getting any answers, wasn't getting any direction, you know, it was just kind of quiet, which is weird for me.

And so then I, I remember saying another prayer, getting a little bit frustrated. I'm like, come on, like gimme something. Like what do I do here? And the thought came into my mind there. It's like, why don't you ask your wife? I was like, I never thought of that. I am not, I didn't even know you could, can I do that?

Is that, is that a thing? Can I, right. You know? And so I was like, I don't even know how to do this. So I, I just kind of sat there thinking about it for a minute. Then I just closed my eyes again and, and basically kind of said another prayer. But I was talking to my wife and I, alls I said was, babe, what do I do?

And immediately I, you, you can't describe it to anybody that hasn't felt it before, but I felt her there. And there's, there's not a word in the English language that could adequately describe what the presence of somebody feels like, but it's, it's unique to each individual. You feel their energy, you feel their spirit, whatever.

Okay. I felt her there didn't realize, you know, when I felt, I was like, oh my gosh, it feels like she's here. I've never realized when she was here physically, I never picked up on what it feels like that she's near. Until she's not near, and now she's, you know, coming back probably spiritually. Right. And I remember feeling that, and the words come into my mind so clearly was go home.

And home for me is Utah and all of my family, all my extended family's all back in Utah. So like, all right, I'll, I'll head back there. So I packed up stuff and moved back and moved back into my basement bedroom and my parents' house, you know, kind of complete start over, right back where I was in high school.

And when I was there, I remember the, the next thing that started pulling at me was if I'm gonna be the best provider that I can be for my son, I know that I am not endowed with the same gifts of nurturing and motherhood that a woman is. That's just not part of my nature. Right? Just like she's not endowed with the same kind of protective.

Those kinds of things right there, we have different divine traits, and that is, that's how we're made. Correct. So I knew, I, I kind of felt like I'm, I'm going, if I'm gonna give him the best life possible, I need to be willing to have another relationship. And at that time I was, nope, you know, I was not in the mood for that.

Just even the thought of thinking of another woman was making me absolutely sick to my stomach. And, but it wouldn't leave. And it was, I, I just kept having this, this pull that for him, I needed to be willing to do that. So I got a therapist, I started working on my stuff. I was like, I need to do whatever I need to inside of myself to be willing to do that and to, to be capable of having another relationship.

Right. And not one, that's just a broken disaster from what I am now. So as I started through that process, I started working through all of my personal wounds that my grief kind of unearthed. 'cause a lot of the problems and things that you, that you're feeling when you're in that deep grief and a lot of your, your, I guess you could say your character flaws, your relationship problems don't actually have a whole lot to do with your grief.

I mean, a little bit. Sure. But a lot of times the grief pain is just the surface pain. And what the grief is doing is actually opening up the wounds that are deeper, that forms, you know, as a child, like you were talking the, the, the girl earlier that Right, you know, has some identity issues because of how she was treated, because she looks like her mom, you know, and there there's a bunch of stuff like that.

I was talking with some people at the conference I was at on the weekend about that, and I found out that I had some other wounds in myself that I had to work on. And as I did that, then I got to a point where I realized, okay, where. Where I'm at right now, living with my parents, and I'm not, I'm not putting myself in any situation where if God had somebody else or if there was, there was somebody that would be good fit for us.

I'm not putting myself in situations where it would be possible for that to be lined up. You know, I wasn't making myself available. I guess I, I hate that term, but I'm not, I'm not putting any effort into making the situation easier to let that happen, right. I'm not going to church meetings where there's other people my age.

I'm not going, I'm not doing these things. So I tried going to some church meetings of other people my age. We had what's called young single adult congregations, and I didn't like those because most of the people, and I'm, I'm 23, right? So most of the people my age are, they're still partying. They're still like.

Figuring out who they even are. Right. And so my emotional state and my emotional maturity, I guess you could say, was on such a different page than they were. I didn't, I didn't relate. I, I didn't like being there. They didn't feel like, I didn't feel like I belonged there. So then I was like, well. If I'm, if that's not it, I tried doing that to at least put myself out there, you know, in a position where I maybe could meet somebody, and I'm like, that ain't working.

