Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to SOS Stories of Survivors. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Serena Dansker, and today it is my absolute
Speaker 1: pleasure to introduce you to the man who is the
Speaker 1: founder and builder of empower Change. Roderick Alamania is here
Speaker 1: in the studio and he's joining us today and he's
Speaker 1: got an incredible story and he's going to talk about
Speaker 1: his journey through grief, how it inspired him to build
Speaker 1: this platform, and where he plans to take it. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Roderick for joining us today.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you I'm so excited. I I just
Speaker 1: want to start and dive in and ask you, you
Speaker 1: know who, where did you come from? And in your
Speaker 1: background and and we'll start there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm the youngest of five boys. So my parents
Speaker 2: were incredibly crazy. I have two kids of my own,
Speaker 2: both boys, and I'm just thinking, what the hell was
Speaker 2: my mom thinking? Having five boys two is like crazy?
Speaker 2: And I was, you know, it was just it was
Speaker 2: insane group in a small town. We were like one
Speaker 2: of the few Filipino families in that town. I went
Speaker 2: a private, you know, parochial school, a private Christian brothers
Speaker 2: school called Delsau and Concree, California. And then I went
Speaker 2: to u c LA. Wow, Yeah, which was fun.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. And what did you study at UCLA?
Speaker 2: And took a ton of accounting classes. And the interesting
Speaker 2: part was I was supposed to go into public accounting
Speaker 2: and eight weeks before graduation I called my parents said
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that. By the way, I
Speaker 2: got a drop at Club Med. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: be in Nassaklahamas working working at Club Med. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It was super fun. It's very much in line with
Speaker 2: kind of the theme of how I lived my life,
Speaker 2: which is very Carpe dm esque.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so talk to us about that. What did your
Speaker 1: life look like before grief entered your story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I just graduated from from UCLA and
Speaker 2: so I was at Club Med and I only did
Speaker 2: it for like maybe two months. And it was New
Speaker 2: Year's of nineteen ninety three. I remember sitting on a
Speaker 2: dock overlooking Nassau Harbor and thinking, oh, this is a waste.
Speaker 2: I need to go back and find a real job.
Speaker 2: And it was, and it was really serendipitous. I ended
Speaker 2: up like literally kind of was a very compulsive decision
Speaker 2: or impulsive I should say. And I went home, and
Speaker 2: you know, I'm so grateful that happened because I got
Speaker 2: to spend the last nine months with my dad before
Speaker 2: he passed away, and had I had an amazing time there,
Speaker 2: I probably would have continued on doing that.
Speaker 1: So I think you just came in and was given
Speaker 1: you those signs.
Speaker 2: Man, you know, oh crazy, I'm super super fortunate. So literally,
Speaker 2: I came back. I worked as a customer service representative
Speaker 2: at Bank of America. Wow. And I coached both boys
Speaker 2: and girls volleyball at the high school.
Speaker 1: My daughter played volleyball back in high school.
Speaker 2: That's so funny, super fun I don't play anymore, but
Speaker 2: I used to play a time.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's awesome. So so talk to me about law.
Speaker 1: So you came back, You spent you know, the remaining
Speaker 1: time of your father's life with him. You're able to
Speaker 1: do that. How did that impact you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, like you know, it was one of
Speaker 2: those things where I remember he used to wake me
Speaker 2: up at six because we didn't you know, we only
Speaker 2: had effectively one or two cars. I think we had
Speaker 2: like maybe two cars, and if I wanted the car,
Speaker 2: during the day. I would have to wake up super
Speaker 2: early and drive them to the train station, the park
Speaker 2: station here, and you know, it was typical of a
Speaker 2: college graduate, just kind of, you know, doing whatever, figuring
Speaker 2: out what my next thing was. While living with my
Speaker 2: mom and dad. And my dad started getting sick, and
Speaker 2: I remember we went up to we go up to
Speaker 2: the mountains and he was a great cook, and I
Speaker 2: remember he ended up burning the stakes and it's like,
Speaker 2: kind of that doesn't happen. Didn't help either. I also
Speaker 2: got food poisoning on that trip, but.
Speaker 1: I hope it wasn't from his stakes.
Speaker 2: I was not from his stakes. It was probably maybe
Speaker 2: partying too much, as he said. Yeah, but the long
Speaker 2: story short, you know that kind of this was July September.
Speaker 2: She started it's not being well, yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: he'd go into the hospital and they were trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what it was. And finally when you went
Speaker 2: to the hospital and this was I think it was
Speaker 2: September or late August, and I had just gotten off
Speaker 2: of work. My mom would pick me up and we
Speaker 2: were in the room and we found out he had
Speaker 2: terminal cancer.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And it was like the biggest gut punch. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It sucked, yeah, and it was. I remember being in
Speaker 2: he was sharing a room with this younger kid who
Speaker 2: was in for something that was probably innocuous relative to
Speaker 2: what we're going through, and they have this privacy sheet
Speaker 2: and the doctor hears breaking the news, telling him that,
Speaker 2: you know, he probably have three to four months to live,
Speaker 2: and we're like, it's this crazy moment, and his kid's
Speaker 2: probably on the other side going jeez, what thell it's crazy,
Speaker 2: It is crazy. It is crazy. So we found out
Speaker 2: and the long story short, I remember it was so
Speaker 2: hot that summer and we didn't have air conditioning, and
Speaker 2: we were going to bring him back home and they
Speaker 2: talked about moving him on hospice. I don't really know
Speaker 2: what that meant, but that whole next week we were
Speaker 2: preparing the house and move him back in, and he
Speaker 2: ended up dying a week later.
Speaker 1: The house. What did you do?
Speaker 2: We had, you know, we hired someone to put in
Speaker 2: like a portable ac into the house.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it was kind of.
Speaker 1: Hospital bed and all that our stay in his own bed.
Speaker 2: Was he able to No, he was in the hospital.
Speaker 2: I mean the night we took him to the hospital
Speaker 2: that he he he, I recall he came home, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then we were preparing the house because it was hot,
Speaker 2: and then he just got really really sick, and I
Speaker 2: remember carrying him into the car like he was a baby.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I oh, so kind of kind of full
Speaker 2: circle moment, so to speak.
