Ray’s Journey : From Creativity to Cancer Advocacy and Beyond

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Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show, the podcast that brings you stories behind its success. Today we have writer, musician, and cancer patient advocate Ray on the show today. Welcome to the show, Ray. How you doing, man?

I'm doing well, CJ. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it and I appreciate you. I love everything that you're doing. So thank you so much. My pleasure.

Thank you, man. Thank you for taking the time out today to coming on. So Ray, tell us a little bit about yourself, man, and about your background.

Yeah, you know, I'm a writer and musician. I currently live in Southern California. I had been in Northern California raising my family for a good, you know, 24 years. My wife and I and our little golden doodle Quinn recently moved to Orange County, South LA, to be closer to our daughter, enjoying Southern California living. As I was telling you earlier, I don't think I've seen a cloud in 3 or 4 months. I'm getting kind of bored with that type of weather. I'd like to see some differences there, but maybe that's coming in the fall, who knows. Anyways, I'm a a writer, a musician, and really just a storyteller. You know, in my career, you know, it's pivoted in many different years professionally in what I've done. But one of the common components of my career have been telling stories, whether it's been in investment banking, pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, high-tech software. You know, my job, you know, has always been involved in kind of telling stories late in life, I realized that there were other stories that I wanted to tell other than just professional stories. That got me into writing articles first, then writing books, writing songs. And so, that's what I try to fill my time up with today is connecting with people, telling stories, hopefully stories that ideally resonate with them, engage with readers, listeners, or what have you.

Yeah. I was listening to you. It was a song back in the day that say, "It never rains in Southern California." I don't know that it does.

I can't tell you firsthand that it does. I've yet to see it, but I've been told that occasionally it rains.

Yeah, it must be a beautiful sight, man. I can't wait to touch down in California, man. I had a couple people that I've met here on PodMatch that actually has invited me to some Laker games, man. You know, I'm a big Laker fan, but I've never been to LA Stadium. I've never been to California, so I'm looking— I'm looking—

we'll have to get you out here. We'll, uh, we will. I'll go with you to a Laker game. You can cheer for the Lakers, I'll cheer for the Indiana Pacers. That's my team.

Ah, and that's crazy because here I am from Indiana, but I've been a big Laker fan for— since 1980, since Magic, man.

So, you know, I was, I was a Laker fan as a kid too. My father grew up in the Army and we moved around a lot, and I just liked the Lakers back in the days with Jerry West and Gail Goodrich and players like that. Uh, then, you know, Magic was my favorite, uh, college basketball player. When he went to the Lakers, I was like, perfect, I like the Lakers. But I also lived in Indianapolis at the time. I was actually a ball boy for the Indiana Pacers that season, that rookie season of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Oh yeah. You know, back in those days before the internet, you know, if you— another song of CJ, if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you with. Every single day, right? And Lakers I'd see on TV maybe, you know, once a month or whatever. So, so, you know, quickly the Pacers became my favorite team and then you know, working for them, uh, the Pacers became my favorite team. And, uh, they, they stuck with me. Now, once we have the internet, you know, I can follow the Pacers no matter where I am, including, you know, being in the Lakers and the Clippers backyard here in Southern California. So, uh, go Pacers!

Yeah, yeah, the Pacers, you know, they, they had a pretty good run this year. I think they got a decent team. It was at one point I was a, a Pacers fan. I had a little cousin that, that actually played for the, uh, Indianapolis Pacers. Glen Robinson III. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's my little cousin. So, so I was cheering for him, you know, I've been to a couple of games. So it was one point, they didn't totally have my heart like the Lakers because I bleed purple and gold, man. When you're a fan for 44 years, it's kind of hard to just switch, switch to switch.

Yeah, oh absolutely, I wouldn't want you to switch. But when we go to that game, you know, the losing team, the fan of the losing team is buying the popcorn and the hot dogs, all right?

Hey, You gotta bet, Ray. You gotta bet. So, Ray, what makes you so fond of storytelling, as you was talking about earlier?

You know, I think part of it comes from I like listening to a good story or reading a good story, right? When that happens, there's kind of like a bit of a magic, right? You know, whether it's a campfire story as a kid or something your parents are telling you about their family on the way down, a well-told story is memorable, you know? And professionally, and I've done that a lot through marketing, is how can you become memorable with somebody? How can you tell a story in a way that resonates with viewers and that you can remember? You know, brand awareness is tremendous. And right now, currently, there's a commercial that I love. It's for Expedia, a travel company, online travel company. And it's 3 Japanese women, they're dancers. They seem to be like, you know, ballet dancers or something, Japan. But one of them has a desire to go to Nashville and go line dancing. And it's— there's not a word in the commercial. It's just— it's all visuals and music.

And—

but it tells the story of 3 friends from around the world who don't know anything about line dancing, but they see it and they think it looks like a lot of fun. And it's like, let's go together and have fun. And sure enough, they go to Nashville. The next thing you know, they're dancing and somebody comes up and puts a cowboy hat on one of them. She smiles and they're line dancing. And it's just a great story. And why is it a great story? Well, it resonates with me. It appeals. But at the same time, I remember who it's from. I got the brand recall. It's Expedia. I've never used Expedia before, but I'm open to trying to use Expedia now because this story that they told in 27 seconds on television really resonates with me. So I like being on the receiving end of a good story. And if I can tell a good story, I like to be able to do that too. And hopefully I can tell some good stories today for you and your audience. But we'll see. We'll let your audience be the judge.

