Suicide Prevention Sat - What does 30 days of failure do for you?
In this live‑stream, host Brooke Cheney welcomes regular viewers and co‑host DJ to discuss suicide prevention, the link between gun deaths and suicide, and the importance of mental‑health awareness. Brooke frames failure as a catalyst for growth, sharing her personal experience with the 75 Hard challenge—how she fell short of the 30‑day goal but still gained habits like increased water intake, regular workouts, food tracking, and a 20‑pound weight loss. She emphasizes measuring progress, confronting emotional eating, and setting realistic goals (e.g., fitting into a wedding dress). The conversation shifts to anecdotes about fame, early broadcasting experiences, and how celebrity encounters shape perspective. Brooke and DJ cite historical failure stories (Edison, Stallone, KFC’s Colonel) to illustrate that failure precedes success. The stream closes with community announcements about upcoming Massachusetts permit education, Trainer Teacher Day, and a future interview on breathwork, suicide, and PTSD. Throughout, the tone remains conversational, supportive, and motivational, encouraging viewers to try, fail, and keep improving.
Chapters
Ta-da! Here we are. It is Saturday night again. I have Mike White, 2A Advocacy, already out there. G-Webs said something, thanks for something. I don't know what, maybe for showing up. I have no idea. And DJ's in the house because I finally got him the link in time so he can help me tonight. So Second Amendment Saturday. Yeah, no, that's actually not what this is called. And we're into the third week of the month, so I missed 2A Saturday. Which was also not this year. But anyway, Suicide Prevention Saturday, because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths that we hear about in the media are actually suicides. And if we want to make change in the world, if we want to save lives, we need to talk about suicide and suicide prevention. Oh, it's my— it's— oh, look at that, I got folks on the Facebook side tonight. Hello, Miss Jen, and I'm glad you liked my excuses to why I didn't get back to your email. I swear I read it and thought that I responded, and then I was afraid it was in the draft and I didn't even get that far. So anywho, um, we'll still see you. I mean, I'm assuming you're still shooting Saturday. And hello, Miss Tart. Yes, I was thinking of you as I was cooking, um, for Father's Day. We do brownies and shrimp cocktail at the range for, um, my husband's ICOR match. So nothing as exciting as what you do, but I'm happy to see Um, for all y'all, um, go out and check out, uh, Tara Smith's Chick— Chicken. Oh my goodness, I swear I haven't been drinking yet today. Um, Tara Smith Kitchen on YouTube if you want some yummy things to eat. Uh, Miss Fiona is back from her range day. She posted up on Facebook of all the fun range stuff she was doing today. Hello, Mr. Woods. Um, So anywho, oh yeah, the little banner, huh, DJ hit the banner thing, very good, yay. All right, 2 out of every 3, 3 things, 2 out of every 3 deaths are suicide, so we need to talk about that. Suicide prevention, what is suicide prevention? How do we prevent suicide? Well, number 1, raise awareness, let people know it's okay to talk about mental health, and 2, make sure that you know that you are not alone and somebody wants you to still live. So if you are suicidal, that we don't want you to go, so don't go, reach out for help, that sort of thing. Because they say roughly 80% of adults at one point or another have thought about suicide. Not that they've had a plan, but just sometimes the idea of, oh, if I weren't here, life would be better, because life is hard. So Tonight we're going to talk about hardness as far as how hard life can be, and that failure is so often looked on as a bad thing. In actuality, I find failure to be a spectacular thing. Well, of course, I've also failed spectacularly at some things, but that's not what I'm talking about. Um, our mental acuity, our emotional acuity, understanding how important failing is and I'm gonna say Mr. Ballinger because I got to see Mike last night. Like I said, he is one of my official first fans over on Facebook because I've been on Facebook longer than YouTube for these shows, and Mike has always been an encouragement. And I don't know, that's kind of that. All right, so let's talk about failure. I said, what does the past 30 days of failure get you? So I pulled up some of the stuff I've been doing. So let's talk about that. Oops, I hit the wrong button. That's not the button I meant to say. DJ, you can say hi to everybody while I'm doing the share thing.