Speaker 1: It's hard. It's hard to see our parents get older
Speaker 1: and especially become ill. You know, our heroes, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was young.
Speaker 2: He was only sixty one, wow, super super young. And
Speaker 2: I mean the tragedy and all this is that he
Speaker 2: and my mom sacrificed so much. They didn't make hardly
Speaker 2: any money, and he put us through all these private schools.
Speaker 2: I have no idea how they did that. And literally,
Speaker 2: like as soon as his life was begin to turn around,
Speaker 2: I was going to they were going to be empty nesting.
Speaker 2: It started doing some empty and nesty things like we
Speaker 2: finally had some money where they could actually do some travel.
Speaker 2: And you know, he ended up passing away at a
Speaker 2: at an early early age, and so kind of it sucks,
Speaker 2: it does it sucks?
Speaker 1: And how did that? How did his death impact you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you know you were living at
Speaker 1: home with your mom, your were your brother's there too?
Speaker 1: Was it just you?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember. I think it was just me
Speaker 2: and maybe one of my other brothers. The rest had
Speaker 2: you know, they're graduated in adults, so I think actually
Speaker 2: I actually don't even remember it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I'm sure you know your mom
Speaker 1: was leaning in on you guys, you know, trying to get.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it was like more we had to
Speaker 2: be there for her because it's like they were, you know,
Speaker 2: they were super close. I mean, they raised five kids,
Speaker 2: they sent us all off to college. I mean like
Speaker 2: this was supposed to be the time when they were
Speaker 2: going to enjoy kind of the fruits of their labor,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And you got felt a pretty shitty hand.
Speaker 1: Well that that's that's what it's all, you know, you don't.
Speaker 1: Life is crazy, right, It's a journey. But not everybody
Speaker 1: gets to live to be a hundred. Right, these plans
Speaker 1: with your spouse, especially if you're married. Family years where
Speaker 1: they married, they must have been married a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, I came from one of those families where
Speaker 2: like we had so many relatives. Yeah, Like when I
Speaker 2: remember introducing my wife and I would tell her if
Speaker 2: I am introduced you to this person because I don't
Speaker 2: know what your name is. By the way, she's an aunt,
Speaker 2: but she's not really an ant.
Speaker 1: Well that's yeah, they're friends of the family because your
Speaker 1: parents must have a long time. And then it's so
Speaker 1: hard because as you're losing your significant other anyway, you
Speaker 1: have all these plans, right, and then you have to
Speaker 1: pivot and you're broken hearted. So I can't imagine you know,
Speaker 1: what that was like for But thankfully you were there
Speaker 1: and to support her and help her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And so you know did that and like
Speaker 2: literally my life changed pretty dramatically. I got a grill job,
Speaker 2: not that a CSR is not a fake job, but
Speaker 2: I got a career job working in media, and I
Speaker 2: was an early employee of the search engine info seue wow,
Speaker 2: And so you know, I you know, you know, quite frankly,
Speaker 2: I was one of those people in the Internet back
Speaker 2: in you know, nineteen ninety five ninety six who had
Speaker 2: this amazing windfall financially just because you know, I was
Speaker 2: working for this really successful company who went public, and
Speaker 2: you know it was kind of nice. I was able
Speaker 2: to kind of like do stuff with my mom that
Speaker 2: we never could have dreamed of doing.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Like I remember she loved Phanoma of the Opera and
Speaker 2: I remember I bought her front row seats.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you are a good son.
Speaker 2: Thanks. Yeah. But unfortunately this fun story turns dark. She
Speaker 2: got diagnosed with a plunge cancer and I think it
Speaker 2: was like nineteen ninety six, ninety seven ish, and so
Speaker 2: you know, we just made we made the best of it.
Speaker 2: And you know, was her caregiver and I was there
Speaker 2: when she passed away. Wow. And so you know, just
Speaker 2: like that, by nineteen ninety eight, I had lost both
Speaker 2: my parents. Oh and I was you know, wasn't even
Speaker 2: thirty yet.
Speaker 1: We how did that hit you? I mean we did
Speaker 1: you go through a time of darkness when losing them both?
Speaker 1: Or you bury yourself in work? How did you deal
Speaker 1: with that? What did you do?
Speaker 2: I probably buried myself in work. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was the internet heydays, so like, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of work to be done. I definitely
Speaker 2: was not productive, although I mean during at the time
Speaker 2: of my mother's death, and you know, thank god my
Speaker 2: boss gave me a pass on that. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of have a pretty much a type a personality,
Speaker 2: and I think I have a really strong will and
Speaker 2: I'm very focused on perseverance. And you know, I'm actually
Speaker 2: a distance athlete. I was a triathlete or yeah I was.
Speaker 2: I don't do it anymore, but I it's like I
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, looking back on my kind of personality,
Speaker 2: but I try to do things that people feel are
Speaker 2: hard to do, and in many ways, it's kind of
Speaker 2: my way of saying, Hey, if I can get past this,
Speaker 2: I can get past anything.
Speaker 1: You know. It's so, did you find that this loss
Speaker 1: that you're you know, losing with your parents, that it
Speaker 1: had a profound impact on you? What changed in your life?
Speaker 1: Did anything?
Speaker 2: Or it's just you know that kind of as you know,
Speaker 2: when you lose someone you unfortunate, life has to go on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and many days, await, many days you just survived the day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and you make the you try to. I
Speaker 2: see it myself as being a very optimistic person. So
Speaker 2: I've always tried to make the best of the situation.
Speaker 2: And I mean I've gotten some great cards and some
Speaker 2: shitty cards too, And losing both your parents, it really
Speaker 2: gives you the perspective of like what's important?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it sounds and you know, and at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you're almost like you're you're you're
Speaker 1: on your you'really an adult, you're on your own. You're
Speaker 1: you know, you you don't have the strings attached any longer.
Speaker 1: And and it's hard. I think it's it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to you know, to get used to that fact. But
Speaker 1: you can't just pick up the phone and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I need advice on blah blah blah. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult. What what What in your life did
Speaker 1: you realize that that your story or what you've gone
Speaker 1: through could help people? You know, you're here, you are,
Speaker 1: you're in the internet, you're doing all this crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: When did when did you pivot? When did you change?
