Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 207 Live - Derek McCormick

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

Derek McCormick is a personal trainer and the owner of Havyk, a fitness equipment company intended to challenge you and make your workouts harder. He also wrote the book, Tea Time with the Reaper, which is a true story of love, life, and lessons learned. In this book, he talks about his love Angela, her story and death from cancer, and what he learned about the concept of death, and how it shaped his outlook on life. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

What's clink? Clink, jail, prison Yeah, we're saying the old guy Or the pokey We know the clink Colonel Clink, as a matter of fact We have a lot of old stuff You don't have to wear headphones if you don't want

It's just so you can hear yourself It's mainly just so you stay on mic But if you don't want to wear them, you ain't got to wear them It feels funny You don't need to wear them Take that Yeah Cool Yeah. And you don't need to wear them. Take that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Boom.

Cool. Good. We're working. All right. What you got, Mark? So, Derek, when was the first time you started to develop feelings for my brother, Chris? Probably the first moment I saw him at Gold's. At Gold's Gym.

And what year was that? I think that's probably about seven, eight years ago. What kind of feels were they? Good feels. Oh, okay. ago. What kind of feels were they? Good feels. Oh, okay, good. Oh, good feels. Derek, you're going to have to explain, especially to the YouTube people, what's going on with these sunglasses. Those of you that can't see them on YouTube, those who are listening on iTunes, my buddy Derek, his future is so bright, he's got to wear shades all day long.

Yeah, either that or I got the short end of the stick in that genetics. wear shades all day long. Yeah. Either that, or I got the short end of the stick in that genetics. Um, I have a degenerative neurological condition, which in simple terms is the optic nerve sucks. It picks everything up at a really high level. So the studio lights, they suck. Sunlight sucks. Headlights on cars suck. It's just, it becomes very uncomfortable, very painful. And the only way of mitigating that is to wear glasses all the time. And then what happens? Just get like headaches and things like that? When you've had your picture taken, you get that flash, right?

You get that little burn. You kind of see it there for a while. I get that all the time from everything. Damn. Damn. But as far as I'm concerned at this point, the fact that my eyes still work, I'm ahead of the game.

I just have to deal with it. I sort of, it is a possibility that I could go blind and I'm kind of looking forward to that maybe happening because I'm going to be hitting everybody I can with my stick. I'm just going to be walking around and wailing.

Beating the hell out of everybody? Yep. Yep. How'd you get into, you know, manufacturing some equipment because, you know, you just in a gym now you were showing us the triad dumbbells and triads and we've had them for quite some time and you have a lot of other products. Obviously you've been into fitness for a long time, but how'd you get into this game of making stuff? Because it's actually really hard. And what you manufactured, that certainly doesn't look like an easy route.

No. The equipment thing, I guess my first foray into that was probably back in 92, 93. A guy that I knew back in Winnipeg. I don't know if you're familiar with Hoth. It's a small city on Hoth. We opened up an equipment store, pooled some money together, started buying stuff, started reselling. We ran that retail for a while. Then I got into the wholesale end a little bit. And it just got to the point where I got tired of using singular equipment, single purpose stuff.

I wanted something that was a little bit more versatile and something that made things harder to train, not easier to train. You know, there's always, oh, it's super comfortable or it's contoured or it makes it easy. Why? I thought training was supposed to be hard. I thought it was supposed to make us better, not weaker. Something like a slingshot makes it more comfortable to bench press. Exactly. Totally against my mindset. Well, whoever made that is just a total puss, right? Well, maybe the puss made money from it, and I haven't made shit out of this. So it's all good. Sometimes harder is not always better.

Yeah, probably one of the products that I see the most on social media anyway is those sliders that you made. And these aren't your ordinary Kobe sliders. These are quite different, right? Yeah. The omnidirectional platform, meaning they'll go forward, backward, side to side and rotate simultaneously. Now those are the first generation. They've gone through a lot of changes over the years. And one of the best ways to describe it is Bambi on ice. For the first time you use it, your legs or arms are flailing all over the place until you have that muscular control to make sure that you're moving exactly where you want to move. Just makes things tougher. I like some of the principles of what you have because it's so challenging.

Like in this case, you don't need any sort of weight. It's just people literally sliding their arms and feet on the ground on, on the equipment. And again, the triad, you know, is putting, uh, the, um, you know, the surface area is bigger. So therefore it's kind of making it harder. It's, uh, the center of gravity is much different. You change the leverage of anything. No different if you guys are just doing, say, traditional bench. Narrow grip to wide grip. Is it still bench press? Absolutely. But does it change what muscles are being used to what extent?

Absolutely. Same idea. I mean, I think from what I remember, you're actually making these things physically. Yeah. I have a number of welding background and stuff. I've done a little bit of welding, but thanks to the eyeballs, it's not something I should be doing a lot of. So over time, it's gotten to the point now where I have different people handling different

components of the manufacturing process, much like most people who produce a t-shirt or something else. They'll have someone make the shirt and they'll have someone do the screen printing. Right. And, and, uh, how did you, you know, transition into being someone that just makes a product into trying to form a business? Cause that's a hard, it's just, it's not all the same thing. You know, as I found out, uh, the hard way myself, I invented something and then I'm like, Oh crap. Now what do I do with this thing? Well, I think a lot of it, as with most things in life, it really boils to what your intent is. I didn't create Havoc or start the brand and come up with

these designs to be a millionaire. That was not my thing. I just simply wanted some cool stuff to play with, to train with, to use clients. Uh, will they take over the world? Who knows? But that wasn't my goal. That wasn't the plan from the beginning. It was just come up with something cool. And then it was, Oh, Hey, I want a pair of those next person. Oh, I want some of those. Then it's sort of morphed into the, to a business. How'd you get into fitness? That would have been the last day of school in the eighth grade. A bunch of us were just hanging out. A couple of guys came back from 7-Eleven and one of them who, just so he doesn't go to

jail, I won't name him, he came back with a stolen muscle and fitness magazine. It had Larry Scott and Betty Weider on it and he didn't know what to do with it. And I said, I'll take it. Took it home, read it cover to cover and was hooked on the bodybuilding scene from that moment. That's great. So you just, you know, you checked it out and you're just kind of like wondering,

like how do these people get built like this sort of thing? One of the guys in that issue was Rich Gasparri and he was training legs. That's great. And I had never seen a human being with legs like that before. Andri and he was training legs. That's great. And I had never seen a human being with legs like that before. And I thought it was just fascinating. Like I want legs. Don't care about chest. Don't care about arms. I want legs. So that's what really got me into it. So, you know, doing the bodybuilding in the early years transitioned into the retail store,

which then transitioned into the personal training, and then the equipment design. Why is it that my brother, the first time he met you, you were wearing a mask? What's that about? What were you doing? Yeah, I think I may have been- It's bad enough you got the shades on inside, and then now you're wearing a mask and everything else. I'm wearing a mask. Gold's Gym. It was the first generation of the elevation training mask. I don't know if you remember those when they first came out. Why?

Because it made training harder. If you can't breathe, it's kind of hard to lift. So that's how I would train all the time. I'm recognizing a theme here. Did you do like bodybuilding shows and stuff? Because you said you were interested in bodybuilding. I did one in high school. Yeah.

Young. Very young. I was three years worth of training from, you know, when I started lifting to when that show was, it was three years. So back in the day, uh, the province of Manitoba, they would have an annual high school bodybuilding show. So kids from all over, all over the province, much like a state would come and compete. Now there was no real fixed weight classes. They would see who showed up and then divvy it up as fairly as they could figure. But it was an interesting experience and ended up helping a couple people in subsequent years with posing routines stemming from that.

You like things to be difficult. Do you still, you know, make things difficult for yourself when it comes to like fitness and when it comes to nutrition, do you mess around with like fasting? Do you have a particular style of diet and stuff like that? I've dabbled with the fasting a little bit. The, what I have been focused on nutritionally for the last year and a half, let's say is, is we'll say loose carnivore in that. And I've spoken to Chris about it, about 90, 10, 90% of the time I'm carnivore, 10% of meeting, whatever the fuck I want, Snickers, peanut butter. Usually I'm good with that. Yeah. And you know, that,

that approach to nutrition for me has worked out to be the best overall, both from the physical standpoint, but also the mental standpoint. When I actually first met Chris, I was a vegan. I was a vegan for 10 years. What? Yeah. Chris,

dude, you got to vet these people. I didn't know about this. Show's over. Ex-vegan. Ex-vegan. Wow. All right.

All right. All right. I'll think about it. I got to think about it a little bit. And what's interesting is whenever that topic comes up and people are like, vegan, what was that like? And I tell people that the first few years was great. Dropped a ton of weight. I went from 235 down to 165 in, let's say, about three months. So the joints felt really good. I could move really good. My strength was still there. The next few years that kind of started to fall off. Things didn't feel quite as good,

started feeling a little bit weaker. And then the, the, the back portion of that 10 year experiment, I started feeling like shit. Injuries were not healing mentally Mentally, I was in a really bad place. And it was rough. I didn't know what to do and ended up being referred to a sports medicine physician who we did a blood test. And my cholesterol levels were really low. You know, if people were on all kinds of drugs, they would think that's a good thing. But if you have no cholesterol, you have no hormones. You have no hormones, you're going to fall apart. That's kind of simple. Uh, so then the decision was made that I can

continue on this nutritional path of being a vegan for the ethical reasons that I had started, or I could implement a little bit of self-preservation and start incorporating things back in. So over the years I would add eggs in, then dairy in, then fish, then everything. And since January of 2018, it's been that 90-10 on the carnivore. Is it ever hard at all? Because you mentioned ethical reasons or have you kind of changed your point of view on that? Well, it's pretty simple. Where do you draw the line? If you're saying you don't want to cause harm, then you need to decide, do bugs count?

Do small animals count? Gets to be very confusing very quickly, right? Well, you have to draw the line. Right. You know, and as Louie said, your morals are your morals and my morals are my morals. And for me, I don't know if it's a great idea to start quoting Louie Simmons. Words to live by. You know, those are great words to live by, though, I think.

It's not not too shabby. I got to admit, you know, he deserves credit for that for sure. I just I realized the hypocrisy for myself. Now, if other people want to do it, cool. You do your thing. But for me, I just, it didn't make sense. And the fact that I felt like shit. It's that simple. You think in both cases, maybe it wasn't so much about what you were eating, but about what you weren't eating. So like maybe abstaining from sugar and abstaining from kind of junk food.

