Stick-to-it-ness with John Saintignon

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. So today I'm delighted to be joined by John. John Saint-Gignan, thank you for making time for us today. Uh, John is an adoptee and he's also, uh, a, a coach in basketball. It's taken you all over the, over the world. But, um, today when we were talking about what might talk about We, we got back to the nub really of, uh, of stuff for us, uh, adoptees, as identity. So why do you think it is the nub? What's it— what's the big— what's the big deal for us?

Well, first of all, thank you, Simon, for, uh, allowing me to take space and have a conversation with everyone. I want everyone to know that I'm an open book. I'm no different than anyone else. Maybe I've played a small part in being in different parts of the world which have shaped my thinking. But, you know, in the space of being an adopted child, you know, I think all of us have this question as like, where did I come from? Uh, and why was I given away? And I think at different times of your life you can be okay with what's happened, and other times of life you can be questioning what happened. And maybe it's formulated some of your thoughts along the way, and you needed a forum, something like this, to have conversation pieces with one another to discuss. varying viewpoints and, and, uh, and yet share something intimately in common with one another like we do.

Yeah, yeah, it's all those questions, isn't it?

And yeah, you know, I— all of us have come from some, some part here, right? So I was given up for adoption at birth. And and was told at around age ten that I was adopted, and and but you know I didn't know what that meant. I had no idea. No one in my neighborhood was adopted, so no one knew what what that term meant. And I'm sure the familiarity with everybody that's listening here is that hey, as we went to school and maybe you mentioned it to your teacher, so maybe one teacher was. Thinking that it was something tragic, and maybe it was like, oh, I'm sorry you were adopted, you know, kind of a— could lead you as a young child to think that maybe something was sad, wrong, bad. And if you were fortunate enough, maybe you found a teacher that said it was, well, that's wonderful, you know, that's congratulations to your parents that you have, and uplifted your self-esteem. But as we've learned to go along our journey, you know, why, why did things happen? We take on the traits of our parents whether we like them or not. But in the case of being adopted, we just don't know. You know, I didn't know if there's heart disease or those kind of things. That's a, that's a, those are questions I don't know how to answer to. So the key is, how do you find out? Eventually we all may— not all. There are, there are many of, of adoptees that don't wish to know who they're— where they came from, and that's their choice. Uh, I made the, the other choice. I wanted to find out. I didn't have a name, and I didn't have a photo, and I was given up for adoption in another country. And so I had to make a decision, just like everyone else. You have to decide that you're going to go on this quest. And, uh, it's the— it is clearly the Robert Frost poem. It's a, it's a, it's, it's a 2 roads converge in the wood. It's really what happens. And you have to decide to take the one that's least traveled. It will inevitably have obstacles and things to overcome and negativity and anxiety, you name it. It's all going to come from trying to begin the quest. But I think it takes that That type of thinking that what am I going to get out of this? An open mind. Yes, I think we all want the end result to know who our mom and dad were, but it's still the journey of discovery that you're going to get, and that's going to enrich your life. If you're fortunate enough to get to the end and finish line and know who they were.

Fantastic.

But I think from my perspective, it was to go on the journey to discover where I came from that was intriguing.

Yeah. So what did you find?