Speaker 1: And what was the catalyst for that?
Speaker 2: You know, what actually happened recently?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: I wash, Yeah, I was just kind of going on
Speaker 2: with life. I had a you know, been pretty fortunate
Speaker 2: in my career. I've had some pretty good successes. You know,
Speaker 2: my wife is very successful also. And it was when
Speaker 2: I kind of semi retired back in nineteen or twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three. Nineteen twenty twenty three was when I kind
Speaker 2: of really started taking a deep breath on kind of realizing,
Speaker 2: you know, just taking a step back. You know, when
Speaker 2: you're working in the startup space, it's could be pretty intense.
Speaker 2: So like, I never really thought, quite frankly about my
Speaker 2: grief journey at all. It was like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like life is. I'm just going to live my life.
Speaker 2: Like literally, in many ways, what I did is kind
Speaker 2: of a tribute for my parents. It's like I'm going
Speaker 2: to go get these wins that they couldn't experience. I'm
Speaker 2: going to be able to travel and you know, I
Speaker 2: had a couple of fancy cars, like eat it cool places,
Speaker 2: do really interesting things and in many ways, sorry, oh.
Speaker 1: That's okay, I can take a breath. It's it's a lot,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: It was it was like it's a win for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. You know, it's it's your parents
Speaker 1: are you know, you want to make the proud, and
Speaker 1: it's it's you want to you know, do things for
Speaker 1: them that they couldn't do and hope that they're watching down.
Speaker 1: And I know your parents are watching down, and you
Speaker 1: know they're so yeah.
Speaker 2: Loud, I say, you know, maybe this started back in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. I also lost my older brother
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago. He had a long pow
Speaker 2: of diabetes and I'm so sorry he passed. He passed away. God,
Speaker 2: that day was so surreal. I was after my kind
Speaker 2: of like, I've worked a whole bunch of different Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley startups, and in twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen, I
Speaker 2: decided that I was going to become a startup ounder
Speaker 2: and I founded my own company Wow. And I remember
Speaker 2: being in a when my brother died. He was in
Speaker 2: I think Colorado, and I got to say basically goodbye
Speaker 2: to him on the phone. I mean he obviously wasn't
Speaker 2: isn't really there, but I got to say goodbye to him.
Speaker 2: But it was such a surreal day because I went
Speaker 2: straight from that into a pitch meeting with some investors.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And it was just like, so, Surrell.
Speaker 1: How do you you know you pivot from that? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's crazy. You just put on the game face
Speaker 1: and you just go into work or yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean literally I just said, hey man, spiritful disclosure.
Speaker 2: I just got the phone my brother he passed away,
Speaker 2: so to share with me, And they were super cool
Speaker 2: about it, and actually some of them ended up investing,
Speaker 2: not because they felt sorry, it's a pretty cool idea. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that was just a really surreal, surreal day. And yeah, crazy,
Speaker 2: that's crazy, quite frankly. I've had a lot of loss
Speaker 2: in my family, some through tragedy that kind of two
Speaker 2: nieces that I do effectively violence, which is horrible. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: We've dealt with a lot of loss, but I've just
Speaker 2: kind of always kept the mindset of, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like story from Finding Nemo, just keep swimming, Just keep swimming.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's that's what you have to do. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a journey, right, And I don't know why
Speaker 1: why so many young people are, you know, pass on
Speaker 1: and for all various reasons, but it's it's it's hard.
Speaker 1: And you know, losing a sibling is is you don't
Speaker 1: you know your parents who expect you know, although it's
Speaker 1: at a young age, is difficult, but you expect your
Speaker 1: parents to go. It's a natural order of things. But
Speaker 1: to lose a sibling or a child or a niece,
Speaker 1: it's it's so so hard. So let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: you know, how you how you use your grief to
Speaker 1: pivot a little bit, and and and what happened in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three when you decided
Speaker 1: to retire. I guess it was kind.
Speaker 2: Of wake up call. This was right around COVID, right,
Speaker 2: and you know, running a startup, which I ran for
Speaker 2: six years. We've raised several million dollars. And that is
Speaker 2: not being a startup founder, especially a first time founder.
Speaker 2: It's not a job for the faint of heart. It
Speaker 2: is I can't imagine, it's right, It's really and hard. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I could just imagine.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: In twenty two was particularly a very challenging year for me.
Speaker 2: I got a injury skiing which set me back big
Speaker 2: time my uh torm a CEO, I fractured my pelvis,
Speaker 2: caught COVID in the hospital during this whole thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like just was like the ship show year, like,
Speaker 2: oh my.
Speaker 1: God, that you were challenged on every level.
Speaker 2: I mean I had had these heart palpitations. So in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, in addition to dealing with a startup
Speaker 2: and you know the pressure around that and these injuries,
Speaker 2: I had a heart ablation at aco surgery. I'm keeping
Speaker 2: this startup Alive unfortunately became the largest investor, and right
Speaker 2: at the end of twenty two twenty two, we found
Speaker 2: out my wife had breast cancer.
Speaker 1: Oh like one bad heart after another. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: how much could we make Roderick take the universe? Let's
Speaker 1: see how much before he came? Did you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: What's an interesting is you know when you go through this,
Speaker 2: knows it's like that that's my parents and my brother,
Speaker 2: and it's like prepares you for Hey, it's actually not
Speaker 2: that bad. Like even although remember being incredibly stressed out
Speaker 2: running this company and making this are we going to
Speaker 2: make it or not? Decision? I realized I made the
Speaker 2: decision in January of twenty twenty three. I'm done. We're
Speaker 2: done with this. I take care of my wife, Like
Speaker 2: there's more to life than you know, running this trying
Speaker 2: trying to build a startup, and so shut it down.
Speaker 2: And you know, luckily my wife got amazing treatment and
Speaker 2: right around June of twenty twenty three. People will probably
Speaker 2: last this. I'm old school. I still go to the
Speaker 2: Yahoo homepage. Actually like how they lay it out. And
Speaker 2: this isn't a non seculary story. I read a story
Speaker 2: about that Congress, who was the founder of Elizabeth Smiles,
Speaker 2: and he was building the equipment of like a social
Speaker 2: network for kids who were about to lose a parent.
