The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
Ep #104: A Journey of Thanks and Transformation
What happens when life's chaos meets the serenity of gratitude?
I find myself juggling the demands of Snowdrop Foundation, a nonstop freelance career, and the excitement of home renovations. Yet, amid this whirlwind, the essence of gratitude shines through, grounding my journey. With over $6.4 million donated for childhood cancer research, the foundation's success is a testament to the power of purpose and community, filling me with thankfulness. My personal growth, spurred by Accelerated Resolution Therapy with the remarkable Laurel Wiers, brings a shift in perspective—embracing self-worth beyond material achievements. A humorous nod to Aaron Judge sums it up: resilience isn't about avoiding failure, but accepting it with grace and humor.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I encourage expressing gratitude to those who enrich our lives, inviting listeners to join this heartfelt practice. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey of growth and gratitude. Stay connected, stay appreciative, and remember, a moment of thanks can light up someone's day.
Hello and thank you for joining me Now. This is going to be kind of another short episode. No, I'm not giving up on the podcast. I think about the podcast every day. I really do.
Speaker 1:This is just it's the busiest time of year for Trish and me, with our charity Snowdrop Foundation that benefits childhood cancer patients. We pair that with having recently moved into our house and we still have contractors renovating things daily, like they're here all the time. And then you have my freelance voice and commercial work schedule that's completely filled up. And then there's a couple of other projects that I'm involved with, and, honestly, the days just seem to run together and before I know it, hell, it's Tuesday and it's time to post another episode. I know sounds like I'm complaining, right, being so busy, though it's caused me a little more stress than usual. Now, normally I'd go for a run to take the stress edge off. However, that hasn't been happening lately either, like at all. For the entire month of November and I'm recording this on the 25th I have run a total of 19 miles for the month. I ran a half marathon on November 3rd with my brother-in-law, paul. Normally, when Paul and I run together, we do this run-walk procedure like run for four minutes, walk for a minute. So I felt like I could hang with him, even though I hadn't really run much, especially in October. My entire mileage for October was less than a marathon. Yeah, for the month I ran 25, some odd miles. But here's the thing. Okay, so I thought Paul and I would do this run walk thing. Nah, paul decided he wanted to run the race, the whole damn thing. So no walking. We finished in 10.03 pace. Sounds like I'm bitching right. Well, as I mentioned, I'm recording this on Monday, november 25th Yesterday, I turned 55.
Speaker 1:I haven't run in over three weeks. November 3rd was the last time I ran. But, to quote, celebrate my birthday and also prove to myself that I can still be a good runner at 55, if I decided to train, I chose to run 5.5 miles. See if I can do it in 55 minutes or less. Oh, and I was going to run from our house past my mother-in-law's house and back, and so I planned to drag a tire behind me from my mother-in-law's house to our house, which was the last half mile. I may not be as athletic as I used to be, but my mind still thinks I'm invincible. I know, kind of sounds like I'm bemoaning my age, right. Well, I'm not. I'm not complaining, I'm not bitching and I'm not bemoaning.
Speaker 1:Actually, I'm grateful for all of this happening and since it's the week of Thanksgiving, I thought you know what. It might be a good idea for each of us to reflect on what we're grateful for in our lives. I mentioned Snowdrop. I'm grateful that we have Snowdrop Foundation and that in 18 years, we've donated over $6.4 million to childhood cancer research and college scholarships. I talked about the house and the renovations. Guess what? I'm grateful that I have a house, that I can pay the bills and afford to have renovations done to make it the way Trish and I want the house to be.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful that I was able to get my dream car. Okay, so, before October 3rd, my dream car and it's been my dream car since I was 14 years old. Well, it just would have been a status symbol for me. Okay, it would have been something I needed to make myself feel better about myself. Well, now my car. To me, it's a car, it's a damn cool car and I enjoy driving it, but I don't need it to make me feel any better about myself. If I had to get rid of it tomorrow, I would having no problem doing it either. I no longer define myself or my success by material possessions. I truly don't.
