Beating Cancer, Radical Generosity, & Experiencing Joy Amidst the Chaos of 9/11 | Bob DePasquale

Beating cancer, radical generosity and experiencing joy despite the chaos of September 11th. All this and more in this episode of the podcast right now.

Hello friends. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Remarkable People Podcast, the Bob De Pasquale story. Now, Pasquale Pasco alone, young Italian guy, middle-aged Italian guy. Lots of similarities in their past, lots of similarities in their present. No relation that we know of, but you are in for a treat.

Bob is a businessman, a coach, an [00:01:00] author, a podcast host, but his story is remarkable because he takes you from that invincible 18 year old who gets cancer during September 11th attacks and brings you through his life to today, and talks about generosity. Radical generosity. He talks about recovering from cancer, beating cancer, the whole process before, during, and after.

He talks about the effects of it on his family and how his wife and how we should be praying for one another before they ever even met, and it was exactly at the time of his cancer treatment. So get your pens and paper. Write down the notes as you listen to Bob’s inspiring story, and then at the end, do the most important thing.

Apply it to your life. Like our slogan says, don’t just listen to great content, but do it. Repeat it each day so you can have a great [00:02:00] life in this world, and most importantly, an attorney to come. So from the start to the finish, listen to Bob’s entire story and then let us know. How can we help you? How have we helped you and forward this to other people?

We can’t help cuz it’s not about us growing the podcast. It’s about us and our community growing one another and just making this world a better place.

So I’m David Pasqualone and enjoy this episode of The Remarkable People Podcast with our friend Bob.

Copy of INTERVIEW RPP Bob DePasquale 31Oct22: Hey Bob. How are you today, brother? I, I’m doing awesome, man. What a day. Beautiful day outside where I’m from and I’m excited to talk with you, bud. Oh man. I was just telling our listeners just a little bit about you and what they’re to expect in this interview.

So they’re pumped. I’m pumped. Let’s get started. Before we actually begin your story though, if you were to give just, you had one wish and you’re like, at the end of this episode, after the listeners, [00:03:00] you know, hear your story, what’s the main point you hope they take away that we’re gonna discuss in the next hour?

That generosity is actually an accumulation t. Awesome. So ladies and gentlemen, you’re gonna hear Bob’s story. You’re gonna hear highs, you’re gonna hear lows, you’re gonna hear everything in between. You’re gonna hear tons of truths and many things you can apply to your life. Like our slogan says, don’t just listen to it, but do it repeated each day so you can have a great life, but you’re also at the end, that’s gonna be the main takeaway.

So hang tight. Generosity’s. Huge. Bob at this point, my brother, your last name’s De Pasqua. We’re joking. My name’s Paone. We don’t think we’re related, but it could be, right? But uh, let’s, let’s go back to your origins. Where are you from? What was your upbringing life? Mom, dad, divorced together, brothers and sisters, one 50.

Talk about your life from the beginning. My. You got it. So I’ll start with this. I’m an only child [00:04:00] I’d like to say my parents gave up after me. They said, well, that’s enough . We’re not doing any more of those. But I had a very, very loving upbringing with my family. I was actually born in Long Island.

Most of my family my mom and dad’s side all are from Long Island. Both of my parents were born up in that area, and I spent the first three years of my life there. My grandparents are my dad’s side. So my, my grandfather who was born in Italy, so there, there you go. There’s our, there’s our heritage. They, they decided to move down in kind of like a retirement type of move, wanted to get out of the hustle bustle of New York and go to a warmer climate.

And they were down there for a very, very short period of time. And my parents and me came down to visit and I don’t remember, I was three years old, maybe even two. And they loved it so much. And a relative on my mom’s side said, Hey, they’re building this. Upstart community, you know, really small, inexpensive, great for young families, a little bit south of here and west.

So my parents were like, oh, let’s go check it out. So they went and checked it out, and they loved it so much [00:05:00] that they ended up putting an offer on a new construction home out in the middle of nowhere, basically in the Everglades, where, where, where I still live in this town to this day. And they ended up moving down shortly after that.

And so in 1986, my parents moved down to Western Florida, which wasn’t even a, a city yet. It was unincorporated Fort Lauderdale. So I mostly grew up in South Florida. I consider myself a Floridian, although my dad and he rest in peace, my grandfather would probably kill me if I didn’t root for New York sports teams,

So Yankees, giants, Rangers and Knicks fan. But I, I grew up in South Florida. Like I said, loving parents. A appreciated growing up down here, I was outside all year round playing sports, goofing off. Had a great time as a young person and I, you know, I, I really don’t have too much bad to say about those early years other than it’s really hot in the summer and sometimes it’s you know, sometimes it can get a little bit lonely when you’re an only child.

But I learned how to do it, man. I think, I think, you know, your creativity and your imagination is an amazing thing. I think the [00:06:00] human mind can do some awesome things, and I’ve learned a little bit more about that more recently in my life. But I actually point back to those times when I, was by myself trying to organize something, trying to make something happen with my friends because I knew that I couldn’t just sit at home and mess around with my siblings.

So I went to went to high school, had a great time in high school, was going to play sports in college. And this is where my story really kind of takes. Its you know, it’s kind of, it’s it’s big bridge in my life that period of time in early co in early college. So, I decided to go back to school in New York.

I said, you know what, I’ve done the South Florida thing. I love my family, but I barely ever get to see them. I like to develop closer relationships with my cousins and my aunts and uncles. And I got an opportunity to play, to play at Hoffer University in Long Island when they still had a football team at that point.

And I went up there thinking, this is great. Play sports, get an education study, broadcasting talk, meet my family, get to know them a little bit better [00:07:00] and just kind of, you know, broaden my high horizons a little bit and I could always come back to Florida if I want to. And sure enough, I ended up doing that.

But the interesting about, my interesting thing about my experience in college was that when I was, you know, when you’re 18, I dunno about you man, but when you’re 18, you feel like invincible, right? Like, I thought nothing could take me down. I, you know, I didn’t, I I just thought I was gonna take over the world at 18.

I thought I was, I thought I was God’s gift to to the world at that point. And I ended up going to training camp, you know, about a month before actual school starts. So there’s really no one else on campus. I think the soccer team was there, obviously the football team we’re preparing for the season, kind of getting to know, it’s kind of like our own little free orientation really, because we got an opportunity to get on campus and familiarize ourselves before, before school starts.

So it was maybe the second or third day of training camp and I came up lame with what I thought was a groin injury. I went from being [00:08:00] this invincible 18 year old to, I dunno if you’ve ever pulled your groin man, but that is like the most debilitating injury that you don’t even realize it, it would bother you that much.

I mean, you can’t sit up, you can’t stand, walk, lay down. I, I had a pretty bad groin injury and I would do this. Yeah. I wrestled exercise, I wrestled in high school and I remember pulling in my groin one time and it was just absolutely awful for about four days. Yeah. And you don’t, there’s really nothing you can do about it either, right?

It’s not like you can push through and , you don’t wanna hurt it more. Anyway, so I had this groin injury and I thought, I’m just going to, you, you know, I got college trainers, you know, our training room was packed with a hundred people. It’s not like high school, right? It’s like there’s a gazillion people in the training room.

It’s 5 30, 6 o’clock in the morning, everyone’s getting ready for practice. There’s all kinds of commotion going on. And my rehab exercise that the, the trainer were having me do, I would sit on this three wheeled stool, which. , you know, it, it was uncomfortable enough just to sit down, but I [00:09:00] would’ve to shimmy a across the training room.

And then this is like, you know, this training room is 50 feet long, right? So it’s a long way. And then there’s people walking and moving. It was essentially dodging the people was part of the exercise. And I was doing that for days on end. And I’m like, this thing is not getting any better. There’s a problem here.

So I remember at one point our head trainer, he was probably all a five, eight, you know, not a big guy, but he would have to stand up on like a box to get any, to get anyone’s attention in the middle of the commotion, you know, right before a practice. And this one day, and I don’t know if this is actually true, but it seemed like it, it seemed as if it got dead silent all of a sudden.

And he stands up on the box and he says, Bobby, they call me Bobby. And he’s like, you gotta get back on the field. Quit being a weak. and I’m thinking, okay, so this guy’s five eight, a buck 50, 150 pounds soaking wet, calling me out, you know, in front of the whole team. I felt like such a loser, but to be honest with you, something was wrong.

And I said, and a little bit later I said, Hey, Rick, man, I, [00:10:00] you know, I’m trying here, I’m trying to prove myself to my coach. I know that I should not be sitting in here every morning doing this exercise and not practicing, but something’s wrong. So he said, all right, I’m gonna send you to a doctor. I, I could, yeah, there’s gotta be something wrong if this is really still painful and you’re not figuring it out.