Speaker 2: And obviously I was like, Wow, that's pretty awesome. And
Speaker 2: I know how even being in a villa, I know
Speaker 2: how shitty it is to lose a parent. And so
Speaker 2: I literally went to their website, saw the info, send
Speaker 2: him an email. Hey, my name is Rodrick Alamannia. Here's
Speaker 2: my LinkedIn. I've done some really cool stuff on the Internet.
Speaker 2: I've built businesses. I see what you're trying to build.
Speaker 2: How can I help?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 2: And Jeff Kimball, who's my co founder, who you also
Speaker 2: has also been on your show, responded to my email.
Speaker 2: And the sad part of the story, I never got
Speaker 2: an opportunity to meet Nick, like within two weeks he
Speaker 2: passed away. It was crazy. Wow. But I was helping
Speaker 2: Jeff with Elizabeth Smiles and when wounded down, Jeff and I,
Speaker 2: you know, Jeff had been trying to get me to
Speaker 2: engage full time with them, and I said to them, Hey,
Speaker 2: why don't we just create our own nonprofit focus on grief.
Speaker 1: Wow. That was the start of empower change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was the start of empower Change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did how did? How did you feel about
Speaker 1: like starting this you know, new endeavor at this you know,
Speaker 1: at this juncture.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I told Jeff, hey, we're going to do this.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Lisa's smiles was my first real
Speaker 2: experience working with the nonprofit. I basically said, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: like we need rock stars working here, like, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to run it like a real cup, like
Speaker 2: a like a startup. Basically, I don't want to be
Speaker 2: continuously fundraising because I felt like the nonprofits that I
Speaker 2: did I have visibility to and as I learned more
Speaker 2: about the nonprofit space, I feel like probably the majority
Speaker 2: of them spend about eighty to ninety percent of their
Speaker 2: time fundraising and about ten percent of their time actually
Speaker 2: focus on their mission. Yeah, which absolutely sucks. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: having fundraised for the last six years from my startup,
Speaker 2: I said, okay, we're going to do this. We need
Speaker 2: to figure out, like how can we make whatever we
Speaker 2: build scale? And cann't have a business model beyond gaining donations. Wow,
Speaker 2: So what we did was we spent you know, Jeff
Speaker 2: was working at another nonprofit luckily, since I was kind
Speaker 2: of retired I took all the mechanics of starting a
Speaker 2: business and everything I learned in my career, and I
Speaker 2: tacked grief and solving grief the same way that you
Speaker 2: would try to solve for a problem at a tech startup. Wow,
Speaker 2: what's the market opportunity, what are the pain point? You know,
Speaker 2: what is your solution? How are you going to make money?
Speaker 2: How you're going to get in the hands of customers?
Speaker 2: You know, who are you users? All all those things.
Speaker 2: And we spent eighteen months really kind of looking at this,
Speaker 2: and I quickly came to the conclusion that there's a
Speaker 2: lot of brief resources out there. But when you start
Speaker 2: looking at the statistics, what's interesting is that seven out
Speaker 2: of ten people who are going through grief don't do anything,
Speaker 2: don't get any sort of help or support. And that
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean that you need to see a therapist, no,
Speaker 2: But you know, then there's the other thirty percent who
Speaker 2: luckily are strong willed. But that's seventy percent. That's an
Speaker 2: amazing that's incredible.
Speaker 1: That's an incredible number. Seventy percent of people who are grieving,
Speaker 1: you know, just just swallowing that in that and that
Speaker 1: that that darkness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Jeff and I started looking yea, Jeff and
Speaker 2: I started looking at why yeah, And so I started
Speaker 2: looking at what are the reason verses that are being
Speaker 2: offered to them. And we started looking at that not
Speaker 2: only what was being offered, but how it was being offered.
Speaker 2: Our go to market for what we're building is hospice.
Speaker 2: You know, I've experienced hospice both times. And you know,
Speaker 2: as an example, we look at what are the support
Speaker 2: systems that hospice offers a lot of times they might
Speaker 2: give you some material, they'll make phone calls, but when
Speaker 2: you are going through grief, you're like not operating at
Speaker 2: the same capacity, Like you just want to isolate. You
Speaker 2: want to you know, you don't want to you need
Speaker 2: to be around people, but you don't want to be
Speaker 2: around people at the same time.
Speaker 1: Well because you feel bad because you feel like you're
Speaker 1: a downer. You know, you walk into a party and
Speaker 1: you know it's like, oh, there's the woman who lost
Speaker 1: her son. You know, it's immediate like party goes you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and plus you know you're just kind of
Speaker 2: this whole grief mindset, like you don't really process information
Speaker 2: that well. No, and when I started looking at kind
Speaker 2: of how we are trying to get people to get help.
Speaker 2: It's totally broken. Like you can have the best briefing
Speaker 2: coordinator at a hospice and they have the best heart,
Speaker 2: but if you're not ready to talk to them because
Speaker 2: where you are mentally, they're never going to break through
Speaker 2: to you. And I mean, look at the context. They
Speaker 2: don't know you. You know you're there to help them,
Speaker 2: but like you're having a hard time helping yourself. If
Speaker 2: you're given information. A lot of times, the information that
Speaker 2: I've seen can be very clinical. I'm not saying all
Speaker 2: that is.
Speaker 1: It can be information too, because I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many times, you know, with my mother, you know
Speaker 1: who's going through stuff right now, they give you like
Speaker 1: a packet. I don't have time to sit there and
Speaker 1: read through everything. I don't have the mental capacity to
Speaker 1: understand everything i'm reading either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly. It's too much information for the graving mind. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it really is. So what Jeff and I decided was,
Speaker 2: you know, what our mission is is to effectively make
Speaker 2: brief support more approachable and accessible. And you know another
Speaker 2: thing when you look at count grief support is look at,
Speaker 2: for example, if you're working for a company, you have
Speaker 2: an employee Assistance program in EAP, and I looked at
Speaker 2: the EAPs grief counseling services and sometimes there are PDFs
Speaker 2: that are just they're just poor. It's just poor execution
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, like poor, poor, poor execution.