So, uh, when I was 50 years old, I decided to take a DNA test because I kept hearing about how wonderful those were and And I just took it, and it was remarkable. It's fantastic to to know of geographically where you came from, statistically speaking, the the numbers of of what your genetics were remarkable. So it started them started that in motion, and I said, you know, I'm I want to go find out, but. The hardest part about anything is the first step. What do you do? You know, you're who do you contact? You know, so I I learned I've had a memory recall of my of my adopted mother telling me that hey there was someone that she had worked with her boss. And it just triggered something for me to reach out to her, her boss. Now, that gentleman may have been dead. I have no idea. I took a chance, and it took a took a couple of weeks before I heard a reply. And and the reply was was wonderful. Of course, I remember your mother. Come on to my house and let's talk about this. And it was. Ironically, I was in the same city that he was in that that particular day. And so I go and then I learn an incredible amount of information of how they reached out. Well, it was a Mormon colony in in Chihuahua, Mexico, and I had no idea. I didn't know that was. I had no idea that Mormon colonies were there. And so that's, that's kind of how naive you can be in the world. You just don't know a lot of things. And this gentleman had lived there himself. And remarkable, you know. And well, you know, ultimately he tells me the tale and the story, but you get so overwhelmed with information overload that you really don't retain anything. And so the best words he said to me were, you personally have to go yourself to see. It was the best advice he could have given me. I literally took the exact same path that, that my parents had taken to go get me and enter this small town with not knowing anyone. And I know that it was what I do. I will meet somebody, I will befriend them, and then who doesn't like the search of a puzzle? And at the very least, what I was looking for was the area in which I was born, general understanding, maybe the hospital, but just where I came from, you know. And, uh, And I didn't expect much more than that, but it was when I arrived, it was a whole bunch of people willing to help. Um, that, uh, you know, heck, we went on the radio, we talked about, you know, that I'm looking for— now I want your listeners to understand, I was not auditioning for a parent. You know, I'm, I'm simply manufacturing this in a delicate manner in which they had to— if someone was going to respond, they had to respond with something that was unique in some, somehow, some way. Well, it gets the ball rolling. It's intriguing. I go and pick up my birth certificate, and sure enough, I'm from there. And it was— it sparks something new. I talked to what they call a pantera, is a lady that takes that's there to help to deliver you in the hospital, and she had done millions or not millions. She had done plenty of this, and and here's that that double edge conversation I was telling you about, like. She's like, you know, you were adopted. Those are your parents. And very straightforward, you know. And it was okay, I get it, you know. But you don't understand where I'm coming from to try to find out where I came from or who they were.

It—

because it was, generally speaking, a young lady, uh, Catholicism in the region, no, no abortion was going to happen. Uh, no means to take care of somebody. And so they had this ability to have the Mormons take the child and find a home for them somewhere else. And so I was the beneficiary of that. Um, but it, it wasn't the first, you know, that was just the first time just to come away with this knowledge. The second time was more in depth. Now I have the ball rolling on some things and more activity, more people just talking about it within this city, and more people to meet. And eventually I meet a doc. The possibly there were three doctors in the town at that time, and one of the doctors' sons is is also a doctor. And I go to visit that gentleman, and I'm sure that he he has this knowledge. He's he's quite certain of it, but he doesn't have proof of it. Now, for legal reasons, I don't know. Maybe it's you know at the time I thought it was a conspiracy that I kept finding roadblocks everywhere, and and rightfully so because maybe they're wondering why is somebody coming back? You know, maybe it's considered child trafficking now because there's no— there are no records. So we, we continue along, and this gentleman decides to, to share with me this story. This doctor shares with me this story. Uh, he says something like, 30 years ago, you know, this, this, uh, young man comes From the United States, doesn't speak any Spanish, has a small picture of his mother, and spent— goes door to door knocking on people's door looking for him. Spends weeks doing this. And, and, uh, so I ask, you know, does, does he find him? And he's like, yes, he found him. Now I'm— Thoroughly confused, Simon, because I have DNA, I have all these things, and this guy with just a small photo spends weeks. I don't have weeks, so I'm just listening to this story baffled. Well, as we fast forward this story, Simon, once I get this conclusive evidence that I take a three DNA exams, and on my third DNA exam. Someone comes up that says they're my first cousin, my niece. I make a phone call to this person, gently describe what I'm looking for, not to startle, and and she says, "Mate, you need to talk to my father." Great. Well, one day, a couple weeks later, a phone call comes in, and it's a gentleman, her father, that says. I believe I'm your brother. Well, tell me why. He proceeds to tell me that 30 years ago he went across the border. He had a picture.

Yeah.

