How To Use Your Pain To ACHIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE | Dean Hall

During the Willamette Swim, I would stop. I had to stop every 30 to 45 minutes, get out on the riverbank because I was going into deep core throttle. Hypothermia, where you get so cold that the shivers become pretty violent and you can feel your internal organs banging against your ribcage.

Welcome to Stuck to Unstoppable, where we interview the world's foremost thought leaders to break things down in order to help you get past your hurts and habits and hangups and finally level up and move forward. I'm your host, Stephen Scoggins. Now let's go ahead and get into today's guest and our featured conversation. You're not going to want to miss it. Welcome back to the Journey Principles. As always, we are here to take you from Stuck to Unstoppable with live strategies at work. And today's guest can teach us a lot about that. His name is Dean hall and he's a world renowned long distance swimmer that actually did so while battling cancer. He's also the first person to ever actually swim the entire Wimlett river in Oregon. To top that, he also swam the Shannon in Ireland. And if that wasn't enough, he also lost his soulmate of 30 years just before the wedding anniversary. He lives and breathes his own battle cry. And that is when ordinary people commit to doing the extraordinary thing, all of a sudden, the impossible becomes possible. Everybody help me welcome Dean Hall. Hey, Dean. How you doing, my friend?

So much. It's so exciting. I probably don't have the time to tell you, but thank you for having me on, Stephen.

Yeah, no, it's been sincere pleasure. You know, we've, we've managed to connect with one of our mutual friends, Bo, and he's been, he's been really good about making sure that, you know, the people that we're bringing on the show now are people that have actually done the work. You know, they've taken the time to really dig deep. If you don't mind, like just kind of share some of your backstory about, you know, how you've got a long distance swimming and then. And then kind of tell us about the cancer battle and your, maybe your, maybe your battle with your losing your wife.

Okay. Yeah. I grew up in Oregon, the son of two mountain climbers. Back in the 60s, it was, for me, you listen to my brother and sister and their childhood wasn't nearly as good as mine.

Because they didn't really love the outdoors. And most of our summers were spent hiking and climbing in the Cascades before it had really been truly discovered and climbed the largest mountain by the time I was 10. Climbed almost every one of the Cascades and many of the Sierras. And so it was. It was just the life of a wild adventure, which for a boy, especially a boy like I was, it was probably the best childhood ever. Yeah. And so didn't think I'd ever leave Oregon except to go climb other mountains. But then I really got into soccer, and I. I saw a guy, an old guy wearing a T shirt the other day that says, the older I get, the better I was. Which pretty. Pretty much explains my soccer career.

What position did you play?

I played sweeper. Okay. I was the brute. Yeah. Yeah. The world's really changed. My one team that won regionals and did really well in nationals, we used to chant mud and blood.

It was before things were politically correct.

Yeah. So you've always had. You've always had grit and tenacity already built in you then.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. Or just insanity. I'm not sure. But I had several soccer scholarships to play all around the US and faith has always been very important to me. And I thought, first year, who really cares? And I've always been kind of history nut. I love documentaries and just. I guess I was a nerd and didn't know it. I would just pour over all sorts of time. Life books about the Civil War, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

And I had one scholarship to play at a little tiny Bible college in Kansas. Okay. And I thought, okay, church camp was fun. I'll go for a year. And little did I know I'd meet a cute little Kansas farm girl and. Yeah. And put myself in exile for love. And if you've ever been to Kansas, you know, it's exile.

But the one thing I'd always wanted, my real big dream. And this sounds kind of pathetic, and I never shared it with any of my buddies because it sounded, I don't know, maybe a little too wholesome. I don't. I don't know. But my mom and dad had this great marriage. They'd adventure together, they climb together. They liked each other. Every day when my dad would come home, he chased my mom around the kitchen. And I remember one time When I was 10, we were walking down a trail, and he was flirting with her and chasing her down the trail, and she was screaming and laughing. I thought, you know, that's what I want.

Yeah.

And so when I found Mary was her name, we were just such good friends and we really understood each other and had a good Time. And so for 30 years, that's what we did. Yeah. And she did. The one thing she did say is, you know, you came out here. I'm not going back to Oregon. Just.

She was really close to her family. And so I thought about it for a while and I thought, you know, Oregon is in Oregon without Mary. So. Yeah. So I built a life there and. In a tiny little town of 13,000. And so even after she died, I taught there for 20 years as a middle school art teacher. Okay. Which was a good gig. Yeah. Except for the pay. And I called it the most practical form of youth ministry. And. And then I'd been a therapist there as well. I kind of built my practice as I taught during the day. And even after she died, I'd been there for 30 years, people didn't call me by name. I was Mary's husband.