So then I downloaded a dating app instead, and I put pictures of myself and my son, and I put everything in the bio of everything that happened. I'm like, I'm just gonna make it available. You know, see who, who wants a piece of this, I guess. And I remember I, I paid for a premium version of that app so that I wouldn't have to spend time swiping through stuff, because I did when I first downloaded it.

But I said no to every single woman in the entire region that it allowed, you know, because it, right. They weren't, they weren't my first wife. That's who I was looking for. But I said, no, because, you know, in my grief, I'm, I'm looking for my wife, that's who I want. And because they weren't her, I said, no, I, I realized that after I kind of went through it.

And so then I was like, well, this ain't gonna work. So I found they had the premium version. It would, Hey, if anybody swipes on you, it'll just tell you. It'll put a list. Like, Hey, these people. Swiped on you said, yes, they're, they're interested and you can just look through those. I'm like, all right, cool.

Take my money. I don't wanna search through everybody. Right. And I don't even wanna search through them if I'm being honest, but I'm kind of feeling a duty to, to at least make it available. So I remember I disabled notifications on the app completely, no push notifications or anything. And I didn't look at it for like a week.

And then one day my, well one night it's like two o'clock in the morning, my son wakes up 'cause he's hungry. They're on a schedule. Infant's like every three hours, the dude's eating, you know? And I remember getting done, feeding him, burped him, got him down, finally got him back to sleep. And I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and suddenly my phone kind of felt like a magnet.

It was, I, I really was feeling a pull to check on that. And I fought it for a while and kind of having this argument with myself or with, with Godard or something. I'm like, I don't want to. And I kept feeling pulled at it. So I finally opened it up and there were five. There were five women who had swiped on my profile.

So then the next thing I had to figure out was, are they absolutely nuts or are they really good quality people? Right, right. You know, and now I have to kind of figure out which is which here. So I started talking to some of them, and initially I remember before I sent the first message, I was, I literally felt like I was gonna throw up.

Like, I don't want to, I don't wanna talk to these people. But I did it anyways, and I, I sent out some messages and, and, you know, they all started responding and having conversations. They all seemed awesome. And I remember being surprised at how much I was enjoying having normal, pleasant conversations with somebody.

Instead of just people that knew I was going through, knew all the details of my situation, were like, tiptoeing around me, you know? Mm-hmm. So just having a normal conversation again was refreshing. So I set up some dates and the first date I went on is with the woman I'm married to now her name's Kiley.

And we, we went on a date and had a great time and went on a few more dates, and suddenly, you know, a after, after a little while, I was like, I. I really like this. Like this is, I feel a piece of me kind of coming alive again. There, there was some hope there, there was some happiness happening there. Mm-hmm.

And we ended up discussing getting married and, and if that was something that was, was feasible in our future, you know? And so we had the whole, after we had that conversation, we're like, well, let's make sure there's no deal breakers in our past history, anything that we've ever done or anything like that.

So for a couple hours we like vomited out all the ugly things that we'd ever done in our life and n don't want anybody to ever know about, you know, and, and got that all out in the open for each other. Wow. And there were no deal breakers between either of us. We're like. I mean, some of that's, some of that is ugly.

You know, some of that's not pretty and we don't ever have to talk about it again, but we know now. So now there's no possibility of some like long lost friend or family member to can come up behind you like, did you know this or did you know that? You know, and try to like sabotage the relationship and like, no, we know everything, you know, and we're good with it.

And because we're a hundred percent honest with each other about everything and answered each other's questions in as much detail as we could. And that, that was a rough, rough conversation to have, you know, for both of us. And I had to talk about lots of things with my grief that were really hard and then we decided, hey, there's no deal breakers for both of us.

This, this sounds good. So as long as it continues the way that it is, then I guess that means we'll get married. So then we started like pondering dates and stuff and I ended up proposing of a couple of months later and we were married. About 11 and a half months after my first wife had passed away about a year later.