Or when you were vegan, were you kind of eating like vegan brownies and shit like that? Most vegans do. They go with the fake meats, the soy-based stuff. Then they go with the desserts. Oh, it's vegan, so it must be good for me thing. But being raised in the household that I was raised in, there was a lot. There was addiction. My parents were alcoholics and I learned

addiction through, through sugar. You know, when you come home from school every day to two dozen freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, you're a happy kid, but you turn up to be a kind of a fucked up adult, you know, your, your relationship with food and what it's supposed to do is going to be skewed. So for me, I think I was not eating the things that my body needed. You know, if I look at my genetic lineage of being Scottish Irish with a little bit of native American thrown in, they weren't raised on fake meat. You know, they were eating real animals and real vegetables, not this manufactured GMO junk. They definitely weren't eating Snickers. So it's just common sense. Why were there baked cookies every day? I want some of that.

Because that's how my mother showed me she loved me. And when you got up to 235, like, because you were already in the gym before that, you know, you were, you were a trainer, you were in shape. Did, were you a 235 and out of shape before you went vegan? I was 235 with a hint of abs. Okay. If that helps paint a picture, you know, I wasn't shredded, but at the, at that time I was also clean and I say clean in that I wasn't using any animal and anabolics, no PEDs whatsoever. It was just food and lifting. Um, but at that point I started feeling the wear and tear from lifting and lifting heavy for numbers of years. So when I did the vegan thing and I started dropping all that weight, my body felt good. Now, was it good because of the food I was taking in or was it good because I was dropping poundage and my body felt good. Now, was it good because of the food I was taking in or was it good because I was dropping poundage and my body had less load to carry around? So, you know, we'll probably get back to some more of your, your fitness story,

but that's not why you're here and you're not here to sell, uh, triads. You're not here necessarily to, you know, bump the sails of a havoc, but we hope that's a result, but you're here to talk we hope that's a result. But you're here to talk about something that's a lot more important and stuff that people don't want to talk about. And it's stuff that has been on my mind for many years because I recognize that we're here not as long as we would like to be. And that it's something I had to think about years ago when a friend of mine kind of approached me with this scenario. I said, you know, what would happen to your business? You know, what would happen to your wife if you died, you know, right here, like right here, right now. And I was like, I never thought about that. He's like, well, do you think you're

immortal? And I was like, I don't believe I am, you know? And so he's like, well, you better get that shit straightened out. And so part of, you know, trying to build this whole thing up and getting more people involved in this business, uh, has been dedicated to that, to make sure that, you know, maybe not only she's taken care of, but my children and, uh, maybe, uh, many bells for years to come or we'll, we'll see where we end up with all that. But it is something that I had to contemplate. But luckily I did it with the luxury of, of, of, uh, me still being here and my wife still being around, but you didn't have that luxury. You had to think about it because something happened.

Well, the, the idea of mortality and death has always been present throughout my life. But when I watched my wife die in front of me, that changed my perspective on everything. I've told plenty of people have a thing, love designing, hate the rest of it. I could care less. I just don't. All I truly want to do.

The only thing I feel compelled to do is to talk about death, to start hopefully getting people to think about it in a different way. Because right now, most people don't think about it at all. And if you bring it up, they turn tail and run. And that's just, it's naive and it's dangerous to have that approach with something that we are all going to face at some point whether it's ourselves or those around us before we dive into your actual story um where should somebody start with this because it is a it's a it's a morbid thought right and it doesn't make you feel great but uh it makes a, it's a morbid thought, right. And it doesn't make you feel great, but, uh, it makes a lot of sense, especially like if you have a significant other, it makes a lot of sense.

Um, you know, many of us that are here right now have parents that are probably in their sixties and seventies and like, you know, who knows what's going to happen with them, you know, or who knows what's going to happen with us. We can get hit by a bus or something, right. Um, where should somebody start? There's two ways. And in my opinion, you can either think about your own mortality or you can think about the people who are important to you. You know, for example, what if while we're podcasting here, Andy gets a phone call and she's told she's going to be dead in a month. she's going to be dead in a month. What next? How do you prepare for that? You just have to dive in.

You just have to think about the idea that someone is going to die and it could be you or it could be somebody else, then what? What were their wishes? What do they want to see happen once they're gone? You mentioned getting hit by a bus. My brother Archie woke up one day, kissed his wife goodbye. He went to work. Kids went to school. She went to work. She didn't make it.

I spoke about this on Boris' podcast. She got run down crossing the street, try to go to the office, gone, no opportunity to have final words, no opportunity to discuss the things that really matter. It just, just gone. And we have to be prepared for that because it happens. We don't hear about it often. We rarely talk about for that because it happens. We don't hear about it often. We rarely talk about it, but it happens. People die all the time.

So you just have to take, you know, rip that Band-Aid off and sit down with the people that matter and ask, well, what would you want at your funeral? Would you even want a funeral? You know, before my father died, he told me the things that he wanted. Simple. What would you want at your funeral? Would you even want a funeral? Before my father died, he told me the things that he wanted. Simple. Now, he was an unusual character, as am I, but you just have to do it.

You can't try to find the best time. You can't try to find the best way. Just sit down and have the conversation, period. It is a lot. There's a lot to think about, you know, there's, um, there's definitely financial situations to think about and there's definitely like, yeah, like, uh, what does this look like when you pass away? Like, you know, do you want, uh, you know, do you want, you know, traditional burial or do you want like, you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a bunch of options there with the things that you can do. The weird thing about it is that you're, that you're gone, you know, that that's kind of the

weird part. So really what you're left with is like almost the decisions of everybody else. I remember like when my brother passed, um, it was like, oh, well he'd want you to do this. He'd want to do that. I'm like, well, I don't know i don't know he's dead not here exactly you know uh how about we just do what we feels right how about we just work on that instead of like you know arguing and and uh you know getting too emotional about all this let's just let's just figure out what feels right what's calling to us what makes the most sense here you know what's the most logical thing to do and but in a lot of cases most people don't have that mental wherewithal to be able to sit down and say, okay, stop. Let's not argue.

This is what we think and let's just go with that. Most of the time you're going to have either relatives or friends trying to express their pain and their beliefs of what that person who's no longer here would really want. Because everybody knows each other differently. Like your relationship is different than your relationship. So they may know things that the other person doesn't. So it's the onus has to go on the individual that if you want something specific to happen after you're dead, you need to tell people, you need to be very crystal clear about that to avoid that stress on the people who remain. Like, don't do it for yourself.

Do it for everybody else. Just be a, just be an adult. You know, uh, you have a wife, you have two kids, you have a business. If that stuff is not lined up and something happens, the pressure and pain you put on those people because you're too afraid to talk about it, too afraid to put those things in place. What's wrong with you? All right. You know, put on your big boy or big girl panties and just do it. My panties are huge by the way. So we've heard. They're granny panties. You know, we were talking in the other room,

um, and you were mentioning how throughout your life, you know, you've had a lot of instances where you've just like, death has happened around you. Even if it wasn't just directly affected you, you've just seen it happen a lot. Um, and I'm in contrast to that. Like at a situation when I was a kid, like my dad called and said he had to put down my dog. And then like one of my mom's best friends died, but I didn't really go to the funeral. I haven't experienced that that much. And no one, if I really think about it, no one in my life has really talked to me about death before.

Although like when you were mentioning, you know, it's good to think about it. I think about the people close to me dying a lot. I've never thought about my own death. How important do you think it is that parents somehow talk to their children about death? Huge. Huge. I don't have children. I will never have children. But I would say it's probably one of, if not the most important lessons that they're going to have to learn because they're going to experience it. All these other variables and potential outcomes and situations, some happen to some people, some happen to others. Death has happened in everybody.

Period. It's the one thing that connects all of us that we're all going to experience. And when coming in today from the airport, talking to Smokey, for me, death is my North Star. That is where I base all my decisions on. Because if I'm comfortable with that outcome, everything else becomes easier. want to spend time with a certain person? Do I want to do a certain task? What's important to me? If I keep death, my own death in check, all that stuff's not, it's not nearly as stressful or as difficult as it once was. So parents need to, people who are in relationships need to. Myself, while I have my brother and I have my sisters, the only two individuals that I am responsible for is the cat and the dog. So I don't have any of those other obligations that most people do. My wife died. She was my purpose. That obligation is not the

same anymore. How did she pass? Well, you've actually used that word three or four times and I hate it. And I say that because one of the things for me, and I'm not the first person who's had someone die, obviously. I'm not the first person who's seen someone die like Angela did, someone die like Angela did. But our society has chosen to use certain words when it comes to death. To like pretend it didn't happen. To make it nicer and softer and easier. Because, you know, I didn't lose her. I can't find her. You lose your car keys. Passing means I can circle the block and come back around. It just doesn't work like that. Those words are not appropriate for what happened. She died painfully and with a lot of suffering that didn't need to happen.

So it would be, although I want people to really start thinking about mortality, their own mortality, those around them, death in general, start thinking about the words that they associate with that. Cause it makes, it makes a huge, huge impact. You know, um, mental health is something that comes up a lot in this conversation. And I've been very open both prior to Angela, with Angela, and especially after about my own thoughts on my own death. And if we use the right words, we can get past a lot of this hesitation and this uncomfortable sidestepping. Do you mean you thought about killing yourself? Yes.

And that was before her death as well? I had always struggled with purpose. I never understood why I was here. I was never understood why I was in school. I never understood why I was in a certain relationship. Yeah. Not the easiest thing to think about because who the hell knows? Exactly. I don't think anybody's got that answer, right? So, you know, and I discussed that with her early on in our relationship, but especially when she was sick and especially after she died, you know, it's morning, noon, and night. It's like, do I want to put a bullet in my head? It's that simple because she became my purpose. I actually, at once we met, once we were together, I finally found my reason for being and she's gone. How long ago is that that you met her? We met August 22nd, 2008. How'd you meet her?

We met her at Henano's or I, pardon me. I met her at Henano's, which is a dive bar in Venice. Those dive bars in California. You know what I'm saying? You never know. You never know what's going to happen. But, you know, I didn't really belong there. I was a vegan at the time. But she had some sick-ass dance moves. She noticed them. No, not at all.

That's just history. Not at all. I was standing, holding up the wall like I usually do. But the guy I went to the bar with was being a drunken fool. He leaned over to her, said something. I don't know now what it was, but I leaned over to her after he went back to playing pool and said, that's Joe. That was the beginning. We talked. That was a Saturday. We had a date the following Thursday and I moved in two days after that. Moving in, moving in, moving, moving fast. I like that. And then, and then how did she, uh, die ultimately? Ultimately is as far as I'm

concerned, I killed her. And what do you mean by that? I was the one, once she was finally back home after the stint in the ICU, after the stint in the care facility, and then a subsequent trip to the hospital again, she came home, was under hospice care, and I was responsible for her medication. I was the one who was giving her the liquid morphine for the pain. And as I outlined in the book, liquid morphine is a respiratory depressant, meaning it makes it harder for people to breathe. Now she had asthma as well as lung cancer, which came about after her breast cancer. So that just, she stopped breathing. And I'm the one who made that happen. And I mean, how did this, how did this happen?

