Dawn Taylor| 20/05/2024

Transcript

Dawn Taylor

I am your host, Dawn Taylor. And today. Oh my goodness, I have found my equal, as he laughs. Today, I get to talk to the amazing Nick Klingensmith and I hope I said that right. I met Nick and I just have to say that it's very seldom that you find someone that you're like, oh, so we're kind of twins and we've had very similar lives and really wild ways. Not in positive ways, but wild ways. But it made me so excited to have this conversation with him today. So excited to have you guys get to know him and meet him. So the topic today is Die Hard: The Man With 15 Lives. So before we get started, let me just give you a little bit of information about him. So, after being thrown out of a Las Vegas hotel in a drunken haze, no, that hasn't happened to me. But I have been kicked out of hotels in Vegas. Jeopardizing his career in relationships. Nick had to make a change. He's a four time cancer survivor type one diabetic, a recovering alcoholic with herniated discs, nerve damage, and sleep apnea. He defies it all when he finds obstacles with his, um, he does like obstacle course racing. He has done over 100 Spartan races, six major marathons, several ultras, and scores of other obstacle and endurance events. This guy is fighting hard for his life, and I hope that you guys love this episode as much as I do. Welcome to the show, Nick! And what do you wish people were talking about?

Nick Klingensmith

Dawn, thank you for having me here. And I'll tell you what I wish people were talking about. I wish people were talking more about reasons than excuses. I wish people were talking about more about what do they want to achieve rather than what's wrong with their life. I want to hear more optimism. I want to hear more positive stories. I want to hear more hope and inspiration. I can't be the only one talking about this. And life happens. Life happened to you. It happens to me. It's happening to somebody right now, at this moment. And it's not fair. And it will never be fair. It's too easy to make excuses for ourselves why we can't live our best lives, why we can't do certain things. When I'm coaching individuals and we start talking about the thing that they want in their life, and we talk about it at a really high level, too, like a vague vision of purpose. As soon as we try to make the conversation real, I should just say, shut up before they say anything, because what's coming out of their mouths is the immediate excuse, the defense. And it's instinctive. It's reactive for them to immediately put out there. “Oh, but.”

Dawn Taylor

Okay, so let's backtrack a bit because you and I have both been in that position. Right. And for some of this thing right now who's like, “Yeah, cool. Nick, thanks for saying shut up.” Right. Who's offended? Who's offended or hurt or what do you mean? There should be more positivity. 

Nick Klingensmith

I'm not telling anybody to shut up who wasn't paying me to. 

Dawn Taylor

But you know what I mean. But it's still, and I've had this conversation with so many people, right? But you aren't in my life. You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what my story has been. Let's backtrack a bit. Let's backtrack a bit to what your story is. Where did it all start? 

Nick Klingensmith

I wish I could tell you it started with cancer, but it didn't. It probably started when I was six years old, and I didn't give this event enough credit until like six months ago. But when my dad left, first of all, I grew up on an island. Okay, he didn't, this is not an after school special, all right? He probably moved down the road, but he left me with a mom who didn't have the capacity to care for me or to love. It's just not something that was in her and, you know, when you're a six and seven year old, you may not know how to survive on your own yet, but you can learn that you are on your own. And that's how I felt. I had a side hustle by the time I was in the second grade. I knew I had to fend for myself. I was an expert at TV dinners and French bread pizza, because I knew that was the only way I was going to eat. I knew the neighbors who would feed me. I knew the town, like the town shop owners who would entertain me and feed me like I had to build a network just to be able to survive. And this was all at a very young age. And this is the thing. I thought it was normal because why would you think otherwise? 

Dawn Taylor

But seriously, like we all have that where it's like, but this is my normal. 

Nick Klingensmith

That's it. Right. And why would you know any other way? Like when people ask me what it was like growing up on the vineyard, I'm like, it's all I ever knew. It's like, that's where I grew up. But about a year and a half after that, my dad came and took me out of school one day and he's like, “Yeah, your mom gave you up.” And now you're going to go live in a we're going to go live with his new fiance and her two daughters, and this new house on the other side of the island. The next morning, I wake up to hearing chairs being thrown. Just a knock down drag out, I am exaggerating on the drag out. There was no physical violence, but my dad and his fiance got into a huge fight and she threw us out. So in one day, one day, this third grader was kicked out of two houses by two different moms within 12 hours of each other. I never realized the impact that had on my life, and that from that moment on, I felt like I wasn't deserving of love. I always felt like I had this hustler, like, inside of me, and that I had to. I grew up not trusting and therefore I didn't trust or I, also, it was hard to trust somebody who doesn't trust. I continued to isolate myself because whereas a lot of people might feel this sort of fear of rejection or not fitting in or not being good enough, and they might respond by being people pleasers and perfectionists. And I went the other way. I put up my defenses, I put up my walls. I became independent and gritty. 

Dawn Taylor

Me too. 

Nick Klingensmith

But there's another word for that. And it's called victimhood. And that's what it is. And it works for us for a while because we needed it. All right? I needed that demon to help me survive everything that I had been through. It was the only one who was there for me. I needed that exterior to protect me from other people hurting me. Adults that I would theoretically trust who would betray me. I needed that for a long time, but eventually it stopped serving us. And it becomes a prison cell and it just fills with poison. And what again, was once there for survival becomes the thing that isolates me from other people. 

Dawn Taylor

So, let's pause there for a second. That character trait in you. What were the positives of it? 