So for about a week or so, it almost every day I drove to a different, Doctor’s office for a different test in Long Island. So I’m technically an adult at this point, but I’m 18 years old. I mean, I’m a kid for all intents and purposes, but I’m driving around Long Island by myself, going to these appointments and they would take like three hours because I’d have to show up, I’d have to fill out all this paperwork, you know, nothing was really digital at this point.

So I’m writing and, you know, showing my insurance card. I didn’t even know how any of this stuff worked. And then they would take me back for these tests and I would’ve to wait and get scans and IVs and, you know, ultrasounds, sonograms, you name it. I had every test in the book. They were running me through the mill.

And finally I had an appointment [00:11:00] on the day that my parents were supposed to come up for my first ever college game. So this was a Thursday, I’ll never forget this. The game was on Saturday. We knew at this point that I wasn’t gonna play, but I was still getting these tests cause I didn’t know what was going on.

So my parents were flying were, they were in the air, I knew that they were flying from Flo Fort Lauderdale to New York. and I went into my appointment expecting to be there for like three hours, just cuz that was the routine. I had done this five, six times already and I expected to be there for a really long time.

And then I would just call my parents when I got out of the appointment and I, they would probably already be at my uncle’s house where we were supposed to meet. And I got out of the, I got into the appointment, they, I didn’t have to fill any paperwork out. It took maybe five minutes to check in. I guess they already knew who I was.

They had all my information. I went in, sat down with the doctor and, and or sat down and, and less than five minutes later, so I’m there for maybe 10 minutes total. The doctor comes into the room, sits down and says, Bobby, you have cancer? And that was it. And I was like, dead silence. And I was like, what? [00:12:00] He goes, I know you’re in shock.

I’m gonna hook you up with an oncologist. I didn’t even know what an oncologist was at that point. And we’ll, you know, we’re gonna figure out a treatment, you can go. And that was it. I mean, he, I talked to him for a minute. I’m minute long, so I’m there for less than 15 minutes. It was crazy. So I come out of the appointment, I walk out of the building, and you just couldn’t have timed this any better.

The moment I stepped out of the building, my phone rings and it’s my mom, and she goes, Hey, how’d the appointment go? And I’m like, about that . So I had to tell her, obviously I, I was like, so, so mom, you know, the doctor said that I have cancer and I could just feel the air come out of the car that they were driving in.

Like the emotion, I, she didn’t have to say a word, but she was screaming all at the same time. The only thing I remember actually hearing is my dad in the background. I think he could also tell something was wrong and he was like, Susan, Susan, that’s my mom’s name. You know, what’s wrong? So we all met back at my uncle’s house [00:13:00] and shed a few tears, said a few prayers, tried to figure out what was going on with my life at this point.

And just, you know, really had a, just the, the most. you know, the, the, the most stoic evening, I guess you could say that I’ve ever experienced. I really didn’t have any other emotion that night. The next day we got hooked up with the oncologist and he’s like, listen you gotta take your classes. I don’t know exactly what we need to run more tests.

I don’t know what we’re gonna do for you, but go to class on Monday morning. Don’t just drop out of all your classes. I want you to stay in New York. And we decided that I was gonna stay in New York for treatment. So that was Friday, Saturday my uncle’s best friend comes over his house. Now we don’t know this guy.

His name is Tim O’Brien. Had no idea who he was cuz we were from, we were living in Florida and he’s there for a, a minute, not even introduces himself and hands his keys to my parents. And, and it, it seemed like his hand was like a tighten, like his massive hand, like [00:14:00] shoving my, his keys in my parents’ face.

This is just my memory of it, but he was like, Bob, Susan, take my keys. And you can use my car for as long as you possibly, possibly need. I know that you have a lot to do with your son. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. And my parents were just flabbergasted. They were like, why? What?

Are you serious? And he was there for maybe 15 minutes total, said goodbye to my uncle and left. And that was it. I mean, I, we never met the guy before in our lives, and he was so willing to just give us his car. I mean, the most generous act I’ve I’ve ever seen. I mean, amazing. So that was Saturday. I remember watching the game and couple days go by, so it’s Monday morning, go to my first college class.

We, we took Tim’s car, drove around to some more doctor’s appointments the second day of classes that semester. I, I had one in the morning. I came out of that class and I went to the cafeteria. for breakfast. And I remember eating like a [00:15:00] breakfast burrito or something. And do you remember those tube televisions?

So not like a flat screen, like this thing behind me, but, but a tube, you know, maybe like eight inch tv. It’s hanging from a bracket in the corner of the ceiling in the wall. Mm-hmm. . Right. And the news is on, and I don’t know, like the news station or anything, I’ve never lived in really in New York as an adult before.

So I’m just kind of sitting there watching the news and all of a sudden a plane crashes into one of the twin towers in Manhattan. And I’m like, oh man, what a horrible accident. That’s terrible. So I called my dad and I was like, Hey dad, are you watching the news? Like their plane just hit one of the tower.

He’s like, yeah, yeah, that’s crazy. And we were talking for like a minute or two and all of a sudden, bam, the second plane hits the other twin tower. And I was like, whoa, this is not an accident. And my dad’s like, yeah, you better get, you better hop in the car and get back to get back to your uncle’s house.

Like, we don’t know what’s going on. So I hopped in the car. I don’t even think I finished my burrito. I just left it there. It might still [00:16:00] be there for all I know. and I, and I got in the car and I drove and I got, and I started driving to my uncle’s house. Now, typically it’s a 15 minute drive from my, from my school to my uncle’s house.

It took me nine hours and subsequently more for the story later, I actually have a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. I worked in radio love media, but I will never in my life ever listen to nine straight hours of AM radio again. But I listen to the whole thing I’m watching cause I’m in New York and the, the, the very distance I can see smoking towers, the traffic is incredible.

People are panicking. And I was in the car for nine hours. I ran out of gas in my uncle’s neighborhood, so I actually made it to the neighborhood. We had to push my car. Into his driveway. And my aunt was hysterical, like she was flipping out because my uncle was on business the night before in Denver, and she couldn’t get ahold of him.

So finally it’s like 8:00 PM he [00:17:00] calls and he is like, Hey guys, I know you’re probably panicking. I’m safe, I’m alive. My flight never took off and the phones have been out. I couldn’t get ahold of you. I’ve been trying all day, but I’m okay. I’m gonna try to catch a flight home tomorrow. But don’t worry.

And everyone’s like, oh, thank God. You know, he’s fine. But he was like, well, wait a minute, I gotta tell you something. So my best friend, Tim w worked for Canner Fitzgerald, the investment bank, and he was in the towers that morning. And him, along with all the other employees of Canter Fitzgerald died.

And we’re like, oh man, this is the, like, this is the guy that just did this incredible generous act for us. We just met him and he died in those attacks. And it, so it turns out that Canter Fitzgerald would donate office space to my uncle’s foundation. , he has a foundation for cystic fibrosis. It’s the disease that my cousin has.

And they would donate office space and they were the nicest, most generous people he would say. And the only lady that would typically be in the office for the foundation at that hour. [00:18:00] So early in the morning was a lady by the name of Tammy. She was uncharacteristically late that morning and she was stuck in, she got stuck in the subway underneath the tower and she ended up surviving.

But her stories, David, I mean, are just incredible. And so the moral of the story is like we don’t really know what’s gonna happen in life. Like you could feel like you’re this invincible 18 year old and all of a sudden your life is threatened and then the world is threatened and things just flip around really fast.

Now I’ve talking, I’ve talked to Tim’s family, my, my uncle’s best. and may he rest in peace now that’s 21 years ago. He’s been gone. But he had little kids at the time and I never got a chance to speak at the time, you know, I mean, I had a chance to speak with him, but I mean, how was I really gonna talk with like a two-year-old?

His wife, God bless her. I mean, she was like, you know, going through amazing turmoil at that time. But since then, I’ve actually had a chance to speak with his kids and they’ve told me other stories about [00:19:00] how their dad was known, was known for being such a nice guy, a generous dude. But when I, my, one of my cousins got married more recently.

They were at the wedding, and they’re all adults now. And specifically one of ’em, we were talking and I got a chance to tell ’em that story a little bit more in detail. And, and really tell them like what their dad had tr, you know, did for us at, at that time was really amazing. And it reminded me that once again, we don’t really have the time.