Yeah, like I said, I can't wait to get to this one question because even when you sent me that, I'm like, wait a minute, because we'll talk about that in a second. So, Ray, you talked about your many fields that you worked in earlier. You touched up on it. So it seems as though that you've had an incredibly diverse career, including investment banking, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and software. Why so many career changes?

Yeah, you know, I, you know, years ago I came across an exercise where it's, you know, identifying your values. It was from Franklin Covey. Stephen Covey is the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And, you know, his company merged with the Franklin Company and Franklin Company for years known as planners, the Franklin Planner, to plan out your day and your week, you know. But this exercise I went through was identifying your values. My values really haven't changed. For 30 years. It's family, friends, fun, fitness, education, and challenge, right? So those are my values. And I always want to be with a company and within a profession, with a network of people, whether it's personal or professional, that adheres to those types of values. So, and I've always been open for opportunities that come about that are consistent with my values. I started out in finance as a young guy. I wanted to be an investment banker. And I liked it as a kid, and I liked it as a young adult for a little while. Then I realized I didn't. Much care for it. Mostly, it was the people involved in the business. It was very chauvinistic, egalitarian. You definitely ate what you hunt. But it wasn't— at the time, in the mid-'80s, America was being swept up with these Japanese management principles. There were self-directed work teams and consensus decision-making, a lot different than the hierarchical nature of investment banking. But that was stuff that I wanted to get involved in. I wasn't skilled in any of it. I mean, I was a finance guy. I went back to school, got my MBA with an emphasis in organizational development because I wanted to be around that type of org. I wanted to help organizations be, you know, more people-centric. I spent a good amount of time working in organizational development, you know, first as a consultant, then as a human resources person in-house. And, you know, almost all of my work dealt with communication. And so that began my kind of entree into storytelling. Again, there's a lot of storytelling in investment banking, you know, hey, this is a company or this is an industry. This is why you should pay pay attention to it. With, uh, dealing with communication issues, uh, whether it's through a client or in-house with my own company, that was some more storytelling. And from there, just kind of pivoted into a marketing and marketing opportunities to tell stories to external audiences. And, uh, you know, I've had opportunities. Some of the opportunities that took— some are opportunities that were forced upon me, jobs being eliminated. So it's time for you to go someplace else. Uh, and so those have caused some pivots. Some have been proactive moves for me. Others have just been reactive moves. My position's been eliminated. I need to go out and find a new gig. So that's kind of why I've gone about a kind of a, you know, a lot of different pivots with a lot of different industries. But like I said before, I think the common theme has been, at least, you know, for the last 30 years, it's been, you know, telling stories, engaging people and trying to get points across through storytelling.

Hey, that's cool, man, that you had the smarts and the intelligence and wisdom to have a diverse career like that, to dabble in many things, because I'm pretty sure that each level probably, you know, said, garnered you or gave you some kind of aspect to probably the things that you're doing now, which I want to ask you about. So tell us, Ray, about your website, and what can people find there?

Yeah, my website. Thank you for mentioning it, CJ. It's my name. It's rayhartson.com. My website is, you know, really just kind of, you know, hopefully the gateway for people to my audience to engage with me, right? You know, I you'll find blog posts for me. It's kind of like, I don't know, it's almost like top of mind random thoughts. It's not quite a diary because I don't do it daily. I know, but I write the occasional article. It's a way for people to find out more about the books I've written, the songs I've written. But really, it's an invitation to people. It's like, let me hear your stories, right? I love interacting with the audience that I have, particularly the cancer patient, cancer caregiver, and cancer patient allies. Out there. You know, it's the subject of my second book. It's a book called Me, Myself, and My Multiple Myeloma. And this is a personal book of mine in that I'm a cancer patient. And in March of 2019, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. And your audience members, if you're not familiar with that, it is a blood cancer. It's incurable blood cancer, but treatable blood cancer. So I've been under active treatment for 5 and a half years now. And early on in my fight against cancer, I had the privilege, really, the real honor of having people reach out to me via social media. I was fortunate enough based on my online persona to be involved in several interviews, both in print and in video. And when people saw those interviews, they're like, "Hey, man, I want to connect with this guy," because maybe they were recently diagnosed. And it's been my absolute honor to to speak with these people, whether they're patients or their caregivers, their allies, just tell them a little bit about my story and journey with multiple myeloma, but also understanding their journey. And, you know, while in that process, you know, I realized that while I enjoy doing that, it's very much a one-to-one type of nature. It's like, you know, how can I scale my impact and do something one-to-many? And so that's why, you know, that was the motivation behind writing this book, Me, Myself and My Multiple Myeloma. And I wanted this book to be a book, you know, from the community, to the community, and for the community. And therefore on the back, you know, I worked really hard to become— and to make this be a fundraiser. So this book, my net writer's proceeds are pledged to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. You know, important for me to be a member of our community, help support our community. We all get something, CJ, right? You know, but together we are stronger than we know. And, you know, it's, you know, my, you know, as asked about my website, it's really kind of the, you know, it's the digital gateway into, you know, hopefully having people interact with me, ask their questions, leave their comments, you know, let me hear their stories. And hopefully there's ways that I can share then in turn share their stories and amplify their stories. And whether it's through my website or through any of my social properties, which you can get through to my website, like For example, my TikTok account is, you know, pretty much a, you know, a cancer patient, uh, community that I'm involved with there. And, you know, we, we, we support one another, uh, in their journeys or fights. You know, some patients have journeys, some people have fights. The fight metaphor motivates me more than the journey. Journey kind of reminds me of, you know, taking trips with my family, sitting in the backseat of the car or whatever. You know, that's a journey. Um, you know, uh, cancer and I We have an adversarial relationship and I get more motivated and inspired with a fight metaphor. You know, I have a fight. But thank you for asking, CJ. That's what the RayHartson.com website's all about.