Hmm. I think that's, that's how it went for me. There was a lot of people that didn't like it. Of course, of course. But I think one thing that's really important is that you did work first. You know, you weren't just rebounding and trying to escape into something or bury memories, which is a case with some people where they get, you know, widowed.

Yeah. You actually stopped and tried to do work on yourself first, which I think is really important. And you did do work on yourself. What I have to ask, I'm just curious, when you were going through that dating progress in, in process, what did it say single father up or were you saving that as like a conversation at the date itself?

No, that was all up front. Like I had pictures Okay. Of, there was a picture that somebody had, that I had somebody take of me the day that I got Vance, my son out of the nicu, like there, as I was getting in my car. Okay. Okay. Just me kinda holding him in the car seat. And that was, that was the first picture on the profile.

So that was the first one they saw. And yeah, in the, in the bio, I guess kind of gave the cliff notes of the entire story and, you know, where me and my son were at. Right. No, I think that's, you know, I, I feel like there's a lot more single moms on dating apps than single fathers, but, you know, I, I'm not sure especially at, at least for that age group, so I, I was curious about that.

And did you get any, any comments about it at all that were, were negative or anything like that? Like, you know, no. It was, like I said, the 'cause on, on those dating apps, nobody can like, comment on your profile. They have to just match with you and you can just message, right? Mm-hmm. So. Those four or five women that had, that I had, I guess, matched or swiped on it, and I decided to, to chat with 'em.

They already knew upfront what the situation was. So, I mean, naturally they were curious. They had some questions about, you know, what, what did happen? What, you know, right. So we had some of those conversations and gave them, you know, answered all their questions. And then I would obviously have questions about their life, and then we just, you know, would go through those conversations to decide like, yeah, I think I'm like, yeah, let's, let's meet up, let's, let's get to know each other a little bit better.

You know? Right. So from the dating side of that, no, I didn't have any negative come back from that. Mm-hmm. The ones that I did talk to were, were really amazing. Like I was. I was blown away at, right. At how awesome those, those conversations were. So I maybe I was lucky, I don't know. Or, or probably the, the profile itself was a pretty good filter, you know, if they were gonna swipe on that, then of course, of course they had to be, I just didn't know if maybe some of them, after talking, if you were like, Hey, actually, you know what, I've thought about this more and, you know, x, y, z after getting more detail, and I, I guess you, you know, talk about these amazing conversations.

What made your wife stand apart from the, the other four, you know, the other conversations? Yeah. There, there were a couple of conversations we're talking about more. They're like, that that sound, you know, it's a little much for me and I don't, it's not something I want to get into now that we've talked a little bit more.

You know, there were a couple of those and I'm like, yeah, totally. Like I have no fault for that. That's totally fine. But that was, that was the extent of that, you know. Right. My wife, however. I remember after a date, I was still, I was still in this angry with God situation. Right. And I remember saying a prayer before I go on this date that, hey, whatever you needed her on the other side for whatever job you've got her doing.

You know? 'cause they say like, God needed her more than more there than here. Whatever, you know? Mm-hmm. So that was kind of floating around my head. I'm like, whatever. In, in my mind at the time, I'm like, that's bullshit, but okay. You know, my, my limited, immortal perspective, right? I, and so I remember praying pretty angrily.

I'm like, whatever you think is more important to have her over there. I'm gonna call in some PTO, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull her away from that. Mm-hmm. And I want her to go with me on this date because I was also trying to be realistic with myself and understanding that I can't guarantee that my mind is a hundred percent right now, that I'm right.

That I'm not gonna miss some red flags or that I'm, you know, I don't know. I hope not, but there's a, there's a legit possibility that could be right, right, of course. And I could get taken advantage of or something like that. So I remember praying, I'm like, Hey, she's gonna come with me and I need her to tell me if I have a green light or not.