We don’t know how much time we have on earth here. But what we do know is we have certain things that we can do for other people, right? We have, we have, whether it’s possessions or gifts or skills, we have an ability to care for other people. Even if it’s just opening a door for someone. You can really change someone’s world.

And I heard someone say this once, you may not change the world, right? We’re all not gonna be, you know, run a a world changing nonprofit or solve world hunger, but you may change the world for one person. And for that short period of time, ch Tim changed our world. And so since then, and I’ve had lots of other things happen in my life since then, but I’ve always dedicated myself [00:20:00] to being as generous as I could possibly be.

And sometimes I come up short. But I think it’s more important that we try and, and we live that mindset as much as we possibly can. So that was a, a big bridge of my life at that point. And I, I can kind of take a next step and tell you more about what happened, how I got to where I’m at today, but I’d like to, you know, maybe I should let that breathe a little bit.

And that was the most meaningful time in my life, even though that was about half my life ago. Yeah, no. So with the podcast what we do is we talk about what you’ve achieved or overcome or learned, and then we break it down into those practical steps. And you’ve done a beautiful job. I mean, people are listening, they’re hearing about, you know, Mr.

O’Brien and how amazing he was just every day. And the generosity is something we need to share. And I love that quote. You may not change the world, but you may change the world for one person. So you’re doing fantastic, Bob. So from that point in your life, September 11th is going on, the world is in chaos.

You are told that healthy 18 year old you have [00:21:00] cancer, your world is in chaos. So how does a two reconcile and how do you move forward? And also, I do wanna clarify, was it cancer of like your body systemic, or was it testicular cancer? What kind of cancer were they thinking you had at that point? So I actually have some funny stories , that maybe we can weave in here if we have time.

But it was testicular cancer, but it had spread. So it started, started down there, but it had spread out to my abdomen. I had lymph nodes and things that were infected you know, in the middle of my body and my oncologist. So, another cool generosity type of story here is that my cousin, the one who got married that I just mentioned earlier, at the time, she was, you know, like elementary school and her, one of her best friends dad was an oncologist.

And he wouldn’t typically treat my type of cancer or someone my age. He had another practice going on. But he was a, he was willing to let me in and treat me, and you probably couldn’t get in to [00:22:00] speak with that guy for months, but he let me into the practice. Oh, and he, and he wanted to treat me, and he did.

And so he told me, he was the guy who said, you gotta still take your classes. But he also said, you know, you have a really aggressive form of cancer. I mean, this, you know, it’s a good thing we caught this because it wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t be here very long. However, it’s very treatable. . So that’s kind of a, that’s not the worst diagnosis.

I, I, I guess, right. I mean, it, it’s super aggressive, but we’ve caught it and, and it’s, and it’s treatable. So he was very, very confident that I would be healthy once he, you know, once we figured out exactly how we were gonna treat it. So it had spread. And he said, you know, there’s probably little pieces of this type of cancer and the, and, and the, as fast as it spreads that I don’t, I can’t even see on the scans.

So they, we had to do surgery to, you know, to, to remove the, the infect, the problem, the testicle that was infected. But then he did chemotherapy and he hit me really, really hard. I mean, he’s like, you’re young, you’re healthy otherwise. [00:23:00] So you know, treatments were different back then, but still, most people weren’t getting treated with chemo for five straight days.

And then I had a two, I would’ve a two week break, and for 10 days there I had to give myself a shot of the drug called Neupogen to boost my white blood cell count immune system. But I did that four times. So I had 20. Rounds of chemotherapy in a pretty short period of time, in a, in a few months. So we, he developed that plan pretty quickly once he figured out.

And, but that following week I had a lot of stuff I had to do, test the surgery. Examples, we can talk more about sperm making, if people wanna learn about the, you know, the importance of that if you have illness at a young age. So and trying to do that all in New York City right after nine 11 was almost impossible.

But we were able to figure it all out. And then I ended up starting treatment not too long after that. Yeah. So let’s go back.

You find out what [00:24:00] you have, you get in to see a specialist, you get on a treatment plan. Did you end up continuing in school or did you pause that for right now? Or did you do treatment while you were in school? So I still went to class. I didn’t do, I didn’t do a full load, but I still took some classes and I’m really, really glad I did.

Honestly, one of the biggest. Distractions, maybe, if you will, was to have something to, to study and to, something to learn about. And, and they weren’t. I mean, my high school must have done a pretty good job of preparing me cuz I didn’t feel like it was, I mean, it wasn’t easy. I’m still going to class and I had to take tests and study, but I, I, I felt like I was, I could handle it.

It wasn’t overwhelming at all. But yeah, I still took classes and it was a good thing I did because I ended up graduating on time. And if I, if I wouldn’t have taken those classes that first semester, I probably wouldn’t have. Yeah. And I’m sitting here, our last names are similar, but we’re not the same.

And you know, when I was 18, they found a tumor in my head, which is similar, but not the same. I had radiation, you had chemotherapy, which is similar, but [00:25:00] not the same. And we both chose to continue our education while we were going through it, so we didn’t get stagnant. Which is similar, but not the same. So, mm-hmm.

to people listening right now, whether they’re 18, whether they have a child who’s 10 or whether they’re 50. What advice, sorry? What advice do you have for people who are about to go through this or are going through it? Physical tips. You know, dietary tips and just mental tips to get through what they’re about to face, because it’s not easy.

I mean, when you go through that kind of trauma, even though it’s in a controlled, you know, hospital, I don’t know about you, but I had, like, I had serious took me a while, like I had nightmares for a long time. Getting zapped in the head every day for 30 days. You know, that kind of puts a toll on you when you’re strapped down.

And for you, you’re having surgeries and you’re taking doses of chemo. You’re giving yourself shots. So to help the other people who are about [00:26:00] to or are going through it, what would you like, give them tips to your old, to your young self, Bob? . That’s a great question. You know, and a lot of things in my life, I break down into 3D pieces.

The spiritual aspect, the, the mental aspect and the physical aspect. And I think at any given time in life, People, you know, may stress one or more of the others of those. And it’s very hard to keep them in complete balance. In fact, I think it’s almost impossible. And a lot of times I think harmony you know, if you, if you go to the business world, you might hear people talk about work-life balance.

I prefer the term work-life harmony. But in this, in this case, the same thing. I think there’s some kind of harmony between those three things. And I think everyone has a different feel for it. Some people you know, these days may be chemotherapy. And I’m not wearing this as a badge of honor, but chemotherapy’s, as I understand it, the drugs and the way they do things and prescribe them, it may not be quite as physically taxing.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not mentally taxing or spiritually taxing, right? And so there’s different ways to handle it. So my tip would be this. You gotta listen to yourself. [00:27:00] I mean, you really, really do. You gotta you have to listen to your body. You have to understand how you feel. You have to understand how the people around you view your situation.

I mean, that was really, really value valuable for me. And that, and I don’t mean just your doctor, right? Like, I’ll tell you, I can tell you another story about expecting to be the best cancer patient known to man, and how I thought like my diligence was gonna be the reason why I’d be cancer. And so I was really adept at listening to exactly, I mean, down to very, very minute specifics on what I should do that my doctor said.

But not just my doctor. I mean, he’s the professional from a medical standpoint, but from a, you know, mental and you know, emotional standpoint, I had to really listen to my family, right? Like when they said, Bobby, you know, you, you probably just need to go lay down or just need to relax, or, you know, talk to us.

We could tell something’s bothering you. And if you’re the type of person that likes to hide stuff, that’s, I mean, I don’t, I’m not a counselor by any means, but I would say it’s generally a bad idea. You gotta talk about it. And [00:28:00] one of the things that my parents and my aunt and uncle did that, I actually didn’t find this out until about a year or two ago.

I had my cousin, not the one who got married, , her brother, the one who has cystic fibrosis that I talked about, I had him on my podcast and he told me a story that I had no clue that they even did this. And I, I guess I probably should have realized it, but he used to wake me up at like six in the morning on, on certain days and while this was going on, cause we’re living at their house, if not even earlier, and he would like Dema, like pound on the door, said he’d make me play video games with him at six in the morning.

And I would get like mildly frustrated, but then we would end up playing games and goofing off. And he was younger, you know, he was probably in elementary, maybe middle school. And I’m 18 so I’m a little bit older than him. But it turns out that as much as maybe I heard, like his parents say at times, like, you probably shouldn’t be waking him up, especially if he just had chemo the day before or has to go to chemo later, that.

It [00:29:00] turns out they were actually, my parents and his parents were actually in cahoots. Like they were planning this on purpose because they knew that bond between the two of us, him suffering with a, with a horrible disease and me having a, you know, hopefully a temporary illness at the time. We were kind of like wallowing in our sorrows together and building each other’s spirits up.