I mean, you just get a phone call one day that she's, or she's not feeling well or like, you know, what were some of the circumstances that happened leading to that? February, 2016, she went in for basically a routine checkup, had a mammogram and got a phone call. We found something. So February of 2016, she was dead. December 2017. You go from finding a 10 millimeter tumor to being riddled with cancer.

It was almost like Deadpool, but without the super healing powers at the end. And what's interesting with that question is it reminded me of a conversation I had with one of the doctors at the hospital after she had spent time in the ICU and had two emergency surgeries and I kept pushing asking for more scans what's going on like how is the cancer progressing and the doctor said well cancer doesn't doesn't happen that fast well when I look at the timeline it does happen that fucking fast when I was reading through the book you were were talking about that. And then you were also, you mentioned while we were talking now about how like she went through a lot of unnecessary suffering, you know, the pain when you mentioned about like the medication that she wasn't being

given. Um, I, I don't know how I would have dealt with that situation. You know what I mean? Cause it seems like there was just a lot of irresponsibility going on from medical professionals throughout that whole situation. You just said like the tumor did grow that fast. You're not even a doctor and you realize that. How should people deal with like this is obviously a situation that we would hope doesn't happen, but it does. doesn't happen, but it does. How can you, someone who just cares for an individual or they have an individual in that situation, make that, make it smoother or just figure things out. That's a lot to unpack. There's a lot of factors involved with that. But if we go back to thinking about death, worst case scenarios, and kind of trying to kind of almost reverse engineer it. Think about

what it would be like if you were in a hospital and the person who means the most to you is in white knuckled pain and the staff are just walking by the room. Think about you saying, look, she needs her medication. She needs something for the pain. Well, she already had this and she has to wait X amount of time for more. The system itself is completely skewed in the wrong way. There are people who I think are maybe in the wrong jobs that maybe they got into it for the right reasons. They stay in it for the wrong reasons. They become desensitized. When they see someone in pain, they see someone crying, it doesn't affect them, or at least it doesn't inspire them to try to

help relieve that suffering. Of all the people that we came across from October through December, that would be the timeframe from her being rushed to the hospital and everything afterwards, there was maybe two or three people that I actually felt genuinely cared. The rest were just going through the motions. This was like doctors and nurses, medical professionals. Yeah. Yeah. Now to answer your question, I guess more accurately, this was like doctors and nurses, medical professionals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now to answer your question, I guess more accurately is you, if you have someone in the hospital and it's something serious, you know, not that broken bones aren't serious, but you get your

cast and you're on your way. But if it's something serious, there needs to be an advocate there as much as possible, as often as possible, trying to record everything as much as possible, taking notes, writing down medications, when it was delivered, who was delivered by all these little details. Because without it, it becomes almost a he said, she said, which is really unfortunate. There was a time I was challenged by an administrator who said, well, how often are you here? And I was there longer and more frequently than their staff was. So I was the wrong person to come at with that approach. But that is the approach that does happen.

So I was the wrong person to come at with that approach. But that is the approach that does happen. So if you just go in to visit somebody for an hour, their feedback is going to be, oh, well, that's just right now. You have to stay on top of them. You do. But there's a bigger problem in the system in how a society and the medical profession handles death, views death, and that whole end-of-life process. Did you hold any guilt early on with administering the liquid morphine? I've held guilt the whole time for a variety of reasons.

For not being more vocal at the hospital and the care center, even though I had been threatened to be kicked out multiple times. It's like, where do you, where, how far will you go for the, for that person? Now, sometimes if you really lose your cool, they, they will, uh, not allow you to even call the shots at, at all. Right? Like they'll sometimes make that decision. If you go in there and you have somebody who's dying and it's kind of clear that you're starting to get like unstable or maybe too hostile to staff, they will kind of relinquish your ability to make any calls for them, right? Which goes back to that earlier part of the conversation where

there are certain documents that need to be in place so that if something happens and you're not, you are not in a position to be able to tell physicians in the hospital or what have you, what you want done, there is someone who is legally allowed to. And depending on the state and the country you're in, there's different forms. There's different documents that are required in order to give you that power to call those shots. But yeah, if they don't like what you're saying, could they throw you out?

For sure. What are like maybe two or three things that you think could have been done differently to be able to attack this early enough to help her survive? Like, do you think, you know, she could have had more scans in the beginning like you were suggesting or something like that? Well, inevitably, we're all dying. And I have a feeling that she was going to die regardless. And I say that looking back on how fast the cancer grew. That said, when they first

found a tiny little 10 millimeter tumor, they should have removed the tumor. They could have taken the entire breast. If it was myself and they said, you have cancer in your arm or cancer in your testicles or whatever, take it. It's just a body part. I don't care. Get rid of it. Instead of trying to go through these various treatments, which in her case failed, you know, by the time she had her first round of surgeries, the cancer grew tenfold while under treatment. And that's within a few months. So why are we dicking around with this kind of non-invasive approach when we are fighting something that's incredibly invasive?

Do you think in some ways maybe she would have been better off with no treatment at all? That was a discussion we had when she was like, just pretend we never even, I mean, how could you do that? Right. You can't unring that bell, but just pretend it never pretend they never called us when she went in for her second followup. So there was the diagnosis, there was the treatments, the surgeries, and then some recovery. The second major follow-up to that first round, when they said, well, the cancer's back, it's in your lung and it's terminal, we went and had a chat. And part of that conversation was, do you want to even bother? She could have gone out like a rock star instead of going through all of that trauma, all of that pain and suffering.

But she put her hopes in the system, in the people who were selling her hope that they would be able to control it and give her time. So going back to the question about having regret, that was one of them, a huge one of them. The fact that she went through all that shit for really no reason, because the very little time she had after that terminal diagnosis, almost none of it was hers. I think finances could possibly have changed things. You couldn't, can't throw money at it to make it any different. Yeah, it's such a wild situation to get thrown into. You must have to learn a lot about the situation. You must have to learn a lot about cancer. At some point, you probably almost become a doctor.

Well, I definitely don't think I'm there there nor would I want to be. I don't want to be associated with those people. Don't get me wrong. There's probably some that are out there that try and do good. But I think when you have a system that profits from misery and suffering, there's things, the scales are tipped in the wrong direction. Now, the challenge with trying to learn as you go, you can't make proper decisions. You can't see things as clearly as you should be able to. That's where the idea of preparing for those worst case scenarios or just having the conversation of what if you were diagnosed with cancer tomorrow? How are we going to go about it? What do, what are the steps that we would want to do? Not having that preparation

is, puts you in a really bad spot if that ever happens. So there's, there's nothing I think that could have ultimately changed the outcome, but whether it's the medical profession or society in general, there's this conversation of, well, how long did they live? Who fucking cares? How well did they live? Why are we not discussing quality of life instead of quantity of life? Great treatment, you lasted five more years, but someone was wiping your ass the whole time and all you hoped for was your heart to stop beating. Was the five years worth it? Now, and there are people who will go through treatment and they come out the other side and they live a great life. That's fantastic.

But not everybody has that. So we need to think about those variables. that. So we need to think about those, those variables. When your wife had her first, uh, when they first called and mentioned that they, that she had a tumor, how, I mean, was her health pretty normal at that time? Yeah. It was just a routine checkup. You said, right. Routine mammogram walking around working like all normal people do live in life you know she wasn't she didn't have all these bad habits she didn't you know partake in dangerous things she was just a normal person my father-in-law he um was diagnosed with cancer this is probably about three years ago or so. He was having a few,

a few health issues kind of along the way. And he did some treatment. I think he did. I don't think he did like chemotherapy, but he was taking some pills or something. I don't remember. I don't know the difference with, I don't know what kind of drugs they give you for cancer, but he was taking some drugs for the cancer, but they were making him really sick. And then, uh, you know, it's, I think it, I think he got better for a little while and then it kind of came back. And so then he had to get actually chemotherapy for a little while and his hair turned white and he just felt like crap all the time. And he was like, you know what, just, just forget it, you know? And the chemo actually was

helping. And so he was actually progressing. So he continued on with that. And then as he kind of came out of that, he was like, you know what, I just, I just want to be happy. I just want to like live my life. And luckily for us, he had like kind of like a second boost of strength, which was super cool because a lot of us got to spend time with him and hang out with him and that that was that was amazing but um he was somebody that could have probably made changes to his diet and he could have done these things but he's like i don't want to live in a bunch of pain and i don't want to you know i don't want to go out on you know a hospital bed or or at home home, you know, hospice or whatever. He's like, I just, I just want to live my fucking life, you know? And so, you know, he, we, the good

thing is, is that, you know, the bad thing is that he died. He had a, he had a heart attack, but the good news is, is he went out laughing. He just told, he told his wife a joke. They both laughed about it. And then unfortunately, uh, that was that, but I look at that situation and here I am always trying to help people with like nutrition and stuff. But as you pointed out, and as we should all know, we're all, we're all going to end up dead one way or the other. And we don't really get to really decide. We don't get to, uh, you know, pick what we, uh, what way we go out, no matter how healthy we try to be. Well, on the health end of the spectrum, I, when, when that part of the conversation comes up with

people, I always think about my father who ate like shit, drank like a fish and smoke like a chimney. And he lasted 75 years. You would, on paper, he should have been gone well before that. I think there's some people who nutrition and lifestyle and those things will help and in all honesty i think there's people who won't and i'm sure there'll be some people who are going to throw some shade about that comment and i really don't give a fuck the facts are there's only so much you can control you can't outwork your dna you can't out eat your dna if you are programmed to die, you're programmed to die. Now, the remark about choosing when we die, I think that's actually something that needs to be discussed more,

obviously for those who are terminally ill, but even those who aren't. As I said earlier, I think about it all the time. And if there's one hope that I have is that I get to choose when I die, that it is by my own hand, by my own choosing, instead of being in a hospital bed, rotting away slowly. That is not a fate that I want. And I don't think that's a fate anybody should be forced to have to endure. This conversation, yeah, blows my mind. You know, I think in there's certain countries, I think maybe it's Sweden. Sweden is probably the most well-known. I know, I believe in the UK right now, there's a huge debate on dying with dignity. Those who are terminally ill that should

be allowed to die by their own choosing when they've said enough is enough. I believe Canada has actually just passed some legislation allowing people to die at home. One of the stories I heard was a guy basically had a party. He invited over all the people who were important. They were having drinks, having laughs. He said goodbye and that was it. Was he terminally ill? Yes. Okay. But when you mentioned that, and when you mentioned choosing when you die, though, you said even if you are healthy. So are you saying like,

I live a good life, I'm good now, and suicide? Is that what you mean? Well, again, going back to choosing of words, self-determination. Self-determination. Suicide, when you say suicide, everybody gets the, gets the willies. Everybody gets uncomfortable with it. It starts talking about it's a sin. It's this, it's that it's illegal. I am not going to tell anybody how long they should live. If you're done, you're done. I am not going to force that on anybody.