Like if, if this would be one to be okay pursuing or something. Right. So we go on the date and we had a great time. Remember we, we met up at Texas Roadhouse for our dinner and Hatchet throwing was like the big in fad at the time. You know, everybody's going hatchet throwing. Oh yeah. So we did that and we got ice cream and did all, all these things and, and had a, had a great time and loved each other's company.

And then she, she gets in her car and starts driving away and I was sitting, I was riding motorcycle. I rode my motorcycle up to our date. So I was sitting on my bike and I just said out loud, kind of talking to my wife in a, a kind of a prayerful way kind of a thing. I didn't really know how to do it.

Kinda like the experience I mentioned in the temple. I just said, well, babe. What do you think was, was the words that I said out loud and then I got a similar, like I got this super warm, like you can't describe that. Like just this, this feeling just like it felt so good and I'm like, that was the strongest like answer that I've gotten in a long time.

Probably since that, that time when I was in the NICU and read those scriptures about the resurrection. Right. It was comparable to that when I felt that, so I was like, wow, I didn't feel like her. Or maybe God was telling me like, you need to marry that one. That wasn't the words that came. I don't, I'm not a believer that God tells you you have to marry this person because there's agency involved there.

That's gotta be both ways, right? You can't just go tell a woman, God told me to marry you. Like that seems, seems a little manipulative to me, but I at least got the green light to like, you can feel at peace that she's like, she would be good. Right. Okay. So. I was like, all right, that's, I'm, I feel comfortable with this now and I'm, I'm just gonna trust that I'm gonna move forward as much as, as makes sense.

Right. And turns out that moving forward with that continued all the way and it ended up in us getting married about a year after my wife passed. That with that experience was what gave me the confidence and the clarity to be okay, you know, moving forward. For sure. And, you know, moving forward from that, I know nowadays you're a podcast guesting, you're speaking and you have a more than one child now.

So what has life just in a 30,000 foot overview from meeting your new wife to now, what has the course kind of been that has led you to speaking to coaching, to, to the podcast guesting and all that? Like, what kind of led you into that? That started with. Experiences that I had training other young adult men in the career that I transitioned to, and being like, it is basically unofficial life coaching for some of these guys.

Like it wasn't it wasn't intended to be that, but I had to transition from my sales job. I, I couldn't do my sales job anymore. Like the anxiety was too much, my brain was broken. I couldn't get back into it, and I eventually had to quit and, and I went to trade school and I got into HVAC and refrigeration school went blue collar instead of white collar.

So I've got plenty of experience in both worlds. Right, right. And transitioned to that career, applied the same tenacity that I did with my sales to the new career. Learned it really quick. Graduated trade school got a really good job and excelled at it. And because I was really, they found from sending new guys with me that I was really good at training them, really good at teaching 'em.

They just progressed faster if they rode with me all the time to our service calls and fixing stuff together, and it was during those car rides with them, as you know, the conversations initially would start technical, like, you know, what are you learning in school right now? How can I help you fi, you know, figure that out and learn those things, right?

But then as I would learn more about their life and their family and, and what's going on, I would start to start to get to know 'em a little bit better. And I could see these masks that they were wearing and I could tell that some of these masks. That they're wearing like kind of a, a, a version of themselves that they're projecting, you know, that's not actually who they are was likely centered around some wounds that they had experienced.

Some, for some reason, some self-esteem was low in certain areas for, for some reasons I didn't know for sure. But I had pretty good ideas because I had experienced some of those myself. And I'd, you know, seen other people. But my experience, losing my wife, going through the therapy, working on myself, figuring a lot of that out, gave me a much keener eye to be able to read people and apply that.

And I remember talking to some of these guys and like, Hey, I'm gonna make some guesses about your childhood. I want you to tell me if I'm right and if I'm wrong, I, I totally apologize, you know, whatever. And I would guess, I guess your, your relationship with your father is X, Y, Z and maybe your mother's X, Y, Z and you had these experiences maybe with friends or in school or whatever.

And nine out of 10 times I was right. And as I started to, to help these guys, like have those kind of conversations with themselves and figure those issues out, I started to realize that there, because of my experience, I had a very specific way that I, that I liked to work with those guys through those kind of processes.

