Beyond Survival: Scott Martin on Building Resilience After Loss

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Step into the world of success with your brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. I am absolutely thrilled to have Scott Martin on the show. One thing I talk about a lot with my students in digital media at usc, but also when I'm podcasting or when I have opportunities, is that the world is so much bigger than just one or two people, and we need to make sure that we are inclusive, creating accessibility, equality, equity. And Scott, your journey into becoming a disability advocate, I think is such a compelling story, and I'm very excited to have you here. And of course, we're going to keep a lot of focus on your book and your journey that you share with us. But before we do that, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here.

Oh, thank you very much, Anneke. I've been studying up on your episodes. I see what you're doing. I'm looking forward to this as well. And we're going to have Bang up

show well, I'm gonna dive right in because you were gracious enough to send me a PDF of your book, Play from youm Heart. And it is just such an incredible story of your resilience, your coaching, being an athlete, and then moving into advocacy. So let's talk about the title Play from youm Heart before we dive into the details. What does that title mean to you?

Well, this goes back when I was a freshman in college. I was playing at the college level, and I started coaching already as a freshman and had a group of players. And I've always done this. I would tell the players to direct the players to turn off your brain and play from your heart. So too long of a title. But I think that just play from your heart covers the entire story. I'll throw this out. With the World cup coming to the United States, Mexico, and Canada, people are going to have a great chance to see players definitely playing from their art. Their brains are going to be off because they know what they're doing with the ball and. And they're gonna be able to manipulate it. It's just gonna be some gorgeous soccer if people haven't really been involved in the game. So I hope people take that up. But, yeah, play from your heart covers the entire story.

Amazing. And I just have to say, your opening. The opening page, I have it pulled up because it's such a compelling opening, talking about the fact that you were the representative for the soccer team in top athletic strength and fitness performance, and you were the overall winner over all the other athletes. And you. I'm not gonna say the words because I usually don't swear on the show, but how the F did you get here? Yeah, And I was like, I'm right there. I'm like, I'm already. I know a little bit about your story, but that just hooked me right in.

Yeah, when you think about it, it is, how the heck can this happen for someone where I was in athletics, all of a sudden becoming a disabled person, an amputee.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about that before we dive into, because I want to know more about when you decided the story needed to be told. But before we do that, let's share your journey and your story. Go back to July 1993.

Okay. I used to teach high school social studies in history, and I've been through, you know, get into all of that stuff. But I now substitute teach at the high school level. And our high school where I'm at all the time is grades 10 through 12. So at the beginning of the Year. Anytime I have a class full of sophomores, it's okay, folks pull up a chair and sit down and say, I understand how rumors go. And let's just nip that in the bud. Here's my story, and I go with this. 1993, I was the head women's soccer coach at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. Just coming off my first season there. We were nationally ranked, as I did quite often during my summers. I was heading over to Europe to top three tournaments over there. Had a great group of players from across the country selected. Nike heard about me and called and said, hey, we heard some stuff. We want you to come down to the regional camp outside of Chicago. 100 of the top players from the Midwest are going to be there. Boom. I mean, no problem. But I showed up in Adidas because that's what we were under contract for. So that was a good icebreaker, so to speak, in a different sort of way. Yeah. So we were there, and there were national team players there. They're going to be demonstrating coaches from across the country. This is amazing place for me to be for a few days. Second day where we're going to be doing a coaches exhibition match. I mean, here we are with national team players and we're playing for a while. I had to pull myself out, Donna, because it was just so strange. I was in preparation. Every time I went to Europe, I would be as a guest player. The year before, I actually was able to play against the Dutch Olympic team. I mean, because. Just because I knew the coach. So it's not always what you know, but who you know. Pulled myself out, like I said. And I spent that night either throwing up profusely in the bathroom or shivering or sweating like crazy in my dorm room. Got up the next morning, okay, we're outside of Chicago, but where are the hospitals? No idea where anyone would be. This is the weekend, too. So my mom was an hour and a half away. Mom, women always know what's going on. This is before cell phones. So she had no idea I was showing up a day early because I was going to pop in for maybe take her out for breakfast before I headed up to Minneapolis St. Paul for her visiting two recruits. But I showed up as soon as she saw me. Monica, it was you get you bought over to the emergency room. Something's wrong. She knew, and I was brushing it off, so to speak. Presented myself. They basically did not take blood tests. And that comes up a bit later in the story. And said, here, go drink some Gatorade. You're going to be fine. No. Woke up the next morning even worse. Had to cancel recruiting trip. Doing a coaching gig I was doing as well. And the last thing I remember for a while was pulling out of the driveway with my stepfather driving and my mom standing outside the kitchen door just looking freaked out. She knew something was really up. Cut to the chase a little bit. Woke up a month later from a medically induced coma to learn that in order to save my life, I had contracted group A strep with necrotizing fasciitis. And at the time, the media loves to call the flesh eating disease. No, it does not eat flesh, but it's a way to describe what happens to someone who contracts this, as I did. And yeah, it was Scott. Basically, your family had to make a decision for you because you weren't capable. Either let you die, which I should have. I was. I was told that the only reason I was alive, because I was an athlete, I was in top shape, or it was a kicker. And the hard part for them, amputate both your hands, parts of your feet, and see how you would handle life. And that, too is as we get into. You know, I think chapter two in the book is, wow, here I am, a white male, going from athletics into now coming out as an amputee and a disabled person. And through the book, it's. It's littered with times that I was discriminated against. So there's a bunch of stuff right at the beginning for you. So a lot to work from.