Man, that's pretty cool, right? And, you know, I just want to say one thing about yourself and others that I've met and did interviews here on the CJ Moneyway Show is the fight that you guys have regardless of what you may be going through. But it's the servant mentality where regardless of what you may be going through or have went through, that you guys are willing to go out there and help others get through whatever they're going through. Like, sometimes you put what you're going through to the side to help others, man. And that's a testament to a person's character and integrity, man. And I love it.

Yeah. And I want to be of service. To be of service is more rewarding to me than to be selfish. And I have been selfish. Many times in my life. I don't forget that. And I'm not saying I'm not still selfish sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.

Yeah. But being of service to others, you know, there's, there's a higher calling. And everything I know about cancer, CJ, has been taught to me by those who've gone before me, you know, and there have been times I've needed a helping hand. And I recognized that early where, you know, people were reaching behind them and pulling me up., right? And, you know, I feel good. I feel strong. And if I can reach back and help somebody and pull them forward, man, that makes all the difference in the world to me. And hopefully it means something to them as well. But, you know, like I said, you know, just moments ago, we all get something, right? You know, we're all in this thing together, this thing we call life. What can we achieve together by being of service to one another? That doesn't mean when you're in service to someone else that someone isn't being of service to you too. I benefit from a great number of people being of service to me, including CJ, you, you've given me an opportunity to be on your show today. Your audience is serving me by giving me an opportunity to share my story, stories, and of that I'm grateful and appreciative. How can I pay it forward, be of service to others?

Man, that's cool, man. Ray and I, and I pray that you continue doing what you're doing, man. Because as you say, I know something that says that if I can turn one for the error from their ways, there's a multitude you know, covered for me. And so like you say, if I can just take one and save one person, you know, that like the blessings that will come on my life just because I've shared and just because I've helped and mentored somebody that's going through or facing the challenges that I faced, if I can just help that one person, man, like you said, that means a lot to me, you know.

And you never really help just that one person, CJ. There's a multiplier effect, right? The person that you're of service to, they in time understand the service that you provided them and you role model behavior for them. They provide service to somebody else and sort of like that old commercial back when we were kids and so on and so on and so on. You know, so it starts with one, starts with you, starts with me, starts with us. But then the people that we touch, they in turn touch others and it just keeps giving. And, uh, so let's be of service, man.

Yeah, that's cool. And like you say, trickle-down effect. So that interesting story. So you was talking about your books and you was talking about being a storyteller. So my next question, and this is the one that we— when you first hit me up with, I said, wait a minute, man, I've been a Cowboy fan. I was a Cowboy fan for a long time. And then you hit me back and say, no, CJ, That's not what it's really about. So, so here's my question. So tell us about your book, How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh, and what inspired you to write this book.