And the flip of flip side of that is that that is that if people were allowed to say, I'm finished, I want to go, what do you think that would do to the mental health discussion? How many people who are in a bad spot or an uncomfortable spot or a dark spot would feel comfortable enough to discuss those things openly without ridicule. If we were in a society that was open to that concept of self-determination. Now, and this is definitely a little bit of a different tangent than someone who is terminally ill, but it still falls under the umbrella of death. This is something that we should have greater control over and celebrate, celebrate more, not hide away from and try to cheat because you're not going to win. You mentioned your, your purpose obviously is,

you know, talking to people about death and getting people to talk about this, I mean, this idea more often. Now it's not everyone, but you know, certain individuals that are like, maybe they want to, you know, they want to end their life. They don't feel that they have a meaning or purpose. If they were just to, let's say that legislation comes around where you can do that, where you can go forward with self-determination and end your life for a lot of individuals. Don't you think that would be a bit premature? Like, I mean, you're self-actualized. You understand what you want to do. You thought this through. I feel like

there's so many people that they think it and they think that's what they want at that time, but it's maybe really not. Do you get what I'm getting at here? Like a hundred percent. Now, if this is something where it comes into law, undoubtedly the government would have a laundry list of checks and balances and things you'd have to go through, hoops you'd have to jump through. But just the sheer acceptance of the concept would make things drastically different for a lot of people. It just would. People would feel much more comfortable sharing those, those, those dark, uncomfortable feelings with others. How many people do you know have said, look, I think about killing myself every day. Only a few. I know a few people. Yeah. How many of them have done it?

Now think about how many people who have, you have know, you know, whether it's through one, two, three degrees of separation have killed themselves, but no one saw it coming. You know, we need to have the conversation open in order for things to be comfortable for people. And I like making things harder, but by making it harder, you make it easier. Not to sound like some spiritual guide because I am not that whatsoever, but we have to train ourselves and look at all these different possibilities and be open to discussion in order to make death what it really is. What do you think it should look like because you know the second that you know somebody like let's say the government lake makes it like legal um there's going to have to be some stipulations on it like you can't do it before you're 40 or

something like well i'm sure they'd be check out right i'm later you know these different uh interviews or or therapy sessions or whatever. And that's how the government would ultimately set that up. But I think just removing the stigma of wanting to die. Now, whether it's someone who's young, who's facing challenges, whether it's somebody who's old and terminal, just letting them know that they have that option would give them a freedom they don't get to have right now. And who am I to tell people what to do? I don't have that right. Whether you want to live or die, that's as far as I'm concerned, up to you. I think we used to have it in this country, used to have the option to do it at one point.

But I don't know what kind of the rules were behind it, but I'm sure that you had to be probably terminally ill, I would imagine. Well, if I'm not mistaken, and I believe it's flip-flopped back and forth, California is a right-to-die state if you're terminally ill. The asterisk to that is no physicians are legally obligated to write that prescription. Think about that. You are going to die. You know, you're going to die. You feel like you're going to die.

You're ready to die. You've come to that point in your life. You're like, look, I don't want to suffer anymore. I'm ready to go. Now you have to go shopping for a doctor who agrees with that moral standard so that they write the prescription right what the fuck well and then even just from a financial standpoint like you're

old maybe you feel you lived you lived your life maybe you've got to see you know your grandkids graduate from college you're just like everything's happened that you've wanted to happen and then some maybe and yeah like we're all we're all going to have some regrets and things like that, I'm sure. But you lived the best life you thought you could live. But you're sitting there, you know, maybe you have the capacity to think, or maybe your family does. And it's like, I don't want this financial strain to carry on for another year or whatever, because it can get insanely expensive. And so even from that perspective, it's like, you're going to die anyway, but can we cut this off a little sooner?

Who loses out financially if they leave early? And this is a whole nother aspect of the conversation. There is far too much money in people being sick and not enough money in people dying. There is far too much money in people being sick and not enough money in people dying. So that explains why a lot of things are the way they are, whether it's legislation, whether it's what you experience in hospitals or care homes or what have you. There's a lot of shit that happens for money. Imagine if you could pick and you're like, yeah, I want to check out at like 65. Like you just pick a you pick an age. and you're like, yeah, I want to check out at like 65. Like you just pick an age.

But for some reason at like 60, your life is just going – your life's going really good and you feel super vibrant and everything. And you can't get a refund? Yeah, and you're like, well, I didn't really want to – I didn't – you know, can I reverse this? Do you still have your seat, sir? But again, that idea is kind of like we were talking about earlier is that there's people who talk about and think about and plan out the Powerball winnings. They never think about, oh, what if I die next Friday? You know, when Angela was diagnosed the second time and they said it was terminal, it was 137 days. From the moment she was walking around like a

normal person to being dead. So you'd rather people think about it before they get in your situation. It'll make that situation a little bit easier. They'll be a little bit more prepared for what's going to happen. And I think it'll make their life more enjoyable if they can get comfortable with the concept of that life is not forever. What do you think about this idea of, you hear people say it a lot and maybe sometimes it's appropriate and maybe it goes along with whatever's going on, other times you're like i don't know if that's true you know sometimes people say everything happens for a reason fuck you right explain to me the reason that she had to die the way she died what do you got right nothing i got nothing

fucking nothing it's bullshit okay so plain devil's advocate if i was totally one of those individuals i'd say well you wouldn't be spreading her message right now the way you are if she didn't die i would burn the world for her to come back understandable yeah earlier you were talking about um balance what if this is just part of that weird in a weird fucked up way yeah if it is it is i have no control over that but if it's an issue of choice you know and that balance we spoke about earlier kind of you know off mic in that it's never an individual thing that balance is not just me specifically i'm not that important in the universe universally sure yeah there's probably balance her death means other people may have more enjoyable lives or a more peaceful death i don't like that balance though personally fuck everybody else if i had her back

but that's just not an option on the note of what mark just mentioned right somebody says uh maybe she was meant to die right a lot of people and me included uh if someone's going through and i just had a friend of mine someone very close to them passed away and only thing i did i was just trying to be there for them i didn't say anything because i didn't know how to deal with the situation. I just knew that I could be there. What should people on the outside do for, for stop the individuals that's, that's there, that's, you know, passing or not passing, dying.

And the individual like the, you that, you know, you're the closest person to them and you actually want people around you that care. How can people be better at being there? What should they avoid saying? What should just, what can they do? To be subtle as a sledgehammer, shut the fuck up. You have two ears and one mouth. Use them appropriately.

Just because you want to say something to comfort them, you need to realize that you may not be able to. So maybe the best thing to do is to not say anything. Just listen. Listen to them vent. Listen, you know, hold them when they're crying. Let them rage. Let them go through what they need to go through, but let them know you're there. It could be something as simple as leaving some meals on the doorstep. Send them a text. Hey, I just left you some food if you need anything else i will do whatever i can things like that showing you care is a thousand times more important than saying you care what about people that lie to you you know like when someone dies people don't they just don't know what to do.

And so like, you know, you and I are friends and you know, my brother for a long time and there'll be people in your life that are, uh, on the outside, on the peripheral, like friends like us and people will, they'll pretty much flat out lie to you. They're like, Hey man, I'm there for you anytime you need me. And they're really not, you know, they're really, they're really, they're really not and they can't be. And then additionally, uh, people will check in for a little while, but the pain wears off quick for them because they're not experiencing the way that you are.

Everybody else gets to go back to their life. Right. And I understand that. I don't, I don't, for, for, for someone who has gone through what I've gone through, um, For, for, for someone who has gone through what I've gone through, um, and it pales in comparison to what a lot of other people have experienced. A lot of other people who have gone through way worse. Those people, there's those who lean in and those who lean out. And sometimes they lean in for a little bit and sometimes they lean in permanently. i don't begrudge anybody who goes back to their life i can't i understand i just sincerely hope that what they've seen from the periphery impacts them in a

positive way that they're like holy fuck look what happened look how quickly angelo was taken what would happen if andy did or quinn did you know what i mean like you start thinking about that situation applied to your world and hopefully it it puts you in a better place to be prepared for those shit fucking moments um but there's really there's things you can do but there's things you can's things you can do, but there's things you can't, like you can't make it better. And the, probably the worst thing, one of the biggest things for me personally is the language.

As I mentioned earlier, the language people use, passing, lost, she's in a better place. My heart goes out to your family. That was me and Chris's favorite. Thoughts and prayers. Shove those up your ass. they're not really doing any good they don't person still thing actions not words you know one of the things uh when angela came home that last time there was a number of the sisters and other people set up meal train where they each picked a meal and had either it was from a restaurant or they made it themselves or whatever. And just so

we always had food at hand. So it's just one less minuscule thing on our plate. Laundry, someone taking care of the laundry. They pick it up, they go get it laundered, they bring it back. It's those little things that mean the world because you can't fix the real problem right you just have to try to make it a little bit more comfortable for them yeah brutal it's not something i wish on anybody um but a lot of people are going to go through it it's rare that anybody's going to die the way they want to die at this point um it's always going to happen at a bad time it's always going to die the way they want to die at this point. It's always going to happen at a bad time. It's always going to happen in a bad way, which is why we have to kind of contemplate and think about and discuss those potentials.

When I was on Chris's show, we were talking about his, his deadlift. You know, how many times do you guys mentally prepare for lifts, whether it's in the gym or a competition? Hundreds, thousands of times rehearsing that in your head. Meanwhile, you haven't once thought about the most important person in your world being gone in a heartbeat. And that's how quickly it can happen. being gone in a heartbeat and that's how quickly it can happen. Yeah. So it's, it's, uh, it's so hard for people to think about that. They just, they just don't want to go there. They don't want to like dig. Speaking of kind of like digging in, uh, did you, um, did you go for any like therapy or have you done anything like that? Or, or you don't think that's going to be beneficial for you? I've had one therapy session, which was a little bit of a hooker by crook by one of my sisters, which is a different story I can tell you later. And it just, for me personally, it doesn't change anything. I have no qualms about speaking what's going through my head. So it's not like I'm, I feel compelled to find someone who I can confide in or, or share things with. Cause I'll share this whole story

with anybody and everybody anywhere, anytime. Um, I guess in, in, in, in for me personally, and I hate even discussing it because this isn't about me anymore. My relevance is, is insignificant. It's a matter of getting Angela's story out. And by doing so, it brings some, some meaning to what happened. Like it'll never balance out for me. But at some point, if, if a stranger comes up to me and you've probably had this at shows or just on the street, come up and say that, you know what you, your brother, the documentaries, what you guys do has changed my life. If, if somebody says that about Angela's story, I'll be okay. Then it'll be worth it a little bit. I'll be okay. Then it'll be worth it a little bit.