And I decided to put in a book. I'm like, I think I like what I'm learning, teaching these young adults and training kind of the rising generation here that's just a few years younger than I am. There's a lot of common things and I, I end up, the way that I'm helping these guys is the same way I'm doing the exact same things even though the life situations are so different.

So I decided to, to put it in a book and I, I had never wanted to write a book. I had never wanted to speak. There was never anything on my mind. Right. But. I had a pretty powerful experience where I kind of felt something calling to me again. I felt a pull, like I should be doing something more. There was something more to my life I should be doing more.

And I just couldn't figure out what that was. It was driving me absolutely nuts. And finally I remember having a conversation with my mother actually one day, and in the midst of that conversation talking about stuff, it finally clicked, it, it, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I needed to get out there and share my story.

I needed to speak, I needed to, to do, do more with what I learned, whatever that looked like. So I only knew one guy that, that did any kind of speaking and he grew up in this, or I grew up in the same little farming town that he lived in. His name's Chad Jaus and he's a quadriplegic in a wheelchair. 'cause he had a one ton bale of hay fall on him while he was loading hay on his tractor and it broke his neck and paralyzed him.

Wow. That was, that happened when I was like five. And nowadays he travels all over the world doing that. So I knew he's the only guy that I knew that did anything like that. So I remember I texted him and I says, Hey, I just had this experience. I feel like I need to do something like this. I have no idea what that means or what that even looks like or what ev what to even do.

Can you help? So then I just started, I I went and met with him and talked with him at hi, at his house, and he gave me a couple other people I should talk to. Told me to go join the National Speakers Association. 'cause I would meet some other people that could help me out with that and figure out what is my message, who do I talk to?

And like right to, to kind of go down that path. And so I just started looking for mentors, started looking for other people that are doing that, that have figured out that their life is more and they can help other people. And trying to learn from them as much as possible and be in the same room as the people that have figured it out.

And by doing that I was able to figure myself out a little bit more. And I finished my book and I started speaking more I, and now. I still have my, my job of fixing commercial kitchen equipment. I still like doing that, you know, and as much as I can. In the meantime, I'm like, this weekend I'll be in Idaho speaking to a school district and doing a free community event the night before.

And there's original music that I've written as part of the keynotes that I did. The music thing is a whole other story. I didn't think I was gonna be doing that. And the framework that I teach in my book, that school district, the, the school counselors really liked it and they licensed it from me.

And we made some journals for students and now they're using it as kinda like a student success initiative for the rest of the year. So it just, it kinda just slowly but steadily kind of snowballs, you know? And it's still doing that. I should be, I'm, I'm working right now with a lady who's a chaplain at the Arkansas State Prison, and they want me to come out and speak to some of the guys in their chaplain program at the state prison.

So hopefully, you know, in a couple of months, maybe I might be doing that, you know, so it's just, I meet people. The message resonates with them and they have a group, they're like, I need you to, I need that for these people. I'm like, okay, yeah. Let's do whatever we can to make it happen. And just, you know, referral, referral, referral.

And I guess that's how you know that your message not only resonates, but is needed. 'cause when people hear it, they're like, they immediately think of somebody that needs it and they kind of drag you over there to go do it over there. And that's, that's kind of how it happens. Right. No, I completely agree.

Because I'm in the same boat as, you know, a speaker podcast or an author, you know, it was not the original plan for my life in a accordance, a accordance to my plan, you know, and a accordance to what I Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody's planet wouldn't mine. Right, right. And you look at where I look at everything God has lined up in my life for this to happen, including, you know, trauma inducing experiences and hardships in life.

Right. And, you know, you experienced that as well, going through tragedy to get to where you are now. But I think it's. Nice to be able to take a step back and look at how the lives were impacting. And, you know, it's, it's a sacrificial position to a degree that we didn't sign up for, but I think, you know, there's no greater love than to lay down your life for others.