Right on. You've been doing a pretty good job of grabbing the hellos and hellos to everybody else on the Facebook side. We got, as you said, Michael is out there, got Woods out there in the room. Mike White also joining, as he always does. He may be your number one fan, I think. Woods, the bait, the man from the great Pacific Northwest, is out there as well. And I do see that— well, there's somebody called a Great Start Shooting School who's saying things out there in my text chat. Back to you.
Well, that's what I know. All right, so let's talk about 75 Hard real quick. Uh, roughly a month ago I said I was going to start 75 Hard for 30 days. And, uh, for those who don't know what 75 Hard is, the idea is you are going to stick to this program for 75 days. Now I've already done the 75 days. I was going to do the 30 days, and, um, the way this works is for 75 days, if you're doing the first part, you literally work out twice a day, drink a gallon of water. Um, I'm trying to figure out what the other thing is, but there is transformation. That is kind of the idea of this. Uh, you absolutely build confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, self-belief, fortitude, and grittiness. This goes back to that mental health side of things, is like, if you are in a bad place, you are lacking confidence, you are lacking self-esteem, you are lacking self-worth. At least I was when I was suicidal as a teen. I figured if I wasn't around, it wouldn't matter. So the 30 days of failure for me was that even though I said I was going to do this for 30 days, I did not do it for 30 days. And why is that good? Well, I still looked at the checklist every day, and the checklist is 2 45-minute workouts a day, one of which must be outdoors, drink a gallon of water every day, um, read 10 pages of a book every day, and take a picture of a progress picture every day. And what else is there? I think there's one more thing. Oh, stick to a diet plan. No alcohol, and no cheat meals. That's like part of the list. So I did, um, probably about a week to 10 days that I was successful of doing this. So, but after that I failed miserably. I'm like, I either my water didn't go or I only got one workout in or something along those lines. But here's the great thing. If I wasn't looking to succeed, I wouldn't be able to fail. And I think this is the thing that so many people miss, because did I really fail? Hmm, I didn't do it perfectly. I didn't do it the way it was supposed to. But what did I do? Well, for those 10 days, I drank more water. And even for the 30 days, I've drank more water than I did for the previous 30 days because I was paying attention to it. Did I work out twice every day? No, not for the full 30 days, but I still worked out more than if I hadn't challenged myself to do the 75 Hard. One of the other things that I did is started tracking my food. So, oops, wrong one. Oh, I don't know how to— I shared the wrong thing. Hold please. I got to pick the right part. DJ's just going to pop up there again because, you know, that's that. I go back to sharing window instead.
A random appearance.
Yes, there you go. You get your— well, you've got your actual profile picture up there, so it actually is you. So one of the things that I also did was I started tracking my food. So for me, when I track my food, I actually realize, oh yeah, did I take my 5 million supplements today? Yes, yes I did. And I did that successfully for the past 30 days, and I actually actually wrote it all down so that I held myself accountable for actually making sure that regardless whether I ate something that was good for me or not, I still was tracking it. And this kind of goes back to that whole idea of failure can't happen unless you're trying. And I think this is where so many people get lost in thinking, oh, I failed, I suck, I'm just gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater and give up. And it's like, no, you can only fail if you're actually trying to do something. What else happened, um, in the 30 days of my failure? And the reason I keep calling it the 30 days of my failure is because I did not accomplish the 30 days of 75 Hard. So I failed at the main thing. However, the improvements that I've made over the last 30 days have been pretty good. I realized that since the beginning of the year I have lost 20 pounds. Yay me. Um, and, but I'd forgotten that I had worked at it since January and because the Tara stopped— sorry, I looked at Tara's comment— because the scale has stopped moving, I kind of forgot that I started up at 260, 250 at the beginning of the year and I'm down in the 230s. I'm kind of stuck here for right now. So for the last 30 days, I feel like I'm failing because I'm not moving the scale. But then I have to reflect on the fact, well, gee, hon, at the beginning of the year I was 250 pounds or 260 pounds. I really, I'm not sure where, because I bounced from 220 to 260. So, but you cannot fail if you are not measuring what you are doing. And a lot of people are afraid to measure what they're doing because they don't want to know that they failed. And here's the thing, if you set yourself a goal that is realistic with a timetable and you can pay attention to it, even if you don't hit the goal, at least you're striving towards it. So was it perfect? No. Was it an improvement? Absolutely. Was it a failure? Yeah, according to the rules of the game, it was absolutely a failure. However, if I wasn't trying for something, I can't fail. So With that, um, that was my goal. That was to let you know why failure is so important. Um, the 75 Hard program is— people have made physical and mental transformations without a doubt. Making sure that you read every day, making sure that you exercise every day, making sure that you eat right. Now here's the thing, I don't know how many of you are out there that are like me, that do the emotional eating, um, when things are stressful. And I know I do this. And so the 75 Hard is super hard with the no cheat meals. And in failing, I learned— I'm like, hmm, what do I really need? And what I've done over the past 30 days is gotten rid of all the bad food that's in my house. So that when I am tempted to eat my emotions, it usually involves chocolate, sugar, or ice cream. If I don't have it in the house, I will find an alternative that is a healthier snack. So I want you all to join me and be failures. No, you're welcome to be successes, but you have to aim at something that's hard for you to get so that if you fail, you've at least gotten further. I hope that makes sense. All right, DJ, I see some other folks have popped in. I don't know if it's just— oh, Patriot, Vanessa. Who am I missing? Anybody else? Tell me.