So that in a sense is almost a form of therapy in a way. Exactly. And maybe something you could share with us, has it been beneficial for you? And were you able to communicate with other people how you felt about it right away? Yeah. Or did it take a while to organize your thoughts uh no um pretty much from even prior to her death during during that those last few weeks in those last few months when she was really ill i was extremely open and blunt uh whether it's with medical staff or just passerbys, you know, people that just kind

of, we cross paths and the topic came up, you know, I will tell people every opportunity I get about Angela because that's the only way to get the story out, the only way to make an impact of using all the pain and suffering she went through for something positive. You know, the pain and suffering she went through for something positive. Everybody thinks about Grimm, the Reaper, as this big, scary monster who's stealing people, that he's death. That's not it. He's a conduit. He helps people to get from this life to the next. Angela's story is my hope that it will help people make that transition a little bit better. And in the meantime, live a more enjoyable life and stop wasting time that they're never going to

get back. What's up? Oh, good. So you think about obviously, you know, your death, you think about death a lot when I,

and I, I mean, we were talking, I don't think about my death i think about the death of those close to me and i i got to that point not because i just started thinking about it i was reading a book about like negative visualization and stoicism and it got me realizing that i need to be thinking about that more although i never thought about my own and i think about my own and it scares me when i think about my own death.

Does your own, why? I don't know. It just does. Most, most people, it comes down to two things, at least for the conversations that I've had. One, the uncertainty of what may be on the other side, if anything, and more pertinent is regret. What didn't you do before you died? what did you want to do before you died 26 maybe there's probably a lot of shit he didn't check a lot of stuff i haven't done well then you might want to make a to-do list not saying quit your job and and go do all these things and blow everything off although if you can pull it, make that work, cool. But if there's a place you've always wanted to go to,

why are you not planning that trip? Angela and I discussed Japan on our very first date. It was the one place we both had in common from the get of where we wanted to go. So over the years, as we traveled more to celebrate her birthday, that was going to be our 10-year wedding anniversary trip. She didn't get to go. She didn't get to go partially because we planned other trips first. We set it for that milestone 10 years. And she believed lies that were told to her by the medical profession. They sold her the hope, the illusion of time that she didn't have. And therefore, she didn't go.

So whether you're 26 or 46, if there's things like that, I want to jump out of an airplane, I want to do karaoke, I don't know, just whatever random shit you've always wanted to do, make plans to do those things. You don't have to do them all this weekend, but one every six months, one every year, whatever is workable for your life, make those things happen because you may not get another chance. You working on that list, buddy? I got to. Hey, people are planning their workouts a fuck ton more than they're planning their deaths.

Sure. Yeah. So does that mean that you yourself, when you think about your death, you're not afraid of it? No. And that's not said out of some bravado. It's like one. And as I've said, I'm not important. I'm not.

I'm completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things in the universe. What I'm doing for my intent in the work, I think is important. Sharing her story and trying to push this conversation forward. I think it's important. Other people can do it too. And I hope they do. But as far as me dying, if I had a heart attack right now,

DNR, don't get out the paddles. Just let me die. Why haven't you taken your own life? Cause I'm not done. Um, in the book, when Angela came home, we discussed all of us dying us and the pets. And that was my answer to her when she posed the question. And at the time I didn't know why it just felt wrong. And whether that was some weird premonition or whatever to what i'm trying

to do now i don't know but it's something that crosses my mind all the time it really boils down to okay i'm awake what am i going to do with today what am i going to do with my time right now and if i can't can't come up with something good, maybe that'll be the day. Do you have depression or have you had depression? I was significantly more depressed when I was a vegan. But, you know, stakes cleared that up. Honestly, I don't know how to answer that question seriously because that's just a word that gets applied to people who don't fall within the norm. Gets applied to everything, pretty much.

Just because I enjoy speaking about death, it sounds bizarre. People think it's morbid. But maybe that's really what I'm meant to do. Some people are meant to talk about poop, poop stories, poop stories. That's, that's their calling.

Cool. Are they depressed? Are they out of line? No, they're just doing their thing. I think going back to earlier on where people don't feel comfortable sharing their true thoughts, that is where it gets them into trouble. That's where it gets into that

kind of clinical state where they're feeling very lost and alone. But I've never been professionally diagnosed as depressed, although I'm sure there'd be a couple of people who say I am. Yeah, I guess the question is like, can you talk about this consistently and relive some of it partially sometimes and also be happy? I laugh. I have some giggles. There's people who I enjoy spending time with, my real family. So I believe, yes, I think people can and should be able to talk about both sides of the coin. If all you do is talk about rainbows and unicorns and how love and light and all that

other shit is great. What about all the opposites? What about death? What about the darkness? What about the sad times? If you, if you don't acknowledge those, either you're delusional, in my opinion, or you're a hypocrite. You know, Borah and I have had the conversation in the past where in this day and age, there's people with platforms. And if you are an entertainer, cool. Entertain. That's your shtick. Do your thing. Whether that's music or whatever, acting. But that's your shtick. Do your thing. Um, if whether that's music or whatever acting, but as soon as you start kind of dipping your toe into the pool of, of motivation and self-help and self-love, if you fail to include that other side of the coin, I really start to question your authenticity. Are you just spewing shit because it happens to be popular now on instagram or is this

your real thoughts self-love bro gotta hug yourself every morning tell yourself you're good enough no not for this guy that may work for others not working for me what's the worst part about not having angela here anymore everything What was your favorite thing to do with her? Besides the obvious. Hey now. Hey now. One of the things we did a lot of, especially in the beginning,

is we'd have a couch bed. We'd take the cushions from the couch, put them all on the floor, and we'd sit there and we'd watch UFC. We'd watch a movie. We'd hang out. We'd watch sports. We were just, you know,

she had her friends. She had her activities that she would go do, and it would be fantastic. We'd hang out. We'd watch sports. We were just, you know, she had her friends. She had her activities that she would go do, and it would be fantastic. She'd go do her thing. And then we'd do our thing together. There's not one. You know, it was everything. Yeah. It was just everything.

But I don't have that anymore. Do you believe in God? I'll take that as a yes um a lot of my thoughts stem from popular culture we were talking about this earlier if there is a god he's a kid with an ant farm he he she it doesn't give a fuck about me clearly didn't give a fuck about angela maybe maybe they have favorites maybe there's other people that are more important cool no i don't i don't buy into the concept of of of religion in that way and i'm sure there'll be a lot of people who get pissed off about it and i really don't care you don't buy into the status quo of much of anything probably

anyway right not particularly yeah you're a little different no i just you know the the tattoo across my neck says question everything and that's everything whether it's religion or politics or training techniques or nutrition or death life all of it to not question it to not try to formulate your own opinions, which are always influenced by others. Like we're, none of us were, were, were born on a, in a vacuum. No idea is really invented. It's the accumulation and the expression of what we've been exposed to. And for me, the most profound thing that I've been exposed to is watching my wife die. And it's not like it is in the movies. I wish it was. One of the conversations I had with one of the hospice nurses is that I had,

you know, I was wondering if it was going to be one of those things where she went to sleep and never woke up. And her response was, if you're lucky. I wasn't. I sat there and watch her suffocate for four hours slowly and the fear that she had as she was dying that's not going anywhere which is why i i want to do this i want to talk about death and make people uncomfortable so they can get comfortable, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Makes some sense. Do you think there's a different way that the medical community should be approaching some things in terms of like, you know, day one, uh, they say you have a tumor and from my experience of, you know, 20 years in this industry, you know, in the medical field, a lot of times this can spread. And I want to just let you know, I'm really concerned.

And I don't even know how you would deliver that message. But do you think that they should kind of, or is that scaring the fuck out of you way too much? Do you want to be scared now or scared later? Right. Do you want to be scared when they could potentially do something or face the, that position where, Oh, you're terminal now. Giving people the truth is always the best. It may be uncomfortable for them. They may not like it. It might be uncomfortable for the person giving that message, but tough fucking shit. I'm sorry. The truth is, is, is what is the best option in giving people all their options? We could do a, B, C, D, E, F, G. Those are the options. What would you like to do? Here's what I have seen for success and this, this, this, and this, and this. But in Angela's specific case, and I'm sure there's countless of others who had great experiences.

And what's scary is I've, I've met people by happenstance who their loved one's story mirrors Angela almost to a T same age bracket, same initial diagnosis, same kind of trend of, oh, all clear, oh, you're going to die. Frightening. Could she have had more aggressive? I know you said kind of either way you thought just because it progressed so fast. Could she potentially had more aggressive treatment? Like you were mentioning removing the breast or something like that. Absolutely. I think, you know, if we're going to speak on her case specifically, if there's something in you that's not supposed to be in you, take it out. Seems logical to me, but I'm not a doctor. So what do I know? They should have done that. Once they realized the

aggressiveness of her particular cancer, they should have been much more aggressive on the scans. As she got sick and was starting to show other physical symptoms that were frightening, they should have said, wait a second, something's not right and done further investigation to try to get a handle on things before it spiraled out of control, because it did. For those who have read the book, when you read the sequence of events, it doesn't make sense. It seems fucked up because it is. And I think these fucked up things happen far more frequently than anybody wants to admit. The people who go through it don't want to talk about it because it's painful and the people in the hospitals and the clinics and that they're not going to talk about their fuck-ups they're not going to admit mistakes and the system's designed to protect them so on a on a bigger you know that

30 000 foot view because the masses, because society are uncomfortable talking about death, they don't feel empowered to question those in a position to help them with death and help them with illness, which then allows those people to carry about in ways that probably is not ideal. Like if you never call your doctor on, wait a second, this doesn't seem right. What do you, what, what kind of care do you think you're going to get? How do you think that outcome is going to be? Um, my dad was in the, uh, hospital for around like 70 days or so. And, you know, we thought we were going to lose them on more than one occasion and uh you know i remember he called from the hospital and it it was like we just kept getting mixed information like we didn't know what was going on

and um he called and it's just that his just everything sounded so different when he was talking and uh you know i hung up the phone i was like oh my god i think i was like that was he he called like because he's like he's checking out like he's like he's out of here you know and so i went to my wife and i was like i i was like i gotta go to new york she's like well what's going on i was like my dad he's gonna die and she's like well how did that happen i'm like well you, what's going on? I was like, my dad, he's going to die. And she's like, well, how did that happen? I'm like, well, you know, he's been in the hospital, you know, and, but now it just looks like, you know, he's got this surgery. He sounded really nervous. I was like, I never heard him talk like that before.