So you asked for tips, you know, have community, family, loved ones around you and listen to what they say and spend time with them, number one. That’s. Vitally important to the mental aspect of what you’re go, you know, what you’re going through, the physical aspect. You definitely wanna listen to the doctors.

You asked me about some dietary tips. One of the things that my doctor talked about with me from a dietary perspective is hydration. If you’re going through chemotherapy, your kidneys are constantly flushing metals and, and, and drugs. You wanna be really, really well hydrated, so make sure that you drink well.

They’ll likely give you IV saline water solution so that you, so that you do urinate and flush your body, but you still want to be drinking. Because I’ve learned in more recent years that the body is very, very, [00:30:00] the body uses water quickly. So even if you have a bag of saline and water right after your chemo, The, the, the benefits of that bag of water are, are gone within an hour, right?

You gotta be drinking more water, so definitely hydrate. And then you, you really, you don’t wanna be on a calorie deficit. Like you don’t wanna be losing weight cuz you’re probably gonna be losing weight anyway. Especially if you have an intense chemo or radiation, you know, routine. So I don’t wanna say be in a calorie deficit, but you don’t wanna overeat, you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna strain the body to digest more than it needs to and especially with like simple sugars.

So there’s some study that say that certain forms of cancer, like feed on sugar and you should cut out like completely all sugar except for maybe some, you know, natural sugar. 100%. That’s what my, yep. Hundred percent. So you gotta be careful with that. , I, I got other digestive issues that may or may not be a result of what’s happened, what we know, the treatment that I went through, and I have other thoughts on dietary [00:31:00] stuff, but strictly related to cancer.

Yeah, you really wanna, you don’t wanna be in a calorie deficit but you don’t, you also don’t wanna overeat. And so too many carbohydrates, like in a short period of time, effectively, is eating a bunch of sugar. So like, be careful, right? So it’s easier for the body to digest like a bagel than a. , but don’t eat five bagels.

Right. You know, maybe have one and have a, and have some protein too. So, and, and, and don’t eat a lot at once. I would say, especially on the days, I mean, you, you already know this if you’re a chemo patient, especially on the days that you’re taking the drugs and you’re probably already nauseous, , you don’t want to be eating too much.

Cuz one of the worst things you can do is throw up your food and then you’re not getting those nutrients, you’re also losing more water. So you really gotta be careful with the diet. So that’s physical advice, the mental aspect of, like I said, being with the family and then depending on, you know, of what faith you are, you know, I, I’m willing to talk you know, with people.

Anyone wants to reach out to me, you know, and, and how I got through it. But, you know, if you’re someone of faith, [00:32:00] whatever faith it is, I would say you really need to get it. You know, you need to practice those habits, whatever they are. Because I think the, I think it really helps you, you know, understand your purpose in life.

Right. Because, you know, I thought when I was going. When I was going up there to go to school, I thought my purpose in life was, you know, was to play football and you know, be on the TV someday when maybe I was capable of doing that. You know, that’s a whole nother story. But that wasn’t my actual purpose in life and this really gave me an opportunity to take a step back and say, you know what?

What am I actually here for? And I think if you lose track of like completely or lose hope, then that’s gonna take your mental and physical stuff downhill pretty fast. So that’s my advice as far as that goes as well. Yeah, no, and I just to echo that hydration, it’s scientifically proven, you know, when you follow this science, it’s real.

It’s not BS science, real science, we’re mostly water and salt, period. And when you talk about sugar, again, it’s proven most, even when you get an M R I with contrast dye, a lot of that is just sugar water. Cuz when it goes to your veins, the [00:33:00] tumors grab it and soak it in. So they’re soaking in sugar and dye and now the doctors know where the tumor is.

When after my tumor grew back twice, I went on a radical diet. No dairy, no sugar. And like you said, pastas, pasta, you don’t think sugar, but inside your body it turns to sugar. So then your body has even a harder time breaking through that sludge. So I went, I eat everything now, but for two years I cleaned up, I didn’t even have ketchup nothing, no sugar, no dairy.

And then thank God the tumors are shrunk, shrunk, shrunk, shrunk. And I got That’s awesome. Better. That’s so if you’re listening to Bob and you’re listening to me, two outta two sugar made a huge part in our diet. So just cut that out temporarily while you’re going through treatment. Now, natural sugar, like an apple, God made it, it’s gonna break down the right way.

But if you eat a twinki, that’s just stupid. Don’t do that. All right. Yeah. And then last, talk about your faith openly. People come from this to our podcast from all over the world. We’re blessed with people in over 105 countries. And they know our [00:34:00] view is a biblical worldview. That doesn’t mean you have to be, or they have to be, but what got you through it specifically, Bob?

So I, I’m just gonna, I’ll lay the story out there right away. I mean, I mean, I can, cause I got a billion of all that went on. But, you know, you know, I grew up, you know, I grew up as, as a pretty faithful kid. But you know, I think until it’s really challenged it’s, it, it’s tough. And obviously that was a, a major challenge for me.

And so I didn’t realize it at the time. But there were, there, there were forces at work in my life. And so, you know, I do have a biblical worldview as well. And this is, this is what really hit me. And I didn’t, I didn’t realize this till later. So my wife who I didn’t know at the time had a, had a teacher back in, in high school.

And this guy was like, everyone loved this guy. And she went to a Christian school, a Lutheran school, and they had a, he was like the theology teacher and like the social study. He taught a [00:35:00] couple different things. And well my wife and I, you know, we actually met on a mission trip and, and we had been getting pretty friendly and we were having this conversation one day long distance.

And then like, we were sitting in the same room or on the phone and she was talking to me about about, well, I don’t know, we were just going, what’s high school like, tell me about it. So she was telling me about Mr. And she said, you know, he was a, a little bit of a strange guy, but like everyone loved him.

Like, not strange in a creepy way. Just like, you know, kind of, kind of quirky. And she said that one day, you know, she had him in the beginning of the semester, her junior year, and she was like, Hey, class. So we’re gonna, what we’re gonna do this year is it periodically we’re gonna pray for our future spouses.

And everyone in the class is like, Mr. Zi, you’re nuts. Like, I’m 16, 17 years old. Like, what am I thinking about getting married for? Like, , that’s dumb . And he’s like, no, no, no, this is a good practice. So like, periodically they would do that and you know, you just kind of like go through the motions, you know, at that age, right?

You’re not really thinking too deeply about it, but, but you know, your teacher, you respect the guy, so you do what he says. [00:36:00] And so my wife and I are having this conversation and you know, we. Married at this point, but we’re doing the math and I’m like, oh, you know, I was born then I, you know, born. How old were you?

Whatever. And it turns out that I’m about a year and a half older than her. In fact, her birthday’s coming up here depending on when the, when the episode releases in about a week from, from recording. And she goes, she goes, yeah. So like when I was a junior, my fall semester of high school, you were a freshman in college.

And I was like, so you were praying for me while I was going through my chemo and all of that treatment and all of what, what had just happened. And we were like, wow, that’s, that’s incredible. Like, what are, what are the chances in the power of prayers amazing. So I don’t, I, I had no idea at that time, but, but turns out that I had the support from her at that time.

And other people I’m sure were praying for me as well, a as I know. But it’s just really amazing how, how things work and how you [00:37:00] can, and how sometimes your strength comes from places that you don’t even know exist. . Like, we, we don’t know the, we don’t know the plan. We don’t know God’s plan. And that’s why I alluded to myself earlier talking about how I thought I was just gonna be, you know, I was just gonna conquer cancer.

I was gonna be the best cancer patient known to man. I mean, I drank the amount of water to the ounce that my oncologist suggested. I, I went to bed at the exact time and as long as my cousin didn’t wake up, I slept for the exact amount of hours when I had to give myself shots. I mean, I was watching the clock in the moment.

Like if he said he, if he goes at about 6:00 PM you gotta give your shot tomorrow night. You give yourself your shot. I would be staring at the clock and then jabbed the thing in my thigh right at six. Like, and it was almost unhealthy that I was so dedicated to that. And I had thought at the time that it was me con conquering cancer by myself.

But it turns out there were many other forces including the president my wife was, was offering up. So it was pretty cool. Yeah, that and that is so encouraging and so real and. People in our [00:38:00] society, a lot of times they make fun of you for praying and they make fun of you for having faith, which it makes no sense when you really break it down.