He's that guy, you know. So I'm just flabbergasted now. He's the guy that I was told about this story. So I keep asking him. Well, he's like, yes, we found— I found our mother. And after that, I asked, do I have brothers and sisters? And he's like, yes, you have a sister located over here that was given for adoption within, within Mexico, within the community. And you have another brother born May 6th in the United States. I don't know where. Maybe these sites, maybe Las Vegas, Phoenix, or Tucson, Arizona. And he gathered up the cousins, the siblings, because there were 2 more that were left with her at that time, and went searching for me. Now, they may have found me, they very well could have found me, but, but, but I was so not prepared at that time in my life at an early age of Let's say 20 to 25 years old. There was no way I was thinking about that. Furthermore, I was already in college. I was playing college basketball. Had they approached me at that time period, I don't know what I would have done. I, I may have just brushed it off, and I wasn't prepared to receive it. But at the age of 50, I sure was. Because now I was prepared. And all along this journey, I'm sure your listeners are well aware of this, that, you know, you're gonna hear negativity. What if they didn't want you? What if, you know, what if you were hearing that no one wants to meet you? I was prepared to hear that. So what? You know, I'm— I had gone through life already. I wasn't fragile, luckily, in my ego to have taken a blow like that. Because I was just simply searching for what I— where I came from. It's what I wanted to come away with. But I ended up knowing that I have brothers and sisters. I ended up knowing that I had, you know, mother and father. And while they were not alive at the time, I get a better sense of where I came from. And it's a needle in a haystack type of story. And there are roadblocks everywhere, and there are people that just say, you know, you're wasting your time. But it's your time. If this is your quest and your journey, who's to say what's right or wrong? It's up to you to decide what you're looking for. So that's what I did. You know, I went on that quest and wanted to find out for myself. And, uh, I feel remarkable because I know, I know for a fact where I'm from, and I can return back to that community with a tremendous sense of pride. Not— I did go back to meet all brothers and sisters, but it was a, uh, like a survivor guilt, you know. They, they were, they were saddened that I was given up for adoption. And, and I wanted them to feel that I was the beneficiary. By no means do you have to feel that way. I benefited. And, uh, but that's due to the fact that I had 2 absolute loving parents that made sure that I was adjusted and, and loved.

Uh, Yeah. Wow. You, you, before we started recording, you said that as a coach, it's your job to inspire people to keep going. Yeah.

You know, as a, as a professional basketball coach, I mean, there's, there's, there's all these phases of, of effort. And determination. That's, that's what— that's called phase 1. You want to stay in that. Phase 2 is complaining, and then the phase 3 is quitting. You know, I wanted to stay in that first phase of just, uh, energetic, enthusiastic. And but we, we go through these phases all day long, and as a, as a coach, it's my My ability to recognize when things aren't going well and readjust and encourage. It's now I had to apply that to myself.

Yeah, we don't— you mentioned thinking a couple of times, you know, you said that where you've been in the world shaped your thinking. Um, and you talked about perspective. Um, we, we don't hear these sorts of terms in adoptee circles, do we? We don't, we don't hear terms like perspective and mindset and stuff like that. It's, it's all about, it's all about the trauma. It's all, or it's all about identity. We don't, we don't talk a lot. Or is that— that's my take on it. I mean, what do you think?