I think those are your late arrivers. You already gave a shout out there to, uh, Tara Smith.
Okay. Yeah, she's off to go sign papers, so hopefully it's for a new house or a new bike or something fun. All right, what did you want to share? I know you said you weren't gonna, but I'm gonna put you on the spot anyway. Go ahead.
Oh, wow. Well, one of the things that I decided to do a couple of days ago was do a little walking through the park and reminiscing, and it was about me as an early broadcaster and how I came— I bumped into a lot of famous people, a lot of musicians, and I was quite young, and I was in a conversation with somebody about being a fanboy or a fangirl about an actor or a musician, and having those experiences when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, it was hard for me not to be starstruck starstruck on occasion. And though these were some, you know, regional, you know, very few were national artists at that time, I was interviewing people who were on MTV, you know, maybe late night rotation a couple of times. But it was hard for me to resist the temptation of being agog at whatever was happening in a green room at that point. And it wasn't something like tawdry ridiculousness, but it was just me being around fame. People assigning greater value to those who are celebrity, those who are in the limelight or the spotlight, was something that I wasn't quite to. And there was a particularly difficult— thanks for asking me to speak about this right now— and, and a somewhat painful experience for me when I was a college freshman. Uh, there was a band, um, that I had interviewed a few times before here in Omaha at a couple of different clubs. They're called the Meat Puppets. Now, two of their members, um, were part of the Nirvana Unplugged performance. If anybody's seen that, they were the guests that were there that night. And I was interviewing them at a a small private college in Iowa. They had enough endowment to bring in a band like them and just have them play for like a spring fling sort of deal. So I had gone with my gear. I had my two-track recorder, I had my mic, I had my 35mm camera that I was interested in being artistic with at the time. And I had some other things published, not just over the airwaves, but also in local newsprint magazines. And had a great time with the guys. Reminisce with him a little bit about the first time I saw him. I was still that starstruck kind of kid without a lot of miles under my shoes yet. And though those interviews and all that publication really helped me to have an inflated sense of myself, I was still ready to, you know, have stars in my eyes. Well, here it was, my misfortune, but it was actually an incredible and lifelong growing experience. Okay, here I go. After hanging out with the fellas, after, after hanging out with the fellas and, uh, having, you know, a brief interview, I had them do some station IDs, you know, this is me, Puppets, you're listening to KR blah blah blah kind of thing. I left. However, I had left part of my gear in the room on a chair, and I was out the building and turned around, and within, you know, 30 seconds even, I had recognized the error and went, not quite dashing, but I hustled my ass back in there. Part of that gear was not mine, it was the studio's. And as I approached, there was someone in the doorway, and so I paused because I wasn't going to be rude and push past this person. This wasn't my green room after all. But as I was waiting there, I overheard one of those artists comment on that college kid fanboy. And so I realized that I was incredibly small. I mean, I was made to feel— and it wasn't intentional, I'm sure those are intentional statements, but they were true. I was that fanboy. And to that star, you know, to that starstruck kid, that was a severe blow. It wasn't my ego really that was being affected there so much as it was I was finally learning some of the adult lessons about not having an inappropriate estimation of self and others. We are all essentially the same. We are Homo sapiens, you know, we are fellow humans, we are fellow walkers of the globe and travelers. And so those experiences like I'm sharing with you tonight, I'm sure Lots of people have where there was— there have been moments in our lives where we will reflect on them throughout our lives, and they may be genesis points for that which we build our lives on from there. So I am far, far away from that, you know, that man, that young man, that youth. I'm 30-plus years hence from that, but I still do think of it once in a while. And I guess I was happy, you know. Thanks. Thank you for goading me into it, dropping the surprise on me. But yeah, to be able to—
yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna throw you out there anyway, even if you said no, we're not gonna do that. Yeah.