But the fact that that man was wise enough to not only believe that, but to teach it to his students and then your wife employed it and she’s literally praying for you before she’s even met you. Just beautiful how God worked that all out. Yeah. It, that moment was like, I mean like dead. That was almost a sim, a similar dead silence as when I told my mo my mom, I was diagnosed, it was like just stare at the phone for like 30 seconds and dead silence.

It was crazy. Yeah. And it just shows in our lives. If you’re going through something as a listener, Bob, myself, all of us as humans, if you’re going through something that just seems so dark and it’s even been going on, so. It’ll, it will get better. Because if God wanted you home, he’s a loving God. He’s not a vindictive God.

If he wanted you to die, you’d be dead right now. That’s it. If you’re living through it, he’s not [00:39:00] causing the pain. But that means you’re gonna get through it. You’re gonna get better later some way, somehow, even if it’s in eternity, like 75 years is a super short. It’s like a grain of sand and eternity, everything else.

So just hang on. And you know, Bob and I both have been through some crap, but if you’re going through it now, I don’t know how to say it politically, but we’ve been through some crap. And if you’re going through it now, just hang on. God loves you. He’s there. Talk to him. And prayer really makes, like, I just read this study too.

It wasn’t even from a Christian source and they were saying just the folding of the hands and the prayer, you know, the stereotypical prayer position it connects synapses in your brain. Under a, like when they’re doing the brain MRIs and they’re actually seeing connections. So man, just pray, talk to God.

That’s all it is. There’s nothing magical about it. It’s just like, we’re talking to each other. So now let’s [00:40:00] do this. Now you’re go through, you’re just starting college, you’re going through chemotherapy. At some point they’re like, okay, you’re done. We’re gonna monitor and watch what’s happening. Your body, it doesn’t just recover, you know, 20th treatment of chemotherapy and you’re fine the next day.

That’s not how it works. So where does your life go from there, Bob? And what’s the progression up? Well, I had had to get my hair back. It grew back a little bit darker and, and thicker. But I also had to figure out what I was gonna do in my life, right? Like, was I healthy enough to still play sports?

Did I want to stay there? That was, did I want to be like, you know what, I’m kind of done with this whole New York thing. I’m ready to come home. . You know, I definitely put a strain in my parents. We can talk more about that. I think they, they poured so much into me for that period of time that I think they didn’t, they kind of drew apart.

But I ended up coming home sometime in December. I was home for Christmas that year, which was pretty cool. We had a big celebration, a bunch of [00:41:00] people that had, had been supporting me, prayerfully and sending me gifts. And a couple people had visited me, but most people hadn’t seen me. And that was a great a great time there.

And I, what, what I did was is I, I really had some time to think about like what I wanted to do. And I was like, you know what? I’m not a quitter per se. I just want to dive right back in. And, and almost like nothing happened. So I had lost a bunch of weight, obviously. I mean, I was out of, I was out of out of shape from like a cardiovascular perspective.

I, I was much lighter. So it wasn’t like I was overweight, but I actually. So my senior year of, lemme take a quick step back. My senior year of high school, a buddy of mine asked me to play lacrosse in the springtime after baseball and track were over. And he actually convinced me somehow, he’s like, well, this would be good, stay in shape before you go off to training camp.

So I ended up playing lacrosse. My, the, and lacrosse is not big in Florida, it’s still not big, but it was really like, no one, even like when I, when you pick up a lacrosse, everyone thought it was like a weapon. [00:42:00] And so I ended up playing and they had this, they had this clinic with a couple like professional famous lacrosse player type guys that most of us flirt in cuz didn’t know who they were.

But anyway, they found out that I was going to Hofstra and they ended up saying, Hey, you know, you should consider playing lacrosse at hha. And I’m like, look, I can barely catch and throw the ball. I’m just running around out here just trying to be athletic to stay in shape. . And they’re like, no, no, no, no.

We’re gonna talk to the coaches. I had pretty much completely forgotten about that. I went back in the spring in January to go back to school. and I got a phone call, or I don’t even remember, someone came up to me and somehow I got invited into the, the lacrosse coach’s office and they’re like, Hey, you know, these guys told us that you were coming here to play football and how would you think about playing lacrosse?

And I did my research and I found out that they were like a really good, like nationally ranked national championship contender type of lacrosse team. And I was like, I was like co-taught. Like I’ll be quite honest with you, I’d love to play and run around, but [00:43:00] there’s no way that I have the stick skills that that, that you guys have.

Like, no, no play. So I ended up playing. So I didn’t actually go back , I, I, I ended up doing, playing spring football, but I didn’t even go right back into football. I went back into lacrosse right away and, and a full-time workload at school. And that was the best thing for me cuz it got me into physical shape pretty quick and it got me back mentally too.

Now emotionally, it took years. To really work through all of that, but mentally and physically, I got back physically, you know, right away. I, I just started working out and running and so that felt good. But, you know, when you go through something like that it, there’s no way that you can, at least in my opinion, I would, I’m assuming you would echo, you can’t process all that in a, in a very, very short period of time.

It, it takes time. So it was good for me to get back, make some friends, get back to going, and I, and I pushed through college for a couple years and ended up, my junior year is when I think I really started thinking more about what actually happened. And I, and I remember having a few moments where I just needed some [00:44:00] time.

Like, I was like, you know what? I don’t wanna be around anyone. I just need to like sit and, you know, I don’t even know if meditates the right word. It wasn’t really like an active prayerful type of thing. It was more like just listening to what God had to say to me or, you know, listening to some birds chirp.

Like it was just, you know, run busy up early practice workout. School, school work projects. It was that for a couple years. And finally I started sitting back a little bit and thinking about those type of things, which was really, really good for me. So then you fast forward at the end of college, I, I ended up graduating on time and I, cuz I would take summer classes while we were doing training in the summer.

And I, you know, I made up those extra credits and I actually, I found out that I had two years left of eligibility. So I ended up graduating in four years. But I could have stayed and still played sports, but cuz I had a, you know, the medical issues plus a regular red shirt and I ended up deciding to hang up the cleats and it was a tough decision.

And I, you know, I remember [00:45:00] having the meeting, like the end of the year, like exit meeting with your coaches type of thing. And they were talking, they’re playing, they’re like, okay, this is what we’re gonna do next year. You know, this is where we see you fitting in and all this other stuff. And I was like, coach, to be honest with you, I, I’m, I’m.

I’m graduating and I’m gonna, I’m gonna go back to I’m gonna go to grad school somewhere else. And they were like blown away. Like they were like, no, why? What? You know, they were gonna try to convince me. I was like, sorry, coach. Like, I’ve thought about this for almost a year now. That’s my decision.

And the funny thing is I was gonna go to grad school at two different places. Either Saginaw Valley State University, which is in Michigan, or University of Miami. Now, if I go to University of Miami, I’m back at home. It’s warm weather again. I can’t play ball because you can’t transfer upper division.

And I would just be completely hanging it up and concentrating on my broadcasting studies and career. My master’s degree, I could have went to Saha Valley State and been eligible to play. And ironically, my wife grew up maybe 20 [00:46:00] minutes. From Saginaw Valley State University. Now, we still didn’t know each other at this point, and if I would’ve went there, it’s highly likely that we never would’ve met each other, even though I would’ve been 20 minutes from our house for, for a year.

And it’s just really funny to think about that once again, how God works and you know, that type of stuff. So now every time we go back up to Michigan, I think about what it would’ve been like to go there. So I decided to hang up the cleats, go play excuse me, go study broadcasting in University of Miami.

And I alluded to it earlier, I got my master’s degree from in broadcast journalism. So that was my transition into life. But that whole four years is kind of a blur, to be honest with you. Yeah. And that’s normal. So, and, and I just wanna touch back on if somebody, if you are about to or are going through chemo, radiation, any kind of major surgery I agree with Bob completely physically, even if you’ve never been active your whole life, Get physically active because when you start moving blood and you start moving oxygen and you’re drinking water, your body’s just [00:47:00] naturally gonna heal how God made us.

And that’s gonna also help your emotions and that’s gonna help your, your mental state. But man, I’m right with you. It took me, I think I had nightmares for, and I had God, I knew God as my savior. When I found out I was sick, I was super happy. Cuz for years I thought like I was going crazy. I didn’t know what was wrong.

They told me nothing was wrong. So in my situation it was like, wow, this is great. I’m sick. If I die, I go see Jesus. I’m good. I was totally fine, , but I still had nightmares. There was something in my subconscious that for four, I think it was about four years, so like two to two for sure, maybe up to four years I had nightmares.