Nick Klingensmith

The positives of it is that you learn to fend for yourself. Um, you know, if you think that you are alone, you do, everything is a choice and you have a choice therefore, to say, woe is me, poor me. Nobody's here for me. Nobody's giving me something, or you can do what I did, which is go to work at 13 years old and make money and make my own money, and make sure that if I needed stuff, I could pay for it. And it gave me the work ethic and grit and really just the persistence to be able to pay my own way through college, uh, working full-time the whole time I was there. There's a lot of benefits because it gives us these tools and resources that we might not have, that we might not have otherwise had. So I was able to use it for a positive. I just didn't know that at the same time, it was also making me cynical. I was also fearful and I just wasn't willing to admit it to myself. So, a lot of these things continue to separate me from the world. But I was successful, right? I had these ambitions for my life. I had this vision for my life. And so I did use all those things. And I felt like I was tough and I felt like I had overcome stuff. And I had been through, you know, some early childhood trauma and like, yeah, I'm making it through. But as I become an adult and I'm about 25 years old, that was the first time I was diagnosed with cancer. And so this victim mentality, it festered and it continued to grow. I just didn't recognize it because every time I saw myself as a victim, I rebelled against what I saw. I felt like I was being victimized by cancer, and I didn't like what I saw. I didn't like being the scared little kid. So I grew defiant against cancer, and it was like me versus cancer. What I later realized, though, is if you have a me against the world attitude. That means you're seeing the world as your adversary, and you're seeing that you are being victimized by the world. It's another way of perpetuating this victimhood mindset that keeps us the victim. This is one of the hardest things, I think, for a lot of people to hear, because most people and I can see it in your eyes, too, saying I'm not a victim. But how many times do we feel that something's unfair? It can't be unfair unless we're being victimized. And so when we cultivate that over the period of all those things continuing to happen to me, I got diabetes and I wept. All right, I got cancer again and I was just exhausted from it. Why is all this stuff keep happening to me and happening to me? And as you do, you begin to lose more and more of the power and control in your own life. You feel like that you've lost control over your own decisions, responsibility is freedom. Feeling like all these things continue to happen to me and I don't have any say so over them. No wonder a lot of people get stuck, because it is hard to overcome that. The world is a big place. 

Dawn Taylor

Well, and it is. But I want to challenge you on this too is when something is done to us. Yes, we can go into a victim mentality of oh woe is me. But I also believe that we are not taught how to process. We're not taught how to deal with it. We're not taught any of those things. 

Nick Klingensmith

100%. 

Dawn Taylor

So, like looking back, even at my own life. Like I had so many years of like, “What the hell is going on? And why is this even happening to me?” But I guess I'm just going to, like, buckle up and keep going because I don't really have an option or a choice. 

Nick Klingensmith

What else to do? Right? 

Dawn Taylor

Right. And it wasn't even a defiance. It was more of a like, either I curl up and die or I figure how to fight this. So, right. And I don't think that that's always victimhood. I don't think that it's always victimhood. I think that there is a time and a place where it is victimhood and people are just like, “Oh, woe is me.” and they don't do anything about it. But I think the challenge on this is to attach the word victimhood to all of it, I wouldn't agree with because if you don't actually have the skills and you're trying, right, you are trying so hard to fight for yourself when you're trying so hard to fight for your health. Mental. Emotional. Physical. Spiritual. Relational. Financial, whatever it is. And you're stuck, but you're still fighting. I don't think you can tell those people that they're living in victimhood. 