Yeah, well. And that was really a complete transformation of your identity, as you said, going from being a white male in athletics, a coach, somebody who knew all the people in the room, got to go to Europe, play against Olympic teams from other countries, and just really enjoying your lifestyle to waking up, not understanding, I'm sure, how this is going to affect the rest of your life. And now being looked at as disabled, as different, as somebody who may not be as capable merely because you had physically changed.

Exactly. Yeah. I started doing something really stupid from the start. And I, as a male, I am not ashamed to say, as most males would do, not looking at the emotional side of things. My focus right away was, let me get back to work. Stupid. I went, you know, denial is the first stage of grief. You know, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, which I never got into, was accepted, except for not all that long ago. Yeah, it was so stupid. Four more months in rehab to learn how to deal with things I never dealt with up here and I never dealt with here. I never did, and I paid for it four years later, you know, from running into the brick wall of depression.

And. And for those who are not watching this episode, which you should be watching it, but if you're listening to it, we love that, too. But Scott just pointed to his head and his heart, so mentally and then emotionally, you are not in tune.

Exactly.

Yeah. And that's. Wow, what a hard place to live. And how did you. When you threw yourself back into work, were you able to do the same things for those who haven't? You know, we're teasing out a lot of the story, but I. People will also hopefully pick up the book, but what happened next? Tell us a little bit about that. Because you had to figure out how to deal with your new body, your new self, these constraints, but other people who had. Were used to looking at you in a certain light also had to reframe.

Exactly. And that's where we got into some more of the problems. There was a lot of faking going on. Not only me, but I was looking at how I believed that other people viewed me, like, oh, poor Scott, and how do they interact with me? But I would fake that off and rub it off with wisecracks and just don't worry about it. Let's go. Let's do all these same things. It did PA or cause a huge issue for me. And how am I going to coach now? How am I going to lead and direct? You know, because a lot of it was through representation and through drills and demonstration. So once I started being fit for what I'm showing in the camera. These are my electric cans, folks. Once I was fit for these, of course there was a. There was a long learning curve. You know, I started writing a coaching manual, right? I titled the Soccer Atlas. Where are we going and how are we going to get there? That was for my program. That was for my players. Everything was in there. So it was, here you go, let's work off of this now instead of demonstration. So there was a lot of learning that had to go on, how I was going to present, but also for myself. The way I got to the point of being able to utilize my hands properly, same way I learned how to bend and do some funky things with a soccer ball. You know, bend it like Beckham around a wall. First thing was accept failure and actually expect failure. So as I did with a. Like I said, trying to make a soccer ball do funky things, it was okay to make mistakes. I mean, right from the start, you know, there's a. There's a part in, in the book about when some old friends of mine, teammates of mine, came and took me out for one night. You know, it was. I dropped a glass of rum and coke. You know, not surprising. There were a lot of instances, you know, learning how to drive. We have a very humorous part in the book. All of this is totally honest. Everything really happened on how I learned how to manipulate a steering wheel. And it took me a little longer with how to manipulate a brake. So people can just imagine what would happen. That's where the humor comes in, in that when we're talking about that in a book. A lot of introspection, but I always avoided the emotional side. It was always how to change things, how to correct things, how to coach. We saw it nationally ranked teams. That was my goal, actually, was to win a national championship. But we saw a national ranked team, so I was doing something fairly correctly. I figured it out a bit.