And it's not just physically, it's spiritually and emotionally as well if our time in this world. And so I think it's so important too, whether it's writing, whether it's speaking, whether it's music, and I, I love that you do that because. I always tell people, listen, maybe your, your role isn't to tell your story through speaking or writing.

You might have to tell it through artwork to connect with that person who can only connect through art. We're all different. Some people, yeah, connect through sculpting and clay. Some people it's dancing. You know, there are people who tell their story through a different dance styles and that connects with those people who really speak through dancing.

And so I think the music is one of those industries as well. I love how diverse our music industry is. You know, some people love country, some people hate country, some people need rap, some people need jazz. You know, there's all these different styles and it connects with different people and I think that's so important.

And I'd love for you to share the name of your book with us and you know, tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, it's called The Overhaul, fixing Your Mindset and Driving Success. And you know, it's on Amazon, but the book itself, I don't share a lot of. My story, the preface is the story of what happened. But the rest of the book is like, this is what I learned.

This is what I feel passionate about teaching because of what I went through here. Right. And I use a lot of scientific analogies coming from my background in trades. 'cause in HVAC and refrigeration, I had to study thermodynamics. I had to study electricity and magnetism quite extensively to be able to diagnose those kinds of problems.

'cause everything I'm working on right is heat transfer equipment that is controlled by electricity and magnetism. That's what I'm working on every single day, every time I do a call. Right. So I had to study those things a lot more deeply than anybody would ever need to or want to. And because I understood a lot more of just how this world works from that perspective.

From from a Right. Physics or whatever perspective you wanna call that. Right. I really, really resonated with some things that I was learning through some other books I was reading. The very first series of books that I read that changed my life year, it was years before I got into the speaking part, was a book series called The Jackrabbit Factor, and it's by a lady named Leslie Householder.

And the Jackrabbit Factor is the first book in, in that three part series of books. And the last one, my favorite one is Portal to Genius and I, I highly recommend anybody read those. But she was talking about some things that she learned from executive coaching team from Bob Proctor and the Proctor Gallagher Institute.

And I started studying into those guys a lot and what they would teach, and I resonate a lot with it too, but I learned what they would refer to as the law of vibration. It resonated with me a lot because as they're explaining, this is how you create the reality that you want to live in. You know, there's a little bit more of an abstract idea for some people, and I remember there's a book really popular probably in the nineties by Rhonda Byrne called The Secret and this Law of Attraction kind of thing that people would talk about.

And so I'm, I'm reading what people are saying about this, and I'm, I'm resonating with it pretty strongly because I see from a scientific perspective that the vibration that they're talking about is literally how the world works. That's how we transfer energy. That's how, if I wanna take the heat energy in my house and move it outside, that's what HVAC is.

I'm just moving the heat energy somewhere else. We have to do it through the vibration of molecules and understand how that works. Mm-hmm. So as they're talking from like a personal development standpoint, I'm cl I'm connecting the dots to literally how, how. The physics of that works. I'm like, this makes so much sense to me, and there's so much more into that.

But then I started doing studies on my own. I'm like, there's gotta be more to this. And I come across some studies done by an organization called the HeartMath Institute, where they were reading the electromagnetic frequencies coming off of people, coming off of people's hearts and their minds, and how when people were feeling doubt and fear, the electromagnetic frequency coming off their heart and their mind was so chaotic and and distorted.

They could read it from several feet away, but it was kind of a destructive interference kind of frequency. But then when people were feeling authenticity and gratitude, it was super strong, super stable, and like magnetic, you know? It would help stabilize other because it was so strong and so stable, it would resist the destructive interference of other electromagnetic fields and things.

And so they're using all the scientific equipment to like see what's happening between people when they're interacting. Like it was blowing my mind, and I can understand because I had to study magnetism and electricity so much. Why that makes so much sense. So I'm like, I don't know anybody that's connecting these two worlds here.

I can't find anything on it, so I might as well do it From my perspective, I'm not a scientist or anything. I'm just a blue collar dude that fixes freezers. Right? I can, I can see both, you know? Yeah. So I, that's neat. I take a lot of those analogies and I say like, this is how people interact with each other.