Nick Klingensmith

So I agree with what you're saying, but I'm going to give you a little more perspective on on why I think that it's a slippery slope because it is. If I was robbed at gunpoint. Right. Clearly I have no choice. I am a victim of that incident. Tomorrow, if I let it impact the decisions I make in my life, if I let it interfere with the relationships I have in my life and the actions I take, I am staying a victim. Just because we've been a victim doesn't mean that. I mean people are victimized. Absolutely. I was victimized by cancer. I'm not saying like, yay, I got cancer. Like I'm allowed to take that day and be pissed and sulk and process. Absolutely. But everything that happens after that is a choice. And therefore, just because it was unfair doesn't mean that people are not choosing to stay in that victimhood, and it's how we handle it from there. And it is when we look at this, the guy who robbed me. How much more power am I going to give this dude than what he already took from me? Everything else after that is a choice. And by the way, I'm not saying it's an easy one, okay? Because I didn't wake up and say. “Well, I've been a victim. Well, here, I'll just stop.” For me, it was a temper tantrum. That's how it started. And it was. It was this defining moment where I realized I had been a victim. And I believe it's one I told you about. And, you know, I discovered obstacle course racing. I was introduced to the sport in December of 2016. And. It wasn't something I was interested in. I had no no interest in making myself uncomfortable. I was in a great spot in my life at that point, too. I was two years sober. Uh, I was a VP of sales, running a team of maybe 90 to 100. We were kicking ass. I had a new girlfriend. That's my now-wife. I was managing my diabetes. I had a house, car, pets, and I had just decisively beaten cancer for the fourth time. And that's when my boss had walked into my office and asked me to do a Spartan Race. And so I went home that night, and that's when I discovered the problem was that I already was uncomfortable because I had been victimized by so much and I hadn't processed it yet. I, as a matter of fact, when I got cancer that fourth time, that was the first time I ever got it sober. I hadn't processed any of the stuff I had been through yet, and so even though I didn't feel like I was under attack at that particular moment, I was still living under that victim umbrella, because all those things happened to me, and I had failed to use find a way to use them as a power. And over the next several months, I'm going through. As I got more and more into obstacle course racing, I just started making these better decisions for myself. You know, we were talking about health earlier, right? To wake up one day and say, “I'm going to start being healthy.” Well, that's probably going to fail. That's a big switch. All right. What are the switches we can make? I put a video out this morning. I'm like, “You don't even have to give up your favorite dessert. Just drink more water.” Start there. All right. Like you don't have to go sign up for a gym. Just take another walk. You don't have to stop watching Netflix. Just take a walk around the block. Like, let's take these positive actions for ourselves. And good habits are a gateway drug because when waking up early to exercise helped me with more time with my dogs in the morning, it also gave me a reason to start going to bed at a regular time. And at 36 years old, I gave myself the first regular sleep cycle I had ever had. I wanted to keep racing, so I was stretching. I wanted to feel better. So I started eating better, drinking more water. I wanted to be mentally tougher. So, I started meditating and that's when all my worlds collided, like my sobriety, my mind, body and spirit. And that was also when I realized that I liked who I was becoming. And it was apparent to me that I was changing because of the way other people responded and the way that other people were treating me and reacting and acting around me. And it felt so good. And then it hit me. Literally hit me. I pulled up to a red light and I got hit from behind by a car that was going full speed. My Jeep got pretty banged up. Uh, I got five herniated discs and nerve damage from that accident, which, I went home that day and my cat of 12 years died. About ten days later, the woman who hit me died. And although all I was doing was sitting at a red light, that was really hard, and it is really hard to know that the last thing that happened in her life was me. And I immediately found myself back on the couch, just like I was that night after my boss had asked me to do the race and I thought I had an undiagnosed injury, so I wasn't ready to start activity yet. I was really sad. Of course, I was telling myself that I was the bad guy and that everything, you know, I somehow made all this stuff transpire, right? All this self-talk that just came pouring down on me and I wanted to quit. I wanted to give up, but kind of like you said. What does that mean? I kept going to work the next day. You know, I kept getting up and showering, I kept eating, I kept taking my dogs for walks. Like, you're still living that life even though I wanted to quit. And so the next thing I did was I put a race on the calendar, and I went outside to train for it, and I was just flat, I didn't have that thing that says I want to overcome stuff. I was just so beaten up from it. And I was listening to this motivational speaker who's given this talk about, like, being a victim or being a survivor. And that's when it occurred to me, is I didn't see the difference because people have been telling me what a survivor I was my whole life. And then I'm like, what does that even what's the benefit of that? Like, yay, I'm still alive. Things suck and I'm miserable. Yay! So that's when I decided I don't like my choices. And I don't want to be a survivor, because I also realized at that point that I hadn't overcome any of my adversity. I had only survived it. And in order for me to overcome it, I needed to make a choice. And I didn't want to be a victim anymore. And so literally, like a rebellious teenager throwing a temper tantrum, I said, “I'm going to do all the dumb shit I can. I'm going to do things that diabetics should not. I am going to make sure I am sticking the middle finger up to cancer every single day. I am going to continue my sobriety journey and help other people recover from alcoholism. I will not be defined by my adversity, but rather my triumph over it.” And what started as a temper tantrum turned out to be my moment of clarity about being a victim, and that I had been, and that I allowed myself to stay in that victim mentality. Now, since that day, right, I've lost my dog. I've lost people that I care about and love. I've lost friends to cancer. I've been injured. They're bad. Things happen. All right. And like, uh, even last October, I injured myself in a Spartan race, mile 12 of a 30 mile race, badly injured. And I wasn't going to be able to run or workout or anything for a while. I drove to the airport. What was me on the plane? I was mad anybody who would respond to my messages was just getting anger and I do have a process. And my process was, it takes me about a day and a half. And in that day and a half I was the victim because this had happened to me. But after that is a choice. And that's my point, is that at some point it does become a choice and we don't have to stay there. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. So if you've never learned how to do that. Because you were raised by victims. You were surrounded by victims. Everyone around you is and that's actually just the normal behavior. Right, is no different than the family that like, drinks Coca Cola at every single meal. And then you grow up as an adult and you don't realize that that's actually abnormal and probably not super healthy. And I think that's that's a big problem, is a lot of people don't even realize that they are because that's just how it's always been. And that's how you talk and you complain and that's what connects you to people. And it bonds you to people. And that's what's so hard about walking away from your trauma in that way. Right. So what would that look like for somebody going through something? Because it's not as easy for most people as to just be like, “Okay, I'm going to just do this and I'm going to just fight through this and I'm going to overcome.” Right. Those of us, myself included, that are defiant, right? We are defiant. We're good at that because we can just put it in a box and we can figure it out and we can move on. But those repressed emotions, I'm going to tell you right now are not healthy, right? But also for the person listening who's like, “Hey, wait.” A day and a half. Really, though, you're just going to get over something that fast.

Nick Klingensmith

Hold on, let me touch on a few things before I lose it all, okay? Because you got, there's a lot to unpack there. Um. I'm gonna start with that one. Number one doesn't mean I'm over it. I'm just choosing to move beyond it. Like, II can't tell anyone else how to process things in their life. I don't know what they've been through. I don't know their frame of reference, right I don't. So, I'm not over my dog dying. It happened three years ago. I will probably never get over that. But you still move forward. And it's still a choice to move beyond some of the things that have happened to us. So, the other thing that we, just the other part that you just said that was, oh man, there was so much to unpack there. There's a book and I'm sorry, a guy you used to work with many years ago. My old boss used to have us read all these business books. All right. And the CEO was this cranky guy who made a very good point one day, and he's like, “I'm tired of reading this crap.” He's like, we're like, what? He's like, “These guys didn't wake up and have an idea, write a book and then turn it into a great company. They got lucky, they made some good decisions, things panned out, and now they have a story to tell. So they wrote a book about it.” I want to read the book about the guy who was intentional about the things that they did. Well, that's not me either. I'm the guy who went through all this. All right. And then I wrote a book about it, and that was the act. That was actually what helped me to see everything different, because in a two year period I wrote this book, which at first is the version that I wanted everybody else to read, the ego defense version, the one where I don't get vulnerable, the one where I'm not a victim to anything. The second version, though, is the one where I had to cut out 37,000 words and I had to start getting honest with myself, and I started seeing things differently. And the reason I bring this up is because another word for this is called journaling. And I can't tell you just how much I learned from it. But throughout that process, I now am able to answer that question of resilience as a process. So, I didn't wake up and say, “I'm going to be resilient.” Just like you didn't wake up and be resilient like you had to go through it to get through it. Yeah, we are trained right. It's the opposite of the coke at dinner, every time we had to go through it, we're still alive. Now you can make a choice to do and, you know, people like this all the time who do not get off the couch, metaphorically or literally. They will not live their lives. And they cite 75 reasons why not. They are making a choice to stay in victimhood. I won't believe another scenario, because any excuse that somebody wants to give me, I'm going to highlight somebody in my life who has it worse, who lives their life better by choice. So it does come down. And that's actually the second thing that I will teach with people that I'm coaching on. The second thing is acceptance. Accepting our starting line, accepting that these things have happened to us, that they have occurred, accepting that I'm diabetic. Accept them, that I have cancer. Accepting that I have to go to doctors in order to survive. That I sleep with a machine since I was 26 years old, that I have nerve damage that acts up in the craziest of ways whenever it wants to. I can complain about it all the time and live in that victim mentality. Or I now have a process and the process for me, and this is what was gifted to me throughout my journey, and I mean gifted because it came to me when I was writing my book, literally like that. I found my purpose. My purpose is to overcome every obstacle and inspire others that they can, too. I will say that to myself before every single challenge that I face now, when my fridge breaks in the middle of the night and I'm like, how are we going to, great, we're losing all our food. I don't have $1,000 to go buy a new fridge today. My purpose to overcome every obstacle, inspire others. They can too. So this is the challenge. When I busted my hamstring, the way I got moved beyond it is on day two. I said, well, now I get to learn how to rehab a hamstring injury. I'm in it for the long game, so I the first thing people will be helpful to them is let's find out what your purpose is. And also the people that I'm coaching, the reason they're coming to me is a lot of them. They're not lost. They've achieved something. They've hit thresholds of success and achievement in their life, and now they don't know what to do. They've lost that purpose because it involves, you know, I'll be 45 in 2 weeks. And I think, “God, I'm almost there.” You know, I'm just going to say it, Dawn. I will not be the starting second baseman for the Boston Red Sox. 