Well, we're amongst friends, not so much sharks out there in the crowd. So, you know, I feel relatively safe, but if I need somebody to throw me the life preserver, you're on tap for that. But I guess in conclusion for y'all and for Brooke, you as well, my takeaway in the last couple of days worth of conversation is I still continue to grow on that. I still have a shine for people for whom I am starstruck, but I'm a little bit more conservative in how I express that. And that conservatism has, you know, paid some dividends for me as I've grown, as I've matured, and I've become the person I am today. They can see people for the people that I want them to be, and that often they are when you give them a chance. That's about that.
Yeah. Well, so to Mike White's point here, I never really thought much about famous people. They're just people to me. Like, I say that, but then like, I was in New York City one day, we're having lunch with a friend and at the table next to us was Emeril Lagasse. And it was just like, I just had lunch next to Emeril. And I try to be more like my normal, yeah, people are just people. I don't understand the, oh my gosh, they're so-and-so. But I'm like, I'm sorry. I can say that. I'm like, oh, there's people. But I'm like, when I got to sit near Emeril Lagasse, even though I didn't talk to him, he didn't see me. He doesn't know who I am. I'm like, I feel like I had lunch with Emeril. And it's just like, But here's the thing, here in the Second Amendment world, there are people like the Mickalick family where anyone outside of the competition world probably doesn't know who the hell they are. But yeah, I don't know, fame is weird that way. It's like, yes, they are just people, one, you know, put their pants on one leg at a time and all of that. But at the same time, it's like, but famous is famous. Like, if Rob Lowe walked in here and said, hey, how you doing? Rob Lowe is in my office. Who knew? Um, but at the same time, I'm like, I still have that feeling also about like when I have police officers come and train with me. I'm like, huh, here I am at a great sergeant school and I'm training police officers, and are they famous? No, but their jobs are. Um, so yeah, I think that same thing is weird.
So check this out, Miss, um, 2A personality and person who is genuine and with us tonight. I know people that consider you to be A star, and you are there. You have star qualities about you. And unlike what we get from media figures, from, you know, actors and sports figures and those in the news, is we are inculcated in this society to place a greater value on those people because of sometimes complete and total happenstance. You were picked out of a lineup to be able to read for this part, and all of a sudden you got a career 30 years later, and people want to come to you for the news of the day and your take on it. And really you're just that person from Wisconsin or the one that grew up on the farm or the kid from wherever, you know, who now is being looked at as if what they say is going to be golden. And oftentimes I can understand then not just because they don't want the paparazzi to chase them, but who wants to have to be accountable for that kind of the gravity of that, for the weight of everything you say kind of thing. So I'm not trying to make you like all of a sudden be like, oh, what did I just say kind of thing? Because the genuineness with which we approach these sorts of things is absolutely one of the ways that I think we can use we use as a barometer for the people that are, with the, with heavy quotes, real folk. I'm going to, uh, spin away from you for a second, and I'm going to go over to a person that I consider to be a superstar of 2A, and the last person that I had intentionally my picture taken with because of some celebrity. Those are big pants to fill. They're Tony Simons.
Yeah, being in his presence, and I won't be on, on the play site podcast with him because I don't want to be there with someone who's prettier than me.
Oh, nice one, nice one. But that's a real person way to joke with another real person, for real. Yeah, well, real for real, really. Oh my gosh, I'm like, I'm totally like stuck in the '80s. Really, really, Rob Lowe, you tricked— you tripped me into it with Rob Lowe. Come on now.