I'm not, I'm not, uh, in a position probably to judge anybody else's journey, so I can't tell, um, because that, that is their own relative experience, you know. As as they see it, it's it's akin to someone you know saying saying something to someone and two different people can take that that interpretation based on how they feel or how they are at that time. I I'm I don't know Simon how how to answer that one properly because I can't. I have heard other adoptee stories that are, um, that are not filled with such, uh, joy and enthusiasm like I went to. Um, and as I told you before, I was prepared to hear possibly the negative side of it, that I was not wanted or don't talk to me kind of thing. But I went forth with experience in life already. But yeah, I certainly can't judge anyone else's interpretation of it. I just know that only my own experience was— listen, I've lived, I've lived in multiple places within the United States and around the world. And you know, you just you gain a unique perspective everywhere you get, everywhere you go in life. Somehow, some way, how they deal with something or how you don't want to deal with the that situation the same way. The joy, the laughter. There are some places in the world that are impoverished. They may have a tremendous tremendous view of an ocean or something like that, but they but they live in poverty. You know, it can't, it can't feed them. So what feeds their soul? The joy and the laughter of each other. You know, you, you start to gain that appreciation. And, and again, you also understand that some places in the world where family is just tremendously important, uniquely different than what, than what I've experienced here relative to the United States. We talk about family, but it's not really the same way. as maybe some other places, you know. So, um, yeah, getting back to your, your, your original— I don't have that expertise to, to even begin to, to judge someone else's interpretation of how, how their unique road of adoption has been. Um, but I do know this, that we look for the bad, but we can also look for the good. The good is also there too. And, um, and I think it is very hard, some— for all of us, all of us on this platform, to go, why? Why was it me? Why was I given away? And, and that is sometimes like, boy, we don't understand the entire totality of the circumstances. Because that— I'm a parent now. For me to make a decision to do that, oh God, that's a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking decision for me to have even thought about doing. And I— so that's how I look back and go, it must have been just a tremendous decision. Maybe not. Maybe it wasn't. But it's how I choose to view it.

So I had these, as I've mentioned before, I've had a lot of business coaching and I heard this, read this book that was, and it was called Questions Are the Answer. Questions Are the Answer, right? And it, uh, it kind of— it must have landed on me. Um, we, we spent a lot of money with the guy who wrote it, and he didn't really help more than the book had done. But, um, like, when, when I was thinking— so my, my trauma came My questions came a lot later, and it— well, yeah, they came a lot later in life. And it wasn't a question, it was an outright statement. She didn't love me enough to keep me. That was kind of when I came out. We use this term, don't we? Yeah, coming out of the fog. That didn't hit me till I was 40, right? And, um, and a bit later on, I— as I've dissected it and looked back at it and, and Realized that that was completely untrue. Uh, I've, I've come to see that as, um, a belief. Yeah, so it was a belief that I had.

Yes, a coping mechanism as well, one would say. You know, we, we use that to, to comfort ourselves and say, okay, this is why I was given away. I wasn't loved enough. I wasn't wanted. And we kind of carry that throughout all of our journey. You know, I think even if you— even me reflecting back on my life, I try to— I guess people would say I'm an overachiever. I try everything. And it could be from the adopted self.

Yeah.

That, that, that image of the adopted self proving that you're worthy.

Yeah, it could be. It might not be.

Right. It might not be. It might be just that I, hey, I have a short time, time on this earth and I really want to try everything. So, but that's—

But yeah, but that holding Does it— does, uh, I'm not blowing smoke up your derriere here, Mr. Centennial, right? There's a, there's a, there's a wisdom in, in holding that belief lightly, in a questioning way. Yeah, so it might be or it might not be, rather than being dogmatic, you know.

Yes.

You, you see this stuff, um, uh, classic. Or, you know, people will say— somebody said it to me, um, oh, um, yeah, classic, uh, yeah, classic overachiever, classic, um, uh, trying to fit in adoptee, classic people-pleaser.

Yeah.

They were talking about themselves, not, not, not me. And I, and I just thought Yeah, maybe, maybe not. But like, there's, there's, there's, there's genius in, in like holding our beliefs a little bit less, holding on to them a little bit less.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, and, and, but I've, I've learned that after the fact, right? I, I've learned that when when I, I talk about this, and I talk about it a lot, but 8 years after I had that thought that she didn't love me enough to, to keep me, um, the woman that I was speaking to at the time, it was just like a coach lady, she said, I don't think you're right, Simon.

Yeah.

And, and, um, rather than me saying to her, uh, How dare you invalidate what I've just said to you?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, maybe you're right.

Open. Yeah, yeah, open to the possibility.