Dawn Taylor

What? 

Nick Klingensmith

I know. 

Dawn Taylor

I think you need to accept that. 

Nick Klingensmith

And so I think it's probably okay that I let go of other things that I wanted when I was seven years old, too. And when I was 21 and when I was 35, and how when I was 40, the purpose evolves. And so once we find that, the second thing we work on is acceptance, and a lot of that is taking responsibility. Now, it's not my fault I'm diabetic, but I'm responsible for my diabetes. I'm responsible for living my life. This is the only life I get. If I choose how to spend it and like, keep my mind in it. And by the way, I get this because. I was the most cynical person, and if somebody told me, “Just think positive.” I might have dropped, kicked him on the spot. And when somebody says, like, you know, “Everything happens for a reason and just think positive and it'll all work out.” Like I was like, “You're so naive because bad things happen.” They happen to me. You just don't know. That's how I would respond and I would become resentful towards other people. But here's something I kind of thought about that I've learned now, right? Let's say that I submit, I'm doing some sort of a test, okay. And in five days from now, I'm going to get the result of this test. I can spend those five days thinking negatively and tell myself that I'm thinking logically and rationally, and I'm preparing myself for the worst. But really, throughout those five days, I am living in my head about every bad scenario that might ever happen. And there is a true physiological impact to that. I run by heart rate. All right. So if I'm running with like my zone two heart rate and I'm running at like, 140 beats per minute. I'm chilling and casual. If I start thinking about something negative, I look down. I'm at 150, 155. I'm not going any faster. It's the physiological response to the negative. So I can choose to spend those five days that way, or I can choose to think positively. I can visualize positive, outstanding, awesome, bigger than my wildest dreams, outcomes. I can say everything's going to work out and if it doesn't it'll work out in the long run. I can say that over and over again and at the end of those five days, the result is going to be the result. Am I naive if I think positively and it turns out bad? Maybe. But over those five days, I wasn't making myself sick. Yeah. I'm happier for those five days. I'm just happier. That's it. I'm sleeping better. I'm more capable, and I am more capable of moving beyond whatever the bad thing that has happened in. And so, positivity is a choice. And by the way, it's not one that you just make once. So to those who are saying it's not that easy, it's no it's not, it's not easy at all. None of what I'm saying is easy. I don't pretend any of this. Keep in mind, I lived it and I talk about it all the time. So I am 100% confident that I'm right on what I'm talking about. But don't don't confuse any of that for a finger snap. It's an all the time process. It's hard work to do. This negativity is easy. You blink your eyes. Negative thoughts. 

Dawn Taylor

We're genetically wired to go to the negative. That's literally how we're wired. One thing that has worked really well for me, but also it goes all the way back to brain aneurysm day is someone asked when I realized that I could actually just fight through it, and I'd somehow figure it out. And it's a very pivotal moment where I was out of the hostel. I was supposed to be in there for months. I had been let out at two weeks because I was fine. Like, not fine, but I was good enough. I could go home in a wheelchair with the heavy meds and figure it out and rehab what I needed to after. And they sent me home and I was laying in pitch black in my bedroom. Grade 12, right? It was just April of grade 12 was when it all happened. So just imagine like you're the end of your grade 12 year was super fun. And trying to go to prom, but you're in a wheelchair. Things like that. But, my husband who was my boyfriend at the time. He came over and I was laying in the dark. Curtains, clothes, everything, and, like, just miserable. And he's like, “Hey, a bunch of us are going to the lake. Do you want to come?” And I was like, “No, I keep puking because my pain is so great. Like, seriously, like, do you get what I'm going through right now?” Like, I just had a brain aneurysm and and part of it was that I like, they'd shaved half my head and I felt ugly, and I had doubled my body size on steroids, and I felt fat and gross and nothing fit. And like everything, everything about it was just really, really hard. And I'm just 18 and he's like, well, “You can hurt at home or you can hurt at the lake.” He's like, “At least the lake is prettier.” And I'll never forget his wisdom in that moment, as like, we were kids, we were just kids, right? And I remember looking at him going, oh, how are you? And I was like, okay, that makes sense. So I started getting up and I was like, but babe, everyone just looks at my head and they just look at the giant scar across my face and he's like, no, no, no, I got a fix for that. And he had bought like, an old man, like, boat hat kind of hat. But then he had also gone to the dollar store and bought a whole bunch of really hideously ugly tattoos. Giant, giant tattoos. And he covered my legs in these disgusting, like, skull and motorbike and thorns. And he covered my legs with these hideous tattoos. And he's like, “There, everyone will be looking at your ugly tattoos and your legs instead of your head. Let's go.” And it was just this simple little act, this simple little thing that was so minor and so. Really nothing if you think about it. But it was this shift in my head, right? It was this complete psychological shift of I can hurt at home. Or I can hurt at the lake. Which one's prettier? 