Yeah. So you still had this talent, you still had this brain. You're working through all of these transitions in your life while still trying to maintain this facade, as you say, of normality and just hoping everybody will still treat you the same. So acting as if, right, and not dealing with that brain fog. And there are other setbacks. You, you know, you teased out a little bit that there were some things that they didn't do that they should have immediately. You had a malpractice suit and that did not go your way. I'm sure that also added to that, that brain fog and that wall that you hit a few years later.

I mean, it was within a few months. It took us three and a half years for my attorney to get up to speed and to make the trial happen. Two weeks long, $10 million. Boom. Lay it out there for you, folks. It's all in there. Of course, they had to change the names of the defense attorneys and all those folks and, and the doctor. So, yeah, we lost. But in. In the timeframe of three months, I hit a wall of depression where I went, man, I gotta change. I have to change. Resigned my position, left the program. But I suggested to my athletic director bring in Sean, one of my assistants, as the head coach. That's where I really started learning about how I was going to be treated as a disabled person and, you know, looking for jobs. And I go into it. One example that's in the book, and then the trial and two weeks of that. I hit a wall during the trial. The night before I was going to appear on the stand, I had a breakdown. I mean, I Explain it all very clearly in the book on how that happened. And then losing was another pivot point of now what? And you know, I explain it from other people's point of view. I drove home, parked my car in the garage and I. It dawned on me that because it came up during the trial, probably about how I might commit suicide type of person I was, that as the door was going down, as I pulled my car into the garage, I actually chuckled that there must be people thinking that I'm not going to turn my car off or that I probably would, you know, or I might go get a pistol and just end. I mean, no, that was the moment where I just went, screw this, the pendulum. I need to switch it back going in the other direction. That was a point in my life where, damn it, I'm in charge. I'm the only one that can do this. I'm going to do this. So huge pivot point. And there are a couple more pivot points that happen off of this. So major time.

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The fact that you were able to do that because so many people can't pull themselves, they don't have that right. Even with the brain fog, the mental anguish, you still had that presence of mind where you could say, nope, enough is enough. This is not who I am. This is not who I'm going to. I'm not going to allow this to define me. I define myself. That's huge.

That is one thing. After writing and just being honest in the book, I guess that is one thing that, that point. Some people might really need to read that because we all go through shit. Sorry. But we come up with things. You know, let's change it. Let's go in a different direction. Yeah.

And I just, I just have to applaud you for that so much because it was a separate issue, but it was recently the anniversary of one of my uncle's birthdays who had PTSD and did commit suicide and was not able to pull himself out and didn't get in touch with himself, emotionally do the work. Right. And that's part of what you talk about is breaking down to build yourself back up.

Exactly. I mean, I put it into a framework of something to achieve. Okay, so I did cheat a little bit. Okay. You know, this is what I'm going to do next. So, yeah, that did help me because that was the type of person I was and probably still am a bit. I need to put it in that context. Let's get some work done. But solve a problem.

Yeah, but then. But you did work on your emotional state at that point. So even with the reframing. Right. You're able to find yourself again. And part of the interesting part, and probably really surprising thing for me was that you walked away from coaching to adopt children.

Weird, huh?

Yeah. Can you, can you talk a little bit about that transition? I mean, I can see that you are helping give other people a hand up, a chance, an opportunity, because these kids in Romania and Ethiopia were probably likely not going to find a great adoptive parent or parents. So can you talk about what was that trigger for you in that. That pivotal point as well?

People reading this are probably going to think, oh, this is B.S. no, he didn't do that. What it really was one of these times. And we all have them, I'm sure, in my life, where it was. I don't know how this happened, Annika. I don't know where this came from. It was watching a news story out of Seattle of this couple that adopted two kids from Haiti. Their parents died during an earthquake. I believe it was some sort of natural disaster. And I swear, within 10 minutes, I was upstairs in the home office researching adoptions. First place I wanted to go was, was Russia. I had been to the Soviet Union, so I saw what that was like. I'd been after the, The. The fall of the Soviet Union. I've been to Russia. I experienced what those people were like, and there was something that was pulling me in that direction. But when found out that an adoption in Russia was a lot like going to pick up a cat or a dog, same thing. It was, oh, yeah, we'll take that one. But not that. Decided not to do that. So change the focus to Romania, which was, you know, had been a communist bloc country. So, yeah, little boy and little girl from Romania came home. That was because of money, a lack of money. They were number four and five in the family, and the parents were just so poor, they just put the children up. Things are different in Ethiopia, Annika. It has nothing to do with money. If your family, you take over, you know, so there's a lot of pride in how things are done. Flew to Addis, met my son and came home and a year later went back to Addis and picked up a new little daughter that was four. Two years later, made of the basketball team. This is what's kind of strange. I hope people pick up on that. It's like, oh, this guy went from coaching soccer. Now he has five. Oh, he had a basketball team. Yeah. And we had five. I mean, it was weird. Those three kids all witnessed their parents die of aids. Oh, I mean, yeah. They had something that, you know, I wanted to experience from and help from again. I don't know. I was away from soccer for 20 years during this time. You know, raising all those kids, it was crazy. It was wonderful. It helped me at least. It helped me reframe how I led my life. You know, I didn't fake it quite as much, even though I still did. I still did. But the fog, you had mentioned a couple times that was kind of leaving by this time. So I was coming out of the depression with the loss of the fog.