I guess that tells you how important she was to the economy. That's for sure.

That, and it's kind of small town stuff. You know, I was a west coast guy even 30 years later. Yeah. So. Yeah. And so unbeknownst to me, that's what my adult identity really was, is being Mary's husband. And so.

She was diagnosed almost. What's the date today? September 2, 2010. This is almost the ten year anniversary.

Oh, wow.

And.

We went to world's number three brain surgeon up in Kansas City and he looked at the film and he looked at me, he's like, yeah, there's. We got. There's nothing we can do. Like, it's the largest brain tumor I've ever seen. It's way back where we really can't get to it, even with laser guided surgery.

Yeah. And does she have symptoms going into that?

I mean, no, not really. You know, I'd had several people back there. I think the water table was polluted. And then, you know, they'd sprayed so much DDT because it was a little rural farming community. One of her favorite stories was for her uncle, she would hold the flags without a face mask or anything for the crop dusters to come over.

Oh, my gosh.

You know, we always thought it was a funny story until she got brain cancer. But no, she wasn't dizzy. She didn't have frightening headaches. She got pneumonia this summer before she got sick. And so even the tiredness and stuff that we did see, we just thought it was her recovering from pneumonia.

Yeah.

And by the time it was diagnosed, her face had fallen. And at first they thought she had something called Meniere's disease.

Yeah.

But It. Something was wrong, and I could tell it. She was losing her power of speech. Her speech started becoming garbled, and by the time all that came about, it was. We were pretty much done for. And then 52 days later, she. She was dead. Yeah.

That's a world, Rena. And, you know, it's. I've been. My wife actually struggles with a chronic illness called endometriosis at a very deep level. So Mary.

Mary had that as well. Oh, did she? Okay. Yeah.

So, I mean, very deep level. And, you know, one of the things I've learned about the disease, that particular.

Just.

I guess we call it a disease because.

Yeah.

Incurable, currently, is that it can go anywhere and everybody. Everywhere in the body. The only place it hasn't been yet, the spleen. For some reason, it's. The spleen is resistant to it, and no one really knows why. I'm thinking to myself, well, maybe that's where the scientific study should be. Yeah, kind of doing. You know, and she also struggled. My wife actually struggles now with constant migraines and things of that nature.

Really.

I've been asking her and begging her, can you please go get an mri? Just go get it checked out. Maybe. Maybe it's nothing. Whatever. But at least. Let's at least figure out what's going on.

Exactly.

Because, you know, my wife and I met. She was already in. She was. Had done some modeling stuff with one of her friends, a French man named by the name of Pascal.

Right away.

Yeah, he's a trip dude.

He's.

He actually lives in our area. He's a trip. And, you know, so she was in that zone. She was a avid runner, stuff like that. And then, you know, now, unfortunately, endometriosis and the adhesions and everything that's going with that, you know, she. A lot of times has a hard time walking, you know, for extended periods of time. So if we go for a walk in the neighborhood, she's on a scooter.

Oh, man.

You know, and she's three years younger than I am.

Wow.

And, you know, so she's had a full hysterectomy and been through all this different trauma. And, you know, one of the things I was asked. I forgot who it was. Actually, it might have been my wife that asked me. She goes, why are you. Why are you still with me? Why. Why are you still here? Like, I don't. I don't understand. Like, I. There's not much I can give you. I said, will you give me more than everything?

Right?

You are my best Friend.

Wow. Right?

You challenge me when I need to be challenged.

And you.

And you shine my armor when I need my armor shined. You know, you stand beside me when. When nobody else will, and you fight for me when nobody else will kind of deal, you know, and so, you know, I personally have a very beautiful appreciation for a marriage that is. That is powerful, you know, meaning it's true.

Stephen. As a marriage therapist, I spent 31 years listening to people, and this is going to make me sound OCD, but I had to have 2000 face to face hours to sit for my license. Once they got me, you know, old jock, once they got me accounting, I never stopped. And this year, I'll pass 60,000.

Oh, gosh.

It's only been a handful of times that I've gotten to hear a man say that about his wife. So thank you for that gift you just gave me. Well, one of.