This is how we create the world that we wanna live in. And here's the scientific stuff that I understand and how the world works to back it up, right? And so I start the book with that, and then I lay that as kinda like the foundation, like if you understand that this is kind of what's going on, if you wanna become magnetic to.

Success. You wanna become magnetic to the life that you want, then this is how you do it. And I teach my drive framework through that. And I kind of describe, drive as the layers of your magnetic field. And remember, magnets don't only attract, but they also repel, right? They're, they do both. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

They attract what's in harmony with them and they repel what's not. I'm like, that is what a magnetic person does. Someone that's not magnetic just gets kind of pushed around and doesn't accomplish anything. But someone who's really strong with their purpose, they're really charged with their, with their identity and with what they want to do, and they really move forward with it.

Some people aren't gonna like that. They're gonna repel those people and the, the environments and the opportunities that aren't in line with that. And they're gonna track the ones that are, you know, you can think of it metaphorically, or you can think of it literally how that's working. It doesn't really matter.

It, it still works, right? And the drive framework is discover, resolve, invest, visualize and elevate. And that's the system that I teach people on. You gotta discover what your wounds are. Discover what hails you. 'cause I use that as a term. I'm sure you're familiar with Simon Sinek, super famous speaker guy, right?

And he gave a viral TED talk years ago called Start With Your Why or Focus on your Why. And that's kind of his thing, right? That made him famous. And I remember I used that when I was in my sales career as a way to, to motivate myself, right? But then when I was going through the, the grief of losing my wife and trying to figure out what to do with my life, well my why was my son, I could hold him in my hands.

That's my why, but that's not helping me. That's not helping me figure out what to do. It's just giving me a lot of anxiety. It's, I need to figure it out, right? It's giving me a lot of pressure, but no clarity. So I learned that clarity comes through committed movement and committed movement. Drive is how you do the committed movement.

Discover who you are, what your wounds are, what hails you. I, I changed why? If you're looking for why I changed it into a question of like, well, what hails you? What's calling to you? Where do you feel pulled? And start moving that direction. Doesn't matter if you're moving straight towards it. You don't need to wait to know exactly what it is.

As long as you know it's in this general direction. Start moving somewhere in that direction. Then the clarity comes as you're moving towards it, right? Then the invest is once you know. That's kind of the direction that it's going. Well, then it's time to invest as fully in that as you possibly can. Like jump off the cliff or like Peter, step out of the boat, you know, go do it.

And then visualize is, well, this is how, this is how we actually take what James teaches us. And James chapter one where he says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. They give to all men liberally and pray shall be given him. Right? I like that word because I'm studying the King James version.

That's the one I like. And I like the word shall. In there it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God and it shall be given him. But then in verse six, he clarifies, he says, but let him ask. In faith nothing wavering. The nothing wavering, I think is the part that we all screw up. Because how often do we pray for things, but feel like, like we, we doubt that we're actually gonna get it.

Or we'd feel like we don't actually deserve what we're asking for. We don't deserve what we want. Like, like we're, we're wavering in our belief that it's actually coming. And James tells us right there, if you waver, God can't give it to you, even if he wants to. You're not putting yourself in line with the blessing.

You have to be able, you have to not waiver and move forward as if you're receiving it. Then it can come. Whether that's because God's waiting to give it to you for that, or because he's engineered the world to work that way. Either way it's from him, right? So I'm like, how do we, how do we not waver? Like, well, you follow Peter's example and you actually step outta the boat.

And then I go back to the HeartMath Institute on having your heart and your mind aligned and actually believing the same thing. So you have a stable frequency, I guess, for lack of a better term. The way that you do that, if you remember the frequencies that were the most stable were authenticity and gratitude.

It's like if we're praying, actually believing that it's coming, then we're being authentic to that and we're expressing gratitude for having received it before it even comes. The only other thing is how do you actually be authentic to it? Step outta the boat. Actually start moving. Like it's actually on the way.