It was a sense of purpose that you built.

It's strange. It. So it overtook my sense of purpose to win a national championship. I mean, they're totally, completely different, but if you think about it, they are similar into trying to achieve something that others would only strive to do, but yet I wanted to go do it. So accomplishment.

It makes me think because I work with children in Cape coast in Ghana and have had some of this, have heard some. I always say, God only gave me one of my own. Adoption and fostering wasn't in the cards with where I was at in life. But I have a lot of children over there because we've been able to help kids go to school. We built a home for kids whose families unfortunately couldn't keep them. Maybe similar. A mother or father died of aids. Other parent might have also died or gone off to a. You know, to the capitol to find more work because they couldn't find good enough work. These children are left, and so they're not. It's not an adoption facility. You can't adopt the kids out of it, but at least they have a safe place.

So let me ask you. I want you to be emotional wherever it takes you, and I apologize if it takes you too far emotionally, because I would get that. What was that like to leave those kids? I mean, I experienced mine when I. My kids and I went to the orphanage. So you had kids in a Somewhat similar setting.

I will say I've been working with our partner organization there for over 15 years. And every time I've wanted to go over when I had the means, I said I could just donate this money and put more kids into school or give more kids clothes. Right. Or food or whatever the case may be. And the partnership we have has been beautiful because now we have organic. We got a grant for organic farming. And so we were able to lease farmland because the founders of the nonprofit there were farmers originally that provided organic food, sources money to help feed and take care of the kids in the home, jobs for the community. And now last year we were able to buy some farmland closer to the orphanage. And now we have to figure out the next step, which is okay, now we need to get new equipment and all the things that they need to really have it functioning because then there'll be complete self sufficiency. So my daughter is now a senior in high school and I'm looking at, this is the time when I finally feel like I can go over there and meet these kids and I am going to get emotional. I'm going to cry a lot when I see them because there were kids we couldn't save. There were kids who didn't have a place to go and were trafficked and got aids. And it breaks my heart, you know, and I'm sure for you too, like we can't. You can't save everybody. But in saving few people get it's. You're reciprocating love, right? You're helping somebody grow into who they really should be. And it heals you a little bit from whatever hurts and things that you

were facing and to bring that back into talk about it here again and how you can. That's how humanity is. I believe that's how humanity is supposed to work. So yeah, bravo, bravo. Yeah.

We all do what we can. So thank you. I appreciate that. But the fact that you were able to adopt and bring these kids here and give them a life that would be unlike any life that they could even imagine.

They've all either gone into college or went in the military. You know, one has a child that, I mean, she's tough as heck. The one daughter with the kid, I mean, she. Learning disability, but yet she still finished her. She earned her bachelor's degree and now she's going on and getting into counseling. Perfect, huh? Yeah. You got a kid that went through this and I was going into counseling.

So Amazing. And did any of your kids play soccer?

No. I mean, for 20 years I would help out if there was a need for coaching. No, it was all right from the start. I was tugged two ways. Me saying, do what you want to do, and all my soccer friends and all that experience. Oh, come on, you got five kids. They're all playing. Right. You know, they got scholarships yet. No, I'm not going to push that on child, because to me, the game is artistic. To me, the game is like a Jackson Pollock drip painting. Artists from the 40s and 50s, people go, look it up. Great stuff. That's how I viewed the game, and that's how I think it should be played at its best. And the kids just didn't have it from here. You know, they had something else. That's what's most important. Exactly.

You wanted them to play from their hearts, whatever that meant to them.

Plug. Thank you.