Yeah, Amen. Well, one of the things I'm thinking that maybe we can encourage, both. Encourage the audience to do is to do that legwork to create the best friend environment, right? You know, we all kind of get started, we fall in love, and we're ready to kind of dig deep and, you know, romance, and we're gonna travel the world and do amazing things. And some of those things may be true. One of the things that I've even told my daughter, of course, all of my kids are. I wouldn't call them adopted. My boys are. Came from my wife. And then we adopted a Single waitress about 4 years ago who was pregnant at the time. So technically, I got my grandfather as well, which is kind of strange. I'm Pops, and maybe. Maybe I'll go granddaddy when, you know, I get a little older. But one of the things that I told her early on was because she kind of grew up like I did, in an impoverished background, off and on, you know, we had, you know, kind of like the rugs pulled out from under. Things are going, well, the rug gets pulled out from money kind of deal. And we were going through all that, and she said she kept attracting the wrong people. And that's something I used to struggle with. And I said, well, have you made your list yet? And she's like, make your list. I said, make your list. So, you know, so I said, make the list of the person that you think you want to marry. Okay? So she goes and she goes and does her list. She brings it back to me. Of course, it's like, you know, tall, dark, and handsome, and, you know, drives a nice car and Provider. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. That stuff goes at the bottom of the list.

Right.

What goes at the top of the list is the character traits. What are the character traits of this person? Who are they at their core? Are they honest? Are they loyal? Are they loving?

Right.

Let's look at their first. And, you know, sure enough, she started, like, really kind of having the aha moment. And I didn't meet my wife Karen, until I made my list. And I was like, in my late 30s when I made my list.

Really.

So. Yeah. So I think one of the ways that you lay the foundation for that best friend, if you will, and that. That person who really is the love of your life, regardless if it's 10 years or 20 years or 50 years, is actually creating that environment and then asking yourself one question, which is, who do I need to be to attract this kind of person?

Right, right. You know, and yeah, I'm so glad you brought up the list, because as a therapist for the last 20 years, I found out about the list in the early 2000s, late 90s, and every person that's actually made a list and then stuck to it.

Yeah.

And I tell everybody if you make a list, they've got to be 100% of that list or more.

Yep.

Don't say settle. Everyone I've ever seen not settle.

Life just blesses them, and they end up with this wonderful mate. Not a perfect mate. None of us are perfect.

She challenges me.

She challenges me from time to time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And long. About four or five years after my wife died, I thought, you know, I thought I'd had a good run. I did. I thought I was done forever, but I'm. I guess I'm still alive. I would like to enjoy that again with a different person. So I made a list. Yeah. And it took about a year. But after a year of visualizing and praying over this list and for this person, my beautiful Bobby, my new wife came along. She's like. Yours was a fitness model and a yoga inspector and personal trainer and. Yeah, everything on my list. And then a lot of things. Yeah.

My wife Karen was like, like 110% of my list, which is funny, because here's. I think. Here's what I know. We're. I'm talking about a couple other things in a second. There's so much. You're so deep. So much. There's so much knowledge there. I want to tap into it. One of the things that I did, just the person I dated just before my wife was 75% of my list.

Yeah.

And I was like, well, they're not that bad. You know, telling the truth is not that important. You know, maybe not sleeping around is not that important. You know, kind of thing, you know, kind of deal. And there is definite truth to not settling. And I think the thing that prevents. Keeps people settling for ordinary. Right. And I know you're all about the extraordinary.

Right.

Is the fact that they don't want to be alone. It's a loneliness.

Right.

Not realizing if they'll be patient, put in the work on themselves. Right. Create that list and like, really hold themselves account. By the way, here's something you don't do, because I did this once. Don't share the list with the person you're dating. Wait it out. Share the list right after they've checked all the boxes.

I didn't even. I didn't even tell Bobby about the list until maybe a couple months before we were married. Yeah.

I made my, you know, I'm a.

Go ahead.

I was gonna say I'm a task guy. So I made mine in like a checkbox format. I come to find out that my wife had actually made her list. But it was very artistically driven.

Like.

You know, loving and considerate and, you know, good father.

Rainbows. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I went on several dates and during those dates had my list in mind. And if, of course, I tried not to be too obvious, but I was going through. And if as soon as I saw they weren't everything on the list, moved them to the friend zone, politely didn't tell him, of course. But I think that's super important to not go into it. As soon as, you know the person's not everything on your list, know there's somebody else there for you. With 7 billion people on the planet, there's gotta be.

Yeah. And there's a high likelihood.