It wasn't— I wasn't— I was kind of open. Yeah, okay, maybe. Yeah, I've never had that. I've never had that thought before. I've mentioned it to you now. Yeah, it was all done in the moment. And I'm really not trying to take, like, I'm not trying to take responsibility for being a huge open guy, right?

Sure.

I'm just saying it how it feels to me. But 8 years later, after that, when I read the letter that that proved that the teddy bear was a symbol of love, not the consolation prize I'd trashed it as, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And the tears were kind of, how could you have got it so wrong, Simon?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, this is That belief that you had was so far off the mark. Yeah, you were totally, utterly—

I don't think it's longer. I'm glad you figured that out because the probably the best thing I've ever said to my— always say is, I don't know.

It'll—

it absolves me from thinking that I'm intellectually have that much knowledge to, to have an answer. I say it a lot, I don't know. And it's true. If I don't, I don't know something, I'm open to the possibility there's something else out there. I, I don't have the answers.

Yeah.

And, and I like it that way because I don't— there's just too many possibilities in the world for For one to think, yeah, I don't. I don't know because I'm not in their shoes. And as I told you before, if you were in their shoes, wow! What a decision has to be made. Yeah, gut wrenching. Even if it's for a minute, someone carried for nine months. Very hard, very hard to to to think about, and even from a male's perspective as the father, very maybe in that moment it didn't matter to them if they were callous enough to think that way. But boy, as you get get a little bit more age, you start to wonder. I wonder what happened. At least that's how I go through life thinking about you know.

Yeah. The thing that popped into my head when you said that, the I don't know sentence, was how I used to listen to, driving to work, I used to listen to Radio 4, right? I went, so Radio 1's, BBC Radio 1 is the pop, pop's pop for young people, right? Pop channel. Radio 2, which is for more middle-aged people. Radio 3 is the classical channel. Radio 4 is news and current affairs, and it's for—

Okay.

I went straight from Radio 1 to Radio 4, and, and on, at work, at, uh, driving to, to work, because I was going the same time, I always used to hear this slot all the time where the the, uh, the reporter is trying to get the politician to say that they don't know.

Ah, yes, yes.

Or trying to, um, get to the bottom of it like a, a tenacious—

Yes.

You go at them and they go at them and they go at them, and, and a politician is not allowed to say, I don't know.

That's correct.

You mean you don't know? You'll, you'll, you, you've got—

We voted for you.

Yeah, yeah, we voted for you. We voted for your party, uh, and you're saying you don't know. Well, if you don't know, what on earth are you gonna do? You haven't got a clue. And, and like, we— it's not particularly social— socially acceptable to say.

That's correct. Yeah, yeah, it's not. But, uh, and you will even at the very beginning think it's very odd to say something like that, but it is truly freeing. Especially as a parent, I was asked questions a lot from my kids growing up and I didn't want to invent an answer that I had no answer to. That's foolish, you know. So it opened me up to saying, I don't know. I'm not lying. I'm not inventing something. I don't act like I'm superior to knowing this knowledge. I know that even, even as we're— all the listeners on this podcast are probably going, yep, they know somebody who says that nonsense all the time and has no idea. We all have people like that. And you go, oh yeah, you're just inventing something. You're saying something just to seem like you're important.

I'm thinking of, uh, How unacceptable it is at school as well, right? It's like you haven't done your homework, you know, you're gonna get—

It does.

So they ask you the question and the teacher— yeah, okay, so I'm remembering a particular example, right? So this is the first— like, you know that in England we wear uniforms at school, right?

Yes.

So, um, so we're 8 and we're, uh, the, the history teacher gets us in a lot to, to stand in a circle in the, in the classroom, um, and he asks, uh, each one of us in turn, I think this is what happened in 1552. What happened in 1552, right? And he kept on going and nobody knows. And he's making us feel Like numpties, you know. Sure. He made us feel like an idiot for doing that.

Yeah.

And then he says, look at the badge on your blazer. Right, so the blazer's the jacket and it's got the school coat of arms. Yeah. And it says something in Latin which I can't remember, and it says 1552, and that was the year that the school was founded.