Speaker 2: And so the problem we're trying to solve and and
Speaker 2: a lot of times it's only meant for a person
Speaker 2: working where there might be a family member who needs this,
Speaker 2: And so accessibility is the other issue. It's like main
Speaker 2: point with hospice, main point of contact. Well, if you're
Speaker 2: coming from a big family, there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: grieving that need to be served.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like I'm going to say, hey, dude,
Speaker 2: check out this. Uh hey broke, here's a pamphlet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly. It's it's hard. Wow. So, so how
Speaker 1: do you support people? How? What is how does empowered
Speaker 1: change change the way the world is working right now?
Speaker 2: Well, the crazy part is a lot of the grief
Speaker 2: support is being done. I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff being done online, but nobody's going to it. We're
Speaker 2: fixing the problem that nobody's going to So we're not
Speaker 2: actually creating the support services themselves. But what we're doing
Speaker 2: is we're creating almost like the catalysts so people actually
Speaker 2: start using them. And the way we're doing that is
Speaker 2: basically guiding someone through kind of the bereavement process, whether.
Speaker 1: It's I got chilled, wow.
Speaker 2: You know, before the person enters hospice, they could be
Speaker 2: in palliative care. I mean, it's part of our vision,
Speaker 2: which there's a lot of absolutely a face or they're
Speaker 2: just entering hospice or even post hospice. A lot of
Speaker 2: brief characters have until the person's died. But as you know,
Speaker 2: when someone is like your mother, like you know she's going,
Speaker 2: Like when you find out someone's on their left, you know,
Speaker 2: if in hospice, you've already started grieving.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you grieve as soon as they're not the
Speaker 1: person that you that that they're raised you, that you
Speaker 1: know they're they're they're they're not them, you know, And
Speaker 1: and it's it's heartbreaking. I got to tell you about
Speaker 1: every time I visit I visit my mother every day,
Speaker 1: and these hospitals and nursing cares and it just breaks
Speaker 1: my heart. You know, it's it's just devastating, it really is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So what we're trying to build is really
Speaker 2: kind of think of it like a media company, okay,
Speaker 2: where we're personalizing the grieving experience. We're starting with hospice.
Speaker 2: So hospice we know someone's going to pass away, we
Speaker 2: know what their family, you know, if they have family,
Speaker 2: if they have kids. The hospices know this, We probably
Speaker 2: have some knowledge of like what are their religious beliefs
Speaker 2: or their values. And the idea is instead of engaging
Speaker 2: them on our time, which is hey, I'm a breeven
Speaker 2: counselor you want to talk now, let's just put it online.
Speaker 2: Most of the stuff isn't online, and if it's online,
Speaker 2: it's not done in a very kind of native fashion.
Speaker 2: Like our vision is, if we know that the person
Speaker 2: is a Asian man who lost his wife, who has
Speaker 2: two kids, we're going to create. What we've done is
Speaker 2: we've mapped out the journey of all the things that
Speaker 2: you need to do, not just around bereavement, but around
Speaker 2: what're all the things? What are the things? How do
Speaker 2: I tell work? How do I tell my kids? All
Speaker 2: those things? We basically kind of created the journey, and
Speaker 2: what we're creating is almost like a video tutorial, except
Speaker 2: for the person who's going to take you through the
Speaker 2: video tutorial kind of not your circumstances. It's like, hey,
Speaker 2: if it's an Asian man, deally, it's an Asian man
Speaker 2: who's basically saying, hey, dude, I've gone through the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah suck, Yeah, I mean, And our first thing isn't
Speaker 2: about giving you advice. We you know, we say greet
Speaker 2: doesn't begin with advice and begins with feeling understood. So
Speaker 2: step one is to tell the person, hey, man, we
Speaker 2: understand you. We're giving you this personalized experience. We understand you,
Speaker 2: and you know this sucks, but you are going to
Speaker 2: get through it, and let me give you all the
Speaker 2: you know, they'd we give you kind of all the
Speaker 2: things that you need to do. So we're creating really
Speaker 2: short form almost think like TikTok videos, short form video modules,
Speaker 2: walking people when they're ready, on their time, with someone
Speaker 2: who's kind of looks and feels like them taking them
Speaker 2: through the process. And we're not hiring actors. We're finding
Speaker 2: people from the community who have been through this. And
Speaker 2: one thing that's amazing about the grief community is that
Speaker 2: people have gone through grief that are further down that
Speaker 2: path want to help the people that are just starting
Speaker 2: down the path.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, that's that's why I do this. This is a
Speaker 1: platform to help people. And that's but you know, your
Speaker 1: story is amazing. It's so cutting edge and really really
Speaker 1: needed in this community for people. I mean truly, Roderick,
Speaker 1: this is this is brilliant.
Speaker 2: I mean, thank you so much. Yeah. The thing that
Speaker 2: I think that's been amazing about this whole experience. I've
Speaker 2: sold advertising on the internet and I've worked for different
Speaker 2: sas companies, and this is the first time in my
Speaker 2: whole career where we connected two people who had similar
Speaker 2: experiences with grief, and never before in my life I said, Wow,
Speaker 2: what I did actually is meaningful to someone, like really
Speaker 2: really meaningful. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It is so frigging cool. It really is. Because you
Speaker 1: need that. You need community. I mean, I think in
Speaker 1: all of the struggles throughout my life, what has gotten
Speaker 1: me through them is my community, my friends, the people,
Speaker 1: my my my twe my church. You know, those communities
Speaker 1: are who help me get back up and wipe the
Speaker 1: dirt off my knees and make that movement forward one
Speaker 1: step at a time. Because I had support, I had community,
Speaker 1: and it's it's so important for resilience to how do
Speaker 1: you know, how do you bounce back when you've been
Speaker 1: knocked down so many times in your life? You know.
Speaker 2: And that's the strength of what we're building. I mean,
Speaker 2: online by definition is all about community. And you know,
Speaker 2: the reason why the social media networks are what they
Speaker 2: are is because people find people who are like minded.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know the interesting thing about from the business
Speaker 2: side of what we're building, I don't really need to
Speaker 2: build the services. I just need to build basically that bridge.