Yeah, so anyway, um, it is definitely, uh, I don't know. Yeah, it is funny because like when people come up to me and say, oh, thank you for all that you do and that sort of stuff, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but okay, you're welcome. So it is interesting because no matter what level someone is at, they know wherever they are, they could still be more. Whether it's a famous artist or a musician or a shooter or any of these things, sportscaster, etc. It's like when you are the person um, that others are looking up to, it's sort of— it's a very odd, odd feeling because you're like, no, I'm just doing what I do, and I know I kind of suck because I could always do it better. And this is the point of tonight's, uh, whole thing, is that failure is good because if you know that you're failing, it means that you're measuring something. If you're measuring something, you know you can be better. And it's finding that happy medium between I'm happy where I'm at and I'm content with where I am, but I still want to make it better. And this is the mental health side of things again though too, is that whole idea of, you know, so many people just don't want to fail. And the reality of it is that means they don't try. And because they don't try, then they couldn't have failed. So they're just where they're at and they're stuck. Failure is the way to success. All of the most successful people in the world, the people whose names you know— let's talk about Edison or Einstein or Disney or Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Colonel, um, Sylvester Stallone— like, these people all have amazing failure stories, and the only reason you get to hear their failure stories is because they finally became successful. I don't remember the exact number, but Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Colonel went to something like 875 banks before he got a yes to open his first store. Um, the Sylvester Stallone story is amazing. He had to sell his dog while he was trying to get his screenplay sold, and then they said we take the screenplay but not take you as the actor. He's like, nope, and he held to his guns. And that's why you know Sly's name now. Who else? Einstein— oh, not Einstein, um, light bulb Edison, right? Over 1,000 failures of how not to make a light bulb. So Babe Ruth— I don't know how to talk baseball, but you know, the whole, the better time, the better that you hit, the higher your score, but you still fail way more times than you've actually ever hit the ball. So this is what I want to leave you guys with: failure is the way to success. If you are not failing, it means you are not trying. If you are not trying, you are not making yourself get out of your comfort zone. You must get beyond your comfort zone in order to be successful. You have to build up who you are and what you are. It's not that you're not enough right now, But all of us have another level that we could be at. And we have to believe first in ourselves. Back to my emotional eating thing of, am I worthy to say no to the piece of chocolate and yes to the piece of lettuce? The answer is yes. I need to make sure that I am taking care of myself. I have a very specific goal. Next year, I wanna fit into my wedding dress. And that is 60 pounds away, 70 pounds away. I don't even remember right now. 60 pounds away, I think. It's only a pound a week. But if I don't measure it every week, then I will never get there. Because if you don't measure something, you can't see what it is. So anyway, any closing thoughts, DJ? Because that's what I got for failure stories.
Okay, so failure we consider to be retrograde. If retrograde— Vanessa Kitty's out there. This makes me think of this because I'm not the math person. Barbecue isn't in the room. He usually bails me out, right? But Retrograde is a minus, okay? Movement forward is a plus. So get out there and add some positivity to your life and to the lives of others. Be safe, take care of each other, help your crew, and have fun. Don't forget to rock. Later on, y'all.
Yes, a rising tide rises all boats, so when you go up, you bring your friends with you. All right, well, y'all have a lovely week. Um, for those of you who want to learn about a Massachusetts permit, huh, my friend, um, what's his name, Charlie from Riding Shotgun Charlie, he and I are going to do a broadcast on Tuesday, I think Monday or Tuesday, Tuesday at 11 AM Eastern time if you want to learn about Massachusetts. Um, do I have anything else? Trainer Teacher Day is coming up on Saturday. It was officially the National Trainer Teacher Day was today, but I was busy in graduation parties, so I'm doing my Train a Teacher next week. There's also a little short video up on my site. You can check that out. And that's what I have for this week. See y'all next week. Ooh, my special friend is coming and we're gonna talk about breathwork and suicide and PTSD. So that's next weekend. So mark your calendar for that one. That's gonna be an hour. I am pretty sure, um, this is my first time interviewing her. She and I are just friends from the Tony Robbins Fire Team.. And she used to work for Tony Robbins and all sorts of fun stuff. So see y'all next week. Have a great week. And unlike DJ, I'm not gonna say rock because I can't say it the way he does, but y'all have a great time. Bye.