Speaker 1:Well, damn Klein, what changed my next grateful life event? Meeting Laurel Weers on September 19th and going through two ART sessions with her? Art is accelerated resolution therapy. It has absolutely changed my life. After just our first session on October 3rd, I became a new person. After our second session on October 21st, we rewrote my last traumatic trigger story. Those two sessions have absolutely changed my life. I'm still a realist, slash pessimist, but I'm not in competition with the ghost anymore. I'm able to see some of my own positive traits and no longer sweat my own failures. Example I laid out some goals at the beginning of the year that I thought would be easy to accomplish and when I wrote them, I seriously I thought they were bunnies.
Speaker 1:They were that easy to accomplish. Well, the year is almost over and I have accomplished only one of my goals. Yeah, we moved into our own house and you know what? I'm okay with it. I'm not going to define myself anymore as a failure because I only hit one out of 11 goals. Hell, that's about the same percentage of success that Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has in the playoffs, nobody's going to call him a failure, no, league MVP. Oh and, by the way, I love Aaron Judge, so don't be giving me any shit about it. Aaron Judge, big fan, just saying, anyway. So what goals did I miss this year? Well, let's see Income. I wanted to increase my annual income from last year by $10,000. I don't know, I not only failed to do that, I also didn't even meet last year's total. This is the only goal that causes me a little anxiety, just because, well, you know, this can affect the ability to pay bills. But we were able to move into a house, was able to buy my dream car. I don't think the lights are getting turned off anytime soon.
Speaker 1:Podcast goals I wanted to post 48 new full podcast episodes this year. Grow the audience to 1000 plus on YouTube and monetize the podcast. You know. Grow the audience to 1,000 plus on YouTube and monetize the podcast. You know, make a little money from it. Struck out on all three of those posted 42 episodes, of which 30 were full-length episodes. Audience is still stuck at 566, and I haven't made a penny from this or from the Tunnel and Climb podcast. The way I look at it, though, I have put up 42 episodes this year, so I'm only six away from the goal. All right, I haven't lost any listeners on YouTube. I've actually gained a couple, but still way far away from a thousand.
Speaker 1:Another thing I wanted to do this year I wanted to book six speaking engagements. Didn't even book one. Missed that by a long shot. Woo, had a goal to run 2,000 total miles this year. Let me tell you, even if I run seven miles per day every day for the next 32 days, I won't even reach 750 miles for the year. Missed that one by the proverbial mile. Wait, no, missed that one by miles, and I don't care. Thought if I hit 2,000 miles for the year, that would have included six races, not even close. I won't get any closer to six races than 33% completion on that goal. Two races this year, that's. It Figured. One of the races I would run would be a 50 miler where I would lower my 50 mile PR. No, 50 mile race, no lower PR. Next race goal was to complete another 24-hour race. Didn't even sign up for one. And then the final goal was to complete another 100-mile race. Closest I got to that one was looking up 100-mile races to sign up for Never had any intention of registering, even when I found an intriguing one. In the past, I'd be beating myself up for not hitting any of those marks.
Speaker 1:Since October 3rd, my perspective has changed dramatically. Prior, most of those goals were there to fulfill others' perceptions of me or how I wanted to be perceived. Jeez, look what Klein's doing. Look what Klein did. Guess what. Had I accomplished all of those goals, it wouldn't have changed anything about me to anyone else. That's the basic change that has occurred in me after my session with Laurel Wears.