And finally it just reconciled and went away. So you said you struggled at least two years too, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it’s almost like, I didn’t even realize it though, you know, like I, I, yeah. , you just, you’re pushing ’em through you, you just living your life. You know? Like, you don’t even realize that you’re, that you’re having tough times.[00:48:00]

And in some cases, those school and sports and everything were, were good distractions. But sometimes I think about, you know, what if I, what if I would’ve spent more reflection time during that? I don’t know. I don’t know if things would be different, but it’s yeah, it’s tough. You can’t, yeah. And the worst thing you do is to try to expect you, you can’t expect yourself to be fine.

You, you have to acknowledge that mentally it’s gonna be tough. Yeah. And you can’t rush it, but you don’t want to drag it out. So don’t avoid or don’t run away from the prom. But I know for me, I’m not trying to be super spiritual, but reading my Bible and praying before bed every night, that really helped me.

That really helped me. Is there anything that helped you break free to, to get through what you were dealing with emotionally? So interestingly, there was a, a Lutheran church, and that’s the. That’s the denomination that, that my wife she teaches in a Lutheran school and that’s where the type of churches we’ve gone to most of, most of [00:49:00] the time.

And there happened to be a Lutheran church not too far from my uncle’s house. And while I was, you know, I would spend a lot of time over there cuz I was hanging out with my cousins and my aunt and my uncle. And so, you know, on the weekends or time, you know, when I had some time off, I would go over there and I drove by this church a million times and I never really went in.

And then one day I was like, you know what, I’m staying over here at my uncle’s house on this random Saturday night, Sunday morning, I’m gonna get up and I’m gonna go to church there. So I went up, I, I got up and I went there and I mean, I was the youngest person there by 50 years. You, you know, if, if you worship an Lutheran church, you know me.

It, it’s, it’s a, they’re known for an aging population at this point. There are some young thriving ones and, and God bless. But this one kind of. Fit the stereotype, if you will. And the pastor noticed me and he came up to me after the service or something and just said, Hey, you know, like, who are you and nice to meet you, like, really nice guy.

And I was like, oh, yeah, I told him about [00:50:00] going to Hofstra, whatever. And I ended up coming back and having a conversation for like, was supposed to be maybe a half hour, but it ended up being like two hours I’ve talked to him and that was a really, really good conversation. So I don’t, I would say after that I, I probably had better spiritual habits, whether it was reading the Bible or praying or, or, or even going to church consistently.

But for sure that conversation was one thing in itself. And so, like my advice or my suggestion would be find a, you know, a mentor slash spiritual leader slash you know someone to, to disciple after. Right? Like that can really, that’s gonna ask you the hard questions. . And I think that’s, that’s a really, that was a really, really valuable conversation for me with him.

And, well, we, we haven’t been in contact since I left school, but we were consistently while I was still there. To come to think of it, I probably I wish I I I should probably see if he’s still, I mean, it’s 20 something years later. I wonder if he’s still [00:51:00] serving there. But that was a really, really meaningful conversation and that kind of got me in gear.

So my, my suggestion would be this consistency you know, the ministry that my wife and I met through we learned this practice that we like to call five minutes. It’s a little bit different from prayer. It’s a little bit different from scripture reading. It’s more just quiet time just to, to listen to God per se and step away from the craziness of the world you know, social media and jobs and life and family and just, just you in silence and maybe some birds chirping or some wind blowing type of thing.

But that’s it. And in that practice, I noticed that. . Well, first of all, I have, my patience is very, very thin and it, it’s hard for me to sit still for five minutes, hard for me to sit still for one minute. But I’ve been able to practice that habit over the years and now I, I can sit still for five minutes now.

I, I can do that, especially in that moment. So my suggestion is consistency in whatever it is. If you’re someone who doesn’t find yourself [00:52:00] formally praying a lot, that’s fine. Maybe take 30 seconds to a minute and just do that every day or twice a day, or, or, or build some kind of simple habit. If you, if you’re the type of person that struggles to read a whole bi bible passage, cuz you, it’s hard to understand, it’s hard to internalize, or the translation that you read is, is very hard to understand.

Maybe just read a couple verses consistently do it over and over and over again, and you’d be surprised at how much that helps. So it’s not necessarily about the exact type of thing that you do, it’s more about doing it consistently, and it’s something that you know is good. , right. I don’t think any, any spiritual leader, especially in the Christian faith, is gonna tell you that reading the Bible is bad or praying or taking five minutes to listen to God.

Right? So it’s not necessarily about what it is specifically that you do. It’s more about just doing it consistently. And that’s what I would suggest. Yeah. I think that’s good advice. And I was thinking when you were saying that, it’s like if you had a friend and you spent 30 seconds with him every day, how much would you really know him or her?

Right. So then when we pray, we talk to God and we [00:53:00] read the Bible and we meditate. When we get that five minutes of quiet time, that’s when God talks to us. So spend as much time as you can and build up the discipline, build up the habit, but. God will be the person you like to talk to most in the world, and he’s the one that will never leave you.

So definitely listen to Bob and spend that time and start off small. Start off with one minute, but, but you’ll like it and you’ll do more. So now Yeah, it’s momentum. Billy, before you know it, you’ll start off reading three verses and before you know you’ll be reading three chapters a day. I mean, it, it’s, it’s the body, the mind and the body adapt.

It’s, it’s so true. Yeah. And it’ll be joy. It won’t be a struggle. So just keep going. So now, Bob, so you go to grad school, you’re in this Lutheran church, you meet your wife between there and today. Catch us up on your life and then we’ll transition to where are you today and where are you heading?

Graduated from University of Miami with broadcast journalism degree. Worked in a radio for a couple years. My wife [00:54:00] and I dated for about a year. We’re engaged for about a year. She. Ironically, she did her student teaching in China, lived with her sister, our brother-in-law, and they didn’t have their kids yet.

They now have three kids. They still live over in Shanghai. But, so she was over there. I was in Florida and her mom was helping us and her parents were helping us plan a wedding in Michigan. . 2007 we got married and I was working in radio. She, not surprisingly, no offense to my, my in-laws , but she not surprisingly decided to move to Florida from Michigan as much as we love to go back and I think she would probably wanna live, she wouldn’t complain if we had, if we moved back there someday.

But she wanted to come to Florida, you know, the climate and the beaches, that type of thing. And hopefully me . I think maybe that was a selling point. And it was a great selling point for my in-laws because I was like, listen, I’m only taking your, your, your daughter to Florida. Your other, your, your son-in-law took your other daughter to [00:55:00] Yeah, , you look like the good guy.

Yeah. Like, we’re still in the same time zone. They’re literally on the other side of the world. So she moved down to Florida and we, we got married and not too long after that, I got recruited. She, so she’s a teacher and I’m in the broadcasting industry. And this, this recruiter from a financial services company goes into the office at the school and is like to the office, like, Hey, do the ladies, do you know anyone that might wanna work in finance?

And they’re like, no. Like, why would you go to a elementary slash middle school to recruit financial people? , it doesn’t make any sense. And they’re like, come on, just gimme a, just gimme a name. So he said to her he said to the ladies like, all right thank, they gave him my wife’s number. And he’s like, thanks ladies.

And he must have called her like, as soon as he got out of the door, like outta the office, because it was right in the middle of the day. And she, she’s teaching her class like she couldn’t answer her. But she got the message and she came home. She’s like, Hey, you know, do me a favor. Call this guy back. Be [00:56:00] nice.

You know, I know this is not something that you’re interested in your knee-deep in your radio career. And so I called him back and he was a super nice guy, but you know, he was laying it on kind of thick. And I was like, listen man, I’ll call you back in six months. I’m not interested. And I, I don’t know why I said that to this day, I cannot figure this out.

But it was just to get him off the phone, I would assume. And so six months went by and it was the holiday season and I had a couple days off, which was really rare. And I was like, you know what? , my parents raised me to be a man of my word. Let me call this guy back. So I, I called him back and he was like totally flabbergasted.

He was like, wait, what? Huh? Like I could just picture him on the other side of the phone, like fumbling through his computer or his notes like, who is this guy? Someone actually called him back. , yeah. Six months later. And he kind of whined and dined us a little bit and taught me about the career. And there were a couple like questionable things from a moral perspective going on at the radio station, in my opinion.

And he hit me at the right time, or I hit him back at the right time. And I ended up taking the job. And that was in [00:57:00] 2000, I guess I started early 2010. And for 12 years I worked in that role and loved working for the company that I worked for. I mean, the people and the mission of the organization were awesome.