You're welcome. So you mentioned Seattle News. So obviously at this point you're not in Wisconsin. And in fact, you started coaching the under 13 boys C team, the lowest level team. Talk about that. What prompted you to go back, make that return to soccer and to coach children who had been written off by everybody else?

Man, wouldn't that be cool in a book? Here's the D word again, Annika. Discrimination with my resume. And I'm not trying to, but doggone it, I did a lot of stuff. Very successful, I would say. I showed up to this club, and this is a club where parents are paying thousands of dollars for their kids to go play with the expectation. Be honest. Yeah, the expectation. Their kids would end up being products of this club and be able to go play in colleges and get scholarships, aspire to maybe play on the national team. And I mean, this is. Yeah, see, here I show up as. Oh, no, you don't have the A team. No, you've got the C team. And keep them going because we need the money to keep the club afloat. Are you freaking kidding? Okay, but here, Annika, I attended both training sessions or tryout sessions when I got the list of the kids. Oh, oh, really? Well, my kids just seem to be smaller, but be honest, they all lacked some confidence. And they weren't just gunning it in a training session in the tryouts. I mean, they were holding back a little bit, but I saw something and that told me that's what I'm going to work on, first of all. And that's where the second half of the book comes in with what happened with these kids. I mean, it was just amazing to look at how it fit in. Oh, my God. With My story and what I knew what to do because I had to help them overcome. Like I overcame and we did it

through soccer, and I do, I want to. I'm so emotional and I'm so, I feel so connected to you right now. So I, I just, I'm gonna get verklempt. But I really appreciate it. And I, I, I gave a training today on for people on how to pitch podcast hosts as a guest. And I did say in that sometimes we go really deep and sometimes we have really emotional conversations and sometimes I cry with my guests. Doesn't happen a lot, but these are the episodes where I know it's, it's touching me on a deeper level, and I know that it's touching other people who are listening or watching this episode on a deeper level. And I'm just honored to be able to be able to share your journey and your story and you yourself.

Oh, thanks. That's cool. Yeah.

So your kids ended up going undefeated. They want to stay a championship. So building up their confidence was the first.

We had the full summer. The way they do it in Washington State, if there are any soccer parents there or players as well. The summer in Washington is about tournaments. We had five tournaments. Capsule is this. They went up, won their first match, and went, oh, okay, guys, I see what's happening here. I'm going to let you guys mess this up. In their second match and they went out lost because it was, they became, they went past confident, they went to arrogance, and they lost. So we had like, okay, then they would learn from there. Second tournament, made it into the playoffs. Three tournaments in a row. Our final three tournaments. They made it to the final. That's the championship match. And every single tournament. And guess what happened, folks? They lost every single one. But I knew what we had. They had gone from lacking confidence and just kind of, eh, whatever. When, for example, whenever we scrimmage, a team never wanted to scrimmage us. B team, Jose and I, we got our teams together every Wednesday. We, you know, towards the end of the summer, we ended up beating those guys. So their confidence is, you know, chiming up. But at the end of the summer, we had to have individual meetings and every single one of those boys was pissed that they lost, especially that final match. In the final tournament, they were mad, which told me that they were now confident in themselves because they expected it. So leading into the. There is the first match of the season I won't get into. But, folks, you got to read what happens in their first match. Oh, my God. I Couldn't I made for movie right there. With what happened in their first match of the league season, we ended up. Yeah, going undefeated. I mean with how these kids develop almost from match to match. And I do capsule ize things. So it's, it's not just for soccer. Soccer rats, which is what I called my guys. They were my soccer rats. You know, it's. Anybody could pick this up and I think follow it along. So I play it down a little bit. So yeah, I mean that was, that was fun. That was so much fun because I could watch these kids, 12 years old, 13, some of them, you know, as we got on, they learned how to really play the game. And along with it we had to ride with the director of coaching who put me on the C team. What a have to change his name in the book too, folks, because I talk about that he was not a nice. Yeah. Not a great person. So we had our own battles and how we played that out. So God, there's a lot that went into that. I mean it was just the whole, what, six, seven months of doing all of this with those kids and how they came out at the other end and also how I was treated at the other end. Again, it was just something that's hard to imagine, but it actually happened. Lifelock, how can I help?

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Yeah, well, when you find success, people look at you in a different light again.

They should. Yeah.

When they see. Yeah. Yeah, ideally. And your coaching philosophy, mantra, your mission is not to teach you, but to put you in a position to learn.

Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, I find that it takes a little bit longer, but, boy, when the kids latch onto it, it's rock solid. They have learned because I will put them in position. I always tell the kids, I'm going to ask you more questions and tell you what to do. This freaks some of those kids out because they were lacking confidence in the beginning, but doggone it, you know, it's like, okay, how do you do that? Why would you do this? You know, if they ask me why, why would you not do that? Sometimes it was a setup for them. They were wondering if they got something right. It's like, yeah, you're correct, and move on. So it's little bitty steps. By doing that, following that mantra. My mission is not to teach you, put you in a position to learn. It's smaller steps, but it's rock solid at the end. I did that when I was teaching and I did it with my kids as well, and it worked. I think the evidence shows that.

Yeah, I'm resonating with you as a college professor because I try to put my students in a position to learn. I've never thought, framed it in that way, but knowing that they need to learn new skills, I want them to do that, but use their imagination. And I'll make recommendations and maybe the first couple of assignments, I'll say, okay, use this tool. Use this tool. Because digital media, you have to know AI these days, but you need to figure out what really works for you, for your product, for your brand, for your service, for your company. It may not be the same things that I like to use exactly, but at least now you are in that position where you feel comfortable trying things out, asking the right questions.

It's all about that. On the other end from the teaching side, the student side, you know, the human side of learning, all of this, as they're going through life, it all comes out to the same thing. They have to be able to function. Depending, you know, could be in what you're doing in the business, or if they're soccer, you know, or on a history exam, it's all the same thing. You have to be confident in yourself. You have to work hard. Still comes down to that, right? And on the other end, you know, you could. You could reap some benefits.

Now part of your journey has also become. Has been becoming a prominent voice in the community. You're a global advisor for billions Strong so that you can advocate for others with disabilities. You also helped John Hopkins develop new prosthetic technology.

Yeah, that was interesting. I don't know. It's up to you if you want to go in there, because it takes a little bit. But do you want to go into it?

I do want to, because these are two other things that you. I mean, you didn't have to do. You didn't have to become an advocate. You didn't have to help create new technology and solve issues for yourself and for others who are also having the same issues.

It's like with the book I'm learning when we're in this marketing phase, it's turning into something totally different than what I thought. So I guess the same thing with the Johns Hopkins. It was somebody asked or I'm finding that there's a reaction to something I'm doing. So therefore, my background as a teacher and a parent and a coach, like, yeah, go do it. You see something in me that I can do to help others. Okay, let's do it. So I was asked by Johns Hopkins to help them with something, and I did. You know, we. We took something from the computer and they took it and actually were able to produce something.

So that's amazing. And I'm sure that helped move technology along from where it had been in terms of prosthetics somewhat.

You know, I'll. I'll just. So I won't give away too much to folks at the end of my time at Johns Hopkins, went to dinner with the head honcho there. And. Because if you think here, folks, my. My hands don't have a whole lot of parts to them. They're pretty simple. What they were producing were hands with individually moving fingers. So I said to them, you must have at least four times as many moving parts in that hand as mine have. And mine break down every six months, and it takes two and a half months for them to return, because part of it is red tape. Yeah. If you're going to produce these, you better make darn sure. And these were for the war veterans coming back, and they're going to have health insurance through. Yeah, not as good. Yeah, you better make darn sure that these things last. I never heard from Johns Hopkins again.

Really?

Yes. Never did. Never did. I did wear one of those hands two years later, and I worked for a couple of months, and it fried. Electronics fried. Gave it back to them. And kind of part of me was told, you so. Yeah. So I don't. I would love to find out if there are Any veterans what their, their reaction has been to or what their history was, using these hands that had individually moving fingers, you know, was it beneficial? I think because Congress gave up millions of dollars, they were told that, oh, you have to go make these people look better. You know, we have to. That's what it was. It was just to get through one period for Congress to applaud themselves for doing something. But what actually happened to it? I don't know for sure what happened, Annika. I'm afraid to find out. Yeah.

So I can imagine I've had other people on the show who've had to solve an issue, whether it was having carts, shopping carts at stores. Right. And having to spend, put a lot of money into that so that they could still take their child who'd grown but who was not functional to the market. And it's really, it's amazing what we do as individuals when we're trying to make change for ourselves and advocate on behalf of people, whether it's ourselves or family members or loved ones or other people in our communities, versus the idea of, yeah, this is supposed to have a really good purpose, but it also has a lot of monetization and a lot of other things behind it that, you know, are not necessarily our primary drivers as people who are very heart centered and want to make sure that we're putting people in a position to win.