Like he, you know, it wasn't just like a normal conversation. He was, you know, saying, I love you. And, you know, I hope I taught you, you know, all the stuff that you need. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, what? Kind of confused, you know? And it took me a minute to think about it, but you know, I went out to, we were in California. My dad was flying back from, uh, my dad was flying from California to New York. He was going to upgrade some of his stuff, uh, in New York. He had a tax practice there at the time and, uh, he was going to update

some of his computers and upgrade some stuff. And he was mid-flight and he just wasn't feeling well. And he was like, well, maybe I need to go to the bathroom. So he tried to go to the bathroom. Nothing happened. Then all of a sudden his stomach started to really cramp and turn. And he's like, maybe I have food poisoning. Maybe I need to throw up. So he even tried to make himself throw up.

Nothing was working. He wasn't finding any relief from anything. He started sweating profusely. His stomach started to grow. And by the time, um, and they can't, you know, they're not, they can't stop a flight, you know? So they're like over the Mississippi river and he's just in so much pain that he eventually passes out. Uh, the only person that was on the plane to be able to like help him at all was just like a veterinarian. So somebody that had some medical, uh, information, but no one could really do much for him. And luckily, uh, the pain was so severe that

he, he passed out and didn't have to deal with it anymore. They, uh, took him from there, took him to Jamaica Queens hospital, which Jamaica Queens hospital is used to dealing with, uh, like gunshot wounds and stabbings and, um and things like that. Like it's an emergency room place that they, they cranked people in and out of there. And they have obviously medical professionals there much like any other hospital, but you know, I don't think they were equipped and understood what my dad had going on. So my dad's there for a long period of time. And my mom is, you know, really losing her mind over everything. And, um, just things are changing so rapidly daily, as you know, you're like, okay, you're getting this story and I get in this story and

this nurse said this and this nurse said that. And I'm like, wow, I can't even understand how conflicted everyone is with everything that's going on. They don't even know where to operate. It's pin the tail on the donkey. It was wild. Yeah. I never said anything like it. And that's not what you expect. You see those white coats and you think, all right, they have their lists, they have their procedures. This is how things work. I wish it was the case. Now, as to the full reasons why, maybe they're overwhelmed. Maybe there's too many patients. Maybe there's a lot of other factors that we as people don't see. I can appreciate that. However, if you're in that profession, you need to understand that there are people whose loved ones are lying there and they need the truth. They need the answers. Don't tell them that, oh, it's indigestion. He'll be fine.

Meanwhile, it's a fucking heart attack. Don't tell someone that, oh, it's indigestion. He'll be fine. Meanwhile, it's a fucking heart attack. Don't tell someone that, oh, have this surgery. You'll be able to walk around and be in less pain when the day after they're bedridden for the rest of their days. Like there's some real fucking bad shit going down. But once you go through it, most people don't want to talk about it. And then those who haven't gone through it don't want to imagine it. So it keeps happening. So when it comes to how do we fix this problem, the medical component, we're going to look in the mirror.

It's all of our faults because we're not stepping up. We're not demanding the truth and holding people accountable. And that's one offshoot of this conversation of death that I hope actually takes a foothold. taking the care that they get from their medical professionals far more seriously, questioning everything they can because you can't just take them for their work. You got to remember half of those doctors graduated at the bottom of their class. That's true. I would also say this is like you're saying question everything. And I love that line of thinking. And in this case in particular, there's really, I mean, I'm sure it still happens, but it's really, really extremely rare for something to happen in the medical field that has not happened already. And as you pointed out many times on the show already, you can't fix everything. So just because they know what it is, doesn't mean they can fix it. But in my dad's case, I remember one of the huge turning points was them saying that they

weren't really sure what they were seeing. They weren't really sure if they were looking at. And I told my mom, I was like, I was like, that doesn't make any sense because somebody, somebody seen what's happened to him. Somebody knows what's going on. Like there's somebody somewhere that knows what's going on. And my dad had cancer previously. Um, and, uh, his doc, his original doctor was out of the country. And so we had to wait for him to get back, uh, for my dad to, uh, you know, get over to him to be able to see him. We took him out of Jamaica Queens hospital, but man, it was insane. My dad, you know, he's normally at that time, I think it was 240, 250. He went down to like 140. I mean, he was skin and bones. It was insane.

And he's still, it's almost like he went through a war. He's still all messed up. He still has open wounds and all kinds of you know complications and he's just a beast so luckily he's able to uh you know still you know go through life and be happy you know we're super thankful that he's still here but it was it was just absolutely it was horrific it was like it was like a nightmare and we were just so like scared each day because we didn't know what was going to happen next now on the on the back end of that how is the relationship with you and him knowing that he was that close to dying yeah there's the thing some people have that that that opportunity they kind of have that that scare we'll call it. And then they come back

and they're like, holy shit, my perspective is different. They appreciate others more. All those things kind of fall into place a little bit better than those who have never been through that wood chipper. My dad's relationship with everybody improves, you know, because now you're right. Like his perspective changed and he went like way out of his way and he's always been kind and he's always been there for uh me and my brother and and everything like that but now he like goes out of his way you know he deliberately goes out of his way to make sure that you know he's figuring out a way to like try to make you feel good almost all the time and there is the one of the powers of death you know and i've spoken to chris about

this previously when it comes to the slingshot and the dream what if mike hadn't died would the dream have happened would slingshot would have happened like there it's weird when you start trying to you know play those alternate timelines or connect those dots in that way, there's a lot more that we can gain by having those conversations about death than I think that we would lose by not having them. They're uncomfortable, but it's much better to have the option to have the conversations with your dad or your mom or your brother or your wife or all these people in your life that are important than it being taken away and having

the regret of not being able to. Like imagine if your dad's on that plane and instead of passing out, he dies. Yeah. All the conversations that were precipitated by that event would never have happened. Yeah. And a lot's happened since, I mean, he lives next to us. He's my kid's best friend, you know, and, and, and because of that situation, it happened when my kids were so young, um, that I, I have had that conversation with them and I, you know, have reiterated that to them, you know, like, you know, my mom's not in great health either. So I, I'm not telling them every day, but I just kind of say, you know, like they're getting older and just, you know, cause our, our, their other grandfather passed away recently or died recently. And so, um, you know, I was like, you know, that can happen to any of us. That can happen to me.

That can happen to mom, you know, anytime. Yeah. That's obviously the natural order is we're born. We have a life. We grow old. We die. Unfortunately, it doesn't always go that smoothly. so again when you when you're in that position where you have obligations whether it's a partner or children or a business or these things you have to you have to have the conversations you have to have all your shit together if you die or more accurately when you die because it's going to happen for those who don't have the obligations, maybe it's a little less important, but for their own life, their own enjoyment, acknowledging their own mortality will also change their perspective and change the perspective of those around them.

You know, I'm not a big hit about hit at a party, but for those who are in my world, Oh man, it comes in SEMA. Uh, I think what think what happened to Angela in sharing her story has been impactful on them. Their priorities have maybe aligned differently. If you knew that in the book, you mentioned that.

What's the terminology for what California is when it comes to right to die? Right to die. Did you know that when she was? That was never brought up by any of the medical professionals. Okay. And if you knew that, do you think you would have taken a different route in terms of what happened? A hundred percent. It's that simple. No one in their right mind would choose to go through what she went through

just wouldn't so knowing that she had that option that would have been medically sound and legal it would have been way better way but that would have required them telling her the truth, both in that respect, as well as the, the, the, the rate at which her cancer was growing, what the most likely outcome of this was going to be,

not what they had hoped was going to be. Yeah. When my dad was in the hospital, um, I never thought I'd hear those words from him. And luckily I had a friend that, um, that, uh, knew that, that, uh, was married to a nurse and he was like, Hey, when you go, you know, when you, when you go to New York, he's like, it's going to be awful. He's like, to me, that like hardest thing you ever dealt with, it's going to look awful.

It's going to sound awful. It's like your dad's going the hardest thing you ever dealt with, it's going to look awful. It's going to sound awful. It's like your dad's going to say and do things that you would not expect because he's on a lot of drugs and he's probably in a lot of pain. And luckily I was filled in, you know, before I, before I went, because then I was equipped to kind of deal with it. But yeah, he was saying, kill me. He was saying like, I want to die. Did your wife ever get to that point? was saying, kill me. He was saying like, I want to die. Did your wife ever get to that point? Well, as we talked about earlier, we had discussed about dying, all of us. When she was in those last few hours, she was scared. She was, she didn't know what was going to happen. You know, um, You know, the thing with her situation is that at the end, the liquid morphine not only doesn't make it harder for her to breathe, but it made her brain function a lot differently.

There was a lot of hallucinations. There was a lot of weird conversations. She was no longer who she was. She was being rewired by the growth of the cancer but also of the of the of the liquid morphine like some of the shit she was saying was just bananas uh the first few times i thought she was just kind of recanting something she saw on television but then it got really weird like what are those union soldiers doing in the corner? They weren't there. So things went off the rails really quick in that last period,

those last few weeks. And when this happened, when you administered the morphine, I mean, you knew she was going to die, right? And then, I mean, you just sat there and watched her take her last breath i mean how long did it take and four hours holy shit and that that exchange those four hours are kind of recapped in in the one of the chapters of the book she woke me up in the middle of the night asked asked for some orange juice, which was for her rather odd,

went to the store, got it, came back, and then we ended up talking for four hours as she slowly suffocated to death. Wow. You know, and it went from there. A normal conversation? Yeah, which was really trippy. At the end, she was lucid.

For the days and weeks before that she was all over the map um but in that moment those that short period of time she was her she was angela um talked about a lot of stuff wow but that's blowing my mind right now it was four hours of her slowly suffocating. And it went from gasping to a gurgle, and then she was gone. And that's not something that's going away. That's in my head. And I don't know why I did it at the time,

but I took a picture of her after she died. I thought it was important. And that's in the book. And I put it in there because people need to see what that looks like, especially in contrast to who she was when she was her real self, to understand that someone who's 43 years old can end up like that in a very short period of time. I agree. I think that is important, especially from your perspective. You know, you're talking

about the things you're talking about. I think it's important that they, that people do see that people do see that uglier side to it. You know, the truth. Yeah. As you've been pointing out the whole time, the truth isn't pretty, it's not comfortable, but it's the truth. So, you know, there's, there's people who knew Angela knew her longer than I did, um, that were really, really uncomfortable with seeing that imagery tough. If you want to know her story, that is of her story it just is there's no there's no hiding from it we can't undo it it's going to happen and knowing that that is a legit possibility for a lot of people is something that we all have to reconcile or you're going to be in the wood chipper and completely fucking lost you're not going to know what to do you're not going to be in the wood chipper and completely fucking lost. You're not going to know what to do.