Thanks for asking about it. It's this book. It's called Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. I'm a co-writer here, and we're going to get into that story here in just a minute. Okay. I, too, CJ, was a Cowboys fan. I was born in Houston, and as a dutiful Texan, my favorite team was the Dallas Cowboys. My second favorite team, being a dutiful Texan, was the Houston Oilers. And my third favorite team was my mom's favorite team. My mom liked Kenny Stabler, just like everybody else's mom liked Kenny Stabler. And so the Oakland Raiders, my third favorite team. So I'm 60 years old. I was born in 1964. So when I grew up, the Pittsburgh Steelers were gum on my shoes, man. They, uh, they beat the Cowboys famously in two Super Bowls. Yeah. Uh, the Houston Oilers could never get past them in the AFC Central Division., and lost 2 playoff games, uh, at Three Rivers Stadium to the Steelers. And of course, the Oakland Raiders famously lost 3 playoff games to them, including, um, the Immaculate Reception game in 1972. Yeah, which is kind of, you know, what our book kind of pivots around. So the 12-year-old Ray, or whatever, if he knew that, you know, the 50-something-year-old Ray would be writing a book about the Pittsburgh Steelers, all that younger Ray would have been very, very disappointed. How I got around to coming about is my friend Tom is a Yinzer. And for those of you uninitiated, a Yinzer is a dude from Pittsburgh. Not necessarily dude, it's a person from Pittsburgh. And no matter where Tom has gone in his life, he's always been from Pittsburgh. He's not from Pennsylvania. He's from Pittsburgh. People from Pittsburgh are from Pittsburgh. They're different types of folks. They view things a little bit differently. And so wherever he has gone, he's been a very proud Pittsburgh person. And wherever he's gone, he's met other Yinzers, you know, one thing that they instantly talk about is the Steelers, or as they pronounce it, Steelers. They'll quickly talk about the Steelers. Now, the Steelers were historically a horrible football team, founded in, I think, 1933 by Art Rooney. First 39 years of their existence, they were struggling to be even mediocre, right? Then all of a sudden in 1972, you know, with all these great players that they had brought in, people like Mean Joe Greene, Carrick Bradshaw, Franco Harris, and others. All of a sudden they became very, very good. And interestingly, at that time, you know, you know, the Steelers faithful, the Ninjas had always loved the Steelers, but it had been a hard job loving the Steelers. Now all of a sudden they had the Steelers. The Steelers were good. And, and it was an interesting time a couple of years later in the mid-'70s when the city of Pittsburgh started reeling economically. You know, the city of Pittsburgh was built upon iron at first and then the steel industry. And there was a great deal of prosperity in the city, not so much for the citizens, the workers. They were all, you know, comfortable middle class, but unbelievable wealth by the steel barons, you know, the Carnegies and the Fricks and the like. Right. But in the mid-'70s, a lot of things conspired to, to hurt the domestic steel industry and in turn crippled the Pittsburgh economy. So they had to go through this very painful deindustrialization transformation and they struggled with it. But the one thing that they had, this kind of pillar of strength that they had was all of a sudden they could look at their football team, which was good finally. But it was a team that was kind of built in the mirror image of the community, you know, hard-nosed, gritty, bring your lunch pail to work type of team. You know, these were the people of the city of Pittsburgh, the people that took showers after work, not before work. Right. Yeah. You know, they were, you know, blue-collar, hardworking. So was this football team. And they were good. So when, when, when Pittsburgh needed a source of strength, as there is, people were losing jobs and the economy was going south, they could turn to their Steelers and say, hey, at least we got the Steelers. So my buddy Tom had lived with that narrative in his mind for like 25 years, and he told everybody about it. He said, you know, this would make a great book. This would make a great book. He told his family was tired of hearing about it. His friends like me became kind of tired of hearing about it. About that same time though, CJ, is when I got diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and that changed my thought processes a lot. And I think, well, hopefully we'll talk about this a little bit later, but you know, I, I started looking at my timeline before my diagnosis, CJ. I was going to live forever, maybe not forever, but I was going to be at least 100 or whatever. I mean, I— not living was not part of my mindset, you know. And I, I, I had facilitated in the past, uh, these these timeline exercises. And it's a really simple timeline. In fact, I want to invite you and your audience right now to do this. You just, you're like, in your mind or on a piece of paper, even better, you just draw a horizontal line. And at the far left-hand side, you make a little tick mark. And the far right-hand side, you make another tick mark. Now, that left-hand side is your birth. That right-hand side is your death. Now, you take a moment and think, where on this timeline am I right now? And, you know, it's an introspective exercise. Where do you believe you are? And of course, tomorrow's not promised. We all know of that, but where do you know? And prior to my diagnosis, CJ, I was always like in the middle, you know. Then when I got my diagnosis, uh, of an incurable blood cancer called multiple myeloma, then I'm like, you know, I'm a lot farther to the right tonight than I maybe I believed I was previously. That got me into thinking, you know, like, I quickly discovered that I had fallen victim throughout my life to taking too many things for granted, primarily taking time for granted. I always took tomorrow for granted, next week, next month, sometimes next year, sometimes next decade. You know, I was going to have the time. And because I had that time, I took people and relationships for granted. Man, CJ is my friend. I love him. I don't need to call him today. I mean, CJ is going to be there tomorrow. I'll call him, you know, you know, and you just begin to— I began to just put things off a little bit, kind of. Yeah, let's call it procrastination. Not because, you know, a lot of times procrastinators are perfectionists, which which maybe I have a little bit of. But I just took it for granted, took time, people, relationships for granted. And I became aware of that. Now, we also talked a little bit earlier. I'm a musician. One of the things I'm always on the lookout for is some saying to put on the back of a t-shirt so we can make more money at gigs. Right. You know, and, you know, so I'm always on the lookout for a motto. And soon after my cancer model, I came up with a motto, "If not now, when?" Based on that timeline I was talking about, like, I don't know how much time I have left. None of us have much— know what— know what— how much time we have left. So if not now, when am I going to do this? So I grabbed my friend Tom by the shoulders, I think literally, and was like, hey, Tom, if not now, when? You know, I'm a writer. Let me help you with this book. Let me start. And if we should get off track someplace down the line from your vision, well, we can stop or you can pull me back on track. Next thing you know, 18 months later, we were done with the book. It's a book that I'm proud of. You know, it's impossible to tell a story about the Steelers, say, Pittsburgh, without talking about the city of Pittsburgh and talking about the Steelers. So there's a historical aspect of it, and there's a sports book aspect of it. To make it meaningful to both types of readers, you know, we weave the story back and around. I kind of like to visually think of it as, you know, two parallel strands of DNA, you know, and then they're you know, what are the connections from these stories. So, you know, really this book is, you know, a collection of like 60 campfire stories that kind of revolve around each other and take the reader, you know, from the beginning of, of, uh, uh, the, of Pittsburgh, you know, that the people who built the city of Pittsburgh, the beginning of the football team and the people who built that football team, the unique personalities involved in both, uh, you know, and how over time to this You know, through the '70s and '80s, you know, Pittsburgh went through this deindustrialization transformation and came out on the other end smelling like a rose. You know, there's— I mean, you're in a— you're in an area where, you know, you're familiar with Gary, Indiana.