Well, it's funny how we, we all come end up doing things together. Deborah Rue. Ruh. Deborah Rue is the head of Billion Strong and she's just one hell of an amazing person. Talk about, you know, dropping your own guard to go help other people. I mean, Deb will do anything to help out the disabled community. I've learned quite a bit about the disabled community through her. And that was actually one of the initial reasons why I wrote the book, was to help the disabled community. And even though it's changed, it's morphed into so much more. But yeah, I mean, like you're saying you and I came together now and we're similar thinking people and probably your audience is going to be similar thinking as well. Maybe something can sprout from this conversation that we're having. Somebody else might, hey, yeah, I'm going to go volunteer. I'm going to go do that. I'm going to see what I can do to help or give a positive attitude towards someone, even those who are

listening, who have brands or big corporations or companies where they're selling products. Something I try to emphasize is the number of people who are differently Abled, whatever that means, is such a huge part of the ecosystem. And often people are not marketing towards different communities and it's a huge missed opportunity because if you have products and services that are open and tailored to everybody and maybe specific things for people who are in the community, whether it's loss of limb, sight, hearing, whatever the case may be, you're going to create so much more brand value and loyalty.

Oh yes.

From people that you bring into the fold.

3.8 billion disabled people in the world spending trillions of dollars, yet the marketing towards them every once in a while. Watch folks, you know, every once in a while you see a commercial, maybe a television show, but not an extended character, probably of someone in a wheelchair because it's the easiest, probably least expensive way to do that and people understand people in wheelchairs. So therefore you got this. But yeah, what a missed opportunity. And one of the things that Deborah Rue does and billion strong, and I am total advocate for is if you think about it, anyone that employs people, well, why not look at the disabled community? Disabled people have to deal with so much crap on a daily basis. That's proof right there that they can solve problems. They are, they have to be problem solvers. So why not look in that community for people that might fit that sort of a role? I think it comes down to misunderstanding and not being educated. And that's another thing that I think that is coming out of me doing the marketing aspect of maybe I have to be doing and be a person that speaks up for those people and also educate the non visually disabled about what it's like they're not used to. People don't know how to treat me when they finally notice that I am. I have fake hands full. They have no clue on how to act because they're not. It's not normal to try to deal with someone like that. So if me speaking openly and honestly all about this and again that the book is totally open and honest, I think maybe that can help, you know, chisel away something into an art piece that we might see for everyone about accepting the visually disabled. No different, no different. Just have to deal with more crap.

I could ask you questions for days, but we do want your book to become a bestseller. I know that's one of your goals. So we want people to go purchase it. So I want to ask you a few last questions. If there is one key message that you want people to take away from play from your heart, what is it?

I want it to be thought provoking to everyone to cause people to think and maybe even use the water cooler to talk to people. Hey, I read this book or whatever. Make people think, open their brains, boy, turn off their brains. No, to use their brains, in this case, to absorb it. And I want it to be thought provoking, to stir conversation, to stir thought. Here you go. First time I'm saying this to stir action. Whatever that might mean to individuals, whether in a business or on the soccer field or whatever, or in the hiring process or how to treat a neighbor that they happen to notice is suddenly disabled or they learned about them. So there you go.

Okay, well, shifting gears a little bit. One of the things I really loved was the music. How you put specific songs throughout your story, whether it was from driving to that Nike camp to surgery music to recovery music. Why was music so important for. To include in your narrative?

I did. I did not. I'm sorry to cut you off, but it was so like, this is new to me because I didn't intend this, what I want for people to do with this. So the opening chapter, I mean, the opening few paragraphs I mentioned driving to Chicago and Love and Happiness by John Mellencamp is playing. And then when I get to the Nike camp, I talk about the trumpet that's in there is still in my brain from day before. I was cranking the tunes and I always play music during training. Music to me is a metronome to help me to get the players to play like music play funk, rhythm of blues, rock, disco, you know, a lot of different things. So I list these in a book again to tell the story. But it. It dawned, finally dawned on me when I got it back, I think the second time through an editor. I sat down and some reason it hit me as, because it was reading electronically. I opened another tab, went to Spotify, and this is what I hope people do. It's now an interactive book and I did not intend it plug in that song that I list. You know, it could be I Won't Back down by Tom Petty. This is when I'm heading to Washington to change, change my life. Go listen to that song. You know, during the training session, the Tab Benoit song is mentioned. Go listen to Tab, his one of that song that's mentioned. Then come on back and read it because it's going to pull people really into the story and I think, you know, kind of be more there. It's now an interactive book and I did not intend it to be that

way, but how cool is that?