Yeah.

Now, we ain't ever gonna forget that, right?

No, because it was pointed out to you. But that's a, that's a teaching moment. But when something's asked of you based on what perceived knowledge, and you act like you know this, you know, or you were wrong, you did not know. And we all know people have said that, you know, They have no idea. They're just making it up to seem like they're knowledgeable and important. It's much more freer to— freeing to say, I don't know. I'll, I'll have the answer for you, or I'll look it up or something. But the discussion kind of ends at that point. Like, hey, what do you want me to do?

Yeah.

You know, so as it relates to us as adoptees, you know, I think it's what are our feelings? They're they're they're all over the board. They're going to be all over, and I can't say that I know how everyone's feeling because I don't know either. And but I do know that walk a walk a mile in someone else's shoes, and you gain gain a better appreciation for it.

Yeah, that's what I'd get, um, especially with talking to birth mothers, actually. Especially talking to birth mothers.

Yeah.

And, uh, reading, listening to their books before I, um, if I have time, you know. Um, what something's coming back to me actually is I came up with this one, and I kind of think I've got the answer for it, but I'd love your take on it. So how can something that happened 56 years ago, right? So I'm 56 and whatever, 4 months away. How can something that happened, i.e., this relinquishment, How can something that happened 56 years ago cause how I feel now?

That's a psychological— I don't know. I think a psychologist could probably answer that one a lot better. You know, we're— we all have this Where, where did we come from? What shaped our identity? It was all little things at an earlier age— falling off a bike, running, falling— but it also gave us the ability to get back up and dust your feet off and Keep going. I know we get beaten down with life. That's a fact. And we want to, or we don't know how to bounce back. That's that's a fact for all of us, whether adopted or not. And I do believe that we we are not that much more that. I don't know. I don't. I just think we're not that much different than anyone else in the fact that life beats us down. We wonder why. We go back to figuring out what happened earlier. Then we look for some traumatic. But you can also find the, the overcoming, the achieving, the stick-to-it-ness because you wouldn't have gotten this far otherwise. I mean, there are many people that quit. And stop. But something else tells you to not do that. It's not the television, it's not the radio that's telling you to do that. There's something else inside of you that told yourself, I fell down, I got back up, I'll keep going.

Yeah.

That's, that's why life is just an absolute journey, you know. I don't, I don't know what it's gonna bring. Does take this belief system that things happen for a reason. Why is something in front of me? What am I supposed to gain from this? It happens for a reason to me. I to my maybe like for example you and I and having this relation this conversation this relationship is supposed to mean something else further down the road. Or to help one listener today with some unique, different, differing perspective. But it was supposed to happen. We were supposed to have this conversation. And so that's how I view it. But we all, myself included, man, we can all get negative really quick. Life is terrible. We can also find that there's equally as good. It's just harder to find the good. We take that for granted.

Have you heard of an author called Sydney Banks? Sid Banks? Come across him?

No.

So he was, he died The last 10 years or so, I'm not sure exactly. So he was a Scottish welder, he was an adoptee, right? And he was a Scottish welder and he moved to, he worked in a, he moved to Canada and he worked in a paper pulp mill on Salt Spring Island, which is kind of near Vancouver.

Uh-huh.

And he, he doesn't talk very much about— he never really talks a lot at all about being adopted. But he had a, he had a big shift in his, in his, his perspective. And he reckoned he was going to change the— he was— that what he saw was kind of gonna change the world. And it's changed a little bit of the world. Um, so he, he, he discovered what's— what, um, what he calls, um, what he called 3 principles. Um, and, um, so there's people that is— they're like, um, a lot, a lot of traditional shrinks.

Sure.

Took this up, um, when they found that traditional shrinking didn't work, uh, and, um, and coachy, coachy type people. And I've read a few of his books, but, um, his answer to the question, why does something happen, why does something that happened in the past affect how we feel now, is, is what he would call the principle of thought. So our thinking in the moment creates our feeling in the moment and they're like 2 sides of the same coin.