Yeah, yeah. So you just keep moving forward and. And don't try to talk yourself into making the list fit that person. Right. Yeah.

And then don't let your age or anything like that kind of dictated as well. I think that's a big thing because I unfortunately didn't do. Do it well the first time and got married early on to somebody that my entire family, all of my friends, my grandfather, who's my spiritual advisor, if you will, all said, no.

No, maybe.

You know, and then, you know, I'm a man of faith, so I'm praying to God. I'm like, I don't, you know, I don't understand why this isn't working out. And he's like, well, you didn't listen.

Yeah, yeah, Boat.

I sent you a helicopter. You didn't get off, you drowned kind of thing. So, anyway, well, look, I want to get into something else I think is pretty powerful. What made you decide to. And this is one of the things I really want to. I want to dig into, deep into, is what made you decide to take on the extreme swimming while battling cancer? I mean, I understand it. I understand it from a. From a place that's something you're naturally. You were naturally gifted and good at and all that kind of stuff. Passionate about. But it takes a special kind of security in your identity to kind of. To own that, to go after that. What. How did that come about?

Yeah, I. My wife died in 2010.

Kansas. Without the cute little Kansas girl. Especially in this small town. Every brick, every stone, every tree. There weren't that many.

Every piece of wheat, there we go, had Mary on it, and.

I just wanted to come home. And so I came home thinking I'd kind of pick up where I left off. And that was crazy. And I'd had a booming business, clinical practice. I made the decision to give that up so I could come home thinking I'd just start one up. And that wasn't working. So by 2013, the grief was so intense and so overwhelming that I was, for the first time in my life, really felt lost and really didn't care about life. And my daughter was going into her senior year in high school, October of her senior years, when her mama died. And now she was 21, and literally, I was dying. I was down to 158 pounds. I was skeletal. Biggest thing on me were my lymph nodes under my jawline. And then I had what my oncologist called, lovingly, my hockey puck. My right armpit. Couldn't really even put my right arm down. I knew I was in trouble. And.

Many times in therapy, I'd seen people come back if they were able to give themselves passionately to some kind of purpose.

Okay.

I found through the scores of people that I'd seen come back to life, it really didn't matter what that purpose was. It could be something as silly as knitting. If they loved knitting, it bring them back to life, especially if they had a big dream with it. And so for weeks, I would pray and ask for something, and it made sense to build another business. It made sense to do all sorts of responsible things, but none of them really just struck my heart. And I was waiting for that lightning strike.

And so finally, I Was about ready to give up again because two, three weeks, nothing and no answers. And I looked around this dark little duplex and for the first time Since I was 24, I was renting. Yeah, how did. How did I end up here? And so I thought, well, you know, while I'm waiting for God to speak, I might as well clean up my house and maybe decorate it. And I. First time in my life, I've got the chance to hang up ice axes, make it a real man cave. I started unpacking and hanging ice axes and doing really what I thought was cool stuff, which now I learned wasn't, but.

And I found a journal that I was forced to keep when I was in sixth grade, when I was 11 years old. And because what 11 year old boy wants to keep a journal, right? And I thought, well, let's see what the 11 year old Dean had to say. And front page, it said, when I get old, I gotta. Not even. I've got to.

Climb Mount Everest, swim the English Channel. And I'm like, yeah, okay. And it was just that lightning strike. And I thought, wait a minute, I'm down to £159. I've got no energy, my immune system's wrecked. I probably can't climb Everest because of the elevation, but I can swim the English Channel.

I don't know why I thought I could.

Well, no, I didn't swim the English Channel.

Called up one of my best friends who's a gifted physician, and told him what I was going to do. I was really excited, expected him. He'd always been my cheerleader through this time. And he said, dean, absolutely not. You get in a poor pool, a public pool, it could kill you. You don't have an immune system. I'm like, what am I gonna do? Die watching Wheel of Fortune? I'm not gonna go out that way. And so I got in the pool, not even thinking I was gambling my life. But as soon as I kicked off from the wall, because all through the 80s and 90s, I did triathlon. So I've been kind of a pool rat. Yeah. And it. It was the first time in four years I felt like myself.

Yeah, that's good.

And it took me. I was in such a bad state. I decided to do 10 laps.

And it took me over an hour. And then me being me, I thought, okay, I did 10, but can I do 11?

Okay.

So I did my 11th and I got out and I was absolutely exhausted, but it felt good. So every day I try to swim one more lap and right Around Christmas, January, I was getting out of the pool. All my numbers went in the right direction. I was starting to build muscle again, feel like myself. And.