Yes. That—

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Amazing, right? At eHarmony, you'll find someone you can be yourself with. Get who gets you on eHarmony. Sign up for eHarmony today. So the most livable cities of, uh, around the world, you know, Pittsburgh's come out well. Tom's thesis all along have been, you know, what helped the city the Steelers. Uh, when the city needed a source of strength at its darkest moments, they could look over to Three Rivers Stadium and see what the Steelers are doing, which were really the first dynasty in the NFL— 4 Super Bowls in 6 years. It's a remarkable story. It's a book I'm really proud of. I know Tom's proud of it as well. So, uh, go out there and get some.

Don't miss out on CJ Moneyway Johnson's book Both Eyes Open: One and Both Eyes Shut.

And get ready to preorder his upcoming release, The Issues of Life, coming soon. Moneyway, aiming to inspire.

Yeah, so man, because you just said some things that I didn't really think of it like that. You say how Gary and Detroit, which I stayed in both, born and raised in Gary, and I lived in Detroit for 5 years, like say Ohio, how they the cousins. To Pittsburgh. And while some of the other cities not doing, you know, didn't come out smelling like roses, Pittsburgh did. And so that's kind of intriguing, the way that you, like you said, you are a storyteller, and I'm sitting here listening to your storytelling. And so it makes me want to go out here and get the book. And so as I'm asking this right now, Ray, where can we find your book at, man? Amazon, Barnes Noble? Where can we get this book from?

You can get Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. I've been taught to say this, wherever fine books are sold. So you can buy it at any bookstore as well as my website. It's funny, you know, in the writing business, you're not really supposed to talk about Amazon. Amazon spends— they sell about 60% of books, and bookstores get angry when you talk about Amazon. In fact, if Amazon's like first on your website, buy my book on Amazon, uh, you know, they'll look at it and say, you know, I don't know if we even want to carry your book, uh, you know, because, uh, and on the other hand, Amazon could care less if you talk about Barnes Noble or Books-A-Million or, or what have you, uh, they could care less because they know that people are still going to shop on, um, on, uh, on Amazon. But, uh, you know, we'll, we will connect offline, CJ. I'll just mail you a copy. You don't, you don't have to worry about, uh of, uh, uh, of going out buying one. Uh, but do me a favor, if you like the book, uh, please leave a review, uh, at any bookseller site that you, uh, that you care to visit.

Yeah, yeah, I would do that. And I will ask that you do the same here. If you enjoyed your time on the CJ Moneyway Show, leave me an Apple review. But, uh, you did make a good point as far as book, because that's me being a, a writer myself, and I, I I just previously got a book that's coming out. You said something that was intriguing, that like, don't mention Amazon because the other bookstores don't, you know, don't appreciate or don't like that aspect of it. I never knew that. And so you're giving me some, and probably some of the audience, some wisdom and understanding of some things, some insight that we probably just didn't know.

Yeah, I will tell you that if you self-publish your book, through Amazon, no bookstore will ever touch it. You know, so if it's important for you out there in the audience, you're a writer, if it's important for you to have like a book on the shelf of Barnes Noble, do not publish it through Amazon. Instead, there's a whole bunch of other publishers out there that you can do it. What you want to do is, you know, find a publisher that distributes to— the biggest distributor in the United States is Ingram, you know, so, you know, find a publishing company that distributes through Ingram. And then other bookstores will, you know, be willing to, you know, if the book has merit and if they're interested and they think they can market it and sell it, they'll be interested in carrying it. But if you publish through Amazon, which is okay to do, I mean, like I said, 60% of the books are published through Amazon. Just know if you publish through Amazon, other bookstores, they take it personally. You know, they, they, they, particularly an independent bookseller, Uh, you know, they make their living off their bookstore, uh, and, uh, they do— Amazon is taking food off their plate.

Yeah, yeah. So, so I appreciate it, Ray. When you send me a copy of the book, man, send me some of that information that you talking about, because like I said, I haven't published it yet, but of course I was gonna publish it through Amazon just like I did my first book. But you know, you're giving me some wisdom and insight on that.

So yeah, and it's not necessarily a wrong move, right? You know, if you're cool with not having it in Barnes Noble, yeah, go, you know, reach out to your audience and, you know, have it available from you and your website. So it's not the wrong choice. It's just, you know, being aware of that, that you as a writer and all of you out there in the audience, as you know, as artists, you have options and just know what they're— what the pros and cons of each one of these options are.

Okay. Yeah, I want to try something different. So. Right. Let me move on real quick. Let's continue talking about sports. What are the biggest differences between the NFL today and the NFL in the '70s and the '80s?