They were all about giving, they they were what’s called a Fraternal Benefits Society of Christians. It was a really cool feel. And then about a year and a half ago, my business partner and I kind of abruptly during the pandemic for a couple different reasons that I’d be more than happy to share.

But we ended up leaving and starting our own firm, and that’s really, really focused on generosity, taking it full circle in my life back to now helping people be as generous as they can possibly be with not only their financial resources, but also with their time and their influence and knowledge and, and other resources that they have.

And that’s my, my firm is called Initiating Impact. So that’s how I got where I am today. That was a kind of a crash course on it pretty fast, but I, at a certain point in my life, I realized I’m doing really good work and I can [00:58:00] easily be doing good work for the next, you know, 40 years, 50 years, and probably be fine in life.

But I felt like there was a little something more and I wanted to ex express some of that creativity that I’d never knew that I had. Yeah. No, that’s perfect Bob. So before we get to where you are today, and we said at the beginning we’re gonna talk about generosity, it’s gonna be one of the central themes, right?

So we gotta wrap it up, give the listeners that those steps so they can become more generous, have contact info to reach out to you, get, you know, more training, more coaching, listen to your podcast. We’re gonna get to all that. But between your birth and today, is there anything significant we missed or are we ready to transition into generosity?

Well, let’s see. We talked about the cancer nine 11 thing. We talked about kind of the emotional growth behind that. We talked a little bit about my studies, my radio career, marriage, and my professional career in the financial [00:59:00] world. So, no, I think , I think that’s just about everything. Well, you know what, I will mention this.

You did talk about parents and I, I mentioned that drew my, my, my parents apart. So my parents actually did get. divorced before I, before I graduated grad school. When I was back at home for that year, I was living at home, going to grad school, and my parents did get divorced. So it was a real strain.

So I, I probably should mention this. You know, if you’re a parent of a kid, like the worst, other than you getting diagnosed with cancer, the, the only worst thing I’ve heard is your kid getting diagnosed. If you’re a parents of, of, of a child that’s struggling with an illness or had a problem, or God forbid, passes away you know, you, you wanna take care of your kid and yourself, but make sure that you and your spouse don’t lose touch of each other at the same time.

So that is, that was a pretty big event in my life. It was unexpected. I had no idea, didn’t realize that they. I kind of [01:00:00] had grown apart during that, that time I was sick and going to school. So but they ended up getting divorced and, and you know, they’re cordial now and I still love my parents and, and talk to them, but they’ve been divorced for, you know, 20 years, almost 20 years now.

Yeah, that’s tough. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a child or an adult. Divorce is hard and divorce leave, long-term impact. So definitely have that time for yourself and with your spouse and your kids. You know, you gotta be united. So then let’s do this. Now let’s explore, let’s really dig deep into generosity.

What is generosity? Why is it so important? How have you seen your life thrive because of generosity, right? Generosity is a mindset. It’s not an event or a possession or an item. I. in this world, we, you know, Americans are known for being the most philanthropic nation and people in the world. We give away billions of dollars a year.

You can check the statistics. Even during the pandemic, during the recessionary periods, we still gave, you know, incredible amounts of money. [01:01:00] And I think money’s important, but money’s just a tool in our lives. And anything that you give that’s a possession can make someone feel happy for sure. But it doesn’t always make them feel joyful for an extended period of time.

And so I encourage good gift giving during the holidays wise, you know, be wise with your finances, obviously, but, you know, and if there’s someone in need in your neighborhood or your life that, that can’t afford something, absolutely you know, give your money. But that doesn’t make you. That doesn’t elicit the mindset.

And so over the past year and a half, specifically even for, for the past 20 years for sure, but for the past year and a half specifically, I’ve been really, really focused on the psychology behind giving and what that mindset means and what it does for you. And it absolutely is contagious. I had a lady by the name of Wendy Steele on my podcast, she’s also been featured in our newsletter that’s called Philanthropy as Fire.

And she’s the founder and chief [01:02:00] executive of Impact 100 Global, a really, really cool organization that encourages women to give financially but also get involved with the places that they’re giving and work in the grant writing process and actually physically support places in towns and cities throughout the world.

And she has a TED Talk. You can go look it up. Look up Wendy Steele, Ted Talk. I think it was Invoca Raton May probably 10, 12 years ago. So it was, it’s, it’s a while ago. Over a decade. And she talks about oxytocin. Now, I’m no scientist, but her explanation of this hormone’s really amazing. If you’re a lady out there and you’ve had a baby, or, or you’ve done research about pregnancy, you probably know about oxytocin.

It’s, it’s heavily involved in childbirth. It’s, it’s involved in other processes with the heart and, and the body and things, but it’s known as the bonding hormone. Some say that the bond between a mother and child, especially at, at birth, is, you know, it’s the strongest bond in the world. And so oxytocin is known for that.

Well, it’s been proven scientifically that moments of generosity in giving [01:03:00] produce oxytocin you know, may not for the same capacity or the same reason to, to give birth. But it’s all related. And so Wendy talks about in her, in her Ted talk about there’s being three different parties in a giving scenario.

One of them is the giver. I think most people can un, you know, have known what it’s like to give something and you feel. pretty good. You know, David, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that, but you know, you, you get a, you get a good feel. You get the good feels when you give someone something.

Mm-hmm. . And then if you, if you’ve received a gift, you probably experienced that as well. You know that when you get something, it feels good. Wow. They love me, they care about me. They’ve done something to support me. So it’s a good feeling. They, you get some oxytocin as well, but what goes overlooked a lot of times, I think, is that a third party onlooker who just experiences an act of generosity, also receives a hit, if you will, of oxytocin.

And just like [01:04:00] other drugs and hormones, I think it can be somewhat addicting and it’s absolutely contagious by that third party principle. When you see generosity, it’s good, and I believe strongly that God built. to feel that. And there’s a reason why humans have this innate desire to help others. And that’s the generosity component and factor.

And it really, really is a mindset. And so in this day and age, when Americans are known for giving a lot of money, and I had a conversation with a lady the other day on, on LinkedIn I love to, you know, I’m, I’m all over the dms on LinkedIn, and she was talking about, you know, oh man, I could never be a philanthropist or, I, you know, that’s outta my league, whatever she was saying, and I was trying to be as kind as I can possibly be.

But in my work over the past year and a half, I’m noticing a lot of people with these, with these feelings or thoughts. And she explained to me, he’s like, you know, philanthropist is for people that you know, ultra rich people who you know have been, you know, and she almost made it seem like these people were [01:05:00] bad people for being financially rich and.

are there some jerks out there that have a lot, a lot of money? Sure. There’s also some people who don’t have a lot of money that are jerks, but philanthropy and generosity has nothing to do with net worth. Right? It affords you an ability to give financially more if you have more money that doesn’t make you any better or more capable of being generous.

Mm-hmm. . And so it kind of bugged me, but it makes me really, it makes me think and realize that we have this thing, especially in the western world, that makes us believe that giving is all about possessions and abundance and having, and just more and more and more when in fact, I think some of the most generous acts in the world are really not complicated.

They’re very, very simple and they’re often about less. And so I think we really, really need to understand that. And the people that I know the most, giving people that I know and, and in my previous financial career, I worked with thousands, not a gross graduation. Literally thousands of families on their [01:06:00] finances and.

and without fail the most, the most generous ones were not concerned about get, always getting more. They were concerned their, their biggest concern was, am I using what I have as wisely as possible? And the vast majority of those, not every single one of ’em, but the vast majority of the ones who thought like that also felt like one of the wisest ways that they can use what they have is to, to support others.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. And I mean, in the Bible, God instructs us to whatever we get as our increase to give 10%. So that’s commonly referred to as tithing, but that’s one of the most misconstrued practices in the Bible. Tithing is a beautiful thing that brings you joy because you’re just giving back an appreciation.

It’s saying, wow, God, you gave me 90%. I’m just giving this little bit back to, to acknowledge you. Mm-hmm. . And then he keeps continuing to bless and to bless and to bless. [01:07:00] And yeah, I, I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think part of people’s addiction to television is what you’re saying. The onlooker syndrome, generosity, love, romance, they feel, and it triggers it in their brain.

So Hollywood manipulates that it’s a multi-trillion dollar industry, right? But they’re keying into the natural gift that God put in us that you’re talking about. So what are some steps really quickly, whether someone is struggling to get by a paycheck to paycheck, whether they’re filthy rich like Rockefeller, or whether they’re in between what America would call middle class.