Nick Klingensmith

There's, you know, a lot of the cliche expressions that we see out there. They're cliche for a reason. Choose your hard. You know, on Sunday, my wife and we're going to go to the park and do a workout. And, uh, between her sinuses and allergies and migraines and my sleep apnea and diabetes, both of us were just feeling crummy on Sunday morning. But we weren't sick. You understand? Like I'm not David Goggins. Okay? I think rest is important.

Dawn Taylor

We actually need more rest that we're getting. 

Nick Klingensmith 

I do what I do because it's how I pursue physical fitness and activity. Right? That's how a lot of the mindset stuff manifests in my life. But I'm not about “go hard” all the time, like I'm just trying to be a better me and help others to be a better them. But there was no reason we couldn't do it. And I said to her the same thing, I'm like, “You're going to feel like crap anyway. Let's just go.” And the thing is, we both went and after the workout we were both feeling better. But you know, I was sick the week before though, so it's like when those things, there's a difference between when you just, what's going to help you get closer to your goals. And sometimes rest is what's required. But sometimes it is that perspective of like, I can wallow in the self-pity here. I can maybe take some action in my life. Action inspires action, progress inspires progress. And I also remember, uh, when I had my first cancer surgery, I had a scar all through my neck here, and they use this glue to keep it shut. And so it was glossy and gross. And if you didn't, I mean, it was just glue and it was kind of dry, but you couldn't tell. And I didn't know what was scar tissue. I thought it was all scar tissue. At first I was like, “My God, how am I ever gonna leave the house here?” Yeah. And this, I write about this in my book, too. But my friends and I were going to a Jimmy Buffett convention. This was up in New England back in like 2005. It was about four degrees outside, and they had it in the hotel down in Goat Island in Newport, Rhode Island. And, you know, we're in Hawaiian shirts and stuff. And I was like, I don't want to talk about this. So as we go to this thing, anytime somebody would start to mention about the neck, one of my buddies would chime in with “Shark attack, helicopter accident!” We just started telling lies and I'm like, man, they do not tell you to duck before you get on the helicopter like all this crazy nonsense. And we said it was such, uh, I don't know, uh, glib, maybe. Confidence, I don't know, whatever. People were like, wait, what did he just say? Like, nobody really asked me about the cancer. So, there's some humor that we can use to apply to these situations, too. And that's another way that I have gotten through. A lot of it is I do find ways to make, to laugh at the situation and, you know, something else, so that's been a great metaphor for me, is I love running ultras. These are the 31 mile obstacle races because anything can happen. That's a long day. All right. Depending on the course, that could be an 8 to 15 hour day with the ailments that I have. Even that, even just somebody who doesn't have anything is still huge. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. 

Nick Klingensmith

Yeah. There's so many different things. They could have nutritional issues, bowel issues. It could be a thousand degrees out, it could be five degrees out. They could get injured. Just who knows, right. Like, that's what life is. All this uncertainty with obstacles ahead that you know they are there. You just don't know what else are ones that are going to be there. And I'm never going to win these things. That's why I like doing the ultras and the long runs, because it's mental endurance. It's literally training me for life and the hard stuff that comes. And when you said earlier about getting through it, that's what kind of ultras are sometimes, like, I have stumbled through the fire, to the finish line. Yeah, my medal looks the same and it is rewarding though, and when you find out that you can suffer and come through the other side, then you can embrace it like a superpower. And I remember what I was going to say earlier when you talked about unpacking. Uh, when I talked about unpacking was this, I think a lot of the reasons that we do stay in the victim mentality when we do is because we do feel unique. “Nobody knows when I'm going through.” Well, when I share my stories, people share their stories back and I don't feel unique. I've been through so much, and yet I feel like I am just another bozo on the bus. I don't think I'm special, and therefore if I'm not special, my problems aren't special. It means I'm not alone. It means I actually have community. It means people. We can have conversations like ours and knowing that we have different experiences, but they're so crazy experiences and we have a connection because of them. And when I air these things out, they lose power over me. And when I use it to help other people. I have claimed that power. And now I'm not a victim to anyone or anything. So there's a lot of ways that we can use these things. But I do think, and this is why. It sounds like I'm judging those who are staying in the victim mentality, but I'm not. Because it's their choice, their life, because it is helpful sometimes. Again, like when I'm going through cancer, I don't want to feel like it's no big deal, right? Like I'm in the fight of my life. It's okay to feel that way. I also think it's really important that people understand - it's okay to not be okay. It’s exhausting pretending that everything is okay. 

Dawn Taylor

It's okay to not be okay. And I know if you listeners have listened to any of my other podcasts, they've probably heard me say this before. I had someone to give me a review on, it was the 47 minute temper tantrum right? The pity party where I often tell people I'm like, “No, no, no, you don't have to find the positive right now. You don't have to forgive. You don't have to find it.” 

Nick Klingensmith

I didn't wake up like this. 