Yeah, it's a, it's a good question. I love talking about this, and I could talk about it for a long, long time. I watched a lot of games on, uh, YouTube in writing, uh, Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. And first of all, it's great if you are of a certain age, like my age, You know, going back and like listening to Howard Cosell in the booth again, it's like, oh man, this is awesome. Curt Gowdy, Dandy Don Meredith. Are you kidding me? It was, it was so enjoyable watching it. But, you know, we, you know, a couple of things I like to point out. Well, you know, one is, you know, if you come up with your— when we come up with our list of best football players ever, you know, we tend to have this recency effect. You know, it's got to be Patrick Mahomes. You know, he's won 3 Super Bowls. You know, yeah, it's like If you have a top 10 list of players and Mean Joe Greene is not on that top 10 list, you need to take a step back and kind of reconsider your list. That guy, you go back and watch the games on TV, double-teamed on every single play, and he impacted every single play when he's on the field. An absolute beast. He's definitely one of the best players ever. When you think of defensive tackle, you kind of think like Aaron Donald of the Rams, who recently retired. I mean, Joe Greene was Aaron Donald of the Rams before, you know, 45 years before, uh, uh, Aaron, uh, Aaron Donald played in the NFL. So, so that's one thing, uh, you know, the, the game back in the '70s, '80s, um, a much different game today. You know, one of the biggest, uh, changes came offensively with the, uh, illegal contact rule. They called that the no blood rule at the time. You know, Mel Blount, number 47, Hall of Fame cornerback for the Steelers. He is still today the prototypical NFL defensive cornerback. He tall, rangy, had speed, and he had a kind of a little mean attitude, too. You know, he tackled with intent and purpose. He wasn't afraid to tackle. But, you know, he would mug receivers at the line of scrimmage. You know, we talk today in today's NFL about a quarterback, you know, throwing a receiver open. And also, you know, quarterback just like Peyton Manning, knowing where everybody was on the field. So Peyton Manning was under distress in the pocket. He knew where receiver was. He's going to be— he didn't have to look at it. He stole it over there. I know Marvin Harrison is going to be there and he's going to compete for this football. Back in the '70s, before the Mel Blount rule, the illegal contact, a quarterback never knew where the receiver is going to be because they were getting molested from the moment the ball was snapped. You know, right at the line of scrimmage, they maybe should be at those, you know, like in this one particular area, but they might be 5 yards away from just because they've been having to fight through a defensive back to get there. So, you know, a quarterback had to make eye contact, really see where they were. You go back and look at, you know, what passing percentages in the NFL back in the, you know, the '70s, you know, if you were completing 50% of your passes, you know, you were having a very good year. Today's NFL, if you're not completing two-thirds of your passes, you're not playing football. You know, it's just, you know, fact of the matter, right? And then, you know, it seems like today in the NFL, you know, offensive coordinators and head coaches, play callers on the offensive end, you know, fall in love with their really thick playbooks. You know, they have these big sheets and they've got 100 different plays that they've practiced and game planned for. Back in the '70s, you know, quarterbacks called their own plays. Terry Bradshaw, the Steelers, called his own plays. And there was a prevailing thought of, you know, We are going to run a play, and if you can prove to us that you can stop it, then we'll maybe try another play. And sometimes you would only run a handful of plays a game because the other team could not stop you. Uh, you know, so it's, you know, you see today's NFL, you know, it's sometimes it's aggravating to watch, you know. Uh, you'll see a, a team have success like 3 running plays in a row, you know, and maybe they pick up a first down or down to like second and 3 on, you know, the second series of down. Then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I stole So you were just running the ball effectively. Why would you want to change it? Would it make the other team stop you? So, you know, you know, these, you know, 3 yards in a cloud of dust types of days from the '70s, those have gone away to, you know, this, you know, high-scoring game that emphasizes offense. You know, the rules are definitely favor the offense in today's NFL. Every single defensive penalty except for offsides results in an automatic first down, for example. Back in the day, it was all about, you know, running the football, time of possession, field position, not turning the ball over, uh, you know, not making the stupid penalties. Uh, so a different game. That being said, I like them both. I watch a lot of football today, CJ, and I'm super excited about the season coming.

I totally agree with you. Totally different game, like you say, to the point where now sometimes seem like it's flag football out there. You can't touch the quarterback.

Oh, that's another big thing, huh? I like what, uh, you know, a couple years ago there was somebody on NBC referred to as nothing the quarterback call. You know, it's like, exactly, you know, back in the, you know, back in the '70s and '80s, the quarterback was just another player, right? You could do it. You could hit him high, you get him low, you could fall on them. I mean, today's NFL, you're not allowed to fall on the quarterback. It's tackle football. But you have to— I mean, I remember a game between the, the Raiders and the Dolphins, you you know, 6, 7 years ago where a Dolphin player hurt his knee, tore his ACL trying to sack the Raiders quarterback and not land on him. Yeah. You know, and it's, you know, that, you know, Patrick Mahomes sells tickets, not, you know, Christian Wilkins.

Exactly. Exactly. And then something that you said too about, you know, like back in the day we played Pop Warner and things like that. If you run into the right side and you got that hole open every time, you go keep going. And it makes me think about the Super Bowl with Seattle and, um, the Patriots. That last drive, Marshawn Lynch was just killing them on, uh, on the run game. And why would you pass it on, on, uh, first and goal? It's just beyond anybody's imagination. When Russell threw that interception in the end zone, they couldn't stop him, pass the ball in that situation.