Speaker 2: It's people using the services, like I have to start
Speaker 2: an online community. The communities are out there, people just
Speaker 2: need to find them and be connected with them. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: so that's what we're doing on the product side. But
Speaker 2: you know, as I mentioned, we have to build a
Speaker 2: product that can someone wants to pay money for, right, right,
Speaker 2: And this brought up the interesting question is why we
Speaker 2: spent so much time on building this business. It's who
Speaker 2: is our user versus who is our customer? Oh and
Speaker 2: you know our user is anyone grieving, yes, but our customer.
Speaker 2: And this is one thing about running, you know, about
Speaker 2: building a business. We need customers. Yeah, business small, and
Speaker 2: that's that's the hard part about nonprofits, you know, they're
Speaker 2: reliant on donations all the time. We spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time looking at the business side of the equation.
Speaker 2: Take Hostage for as an example, grieven coordinators are a
Speaker 2: cost center. And given everything going on in the world
Speaker 2: right now around every business is typening, it spelt no
Speaker 2: one wants to invest, if anything, they want to cut.
Speaker 2: I mean that's the whole thing about an AI, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, how can I cut head count? And so
Speaker 2: in building solving this human problem that I just talked about,
Speaker 2: we also had to solve a business problem. And knowing
Speaker 2: that hospices probably will not invest in briefing services because
Speaker 2: they don't make money, we had to solve a business problem.
Speaker 2: And so this is where a lot of my kind
Speaker 2: of startup experience and mentality came into play. And it
Speaker 2: took us made a step back into the hospice space
Speaker 2: and say, okay, this is a cost how can we
Speaker 2: give them a financial incentive to to adopt what we're building.
Speaker 2: We're building almost like a software platform, right and when
Speaker 2: we start looking at how hospices acquire customers and they
Speaker 2: call it census, you know, we call the Customer Act.
Speaker 2: Then they call they call it census growth. The service
Speaker 2: we're building can actually aid them in acquiring new customers
Speaker 2: because now they can start offering services before someone's even
Speaker 2: a customer of theirs, Like, hey, if you're if you're
Speaker 2: going through REEF, here's a free resource that we have.
Speaker 2: So now we're directly tying the support that we're building
Speaker 2: to a business objective. The other interesting component about this,
Speaker 2: and not to sound like an to capitalist, but there
Speaker 2: is a boatload and there is a massive market for
Speaker 2: afterlife post life services, whether it be state attorneys, funeral homes.
Speaker 2: Obviously you've been through that. You know there's different services,
Speaker 2: and you know, again looking at this obtusely, in many ways,
Speaker 2: I had to compartmentalize this. It's like, if I'm able
Speaker 2: to build a distribution through these hostices, there's some there's
Speaker 2: a media monetization opportunity where we can sell sponsorships, those
Speaker 2: sorts of things, and they can effectively fund the platform. Wow.
Speaker 2: So for the hospices, I'm giving them something that gives
Speaker 2: their patients better care to help them acquire customers. They
Speaker 2: don't have to hire additional headcount, and the thing is
Speaker 2: effectively what I'm building is an old school and media
Speaker 2: company online. So financially speaking, what we're building is not
Speaker 2: expensive to build. It's very cheap to build, and we
Speaker 2: can scale it.
Speaker 1: That's it's just brilliant and and and but more than that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's you're helping people, and you're you're you're
Speaker 1: building a community, and you're you're educating people you know
Speaker 1: what what's out there, and and and also you're able
Speaker 1: to make a business and make a profit or you know, uh,
Speaker 1: help businesses invest in your platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, interestingly enough, you know what start offs a
Speaker 2: non profit. We spun out a public benefit corporation that
Speaker 2: the nonprofit is an owner in, and it is built
Speaker 2: specifically so it can do for profit deals and we
Speaker 2: can let the nonprofit. You know, it's still focused around
Speaker 2: the nonprofit, but this entity allows us to work with
Speaker 2: for profit companies and the way that we're structuring it,
Speaker 2: this will be the business model that sustains the nonprofit
Speaker 2: and ideally I won't have the fundraise.
Speaker 1: Wow, but how does the privacy come in? Like, because
Speaker 1: they're so strict about the hip and the privacy and
Speaker 1: all of that, does that come into play here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, So the way that we thought about it
Speaker 2: was that what we build will live on the hospices domain.
Speaker 2: So I'm like a software as a service, so I'm
Speaker 2: not sending anyone to my website where I'm collecting the data.
Speaker 2: It lives effectively on the hospices cloud, so to speak.
Speaker 2: So it's their data. And you know, I have zero
Speaker 2: interest in and like having ownership or even partial ownership
Speaker 2: on the data. I mean, like still, ultimately this is
Speaker 2: driven by the mission, which is to make grief support,
Speaker 2: you know, approachable and accessible.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's it's absolutely incredible. All right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: shift skiers a little bit. I'm going to do like
Speaker 1: a little around kind of a one word Uh, I
Speaker 1: have a little fun, you know, but all right, let's
Speaker 1: let's try one word that describes your grief journey.
Speaker 2: What do you think ongoing? Really ongoing? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: like you know, like I didn't realize I was going
Speaker 2: through this grief journey all these years and kind of
Speaker 2: you know, since then, it's gone going.
Speaker 1: Well, depend on the same token. One word that describes
Speaker 1: your healing right, because you are you're healing from from
Speaker 1: doing this right with one one describes.
Speaker 2: That It's called transformational.
Speaker 1: I love that I do, because it's true, you are
Speaker 1: we we do. We change when you go through something
Speaker 1: trauma from where you were to you don't even see
Speaker 1: the change happening, and all of a sudden you've become
Speaker 1: a whole new person. Not that there was anything wrong
Speaker 1: with you before, but it's like the caterpillar into the butterfly.
Speaker 1: You know, you just want you transform, you emerge, Right.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting. One of our investors lives in Asia
Speaker 2: and he talks about the seasons of life, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of, you know, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 2: in kind of be giving a season of my life.
Speaker 2: I've been fortunate enough to get a lot out of it,
Speaker 2: been through a lot, but I've also gotten a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm fortunate enough to retire at a really relatively young age.