Dawn Taylor

I don't have to find the gratitude. No, you don't have to find any of that. But you can also give yourself permission to be really freaking angry. And so I found that that was so helpful to me. Going through stuff is yes, things get thrown on me all the time, whatever. It's life. That's just life. Like when Covid hit, people were like, oh wow, Dawn, this is a universe hold my beer moment. And I was like, yeah, pretty much. It's, I get to choose though, right? My emotions aren't in charge of me. I'm in charge of them. I get to choose how I'm going to feel. Nope. I choose how I'm going to feel. I get to choose how I'm going to process. I get to choose all of that. But I'm not talking toxic positivity. I am the first person to rage. I'm the first person to scream. I'm the first person to stop my feet. Process your anger. Process your negative, like, allow yourself to feel those feels. But, I think what we're both even saying is like, don't unpack there and move in. Like go through it, the feeling, go through it and feel it, live it, breathe it for a second. And maybe you need a day and a half. Maybe you need six weeks. Maybe in a year. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is that you need in order to process whatever happened to you based on your situation, your ingredients of your life, what you've gone through. Right, but then choose that. You're like, okay, I'm going to actually choose one thing today that could better my day, that could better my life, that could make it more enjoyable, that could bring me a smile, that could help me release this. 

Nick Klingensmith

That's actually the first thing is priorities and discipline. Because we for me, literally my day is planned from the moment I wake up until the end of the day. Not saying when I go to bed like, I have to because if I have too much idle time, the doubt seeks in, the negative seeps in, the wishy washy seep in. And it's not rigid. I'm the one designing it. Okay, but like so I'm waking up and I'm immediately starting, you know, I'm saying my prayers, drinking my coffee, starting my workout. And it's all pre at 430 in the morning. You don't have a lot of room for error or cognitive thinking. So I need routine to carry me through something that sucks. I don't enjoy waking up early and doing that, I don't. I enjoy being fit and active. I do enjoy working out and training. I do not enjoy doing so at 5:00 in the morning, but that's when I can do it. So the reason the worst 15 minutes of my day is when I come into my office here and I sit down and I plan the day because that's when the anxiety exists, is in that 15 minutes. And the rest of the day, I have priorities that I set that are aimed at accomplishing my goals. And I say priorities, not just objectives, because we can't be everywhere, can't be all things to all people. I have to say no to a lot. There's a lot of things I want to do. A lot of people I want to, like, talk to. There's like different things. Everyone has a new suggestion on how I can improve my business and they’re right, and I want to run them all down. But you can't. I have to say no to certain things. I'm doing this now. I'm focused on this. When doubt comes in, I'm like, “Hey, you take a number. I don't see doubt on my schedule.” I have to keep working. When imposter syndrome comes in, I'm like, I don't care. Like, dude, you set the podcast. It's not your decision whether or not Dawn's going to like you. You just get on there and be your best. Like, you move through the steps and focus on, you know, the parts that, uh, and focus on the parts that I can. Um, the other aspect, though, is that by, it's like I said, it's not every minute of every day because like today it is. But by the time I come home for dinner, that's when I get to relax. And then literally I turn the rest of it off to. So there's no room to stay in it. There's just, I'm taking action because eventually. Like I said, I can't tell you how long it takes you to process something. But I can tell you that you need to keep taking action anyways. 

Dawn Taylor

Beginning of Covid, I was doing just like a Facebook Live every single day for an hour with free coaching for people if they wanted to show up. And one of the things that someone got mad at me for and then someone else was laughing really hard at, was I was like, today your goal is to put on some damn pants. That's it. That's literally your goal of the day. 

Nick Klingensmith

It's funny and true. 

Dawn Taylor

Right? And when I talk to people about overcoming stuff. So here's where I'm going to get Nick to close his ears, is any of my clients that are listening to this are like, “Oh, he hasn't worked through his trauma and things, which is why he has to have all that in full time and full schedule.” And yes, Nick and I can talk about that outside of this or we can laugh about it. But here's the thing - I wouldn't recommend being that scheduled because it's now just masking everything else. That is my, whatever you think on that, we’re good, but, find one tiny thing. Maybe it's literally that you're going to focus on the fact that you're going to, like, brush your hair every day. Maybe you're going to put on mascara every day. Maybe you're going to put on pants every day. Maybe that's where you're starting. But when you're overcoming something, when something has come your way and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if it's cancer, doesn't matter if it's a thyroid disease, it doesn't matter if it's a sexual trauma, it doesn't matter. It does not matter what it is. Reach out and ask. We live in an era where you can literally ChatGPT yourself through therapy. Like, it's ridiculous what you can do right now, but you can also Google, you can search, you can listen to podcasts, you can find people that have been through what you've been through, get the support. But you have to take one tiny step. One tiny step and one tiny piece of determination, but without also understanding that it's very scary to walk out of that mentality. It's so exciting because people will. Like, you might lose friends over it and you might lose your community over it. And there's fear. There is fear attached to that. And you can't out-willpower your protection mechanisms. Right. So if that is what's going on, you can't willpower them. So reach out, reach out and get some support on this. 

Nick Klingensmith

Let me clarify one thing and then, uh, the schedule thing, right? That's not about ignoring trauma. That's about ignoring the noise. Because excuses are noise. 

Dawn Taylor

My brain's like, “Yeah, but if you deal with it, you don't have the noise.” 

Nick Klingensmith

Ah, but let me finish. Because that's if you stop every time you have that feeling, you will accomplish nothing. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, for sure. 

Nick Klingensmith

So it's about how to stay focused and productive towards my goals and towards my purpose. That said, that's, yeah, if you ignore it, then you're going to get drunk like I did for ten years. The way that I overcome and process, that is what we're doing right now. And it's what you said, which is talking about it and voicing it and understanding it and getting other perspectives and also not feeling alone and isolated by doing so. So those are two very different things too. And those take time. Like I said, I didn't even realize the impact on my parents’ divorce and all that stuff until like six months ago. So, of course, I'm going to continue to work through that. And I'm not ignoring that trauma. At the same time, I'm looking at my clock trying to think of an example. But if this was like two, if this was 2:45 right now eastern or whatever, 15 minutes before we were about to get on this call, no, I don't have time to sit there and think about, you know, I wasn't loved enough as a child, woe is me. How do I get through this? No, I have things in front of me that I am trying to achieve. I have people's time who have taken to be on this with me. I have to be able to say, “This is going to have to wait a minute.” And it's about priorities and discipline, because otherwise I am still letting that control me. That said, I am not trying to ignore things. I mean, I'm talking about stuff that I've never, ever talked about before or thought about before, and I don't feel scared of it. I don't feel. It's vulnerability, but it's making me feel less vulnerable.