You're not going to be able to make sound decisions, important decisions at the time. If someone is ill or if you're ill, you know, it's just, we have to. It sucks. I get it. It's uncomfortable. Oh, well. What do you do now on a daily basis to try try to to try to hold things together purpose i if if i had my way this is what i would do all the time sharing angela's story and sharing other people's stories

you know um mike story that's something that the world needs to hear more. Uh, I mentioned him earlier, my, my, my brother, Archie, his wife dying, like death is all around us. And each story is different. Each story is unique and each story could impact someone differently. You know, maybe somebody, you know, watch the podcast born. I did and I did watch this one and think I'm a dick. Cool. But maybe if they hear somebody else's story, it really hits them hard and gets them thinking about things differently and prepares them just even a little bit for, for facing the inevitable. That's that, that's, that would be fantastic to be able to do that.

And I understand I've had people, a couple medical and health or mental health professionals point out that it's going to be hard to try to spend the rest of your time talking about death. And the frightening thing is this is the first time I've really been in front of a camera. I've never wanted to be in front of a camera. I don't even have a headshot. never wanted to be in front of a camera i don't even have a headshot you know but if this is what it takes to get that message out to get somebody thinking about death maybe living a better life for themselves through angela's story or other people's story so be it how do you prevent yourself from unraveling you mentioned mentioned purpose, but like, you know,

on a day to day basis, like, uh, after she died, did you have a period of time where you just couldn't figure out how to, how to like get up off the couch or anything like that? Or did you just say, I need to just keep myself busy or how did you deal with that?

The only therapeutic thing really was lifting. I spent a lot of time in the garage, a lot of time thinking of how I could honor her. What things could I do to, to show her how much she meant to me. And I've gone in the, you know, 501 days now since her death, I've gone through that list. Now it's just continually spreading her story and the other stories. It's the only thing that makes sense to me. I don't really worry about my own state. I don't. worry about my own state. I don't. It's not really relevant to me. There's only so much of that I can control. If at some point I lose it all, oh well, I'll lose it all. The question is what can I do between now and then? What can her legacy be for other people who didn't know her, didn't meet her? That's more important.

Is part of it though, trying to keep yourself together? Because if you can't, then you can't share the message, right? Cart and the horse. Yeah. Right. So like the lifting and the nutrition. Well, keep in mind, you know, carnivore and Snickers is usually on the menu. This is the best diet I've heard of so far on the show. A couple of cookies on the side.

It's a tough the menu. This is the best diet I've heard of so far on the show. A couple of cookies on the side. It's a tough question to answer. I can't foresee the future. All I know is the most important thing for me at this moment is doing this stuff, is talking to people, whether it's people that I know, complete fucking strangers, whatever. whether it's people that I know, complete fucking strangers, whatever. Maybe that day will come where somebody I don't know comes up to me and says, you know what, Angela's story made a huge impact on me. Then, you know, that would help keep me together. That would help push me forward.

But I try not to worry about that long-term future. Yeah, I mean, when this show's over, I'm calling my lawyer. I'm going to figure out my will. Figure out your will, the DNR, who has power of attorney, who has the power for medical decisions. Like each state and country has their own thing.

So I think anybody who has a family, some type of financial business obligations needs to have those things in order. And it's not like I'm trying to drum up business for lawyers, but unfortunately that's the system we live in. So get that shit in order. in that realize that what if tomorrow isn't going to happen for you? Who is important to you? Who do you want to know that you care for them? The people that really matter to me know without doubt how I feel about them. I never want them to question. If for whatever reason I decide, yep, I'm done and I kill myself or i get killed somehow i die somehow i don't want them to wonder about anything i want them to know exactly how i felt about them what they need to do with the cat and the dog all that kind of stuff you know what you got over there, Andrew? I just wanted to go back to, you know, about the administering the liquid morphine. You said that you killed her.

Yes. Do you blame yourself for it? It's not an issue of blame. It's an issue of choice. Had I not given her the morphine, she would have been in excruciating pain. Yeah. So the reason why I keep bringing this back up is because I know somebody that went through that exact same situation. They're not dealing with it very well. Understandably. Yeah.

What advice can I give this person? I mean, they're essentially, they're blaming themselves for it. It's leading to bad health choices. You know, it's the worst of the worst that you can think of. There's good days and there's bad days. Yeah. Well, they can't go back. They can't undo that choice. But if they're in a situation where they had to administer medication to somebody and it was that medication that ultimately killed them, they did what was best for them, for their friend, their loved one, what have you. You know, and I don't like to use the analogy, but when your dad took the dog to the vet to put him down, that wasn't out of maliciousness, that was out of compassion. yeah the burden is fucking heavy it sucks having that that that mind game going of i did this and that killed them but what was the alternative

right there wasn't one you know the whole bad lifestyle choices or food or whatever the whatever things they're playing with. I personally can't buy into that. Angela was a pescatarian for 20 plus years. There's plenty of people, oh, vegetarians, pescatarians, they're the healthiest, blah, blah, blah. And maybe that's true for everybody else. It wasn't true for her. So for your friend, maybe this person had a horrible lifestyle, but maybe that's not what was the reason they died. They died because they died. And if giving them morphine is what was the thing that killed them, what was the alternative? You know, what was going to happen if they didn't?

And I understand there'll be people who won't be able to administer that. You know, if you were with your dad in the hospital again, and you're the one who had to press the button to administer that life-ending dose of medication, would you be able to do it? I got no clue. Think about it. Because that could potentially happen as it happened for your friend and in all reality, what happened for Angela? You know, I was the one who's providing the bulk of her hospice care at the end. I had no choice. It's what I signed up for.

You know, when we got married, I made a promise. Yeah. And I mean, in regards to, you know, you wanting you wanting to, uh, to spread this message or to inform everybody and be on this platform, I can say the most comforting thing I can think of. I can be there for this person, but I have never lived through it. You have. So everything you're saying right now is, is helping so much more than anything I could ever come up with. Have them reach out to me.

I, the, the situations sound similar. Obviously they're not identical,? Have them reach out to me. The situation sounds similar. Obviously, they're not identical. But have them reach out to me. If it'll be helpful for them to talk to somebody who's been through that scenario, I'm available. 100% anytime. Cool. Thank you. And that holds true for anybody who's in that fucking spot who doesn't know what to do.

Doesn't know how to do doesn't know how to to process what's going on or what they've gone through it fucking sucks yeah it does it makes everything else that's happened at least for me in my life pale in comparison it's the worst thing ever which as far as my own death goes it's a joke in comparison really is i could give a fuck i don't care it can't be any harder obviously i don't want to suffer you know death by a thousand cuts but it's just not it doesn't it's not on the same radar but the that game of what if horrendous horrendous but there is no infinity stones there's no snapping of the fingers and changing shit back. You have to understand those choices and realize what the alternatives were if there

were any. And then switching gears a little bit, does the key on your neck symbolize anything? This is a giving key. I don't know if you're familiar with those. There's a company out of Los Angeles, I believe, who employs people who are transitioning out of homelessness. And what they do is they stamp inspirational messages on the keys. Oh, okay.

And this one was made specially with Angela's initials, given to me by one of my sisters. Okay. So, you know every every little thing you know as far as how i function day to day or even how i choose to pick words or what i wear is all purpose you know this ring was made in my brother's shop this ring used to be angela's question everything like everything's there for a reason. A lot of it

stemming from what she had to go through and what she meant to me. You know, reading through the book, you mentioned the picture of her, I think I'm like the eighth chapter. And when I read it and I saw that picture, I was like, wait up. I haven't seen a picture of actually seeing, I didn't see her face through the whole book until that very point. Yes. And then at the very last image of her. Why? Why'd you do that? Well, one, I wanted the last image of her to be the one I want people to hold,

to remember her by, because that's who she was. The first seven pictures are purposely vague of both of us, because I don't want people seeing us. I want people seeing themselves. I want people imagining that they're the ones in that first picture in the bowling alley or outside the museum in Portugal or in the rain room in LACMA. Like I want people seeing themselves there. Then they need to see her dead, but remember remember her who she was because she was more than just someone who died of cancer far more and that's why i don't have a headshot you know people will use uh the word like move on right like you obviously don't ever like move on from something like this,

but how do you kind of move forward in a sense of like, this person's no longer here and maybe it doesn't make sense to have the house full of all of their stuff. I guess for some people, maybe it would cause like bad memories or, or just make you too sad. So a lot of people like get rid I guess for some people, maybe it would cause like bad memories or, or just make you too sad. So a lot of people like get rid of everything and some people will hold on to a lot of stuff. What worked for you? Well, every death is different. Every person is different. What will work for somebody is not going to work for everybody. There's a lot of things that I have of Angela's specifically that I've given away to people who knew her, um,

sisters, you know, the, the, the circle of, of people who are really close to her during her life, but also after her death. Um, I've kept some things that just have sentimental value to me. A lot of body work artwork has been done specifically for her to remember things that we did or things about her. One of the biggest things is I want to share her with as many people as I can. So much of her ashes were spread. Oh, there she is. Damn dude. How'd you get her? Go figure. Right. It was the pickup line. That's Joe. Just got to say the right thing. There you go. Um, her ashes are spread in nine different places. Um, there's, there's artwork that has been commissioned and auctioned off that went to her

favorite charity, just things like that, that again, I can help share her and who she was with as, as many people as I can. You know, there was zero intent of writing a book. I am not a fucking author by any stretch, but it's one of the best ways to get that story out and to try to get the conversation going and try to bring some meaning to the worst part of her life while celebrating some of the better parts. Did you learn a lot about yourself writing the book and learn a lot about the situation? No.

Um, what I will say is it fucking sucked yeah it must have been brutal because you re every time you write it every time you reread it you relive it you know it's i understand why people don't like to talk about this kind of stuff they don't want to talk about the person who's died they don't want to pull out memories, whether they're, they're happy memories because they're not here anymore or the bad memories because they're bad. But it had, it has to be done. So the learning part is didn't, I didn't really learn much about myself. What I tell many people is that I've kind of always been this way.