Sure. I mean, get asked a question today when you don't feel good, your answer won't be rosy.

Yeah.

You know, and that's why some of those interviews are skewed when they're trying to get a psychological evaluation evaluation of like maybe your love language. And well, those questions are to gather whether or not you are, you know, encouraged by touch or words of affirmation. But it depends on the feeling you have at that particular moment when you're asked those questions.

Yeah.

So, yeah, they're skewed.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I concur there, man. You know, we need to be in a good, good state of mind to, to go forth.

Yeah, and, and you can look, um, and you can look back. So, you know, I, I say this, I don't know if I've said it on there actually on an interview, um, itself, but I do say it to other adoptees. Yeah, I say, well, I, um, the, the teddy bear stuff Started, uh, it started my, my journey of self-discovery. Or absolutely, if I'm in a good mood, or I, or, or I call it a midlife crisis if I'm in a bad mood, right?

No question.

It, it, it, it, it is all about the, uh, the lens that we're currently—

No, no question.

Looking through our, our level of consciousness.

And I think everybody that's listening will totally agree on that. It is all about how we feel in the moment. So do yourselves a favor, you know, try to exercise and get all the good feelings that you possibly, all the endorphins you can get out to build armor throughout the day. Easier said than done, Simon.

Indeed. So I'm conscious of time. Is there something that that you'd like to share that I've not?

No, you know, I'm in the midst of writing, of completing my book, you know, on this journey of discovery that I had. And once I'm completed that, it's just my own journey, you know, it's not for everyone. And But I think people can take a bit of understanding knowing that it's a needle in a haystack. Don't quit, keep going, search. What you will become from it will enrich your life if you're willing to hear, you know, positive and negative. But just having that end conclusion as some people do, just wanting to have this relationship with a mother or a father and think it's all gonna go rosy. I can't say that that's gonna happen, you know, so, but who you become along the way is a lot better. And that's really about the coach's perspective also. The teams that are there in the Premier League where you're at, you know, they're trying to reach the pinnacle of winning the championship.

Yeah.

But who you become along the way, that's what they remember. That journey— there are a million games up that lead up to that. That's what they remember. That, and that's what adoptees here on this podcast will remember. Just who you're going to become, what you're going to discover along this journey is going to enrich your life more than perhaps just knowing who your mom and dad were.

Yeah, because you've got a book already, haven't you?

I do, but it wasn't based on this, you know, it was Take Your Shot, Make Your Play. It was more of a coach's perspective, you know, just never quitting, give, you know, keep going kind of thing. But this second one is the story of that search for family, you know.

So So, are you gonna self-publish that? Are you gonna, have you got a publisher or what's this?

I don't have a publisher yet. I would love to have a publisher take a look at it. I just don't have the reason. I don't know anybody, to be honest. I mean, I would love someone to take a look at it because it's my, it's just a different story. There are people, I was on a plane once and I told a short story of it, you know, segment to a 30-year-old next to me and a 70-year-old lady next to me, and both start crying because they're coming from that same perspective of like, wow, that, that quest to go find somebody is enormous. I myself loved to always hear those stories, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. So if you or any of your, of your guests there know, know of a publisher, by all means, tell them. I would welcome them to review it.

Thanks, buddy. And thank you, listeners. We will speak to you very soon. Yeah, just before I do that, actually, on Saturday we did a webinar with an adoptive mom who runs a publishing company.

Oh, wonderful.

It's called Grace Point Publishing. Right.

So wonderful.

I'm gonna— there's a— I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to the webinar we did. We did the webinar about selling your book, but she would be a great lady to speak to. Sure. So I'll chat a little bit more after we finish this off, but thank you very much, listeners. Thanks for listening, and thank you to John, um, I'm gonna really remember the stick-to-it-ness, right? Stick-to-it-ness. I, I, I love that.

Good.

Thank you, listeners. We'll speak to you very soon. Cheers.

Thank you, everybody.