What are some steps to really becoming sincerely generous and real, not giving begrudgingly? So, I, I have two, two paths you can take. And honestly, I. I haven’t done enough research. I’m, I’m trying to do more, especially from a psychological perspective. And I have, from a financial perspective, I, I, I have, I don’t wanna say I have it down, but I’ve been working in the industry.

And I, you know, I, that’s, that’s my expertise is where my [01:08:00] education and my designations and my professional education has taken me. But from a psychological perspective, I, I don’t know this exactly, and it’s probably different for other people, but there’s two paths that can go down. I’m a big supporter of radical generosity, and it doesn’t have to be applied in the financial sense, but in this case, let’s, I’ll, I’ll go down that road.

So being radical is doing something, you know, I think sometimes the word radical makes people think like bad or, or like aggressive in some cases. And that’s not actually the case that, you know, the definition of radical is to do something that. Maybe it doesn’t seem logical to other people but it doesn’t mean, like I said, that it’s bad or aggressive.

And so some people I’ve seen employed the concept of radical generosity in their financial life, and it’s completely changed their outlook on the world. It doesn’t mean it’s suddenly they won the lotto, it just means that they’re giving over and above what the average person would think is reasonable.

Like, should I pay my mortgage or should I, you know, should I give some money away? And I’ve seen some people do some really radical [01:09:00] things and really change their view on money and end up being fine because they’ve, they figured out a way to give the money and they realized, you know what? I just needed to figure out a way to be a little bit wiser managing my resources.

I’m absolutely capable of giving. I just didn’t never realize it because I, I wasn’t on top of my budget, I wasn’t being frugal enough. I was wasting money on things that really weren’t important to me. Which leads me to the second path you can take. priorities and, and a purpose. These are by far the most you know, and I have specific evidence on all of these things.

It’s by far the most important thing, especially in your financial life and your giving life, your, your financial giving life. If you don’t know what’s most important to you, you are not likely to be able to satisfy yourself ever. And, and that, and this goes with dieting, this goes with money, this goes with relationships.

If you don’t know, you can’t. I, if, if I ask you what are the most important things to you, and it’s in a given scenario, and you can’t give me the one or two, three top things right away I’m not, it’s not a criticism [01:10:00] because I’ve struggled this with a, with this in my life too. But it means that you’re never gonna be able to be satisfied.

So when it comes to money, you need to identify the most important things. The reason why is this, because the, the mind, the human mind is not honestly, in my opinion, designed to need a, a lot of things. . It wants to be satisfied and it desires and yearns for hope and the ability to make a difference and to care for others and to feel joy, but it doesn’t desire complexity.

And so every single person that I ever helped worked through this has identified the things that are most important and spent their money on those things. And they don’t have the cravings and all of the marketing tactics and the, and the copywriting and the videos and the reels and the social media and the ads that you see.

I wrote a whole book about this. They don’t have the same effect on you because you are satisfied. So when you have the couple little things that are really, really meaningful in your life and you spend money on those, , you’re gonna [01:11:00] find yourself with plenty of room in your budget and extra dollars because you’re not gonna be tempted to go out to eat all the time or to buy the latest thing that you saw pop up on your Instagram feed because it tempted you.

And you’re, and retargeting ads are not gonna affect you as much as they nor the average person. You’re much more likely to be satisfied with spending a little bit of money within reason. I’m, I’m not saying, I’m not saying I’ve identified a, a Jaguar or a Maserati, you know, or a Lamborghini has mon, that’s what’s gonna make me happy.

I wanna go out and buy, that’s what Bob said. I’m talking about within reason, more meaningful things in your life. You’re not likely to be tempted to spend money on those other things, and you’re more likely to be intentional. Being as wise as you can with your taxes spending money on the things that are most important being energy efficient in your home.

You know, not going out to eat and cooking food more, buying food in bulk and freezing it. Just being more aware, you’re more likely to do those things cuz you know, when I do this well, [01:12:00] I can get those couple things that are really meaningful to me and I’m, you’d be surprised on how you can uncover things in your budget to be generous.

And once again, if you’re capable of giving $5 to a cost, there’s someone out there who desperately needs $5 for, for something. If you’re capable of giving $500,000, there’s someone out there who’s gonna need that too, but never underestimate.

Hey, ladies and gentlemen, like every great episode, we always have technical difficulties when great content is being presented, right? So Bob and I were just talking about generosity and he was saying, but, and then it cut out. So Bob, at this time, finish what you were saying and let’s move forward. N no worries.

And I’m glad a good episode means you cut out. That means that that means we’re doing good here. So I was talking about never underestimating the, the [01:13:00] value of satisfying the simplest needs. And so the, and, and you can give $5 and it could really ch make someone’s difference. And like I said, you don’t have to change the world.

You might only change the. For one. So suggestions on how to be a better giver is to identify the priorities, satisfy those really, really basic needs. And I think you’d be surprised how much more freely it’ll, you’ll be able to give. Yeah. And I always think of the Bible versus where I think we need to give and give generously and sometimes we don’t understand.

And sometimes we just need to give responsibly. There’s different situations. You just need to listen to your own life and between you and God. But you can’t ever outgive God and you can’t ever, you know, worry. He has everything in the universe and beyond that we know of. He’s gonna provide for our needs, you know, we can do everything, quote unquote right and be.

sick and poor. We can do everything wrong and thrive in every way, financially, physically, mm-hmm. , it’s just gonna [01:14:00] come down to what he allows, but what he wants is for us to thrive. So don’t ever get mixed up with the lie of the devil. The devil’s the one that does bad. The devil’s the one that wants you to be miserable and he may trap you to be miserable with wealth, or he might be trapping you to miserable with poverty, but it’s not about the money.

It’s like Bob said. It’s like about the intent and the truth in your heart. So giving generously. I agree with you completely, Bob. So. Between your birth and today, I don’t think there’s anything we missed. So where are you today and where are you heading? How can we help you get there? And how can people contact you for more information?

Question I said about a year and a half ago, my business partner and I left a large firm to start our own. It’s called Initiate Impact and it’s great to be here. We’re helping generous families manage their, their financial wealth and also their resources of wealth to help make the world a better place.

And we want people to be able to do that. We don’t want there to be [01:15:00] restrictions or things that are holding them back from being, being able to be as generous as they can possibly be. So that’s what we do in our work on a daily basis. And because I no longer work for a large organization, I’ve had a little bit more flexibility with doing media and things like this.

And I wrote a book called Personal Finance in a Public World that’s about how social media ads and technology affect your money decisions. So if you wanna check out bob depasquale.com or initiate impact.com, you can find anything con contact information there. I’d love to be active on the socials, so please hit me up.

Well, awesome, my friend with that said, thank you for a remarkable episode. Some great content, some truth, truth that we need to consider and meditate on and apply. And before we go, any final words of encouragement for today to our listeners, people of all various cultures, denominations, physical locations around the world.

Any, any last tips to share? Yep. I’m gonna share this one. I heard this quote recently. [01:16:00] It said that the gra they, they say the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. The grass is greener when you water it. Meaning we all have some pretty good scenarios in our life. And if you just dive in a little bit deeper I think great things can come from where you’re already at.

Beautiful man. I love it. Well, Bob, thank you for today. And even though our names are similar, we don’t think we’re related, but man I’d love to be a relation to you. I know we are in Christ, but I think we think very similar and I’m proud to be your friend. So thank you for being here today. David, man, thank you.

It’s been awesome, brothers, whether it’s from the same mother, another mother, but brothers in Christ, wish you the best. Love what you guys are doing in the podcast. Remarkable people. It’s, you can learn a lesson from anyone, so keep it up. Man, well thank you so much. And actually not, you know, our whole purpose of this podcast, just like your ministry, is to glorify God and help people grow.

And by the time this episode airs, it should be after the [01:17:00] first of the year and the remarkable people book will be out. So, you know, we have volume, yeah, remarkable people. Volume one will be out. Pick that up. We’ve got 12 authors, 12 stories, 12 distinct topics to help you adapt or overcome or achieve exactly what the guests did.

So you can too. And then maybe in volume two or three, Bob, we can get you in there and write a chapter and help people really dig in to c to be in victorious financially. Yeah, let’s do it brother. And generosity, you know what I should say? Generosity. Not financially generosity cuz you can have very little resources, but be super joy filled by being generous.

Yes sir. Amen. Awesome. So to our family out there, our community, we love you. Have a great day. Check out the show notes. Reach out to Bob. If you have any questions, want to continue the conversation. If not, thanks again for listening to the show. Share it with your friends and family around the world. Not so we grow, but so we all help each other grow.

We love you. I’m Dave Paone. This is The Remarkable [01:18:00] People Podcast. Ciao.