Speaker 1:What we determined was that when I was 13 and my dad told me that I'd have a life of no future if I didn't play baseball anymore, it had a deeper impact on me than I realized. Yes, it motivated me to be successful, and by every measurable trait I have been. What I didn't realize is the latent effect it had on me when I failed at something. Take my Alaska run from November of 2019, where I tried to run the northernmost 304 miles of the Dalton Highway from the Arctic Circle sign to the Arctic Ocean. After 200 plus miles, I needed help to accomplish the goal of taking an 8.9 pound backpack full of childhood cancer patient names and deliver it to the US Post Office in Dead Horse, Alaska, when I could no longer go and I elected to give the backpack to my buddy, scott Tyner, to finish out day number six and then share the remaining days and miles with me, I thought that I'd failed. It triggered that memory that had laid dormant for 37 years, a life of no future that all I could think about was man. My dad was right I am nothing but a failure. Art and Laurel Wears changed all of that in one session.
Speaker 1:How did I almost immediately know I was changed after that first session? Because I look at a photo of my dad and feel compassion for him. I no longer see him as a motivator. He's just my dad, yeah, a guy I lived with for 18 years but barely knew Now, a guy who I wish was alive so that I could get to know him, so that we could travel together. He loved to travel. When my dad killed himself in April of 2005, I never cared and I didn't miss him. After October 3rd. I do miss him. I know I miss him because I think almost daily, man, I wonder how dads in my relationship would be. You know now if he were alive. It's something I care about now that I never did before. He's the ghost that I've been trying to chase. He's been dead since 2005. And I was still trying to please him. I was still trying to make him proud, and it would never happen because he's dead.
Speaker 1:What we changed in the first session is that we took away the power. I let someone else's opinion hold over me, and we rewrote that story to give me the power to see myself as I am. We went back in time to that day when 13-year-old Kevin told his dad he didn't want to play baseball anymore, but this time, 55-year-old Kevin went back with my 13-year-old self. I know all this bouncing between first and third person, sorry. We changed the narrative of that moment, though.
Speaker 1:Then we attached a new image to the new story, and I got to pick the image, since I was sitting in the area in our house that we're renovating into a bar with a gargoyle theme. I started to cry and Laurel Wears asked why are you crying? I told her I didn't want to correlate that negative time with gargoyles, because gargoyles remind me of my favorite place on earth that I've ever been Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and I don't want to come into bargoyle. That's what we're naming it. I know right, clever. Anyway, I didn't want gargoyles and I see them every day in my bar to remind me of that childhood trauma, and I see him every day in my bar to remind me of that childhood trauma. She told me that we were associating gargoyles something I now see every day in my life with the new story, the empowering story, and every time I see a gargoyle it will remind me of the new story. Nothing to do with the old story Can't tell you how right she was.
Speaker 1:And the funny thing is, as I mentioned earlier, I would have loved to have traveled with my dad, who was an adventurous spirit. Dude went to Tahiti in Fiji, by himself on a Russian oil tanker, just decided to do it on a whim, gone for three weeks, did it all by himself. He loved to travel. He was adventurous like that. Whenever I see the gargoyle figurines and the photos of Notre Dame in our house, it makes me miss my dad even more. It keeps me in this new story so much I hardly even remember the old one.
Speaker 1:So in the second session with Laura Wears and I know if you've listened to this podcast or the Tuttle Climb podcast since October 3rd, you're probably shaking your head at how incessantly I talk about her. Well, when someone rewires your brain from wondering every day if this is the day I kill myself to no longer thinking about that act at all for nearly eight weeks now, I can't talk about her enough, I'm sorry. Anyway, in the second session we cleared up the failure of Alaska. Using the same technique, we went back to the spot where I felt like I was done. I had just climbed up a long two and a half mile hill that I didn't know existed in front of me. I was wheezing, I couldn't catch my breath. It took me two and a half hours to go two miles up that hill and I told Brian Anderson, my crew chief, and our driver, dave and Jeff, our other driver, and the film crew, and my medic and friend Scott Tyner. I said I'm done and they said no, you're not. And so we kept the charade up for another nine more miles and finally, at 13 miles, I gave out and I couldn't go anymore. And we cleared that up because I always thought that I was a failure.