Dawn Taylor

And that's beautiful. And thank you for clarifying a little bit of that. So let's shift this for a second. So everyone listening is like okay, wait a second. Die Hard: The Man With 15 Lives. Here's my question. Because this is something that I've been working through over the last few years, is when we live in a world full of statistics. Statistics around the chances of getting cancer again. The recurrence of things. When you've dealt with death and faced it, the amount of times that you and I have. How do you not live in fear? So I know for myself, we always joke that we live in a town called realistic denial. Right, with the roads are pretty in, the schools are nice and everyone's kind and lovely, and in that place we just continually live and we just pretend that nothing's wrong. Because we kind of have too, right? We also are big believers in taking care of our health. And I mean, it's literally when you guys listen to this, you should probably ask me how my seven-day water fast went, because I'm not talking publicly about it, but I just put it out there and I'm on day one of a seven day water fast because of the science behind the fact that it could help me not ever get cancer, right. So, I do a lot of things to benefit my health and to increase my statistics of living. But there is also the reality of it where it's like, I have a will and I have an enduring power of attorney, and I have life insurance, and I have all those things because I'm not an idiot. And I know that based on my health history, there is a very strong chance that something could go on, because that's just what's happened with my body. How do you deal with that when you have the diabetes and you've had cancer four times and you have the herniated discs and all of those things.How do you deal with that? 

Nick Klingensmith

I love the James Dean quote “Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.” Um, because absolutely my dreams take me up to about being 85 years old, give or take. I've had to. Depending on when in my life you would have asked me this question. I will answer in different ways. You got to understand that I want to live a full life, I absolutely do. But I am not afraid to die. I have long accepted that I will probably not live to be that old. And that's also why I am so less concerned about the years of my life, and so more concerned about the life in my years. That is why I pushed through so many of those things. And yeah, the amount of times I wake up after a bad night with sleep apnea and just wanting to die. I don't want to let it rob me of any more of the precious days that I have. And so I look at it like that is how you push forward. And some days, sometimes you just don't. 

Dawn Taylor

Some days you actually just shut off your phone.

Nick Klingensmith

You're like, yeah, I'm surviving today. And like I said, embracing the suck doesn't mean ignoring it. And there are going to be those days. I'm human too. I don't want them to take too many from me because I don't expect to live forever. There are times where I feel like I have been afraid of dying young, and maybe those feelings will come in again. But mostly it's feelings of like, I'm not using my time well, like that's what it boils down to. Or I'm not making the decisions that I feel are in line with who I am and what my purpose is. There were times, though, where honestly, I got really cocky. Um, I figured I was. Yeah, I just figured I couldn't be killed. And to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced of the opposite of that yet. But I think I really justified my drinking and my selfish behavior and my reckless behavior so long from being born out of that victim mindset. And therefore, I would have told you, you know, 12 years ago that I don't care when I die. I know that's not true. Now I very much care, you know, like I will. I absolutely would be upset if they're like, yeah, you're gonna die tomorrow. Like so much I'm trying to do, but it's so far beyond our control. So I take measures to make sure I'm getting the most out of my life, for sure. That's why I care about my fitness. I don't need to be winded when I'm walking up a flight of stairs anymore. And you know, I don't need to wear knee pads walking around the house, a knee strap like I used to because of inactivity. 

Dawn Taylor

Mhm. 

Nick Klingensmith

I think it's also varying times to when I was single I didn't care well, I don't have kids, but I have a wife and dogs and responsibility and like you know it's our family and our life and I'm like I want to make sure I have reasons to live. So it's definitely been an accordion-like thing for me but I also couldn't let that fear hang over my head anymore. So whether or not I mean it, I had to convince myself that I wasn't afraid.

Dawn Taylor

I give myself, so something I started years ago as I give myself one day a year to be terrified. So, I have like a day, a year that I'm allowed to grieve hard, that I'll never be a mom. And I have a day, a year where I'm allowed to grieve really hard, what the brain aneurysm took for me. And. It allows me all year when something comes up. So when a feeling comes up or an emotion comes up, or, I'm like, ooh, I'm going to grieve that really hard on insert date here kind of idea. And it gives me this weird way of going, no, no, no, I'm not ignoring this. I'm not pushing it away. I'm not trying to convince myself of something different. I'm not trying to tell myself that I'm actually totally okay with this, that there are still some hurts around this or irritations, but it's okay because I've actually set aside time to deal with it. And that's actually been a really big one for me. 

Nick Klingensmith

I call it moving beyond sadness and. I get sad, I get sad about random times. Um, I'm an alcoholic man. There's a lot of growing up I still need to do, and I'm not totally understanding all the emotions that I have all the time. And I'm processing that and learning them, and I denied them for so long. But sometimes this disease is trying to kill me and it won't tell me. And so literally, I might wake up tomorrow sad over something that happened 30 years ago, not know why and it makes me feel like I just, utter depression. I'm a terrible person. Like all those feelings just kind of come down on it. I don't know how to stop being sad, but I move past it, I move and eventually it loosens up some of that hole. And again, I'm talking about me because I don't know if normal people have the same type of emotional dysfunction that I was just talking about but I assume more people have it than you'd realize. 

Dawn Taylor

But it's often the thing that I can say this all the time is like, emotions aren't permanent. 