But And I also want, you know, I'm disappointed that you brought that up, CJ, because Cowboys were my team back when I was a child. And, you know, I moved to Seattle before the internet. And, you know, so I know the Seahawks were in the paper every day. You can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. So I think it's good. So you just brought up like, you know, it's got to be the single worst memory of all Seahawks fandom is that one play. That would have been back-to-back Super Bowls. Super Bowls. Yeah, if, uh, yeah, and, uh, you know, one thing I do that, that, you know, I— Richard Sherman, if you're out there listening, you know, um, there's a, uh, you know, a lot of times the defensive players on that team, you know, the Legion of Boom, and Richard Sherman's been vocal about the past. He's like, run the ball, Pete, run the ball. Pete Carroll, the head coach of the Seahawks, you know, left unsaid and unspoken is that the vaunted Seahawks defense gave up a 10-point fourth quarter lead that game too, right? You know, so it was a team effort in not winning the Super Bowl. Uh, but boy, it sure would have been nice if, uh, if Marshawn had had just one more try to get in the end zone.

What he could have had multiple tries, you know, even if— but that drive, he was just killing them on that drive. They couldn't stop him on that drive. And that— and for the life of me, just don't know why they wouldn't run the ball. And that was Super Bowl. That was a Super Bowl right there. But, uh, so Ray, I'm pressing time right now, so let me ask you this question. In 2019, you were diagnosed with cancer. Can you share how that diagnosis has changed you?

Yeah, yeah, and I've talked a little bit about already, you know, when I, uh, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, I had a little bit of a lead-up to it, you know. Uh, it was a routine blood test that came back, um, I was anemic, low hemoglobin, low red blood cells. And so, we tried to find the source of my anemia. And, as we were doing it, I went to go see a hematologist and I learned that almost every hematologist is an oncologist. So, that was my first warning. I was like, "Uh-oh." That's the first thought of cancer. Before, I was just anemic. Now, maybe there's a cancer. And then, as we're working through more and more sophisticated blood tests, eventually came to a bone marrow biopsy. My doctor was kind of saying, "It could be lymphoma, could be multiple myeloma." It's probably gonna be something that ends in an A and something that's kind of, you know, pretty scary. For me, it turned out to be multiple myeloma. And, you know, when I first, uh, uh, got diagnosed, you know, cancer is pretty much the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning, the last thing I thought about when I went to bed. And, you know, filled up a lot of that time in between too. But it's changed since, you know. I, I had help. I joined a patient, patient support group like a week after diagnosis, right? You know, and, uh, I've learned a lot of things, uh, through, uh, cancer. You know, cancer has I think when I walked into it, it's like, what's cancer going to take away from me? And one thing that's taken away from me is that I can't travel freely. I have treatment once a week. And this, I can't, it's not a pill I take. This is intravenous chemotherapy and also an injection of immunotherapy drug. I've got to go down the street once a week. So I can travel. I just got to make sure it's less than a week or find someplace else to get my treatment. So yeah, cancer does take away and there's a feeling about taking away. But, you know, I quickly realized that cancer gives also, right? And I fall back to my— the roles that I had, you know, when I was— when I got diagnosed with cancer, you know, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm an uncle, I'm a bandmate, you know, I'm a boss, I'm a teammate, I am an employee. I had all these roles that I played. And You know what? When I got diagnosed with cancer, I still had each and every one of those roles, but I had other roles now. Now, then I know I had a cancer patient advocate at fundraising roles, things like that. You know, cancer gave me more purpose in my life. And each one of those roles I had before, I still have now. I have some new roles. All of them have accountabilities associated with them and things that I want to get done. So that's one thing that I learned is having a growth mindset throughout my life. Why can't I apply a growth mindset to situation I'm undergoing with my health? And what are the growth opportunities there? I love raising money. I love raising awareness about all health concerns, but particularly blood cancers. September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month, and I will be working my tail off having people understand that you might feel good, but you still need to go to your doctor. I've been asked many times when I first got diagnosed, what can I do for you? And I will share with your audience right now what you guys can do for me. One, go see your doctor. I had 90% of my bone marrow was cancerous. I didn't feel a thing. They came up with a routine blood test, a routine CBC blood test, complete blood count, that I was anemic. It turned out 90% of my bone marrow was cancerous. Go see your doctor at least once a year. Make sure that you have a blood test associated with it. Second thing you can do is eliminate what I call the 2s. And you don't need a doctor, you don't need Ray Hartshorn to tell you what the 2s are. Those things are like you exercise too little, you drink too much, you smoke too much, eat too much red meat, you don't eat— you eat too few fruits and vegetables, etc. Just understand your risk factors, mitigate your risk factors to the degree that you feel comfortable. Third thing is if you know somebody undergoing a serious health illness, Reach out to them. They need the help. Trust me. My wife and I— I'm so glad that I have my wife Lori. She's my rock to this whole thing. We are inundated just with mail, physical mail. There's, you know, not only do we have doctor's appointments and treatment schedules and medicines to take and the like, but there's just a correspondence between insurance companies and care providers, pharmaceutical companies. It can be daunting. Reach out to anybody you know that that has something that they can use to help and they can appreciate the help. And the fourth and final thing I want to— what you can do for me is find your passion. You're going to know what your passion is. It's going to speak to you. It's going to be a little incessant itch that won't go away. And find that passion and donate your time and/or your money to that passion. And like I said, CJ, we're all in this together. Let's help one another out through this entire thing. So Yeah, cancer's taught me a lot. Having that growth mindset, and then, you know, reiterating it again, very meaningful for me. Understanding the perils of taking too much for granted, particularly time, people, and relationships. What's most important to me? What do I want to get done? And who do I want to do it with? You know, having clarity around that has benefited me. It's allowed me to write 2 books. I have a 3rd book on the way. It's coming out later this year. It's about the Indianapolis 500. It's called The Indy 500. The Diary of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. And you know, I'm getting things done and I'm doing it with the people I want to because cancer slapped me awake and, uh, in the right direction.