Right? Right. And that's, that's the visualize. Like what is it gonna look like when I've actually made it to whatever I feel like is hailing me, whatever my goal is, and live like it's real and sprint that way as fast as you can. That's you visualize where you're going as you're going there. And then the elevate part of the drive framework is, I believe God's purpose is to bring, to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

That's what I think he's doing. I think he's trying to get us all back to him. That's why we have the Bible. That's why we have commandments. That's why we have scripture. That's why Jesus came in the first place to save us. So we go back to him, right, because we're all fallen. Well, if that's his goal. If the life that I want to live and the goals that I have actually help him accomplish that, God, he's on my team, then, you know, and things are gonna work out.

He's probably gonna give you some course corrections every once in a while. Like, I have a, what I think is a pretty big idea. Ooh, I think this would be really cool. I'd really like your help with this, and let's, let's go do it. And I start moving that way. And then he comes up with this little hint. He's like, actually, that's really good, but if you just make this little adjustment, it could be even bigger or it could be better, or something like that, you know?

Right. And that's how I feel my prayers get answered if I studied outta my mind first. I come up with my best idea of this is what I think needs to be done. And unless you tell me not to, I'm just gonna go start doing it. And I, I just want your help with it. So I'm just gonna move. I'm gonna start going that way.

I'm gonna drive that direction. And I find when I do that prayer are answered so much faster because. Somebody told me once that God can't steer a parked car. Right. I've heard that ever since I was a kid. Yeah, that's a good one. And I used to get so annoyed at that phrase. I'm like, no, duh. But how true is that?

You know, you actually have to be moving for him to make things happen. You can't just sit on your hands and ask why the rest of your life or else you'll, you'll stay there asking why the rest of your life, you know, you'll, you'll die with those questions, so you gotta get up and move. Right. And that's what the book is, is if I had to boil it all down to that one sentence, it would be that clarity comes through committed movement.

And then the book is just, what does committed movement look like? And mm-hmm. That's what it is. For sure. You gotta move with magnetic momentum, I could say. But I think that, there you go. Yeah. You know, you've given us a lot of great life advice and cultivations from what you've been through, and we're gonna have your website and a description below for everyone to check out your, your book, your speaking, it, just other ways to contact you.

And, you know, I really appreciate your time today and I look forward to the future and what you bring. And I just wanna thank you again for coming on the show and doing what you do. I think it's important, you know, that it's important for ourselves to overcome tragedy and it's even more important and humbling to then bring it to others, you know, because you.

I think we're obligated to ourselves to heal. But to bring that healing to others is us going above and beyond. I think we should be obligated to do it. I think it's our responsibility, but, you know, naturally it is not the first thing on our mind to be like, okay, I went through this. Now I'm gonna use it to help other people.

The first thing is, what about me? What am I gonna do? Right? And so I really appreciate the work that you're doing and, you know, touching lives and changing lives. And I hope that this episode has, has been that for all y'all listening. And if it wasn't for you, I hope that it is for someone. You know, I think that best thing we can do is if something doesn't help us it send it to someone who it, who it does.

So I, I really appreciate that and thank you for your time today. Yeah, thanks man. I have a, a free little gift for your listeners here that resonate a little bit with the kind of faith-based perspective of life success that we've been talking about. Mm-hmm. I wrote a. Excuse me. I put together just a little ebook that I called God's Laws of Success, where I take what I was talking about earlier on how the world works, right?

And I bring in the scriptures. And when I said I kind of bridge those two worlds and, and my perspective on how they work together on how to basically force success the way that you want it to look. I, I put it all in that ebook and I may even made a little worksheet. I'm like, Hey, here's the first little steps you could do to actually start putting drive to work.

So if somebody wants to actually give it a shot, they just go to my website. It should pop right up there, little ebook and throw your email in there and it'll send it to you automatically just as a little free gimme for your people. Awesome. I appreciate that. And we'll definitely have that for everyone to check out.

And thank you for your time today. Okay. Thanks man.