Thought occurred to me, who cares if another middle aged man puts on a skin Speedo and swims to France?

First of all, you're brave to put on a Speedo.

Yeah, well, I wasn't going to, but this is the pool and it does the world no good. And so I thought, okay, I can do this and do the world some good. And in 1984, I'd been out here in Portland for a triathlon. And the Willamette river is Oregon's longest river. It's 187 miles long. It goes through our state capital, and then it goes through Portland, our largest city. And then it dumps into the Columbia. It has all of Oregon history, which of course is important to me, embedded into it. It was the river of commerce. It's where all the earliest settlements in Portland was built. I was born only four blocks from it, and growing up, it was just really polluted. But in the 70s, Oregon did a really good job of being ahead of the environmental act and cleaning it up. By 1984, it was blue and healthy, and there was all sorts of wildlife. This river that I'd always known had really sprung back to life. And I was standing over it at a family picnic after this triathlon, and I said to my adventurer, marathon runner father, hey, has anybody ever swam this whole thing? Yeah. He's like, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard come up with these crazy ideas. Well, when he said that, it kind of set the hook. I thought, okay, I gotta do it. So I started planning to swim the willamette river in 1984. Then I went home to Mary, and she's like, you're gonna do what? I'm gonna swim the whole river. How long is it gonna take you? Probably three or four weeks. Yeah, we're saving money to buy a house. Dean, who's gonna pay for this? Oh, I don't know. Well, you're gonna take four weeks off to swim a river? Why? I don't know.

That's like the conversations I have with Karen.

So I took her as the voice of reason. And I probably wasn't ready to accomplish this dream. But one of the things that I realized in this journey is dreams do not have a timestamp if they're set, and they really grab you many times. And I've seen this with many of my clients, the dream will come back, and it Did I thought, oh, my gosh, the Willamette is still there. It's looking beautiful. 187 miles is a lot farther than 21, and nobody's done it.

Yeah.

And so I thought, this is what I'm gonna do, and I'm going to do it while I'm still an active cancer patient to inspire other cancer patients not to give up and even start thinking in a limitless way. Because I still didn't know how I was gonna do it, Stephen.

But I knew. The one thing I have that my family members will tell you is I'm probably the most stubborn guy you'll ever meet.

I think you have to have that. That to be resilient to begin with, because I'm pretty stubborn myself.

Are ya? Yeah. Yeah. And that was about the only trait that hadn't been stripped away from me. Everything else seemed like it had been taken away, and that was still there. And one of the things after my first wife died that I promised myself is if I ever get in another relationship, I would not allow that stubbornness to work against my best friend and new partner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can use it for good. Yeah. And. And so I just thought, I'm gonna do this. And one of the things I've learned is when you start a dream, if it's the right dream, I think it's got to be equally exciting and terrifying. If it's not terrifying, it's not big enough. And this. This scared me. But I really had nothing to lose. I was. I was dying anyway. I was pretty sure this was going to be my last act on earth, and why not go out swinging for the fence? And I thought, even if I died during the swim, my daughter will see me act courageously and live courageously. And her mom died on our couch. Luckily, we got to keep her at home. But I thought, I don't want to see. I don't want her to see your second parent die on a couch. Yeah. My biggest fear, I thought, even if I die mid swim, I died trying.

Yeah.

So I really had nothing to lose.

Well, I want to anchor there for just a second, because that's one of the things that. So I had a conversation recently. There's as. There's a lot of great momentum that's beginning to happen with what we're trying to accomplish as well. And I was actually asked recently. They said, you know, what do you think the defining moment was? What do you think the defining moment was? You know, when. When you were looking at facing suicide and all that kind of stuff I said, you know what? I think the defining moment came down to one, really one choice, and that's if I'm going down, I'm going down fighting.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm hearing you say. I got a whole list of notes I'm taking, by the way. But that's. That's one of the huge takeaways I think everybody needs to understand is, I mean, no matter what the adversity is, maybe you lost your job with COVID and it's a really big deal. Maybe you have lost someone you love close to you.

Maybe you're battling cancer or some chronic illness right now. Maybe there's all these different maybes that could be coming at you at a big deal in a big way. But one of the things that I see by people who are able to turn the ordinary into extraordinary, the one common trait they always have, the one common thing is they always are willing to go down swinging.

Right.

They're willing to take the risk and the gamble.