That's all right, man. I really appreciate you coming on. I got one more question for you before we leave, but I appreciate your storytelling. And when you, you say September is— you say Blood Awareness Month?

Blood Cancer Awareness Month.

Blood cancer. So let's make it next year, man, around that time. Let's do something else where you can talk about, you know, get in depth about what this really entails. And, you know, we can put something out there on that, man, to give us more awareness about the things that you're talking about, right?

Yeah, I would love that opportunity, CJ. Hopefully your audience will entertain the possibilities of me returning on the show. They'll let us know, right?

And too, man, whenever you come out with that next book, let's make something happen. So my last question, Ray, is this: What advice would you have for people who have recently been diagnosed with a serious health issue?

Yeah, you know, you need to be your strongest advocate. And if you feel uncomfortable doing that, then maybe reach out to somebody who can be your advocate. You know, I hear sometimes, you know, people say like, you know, my doctor doesn't listen to me, you know, and I will say that, you know, you need to consider getting a new doctor, right? You know, you need to have the healthcare professionals around you that you feel comfortable with. And then find out as much as you can or as much as you want at a particular time about your condition and treatments. But don't get caught up in getting your, you know, medical degree from Google University because just like a lot of other topics, there's a lot of garbage out on the internet as well too. But, you know, you know, look at things, make, make sense of what's out there and the information you get. Be wary of going down rabbit holes that aren't beneficial to you. And then also maybe consider compartmentalizing what you need to know. You know, like, I don't want to know— I'll give an example. I had a stem cell transplant at the end of 2019. But before that, I needed to get ahead of a stem cell transplant. I needed to take medications. I needed to get the cancer level below, you know, lower before I got into it. Now, let me worry about the stem cell transplant later. I don't need to learn about that in March, April, May of 2019. I wasn't going to do it till October, November of 2019. Let's focus on like my things I can control. You know, what's my diet like? You know, my nutrition, my physical conditioning, like my headspace, you know, you know, what do I need to talk about in my group or what do I need to listen to? And so, you know, consider compartmentalizing. Don't try to boil the ocean at once with your serious health condition. You know, it's break it down into little chunks. You know, your journey of 1,000 miles begins with, you know, one step. Let's take that one step first. You know, let's take that next step first. You can get to the 1,000 miles later. Let's not try to jump to 1,000 miles. That becomes daunting. You know, you don't even know where to start. It's like, ah, you know, so let's start at the beginning. Take it one step at a time.

Mm. So, so, Ray, in leaving, man, is there anything else that you would like to share with us before we leave?

I do want to share again my thanks and my gratitude. I do. I love what you're doing, CJ. You know, all of us have stories to tell. Particularly about the challenges that we stared down and accepted and overcome. You know, a show like yours helps people hear those things and see those things. So I appreciate what you do and appreciate you having me on the show. I appreciate anyone who's sitting around listening. Thank you so much. And if there's anything that I can do of being of service to you, particularly if you are a cancer patient or a cancer patient caregiver, please reach out to me. My social handles. They're all Ray Harchand at all the platforms except for TikTok, where for some reason I have a 5 behind the end of my name. I'm not sure why, but maybe my fat fingers pushed it by accident. But please reach out to me if there's anything I can be of service to you. It's truly been the honor of my life to be able to do that with folks from around the world because of these books. And I would love to hear more about your stories when you reach out to me.

Oh man, I appreciate the encouragement, Ray, man. I appreciate you coming on, giving us your insight on some of these topics. And you are a fantastic storyteller, man, I will say. And so, like I say, I appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Thank you, man. I never said I didn't like to talk. I hope this episode's not too long.

It's good. It's all good, man. I appreciate you, Ray. And like I say, let's connect and collaborate later on down the line, man, especially by next summer so we can have something out for the blood cancer awareness next year, man, so we can do something with that. And your book, man, I want to know what your book about, about the Indy 500. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people interested in and things of that nature.

I'm excited about that book. I read a book as a kid about the Indy 500. It was about the 1970 race. And so I want to do the same thing. You know, hopefully if a kid can read my book and develop a passion for the Indy 500, then I've done my job.

I hear you, man. Hey, so get prepared to go get the Indy 500 book. Also go get his book, The Steelers That Saved Pittsburgh, and his memoir that I didn't get a chance to get to. Get his memoir. He has everything on his website. Hey, my man Ray, my new friend. Hey Ray, don't forget, man, we going to a Lakers-Pacers game. I'm gonna mark it on my calendar. I'm gonna try to get down that way in the next year or so, but that's right.

Go Pacers!

Ah, go Lakers! Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your host CJ Moneyway and my new friend Ray from Southern California. All right, we out of here.

Peace. Thank you for listening The CJ Moneyway Show.

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