Nick Klingensmith

They're just feelings, literally feelings that are based off of stuff and they're not permanent. And that's a hard one sometimes that, you know, like I'm literally might be engulfed with sadness over losing my pets tomorrow morning. I don't know but I still have calls to make and I still have responsibilities. Yes, I want to lie on the couch in the fetal position and feel bad. That's what my feelings are trying to tell me.

Dawn Taylor

Schedule a day. That's the day you give yourself permission to do that. 

Nick Klingensmith

I know. I need to put that one on the calendar. Usually it's when I watch Field of Dreams or something, which we just did. So I got a good cry out the other day. But yeah, these are two things that have helped me tremendously, both with sadness, with anxiety, with victimhood, with feeling unfair, with just basically unhappiness. Number one, go play with a dog. You just can't be any of those things when you're staring at a smiling dog. It's it's scientifically proven, physically impossible. I made that up. But go play with it. 

Dawn Taylor

According to Nick.

Nick Klingensmith

Yeah, four out of five people on the internet agree with me that go play with the dog.

Dawn Taylor

I like it, I like it.

Nick Klingensmith

The second thing is help another person. Yeah, there's nothing better that gets you out of self than by focusing on someone else. And that doesn't happen. I love what you said earlier, right? The start small applies to this to let you want to blow somebody's mind, let them out into traffic. Um, you made somebody else's day. You inspired humanity in them by like, you doing that simple, small act of letting somebody out into traffic. People don't do that. I live in Florida. They're all trying to kill each other here. I don't know about you. 

Dawn Taylor

Florida is where we make fun of, that's what we make fun of. Crazy people that live in Florida.

Nick Klingensmith

Buy a cup of coffee for the person behind you in line. Think of that. Pick up a piece of trash that wasn't yours. Return a cart at the grocery store like these little small acts about just taking you out of your problems yourself. Listen to it, get it on and call them for conversation with someone else and just listen to them. Don't judge. Don't try to give advice. Just let them get it out. Sometimes that's all anybody needs. Or if they need advice, be willing to be vulnerable and share your experience. But, whenever I get really jammed up when I was at my job like five, six years ago and I really didn't like it anymore and I was, like, just tortured inside on the way to work every day, I'd say, “Who can we help today?” At least 400 people in that building, somebody one way or another, whether it be giving him sales advice, giving them a lead, giving them a ride, giving them a high five, I don't know. But helping other people get us out of our own heads, even if it's temporary.

Dawn Taylor

No, I love that. People here have heard it before. One of my big mottos in life is “How can I love you even more right now?” I owned a restaurant years ago, and you'd get some of the crappiest people and my staff are all young, right? They're all teenagers and often the customer would be so crabby that I'd walk over and I'd pull them offline, and I would step in and serve the customers, and they'd start getting mad or grumpy or whatever. And it was like, “No, I'm going to kill you with kindness today.” and I have the next, like three minutes and 48 seconds or whatever the time limit was on making the dish that they'd ordered. To shift your entire mood, to shift your day to jar something in the use of you are no longer on the same path. And that is my motto. That is my mission. And it became a thing that I created with my staff and like, “No, you have from the minute they start their order, I think like a subway-style right to the minute they get to the till to have them crack a smile at least.” And if you do, we're all going to turn and high five. Even in front of all the customers, right? And we'd have like 4 or 5 of us. And, you know, we did things like every time someone ordered a griller, which was one of the wraps we'd all break into, like, “You ordered a griller!” and we'd like to go to the Thriller dance and all these things, but it became a whole thing where it was like, no, no, no, you have no idea. You have no idea what happened prior to them walking in. You have no idea what's going to happen prior to post them walking out that door. So how do we make an impact and make a difference? And it was very interesting to teach my staff that, but also the people that came back. And we're like, “Hey, I was having the worst day of my life. And by the time I walked out of here, I felt like I was going to be okay. And I just wanted to say thank you.” And so yes, people need to. 

Nick Klingensmith

It is amazing that the small act of humanity by another person can really shift things for us. And so why not be the kindness? Why not be the person who's the catalyst? And I would do what I do for a living for free if I could. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. If we didn't have bills to pay, 

Nick Klingensmith

I absolutely would be a speaker and I would absolutely coach people on their goals. I thoroughly enjoy the work and it's how I get to give to the world is how I get to help others. But it's not philanthropy. It's not. It helps me with my view of the world. It helps me to overcome the negative stuff. It helps me to die hard. It helps me to focus on positivity. Itt helps me. I'm happier because of it. So it's not philanthropy. It's just another way of being selfish, I guess. But who cares because I'm benefiting others in the process? 

Dawn Taylor

Right. I love that, Nick. Thank you so much for hanging out today. Thank you for being on my podcast for talking about this. I mean, if nothing else, people, if you think you've had the worst life, you haven't met Nick because he's probably been a little harder. No. And I mean that in the best way ever, right? Like we always think that ours is the worst. And sometimes I remember someone saying that and being like, “There's always someone else who's like, had one more illness, one more disease, broken one more bone.”

Nick Klingensmith. 

That's how I feel with, you know, again, I meet a lot of people like me. And one thing I would say though, is I always tell people not to compare. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, there's no comparison. 

Nick Klingensmith

We have our own frame of references and yeah, we talked about this offline before that. Yeah. The person who stubbed their nail. And that's the worst thing that ever happened to them in their life. I'm sorry that happened to you. Like, what you went through is real. And that's another thing that I think we should all accept is that it's okay. This happened. It's real. Don't compare yourself to someone else. 

Dawn Taylor

There's no chart.

Nick Klingensmith

But we still have to keep moving forward anyway. 

Dawn Taylor

You do, you do. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for hanging out. I hope that's something you heard today. Hit home a little bit. Join us again in two weeks for another amazing topic. And please tell your friends, the more people that feel understood and heard and seen, the better. Check out the show notes located at The Tailor Waka. For more information on Nick and for all of his contact information. You want to follow him and check him out and all of his crazy races that he's doing, and subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank you again, Nick, for being here today. 

Nick Klingensmith

Thank you.