Speaker 2: And you know, like what's really fun about this, which
Speaker 2: was weird to say about working in a grief grief company,
Speaker 2: is that I've been able to take something I'm super
Speaker 2: passionate about and combine it with my background, which is
Speaker 2: around kind of technology and startups. And you know, it's
Speaker 2: innovation and technology, it really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like, you know, all the pieces
Speaker 1: of the puzzle just came together, which is amazing.
Speaker 2: Really, what's interesting about our business is that the really
Speaker 2: interesting opportunities when we go after corporations and their employee
Speaker 2: assistance programs because you know, the business problem or solving
Speaker 2: and as had mentioned that companies lose over one hundred
Speaker 2: billion annually in the US, the empathy dot plump due
Speaker 2: to grieving employees and incredible and you know, obviously there's
Speaker 2: the altruistics set of a company, but like we're also
Speaker 2: dealing with, these companies are in the business of making
Speaker 2: money and being profitable, and so if we can give
Speaker 2: them something that not only helps from plays but helps
Speaker 2: their business. Yeah, and it doesn't cost a lot, it's
Speaker 2: a win win. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's just oh my gosh. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go back.
Speaker 2: To my one, the speed Rone.
Speaker 1: What's what's what's a song? A song that brings you comfort?
Speaker 1: How's that.
Speaker 2: Dropped to Jupiter from train? You know this batory on that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well it was with his wife, right there was.
Speaker 2: His mother, his mother?
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me tell me because.
Speaker 2: I yeah, well, train was I was watching VH one
Speaker 2: behind the music a couple of let's go on it,
Speaker 2: and train was trying to find this hit song, and
Speaker 2: he had just lost his mother, and you know, the
Speaker 2: songs about like his his mother being in the atmosphere
Speaker 2: and you know, they made this amazing hit song, but
Speaker 2: it was you know, basically part of its kind of
Speaker 2: whole healing journey.
Speaker 1: I love You know, so many people artists that have
Speaker 1: have written songs about grief. They're they're just they're so powerful.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't even stars go through the grieving
Speaker 1: process like we do. It's just it's it's and it
Speaker 1: comes out in there in the words and the lyrics
Speaker 1: and in the rawness and the tenderness when they sang
Speaker 1: I Love Love Train and one of my favorite favorite groups,
Speaker 1: what I.
Speaker 2: Love about that. Also, there's also this whole element of
Speaker 2: hope around it too, Whi's that's not not about the
Speaker 2: doom and gloom of grief, which which is really kind
Speaker 2: of you know, part of what we're trying to do
Speaker 2: is show people, yeah, give me someone it sucks, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't It doesn't mean it has to be the
Speaker 2: end of your life, like you'll still be sad, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that you can't find still can't find
Speaker 2: you know, it's just as like can be both beautiful
Speaker 2: and brutal at the same time when you're grieving and
Speaker 2: you know you can. It really is you know, you
Speaker 2: can still have a fulfilling life, even it will never
Speaker 2: be the same, but you can still have a.
Speaker 1: Fulfilling Yes, but it can be still be beautiful and
Speaker 1: it's you're forever changed when you go through this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how about one word that describes and power change?
Speaker 2: Authentic?
Speaker 1: Oh? I like that.
Speaker 2: You know this isn't about you know, my condults and
Speaker 2: thoughts and prayers. This is about us saying hey man,
Speaker 2: this sucks, but you know what, let me get you
Speaker 2: through it. Wow, I'm going through just what you. I've
Speaker 2: already got through what you And yeah, it absolutely sucks,
Speaker 2: but let me tell you all the things that you
Speaker 2: need to think about. But we tell you about it
Speaker 2: in a way where you can digest it and if
Speaker 2: you forget it, you can go back to it and
Speaker 2: it's done in just like a way that's just totally approachable.
Speaker 1: That's so crazy, so awesome.
Speaker 2: I think this is going to be really important for men. Yes,
Speaker 2: as men, you know we you know men or men,
Speaker 2: we have this machisimo bullshit.
Speaker 1: You don't show you vulnerability. I mean, that's that's the thing.
Speaker 1: You haven't been raised that way. You guys all hold
Speaker 1: it all in, whereas women, you know, we're allowed to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable, we're allowed to let let it out. You guys,
Speaker 1: I feel it's detrimental to your health because your shoulder
Speaker 1: so much and you hold it all in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, obviously it's gotten lot better. People are
Speaker 2: a lot more forthcoming, Like I don't stress out telling
Speaker 2: people I see a therapist. Before it'd be like, oh,
Speaker 2: why are you seeing a shrink man? Now it's like
Speaker 2: who doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, exactly exactly. That's I know men need this,
Speaker 1: men need that support. It's it's it's we all need support.
Speaker 1: But I think you know the men need it more
Speaker 1: right now, you know, Yeah?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I always applaud you know, when people who
Speaker 2: are kind of famous, whether it be an entertainment athlete,
Speaker 2: when they show that vulnerability because you're just like, man,
Speaker 2: that that person, that dude or that woman, and who's
Speaker 2: amazing is going to you know, they're all going through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's you know, grief affects all of us,
Speaker 1: every one of us. I don't care who you are,
Speaker 1: what you do for a living, you know, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how old you are, It doesn't discriminate. It
Speaker 1: just affects all of us journey, right, it's part I
Speaker 1: think it's all part of our journey. You know. We
Speaker 1: we go through some of us go through more than others,
Speaker 1: but but we all have our crosses to bear.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, What do you wish people understood about grief?
Speaker 2: It's cyclical.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: It comes and goes. It's not like, all right, your
Speaker 2: mom or your dad or your brother passed away and
Speaker 2: six months you're going to be like, No, Like, it
Speaker 2: doesn't work that way, and you can't feel guilty if
Speaker 2: you have great days. No, Like, it's unfortunately, life goes on.
Speaker 2: Life's for the living, and yeah, take advantage of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you're fortunate that to still be alive.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly, And and keep their memory alive, you know,
Speaker 1: stories about them, you know, keep their their spirit alive
Speaker 1: because I believe their spirit surrounds us always, that their
Speaker 1: energy is still here, and you know, it's just uh,
Speaker 1: it's just in a different form now. And if someone
Speaker 1: was listening right now that feels broken by grief, what
Speaker 1: would you want them to know?