I think it's cool.

I'm a similar vintage So I am familiar with all the music choices that you included. Another lighter moment in your story is sue your full circle moment. You're married to sue, the woman that you fell for at first sight when you were 16 years old at a disco.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about that. Tease it out a tiny bit.

I did not have my ass together. And I did. I knew that this was it. I mean, she was that boom. That was it. But I knew I was too immature. I mean, this is part of growing up, folks. And it's like I let life happen. And the way we describe it in the book is exactly how it happened. 40 years went by. 40 years, we never forgot about the other 40 years later, she went through a teammate of mine, married someone that she went to school with. So it dawned on her, she told me it was kind of like the moment when I knew I had to go look at adoption. It was a boom moment. And she went and looked up that high school friend of hers and tracked me down through her husband, that friend's husband, to find that I was a friend on that person's Facebook page. Tracked me down, messaged me, was like, she had a different last name. So as I went on her Facebook and I found a photo of her from back then, went, oh, my God, it's Sue. Sue Schmidt. Holy crap. And we just. Yeah. So at the end of the book, we'll give it away. I mean, it ends pretty nice. I leave Washington after I wasn't asked to come back and said, screw it, came back to Wisconsin and, yeah, we've been married for six years. Coming up on six years now and everything, it was just like there was no gap. There was no gap. Yeah, thanks for mentioning that, Annika. I mean, it's.

Well, it's so beautiful. It's so touching that you've had to go through all this adversity, but the beauty and the moments that you found beauty in and, you know, whether it was adopting your kids, getting that team to the championships, that were completely thought of as bottom of the barrel kids, and they weren't to being able to reunite with your. Your true love. I mean, those are the moments we want in life. And those moments bring us a lot of hope.

I get to go upstairs after this and have dinner with Sue. Yeah. I mean, it's. And now it's gonna make me tear up. It's just unbelievable. Unbelievable. On how we got to this point

and you and I, this is the beginning of our conversations and our connection. We didn't even talk about your Podcast and so many other things that you do. So your book is available for presale.

Presale, yeah. Here we go. I'm working with a independent small publisher out of New York City, Library Tales Publishing. Usher Morgan is the publisher. Great to work with. Gives me a lot of room to work with stuff. But the caveat is he has connections. Simon and Schuster is our distributor. Simon and Schuster is. Everybody knows that's a. That's a big publishing house. They've been dragging their feet on getting this thing on Amazon and it's driving Usher crazy, too. We keep hearing within two weeks for over a month now. In two weeks, it's going to be up on Amazon. So depending on when you drop, first place people should go is on Amazon. Pull up, play from your heart, see if we're on there. If not, I'm sorry, people, the call to action is to Google Scott Martin M A R T I N Scott Martin book. That simple. Three words, Scott Martin book. Probably right up on top. We're on for pre sale on the Library Tales site. He's got that on as we fight with Simon Schuster to get their budding gear. But hopefully in your show notes there'll be a link to Amazon. Please to do it. But it is someplace so they can find it.

Okay, well, yeah, so we'll talk for a few minutes before you run off to dinner after we end this. I am just again thankful that we were connected and that we were able to come together today. I am so inspired and so excited to have you in my life now and just looking forward to continuing to see how your journey unfolds and seeing your book go to the bestseller list.

I hope so.

Hope so.

Hope so. Yep. Yep. Something. Another thing I want to do. So, yeah, I'll do it. If I can. I'll do it.

Amazing. Of course, everything will be in the show notes so people can reach out to you. I already have some people I want to connect you to. And if you're listening and this has inspired you, think about what action you can take to help out somebody who has something who's different than you. Right. Who has a different ability, who. Whether it's physical or something that you can't see by looking at them. It's so important that we have these moments together. We are all human. We should lead with empathy. And even if we can't imagine ourselves in somebody else's shoes, you still have to understand that we're all part of this world. We all need to work together. So I'm super inspired. I hope that you all are too. I'm sure that you are and just want to leave you with that thought. So think about things. Go out and search for Scott's book. Help him get to bestseller. I have not said that for any of the other authors that have been on the show before who all have fantastic books, but I owe you. No, I feel really strongly about that. It is in my heart to help you get there. So please, if you're listening, check it out. Ask Amazon why it's not there. Let's get it there. So with that, thank you everybody who is watching this episode or listening to it, who's been inspired by and I will see you again in a couple days with another amazing guest to share their story, their journey and make a difference in your life. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com.