Speaker 1:But this second session it cured me, and I know it did, because I can look at the documentary poster Delivering Hope and not have those feelings of failure anymore. I can watch the movie trailer and not hate myself, and I can watch the entire movie and see all of the crew having so much fun on days seven, eight and nine, the last three days of the run After the solo quest had ended, and I can think look at how relaxed everybody is and how much fun they're having, instead of what I used to think. No-transcript True. The other example I can share that I know I'm cured of thinking of that as a failure and I've only shared this with a few people is that I've been asked numerous times if I'd consider doing that Alaska run ever again. My response has always been no, until October 3rd.
Speaker 1:Laurel Wears asked me if I'd ever do it again and I said I could now think about doing it, but that if I did do it, I would do it differently. If we ever did it again. How Simple I'd share the miles with Scott Tyner and the crew from the outset, from the first mile. That way, I know the mission's going to succeed. There's never going to be any doubt. Can Klein do this? Well, klein's not doing it on his own anymore. Klein's got stronger people running with him. Nobody would be stressed, because we would all know that we're all there to compete in the same thing and if one person stumbles, the next person's ready to get up and take their place. It's not if one person stumbles, this thing's dead. We're not going to be stressed like that anymore and we'd all have more fun more fun than a frozen crew should be allowed to have.
Speaker 1:And selfishly, I'm going to be honest, I'd also get to see some of the beauty of the frozen tundra that I missed when we did it last time because my head was down the entire time. I didn't get to see the Northern Lights. I didn't get to see the vast expanses of voidness I didn't. I got to see ground, ice, gravel, entire tracks, and that's about it. So yeah, selfishly, it would be different for me.
Speaker 1:So am I grateful for Laurel Wears? You know this might sound weird, because I'm pretty sure she's younger than I am, but she's kind of like a second mom to me now because I'm reborn since meeting her. Sorry, kind of got off track there a little bit. We were talking about things we're grateful for. I know this is going on a little longer than I thought. I'm going to mention two more, just two, and they are the people with whom I've had the longest relationships in my life.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful that I met Tim Tuttle. I know right, we spent 25 years together on the radio and now we're about to complete our first full year as a podcast team. To be honest with you, I haven't had this much fun with Tim in a broadcast setting since the first day we got together. It's been an absolute blast and it's so cool that you know we open up to each other. I'm learning things about him that I didn't know and he's learning things about me this latest podcast. He didn't know about my early radio career and the first song that I ever played when I got into radio. You'll learn it if you listen to the Tuttle Clime podcast. Anyway, I'm sure I would have had a lengthy career, but I'm not convinced that I would have had the career that garnered 1.1 million listeners per week in the fourth largest market in America, making a salary that allowed me to retire at the age of 51.
Speaker 1:And finally, anyone who has even a peripheral knowledge of me knows that the most gratifying element of my life are my dogs, and after saying that, I'll probably be living in one of their abodes. Seriously, while I do love my dogs and I love all dogs. If you know me, then you know that I can't breathe without Trish Klein. She's the steady to my shaky. That's not for effect either. I literally do shake, I don't know what it is. She's the calm to my storm, she's my everything.
Speaker 1:And I doubt, with serious conviction, if I'd even be alive to record this if she wasn't in my life. Okay, I know that was an understatement. Okay, I know that was an understatement. She's not in my life. She is my life, 100% of it. I wonder every day what I did to deserve her and I thank God, karma, the universe and Buddha that I found her and that she agreed to marry me With her. My life is as perfect as it ever needs to be. So there you have it.
Speaker 1:Hopefully I've given you a chuckle and or something to think about in this episode. It kind of went in a direction that I hadn't intended it to, but I'm really glad that it did. So what are you grateful for on this Thanksgiving? If there's someone in your life that you are grateful for, reach out to them and let them know. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the fuzzy Mike with Kevin Klein. Check back often and stay fuzzy friends. Fuzzy Mike is a presentation of the Kevin Klein fuzzy Mike industry incorporated LLC.