Speaker 2: You can still live a fulfilling life. Mm. You know.
Speaker 1: That's so true.
Speaker 2: You still can live a fulfilling life. You know, I
Speaker 2: still don't know if I properly morened. My first advisor,
Speaker 2: who was one of my close friends, a guy named
Speaker 2: Carl Lipstum, passed away last year. He was he was
Speaker 2: he's on my board of the Power Change.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: And he had the biggest personality. Oh my god, this
Speaker 2: guy had such a massive personality like you'd alta say
Speaker 2: stuff like on like Donkey Kong. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: just amazing. He worked in the video game industry, and
Speaker 2: anyone in my video game friends, uh, hear me talking
Speaker 2: about this. I like that Carter was. He was just awesome.
Speaker 2: And it was a tough loss for all of us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but even with his passing, life's gone on and there's
Speaker 2: been some good things that have actually happened. So it's
Speaker 2: you know, going through grief doesn't mean it's time to
Speaker 2: throw him a towel, say anything. It's it's get your
Speaker 2: ass up and start living your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, because yeah, life. You know, there's no guarantee
Speaker 1: that tomorrow is coming, right.
Speaker 2: No, there's none whatsoever, none whatsoever. And you know, what like,
Speaker 2: focus on what you can control. Like when I look
Speaker 2: back on and Carter, I think, oh, man, I should
Speaker 2: have done this with him. I didn't. Yeah, we were
Speaker 2: both he was traveling and yeah, I didn't get a
Speaker 2: chance to connect with them before he passed away, because
Speaker 2: obviously I didn't know he was going to pass away.
Speaker 2: But you can't live with the ifs. It's not going.
Speaker 1: Rabbit hole, man, it's a rabbit hole that there's just
Speaker 1: you just bury yourself in that. There's there's no shuitar
Speaker 1: cut of woods. You just gotta You can't change the past,
Speaker 1: and dwelling in it does nothing for you. Yeah, from
Speaker 1: it and and and live for today. I mean even
Speaker 1: even sometimes I see the younger people, my kids included,
Speaker 1: they're so focused on the future they forget to enjoy
Speaker 1: the moment, the presence and uh, these are important times.
Speaker 1: Especially customer is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2: It's like the people who are stressed about about the
Speaker 2: Christmas is a holiday meal, It's like enjoy being around
Speaker 2: with pop are Yeah, you know who gets up. You're
Speaker 2: eating on fine china or a paper plates. Just enjoy
Speaker 2: the people.
Speaker 1: Find china every day for my everyday place. Why and
Speaker 1: why not. I put them in the dishwasher and it's
Speaker 1: a holiday every day. Oh my god, Roderick, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your honesty, your courage, your your wit
Speaker 1: is just incredible.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I usually close out every episode with a poem that
Speaker 1: my late son has written, and I try to gear
Speaker 1: it a little bit towards our talk, and I just
Speaker 1: I know what a loving community empower changes. And my
Speaker 1: son wrote a poem about camp and how you know,
Speaker 1: empower change makes people feel that warmth kind of relates
Speaker 1: to this. So if you bear with me, I'm going
Speaker 1: to read through this poem. As I look around myself,
Speaker 1: I feel so compelled to smile and hug. The vibrations
Speaker 1: and energy coming off others cause a chain reaction that
Speaker 1: factions the result of happiness. Happiness is different for everyone
Speaker 1: and anyone, but all people conjugate you, the source of
Speaker 1: power that people associate love, kindness, smiles, and hugs. Even
Speaker 1: though there are so many bugs, Camp is a place
Speaker 1: where anyone can be anything, but most are true to themselves.
Speaker 1: Camp is a place where people's true colors are shown,
Speaker 1: where people accept others for who they are, not for
Speaker 1: who they know. Camp is a place to learn from
Speaker 1: others and not just stick to yourself. The concept of
Speaker 1: acceptance is easy to grasp, but not to execute. Most
Speaker 1: people to reboot, go back to the lines that society
Speaker 1: draws for them. Most people can't comprehend how a few
Speaker 1: nice words could mend a broken soul that almost feel
Speaker 1: off the deep end. Can't people know this? And now
Speaker 1: you do, too, Spread the word to stop the impending
Speaker 1: doom that so many souls see so soon. So he
Speaker 1: was fifteen years old when he would write his heart
Speaker 1: out and.
Speaker 2: This is oh my god, when he wrote that exactly
Speaker 2: for a boy.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was. He was a deep soul.
Speaker 1: He was an old soul. I like to think, and
Speaker 1: I just I love that this episode that we're sharing
Speaker 1: is showing you that grief is not the end of
Speaker 1: a story. It's the beginning of a new one. It's
Speaker 1: the beginning of hope, you know. And I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. And it's such a pleasure talking with you.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, thank you so much. And to our
Speaker 1: SOS listeners, please check out Empower Change. And that reminds me.
Speaker 1: Fader tell people how they can go on your site.
Speaker 1: I almost mess this up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you go to empowered Change one word dot
Speaker 2: org you can find out what we're doing. We have
Speaker 2: it broken out for we have our business customers for hospices,
Speaker 2: so we have a whole area talking about what we're
Speaker 2: doing with hospices. But we're also building out an area
Speaker 2: right now for someone who just might want to start
Speaker 2: using our service. It's kind of at an alpha stage
Speaker 2: right now, but we've put up a ton My co
Speaker 2: founderd Jeff is put up a ton of videos. He's
Speaker 2: in charge of all the programming. As you've seen with Jeff,
Speaker 2: he's just an amazing, amazing person. But empowered change dot
Speaker 2: org and if there's any really wealthy people there, we're
Speaker 2: all looking for donations right now until we can take
Speaker 2: the since spinning so very podcast fundraising fundraising for my my.
Speaker 1: That's that's what you should do and s O S
Speaker 1: Stories of Survivors. Thank you all for joining us today
Speaker 1: and I will look forward to seeing you next week.
Speaker 1: Thank you