I'm just not that the dial's been turned to 11. You know, earlier on in my life, I was a two or three and just try to follow the, you know, the program that we're all given at a young age. Tried it, never felt right. Something was wrong. And then I became like a five or six on the dial. And now it's, I'm bumped to an 11.

you know if somebody asked me a question i will tell them my truth if they don't like it that's not my problem when she was alive did you guys talk about death a lot too we talked about that on our first date uh angela's mother died when she, of cancer, when she was in high school. And she's the one who was one of the primary caregivers for her. So she faced death pretty early on at a really tough spot. Uh, so we talked about that at that time. My mother was ill, um, who, you know, my mother died. We went to the funeral. Angela died. Uh, then my father died. So, you know, there was people in her world, especially those who she looked up to in the music industry. A lot of the people who helped get her through that time with her mother,

there was people who died. Like it was a topic, you know, a lot of the artwork we had around the houses we'll call it death oriented a lot of skulls my wife's uh dad uh died when she was about 10 and uh she's like one of the most driven people that you'll ever meet um she ended up getting a division one scholarship the university of kansas and like a lot of those things happened because of, you mentioned earlier how, uh, powerful death can be. Um, she also recognized like, I better like, you know, not be this, uh, this, uh, you know, little snowflake out in the world. I better be tough and I better be able to handle myself and take care of myself. So when I met her, she was an executive for a radio station in Los Angeles. So she was, you know, very career driven. She got everything kind of, you know, all straightened out just because of that incident as a child. Yeah. Angela's not far off of that. You know, when she moved to Los Angeles, she didn't have a job or a place to live. Ended up schlepping cappuccinos at a local coffee spot. And over the years was able to work herself up to an executive producer position at one of the top post-production facilities in the

world. She kicked ass at her job, at living the life that she wanted to live. And a lot of that does stem, I believe, from her mother's death. It sucks. Nobody wants to see those people who matter to them die. But to not let it impact you disrespects them. It dishonors them. So why would you just keep going back to the same old shit after something like that happened? Use it for something. You hear a lot of people say, you know, after someone passes, they kind of recognize that life's short. What has been the ultimate thing that you recognized? Excellent question. short what has been the ultimate thing that you recognized excellent question i think of how fucked up society has become of how i blame this guy by the way well 100 his fault yeah um and

and obviously that may i don't want that to sound like super arrogant or condescending to everybody, but the shit that we value is not important. Whether it's somebody else's opinion, some giant piece of material possession. Once you're in a position where you would give everything to undo something. If Andy was in a hospital bed with parts of her body falling apart, what wouldn't you give? What wouldn't you do to undo that? So the fact that we don't talk about death and instead we worship people who bring no value we worship things that have no meaning you know and we were talking about movies earlier you know another one of my uh spirit animals is tyler durden you know all the shit we have is pointless it's absolutely pointless so that i think has probably been the biggest thing of how fucked up society is. And it's all of our faults. The medical profession is the way it is because shareholders want their dividend checks. They want their stocks. Insurance companies, doctors, they all want their reward.

doctors, they all want their reward. And that reward for a lot of the time comes at the cost of, of us, but we're too chicken shit to say anything about it. Society's fucked up and fight clubs, a great movie among others. What do you enjoy doing now? You mentioned lifting. Is there anything else? I mean, it sounds like you, uh, you like diving in on some of this, uh, some of these products that you created. Designing's fun. It's a good distraction. Um, and honestly, uh, you know, I am, this is going to sound very strange, but probably far more social now than I ever have been. Now, keeping in mind that a lot of the conversations end up on this topic just because it is who I am. Yeah. People don't start calling you grim for nothing. But just hanging out, enjoying what time I can with the people who matter.

I don't want it to sound cliche because I hate the greeting card answers or the greeting card responses to anything, but it's the truth. You know, I, I realize that there are people who could be gone right now. We're sitting here podcasting away and there's going to be somebody important to me. That's dead. Something terrible has happened to them or somebody who's important to them that would impact. So I just try to be grateful for what I do have and what I was given with Angela for as long as we were together. I would have to say out of everything you've said so far on the podcast, some of the most touching things are when you go from the more positive side of things. You

mentioned, uh, not that this is positive, but you mentioned the 501 days of her passing but you then said of her death or 501 days of her being dead um you then mentioned you kind of flipped it around and said uh you're trying to do something daily to honor her like that to me is like that's that's insanely powerful and that's a chunk that someone can actually, anyone can utilize that. Anyone listening can, that ever deals with that situation. Something I've always suggested to people is, um, you know, find a characteristic in the person that you loved, that you really enjoyed and maybe have that live through you. You know, my oldest brother, he just took no

shit from anybody and, and, you know, kind of just went to the beat of his own drum. I was like, I always admired that about him. You know, he had a problem with somebody, he wouldn't even tell him, he would just go up and punch him. I'm not violent, so I'm not about to punch anybody probably. But, uh, you know, I don't have, uh, as much of a problem voicing my opinion. I don't have as much of a problem, you know, doing the things that I want to do. Yeah. You know, the, the, in that vein and, and, and, and coupling it with the topic of death, some of the people I've, I've shared Angela's story with, they've sat down with their families and said, look, mom, dad, you're getting older. You're starting to have health problems.

What do you want done if you get sick and can't, you know, you're not functioning? They're probably like, what? I feel fine. And then people start freaking out. But you have, people need to be able to say what they need to say, have that no bullshit approach with this topic because it frees them up to be that way with everything. When you spend less time worrying about the people who you don't like or don't like you and you either A, choose to punch them in the face or B, just choose not to acknowledge them or just cut them out, things get easier. And again, you know,

death, I get it. It's dark. It's morbid. It's scary. It's all these things. But once you get past the boogeyman, once you get past the monster under your bed bullshit, all of a sudden you can see it for what it really is. It's a teacher. It helps align what's important in our lives. And everybody's different. Everybody's going to pick the things that's important to them, the people that are important to them. But you can't really get to that point unless you go through that tough shit first. Anything else, bud?

I do have a question. Why does the book go opposite nine to one counting down her favorite number was nine hence nine chapters nine lessons nine photos but we're all counting down that hourglasses you know is working those the the the sand is pouring through for all of us. There's no do-overs. There's no pauses. So what are you going to do? Knowing that your time is limited and you may not actually be able to control when it's over, what are you going to do about it now? If you have somebody who's important to you or was important to you, When was the last time you reached out? It's that simple for people who are listening and think I'm full of shit.

Cool. When was the last time you called your mother? Some of us can't. Yeah. When was the last time you called your mom? Let's talk to her yesterday. Okay, good.

Checking in. Good. But, but that, that, that was the reason I was, you know, again, everything has purpose. Look at the cover of the book.

Purple, her favorite color. If you notice the coffee cup, the teacup that Grimm's holding, it's I-W-W-I-W-W-I-W-I. I want what I want when I want it. Angela's motto you know there was countless times we were in vegas one of our favorite places to hang out and she'd wander on into prado or she'd wander on into sella mccartney and she'd see something she goes i want what i want when i want it and pull out the credit card and buy her now i would never buy a thousand dollar purse i don't see the value there. She did.

She loved them. It made her happy. She did what she wanted when she wanted the table that, that Grimm's leaning on is a nod to Hanano's, which for anybody who's been to Hanano's knows that it's a very wood kind of decor, old school bar dive bar. That's why that's there. Everything with purpose

and uh joey you met her she noticed that uh in the book the only thing that was capitalized was angela's name nothing's more important there you go yep um this almost seems like a dumb question but you've talked about it so many times you've written a book about it do you still cry on occasion and it's usually at completely random times i've had a lot of people reach out who have gone through similar things, partners, friends, whatever, have died. And some of them have been kind of really early on, whether it's like a month or two or what have you. And one of the things I want to share with them is that you have very little control over this grieving process. There's going to be a lot of the what if games that we were talking about

earlier in your head. And there's going to be times lot of the what if games that we were talking about earlier in your head. And there's going to be times where out of nowhere, you're just going to start crying. And there's no trigger. There's no, I heard a song or I saw a picture. That can happen. But there's times where just out of nowhere, you get blindsided and overwhelmed with emotion. And some people, I think, try to drown it. Some people try to ignore it. I just don't fight it. If it happens, it happens. The timeline of things is different for everybody. Earlier on, we were talking about what can you do if you're a friend and you want to show you care. You can be there for them.

You can listen. And there's also things you don't want to do. Say stupid shit. Like she's in a better place. Like really? You know that? What better place is that? Can you direct me towards that?

I'd like to see her again. I like the map. I know how you feel. Well, unless you've been through the same situation you don't so don't say stupid shit another one was when you're going back to the depression thing is i've had people say they want to help me or save me from depression did i ask for that no i am going through what I'm going through at the rate I'm going through it. Trying to meddle it or steer it, especially from the outside, is probably not going to turn out well. Just people need to experience this and it's painful.

It is. But trying to bypass it or hack it is really not going to work out well. Have you noticed you have to let everybody grieve differently, especially the people around you? Cause like some people, like, I mean, it could be frustrating. It could be annoying. They, they may be, uh, keep bringing her up. Hey, remember when she did? And you're like, yeah, yeah, I, yeah, yeah. I was there, you know, like you want to be like frustrated with them, but you got to kind of let them work their way through their own process. A hundred percent.

Because everybody knew her a little bit differently. When the interesting thing with Angela is she had different groups. She had her work group or a friends from high school group, let's say, or this group or that group. And she kind of kept them all separated. And since her death, I've brought a couple of them together and they have formed relationships amongst themselves. But all of them are going through this process differently at their own speeds. Some of them are doing it kind of, you know, very sheltered or closed off from maybe the group. Others have been really upfront or really close with each other or myself about it. 100%. Every death is different. Every person's grieving process is different. There's no handbook. There's no timeline. You just have to be in it. Otherwise, you cheat that person

of honoring them the way they deserve to be honored. But that requires people putting themselves aside for a minute and putting that person who died first. How long was it after she died that you wrote the book? The book started, it came out nine months to the day she died coincidental um and it took nine weeks to write so it's six months or so and for a few months before that i kind of was trying to formulate it in my head of what i felt needed to be told about her story. Did it start with you intending to write a book or were you just kind of like just writing down information?

When she was sick and she was in the hospital, the care center and then home, I found myself just jotting down random thoughts, observations, ideas. I don't want to say philosophies because that sounds pretentious, but just things like that. And then after she died and then having conversations with people telling her story over and over again, I knew that it needed to get out more. And that is kind of where the book started. And I've been asked why it's called what it's called

you know tea time with the reaper well death should be something we can discuss over tea it should be something as as easy to speak about and talk about as the weather like oh shit here comes derek with the tea here we go all tea no shade um it has to be part of our our day-to-day conversation if we're ever going to get a good handle on it i agree anything else over there andrew yeah and that's that's it for me over here yeah thank you so much for uh for sharing all this this has been awesome i'm super super grateful for the opportunity to actually come on here. Um,

as I said before, I will talk about this all day, any chance I get. Um, so this is definitely not something that I think most people who are listening or watching are into. This is probably not the normal topic for them. Uh, I get how it'll make some people uncomfortable.

I'll get how it'll rub people the wrong way. Boo. One way or the other, you're, you're, you're going to meet grim. And the sooner you get comfortable with that concept, the easier that meeting is going to go. Where can people check out your book? Uh, the books available on Amazon. If you type tea time with the reaper.com, it'll take you right to the Amazon page. Um, and then on Instagram, it's tea time with the reaper.

And if anybody's interested in these, uh, toys you have from on this design stuff, uh, at havoc gear, H A V Y K gear. Awesome, man.

Thank you so much for sharing that strength is never a weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later.