Right.

I just wanted to really kind of anchor in there for just a second because, you know, I want to hear, actually before I. Before I say the next thing, I want to actually hear your thoughts on this. Do you think that is something that we all have inside of us, or do you think that is something that.

Nope. I think it's a natural human instinct. You know, as I've watched people over the years, everybody's got their own style. It might not be like yours and mine, where we just grit our teeth, hunkered down, and stubbornly take the next step and kind of. Yeah, are, you know, looking at the world like, take that. It might not be like that at all. It might be hopefully a lot more graceful.

But everybody's got their own variety. But that will to live and that instinct to keep moving forward is in all of us. We just have to find a way to access that.

Well, how do you. How do you think people can activate it? I mean, you know, I was. When I was talking to these folks, I was mentioning before, we were talking about a future book and some other things, and when we were talking through these different things, they were like, well, what's the process? What's the plan? How do you do it? I'm like, I don't. I just. I just decided.

Right, right.

I just decided in the moment, you know, but, you know, if we've got listeners out there that are. That are maybe on the fence of trying to decide and they want to decide, but they're not sure how to decide, like, what kind of, what kind of things are you? Have you. Have you. Well, maybe the question is, is have you been able to identify things that can turn that, turn that activation on, like a, like almost like a light switch?

Yeah. First is the decision.

You just, you know, you're not going to know everything. And you, you. I didn't know even what was going to be that lightning strike. But there is a secret weapon. In 2000, early 2000s, right around 2005, the Brain Research came out that the brain, by its very nature, cannot ignore a quench.

Yep.

Everything in our life, if you do the math. You know, cognitive behavioral therapy is everything starts with the thought, which leads to a belief and an emotion, then leads to an action. But before the thought, the thought is actually an answer to questions or a question you've been asking. So the bedrock of even the thought, the question that you've been asking. And so what I try to get people to do and what I did was just ask and intensely, almost like what a lot of people don't know is when you're trying to remember somebody's name or some trivial thing, fact, and you can't remember it, and you concentrate and then you just let it go. And an hour later, bing. Yeah. What they don't realize is that works for the deepest questions of your life as well. And so, like I was telling you, for weeks, I, several times a day, prayerfully would hunker down and just, what am I supposed to do? What's the next step? What would light my life on fire? Those were questions rather than for four years I'd been asking, why me? Why did this have to happen? How. How much does my life suck?

And I got answers to those questions, thousands of them, but that wasn't helpful. And so one thing that everyone can do is just very, with all their heart and mind, just stop and ask, what would light my life on fire? Or a question of their choosing. Like that. And then I think the magic question, it starts with the word how. Okay, how. How am I going to do this? Or a lot of people get caught up in 50 steps, and then they get bogged down. I'm a real big believer in just asking, what's the next step? And even with people deeply suicidal, if I ask them that, what's the next step? Even people just tormented by life, everyone always knows what the next step is. They might not know what step two is, but they always know what the next step is. So I think that is one of the takeaways your listeners can have that. I've seen work with all different ages, backgrounds, gender.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's interesting there because, you know, you have the decision. You know, you. You know, ironically, I didn't know there was research behind this, but I have said from stage before, if you want a better answer, ask better questions. Stop saying, why me? Say, start saying, how can I do this kind of thing? That's so cool.

I'm pretty sure we were twins, separated at birth.

Yeah, right. Although you end up with the hair.

But you were really the cute, smart twin.

All right, enough of the flatteries.

No, but, you know, when you look at that, here's one of the things that I've kind of picked up on this is. And I love the question that you had, which is, you know, what would light my life on fire? I love that question. I love that question. Because of a couple things. I think in a moment, your brain is going to give you two or three or five things to give you something to fight for.

Right?

Right. It gives you the greedy thing to kind of go after. You know, on top of that, I also think it brings clarity to where there's confusion, you know, and, you know, one of the things that I, That I see, that keeps most people stuck in place, meaning they're simply not making progress. Right. They're just spinning their wheels. You and I both, you've already mentioned, hey, you went through a loss phase. And most people, and including myself, when I was in that phase myself, think that, that, that, that that phase is eternity.

Right.

Not realize. Yeah, it does for sure. And we want to take away from that at all. But, you know, it comes down to seasons. Like, it's a season.

Right.

You know, and the only thing that gets you out of the season is the quality of the question.

Right. Well said.

You know, and so I love that. And you know, because here's. Here's the other thing I like about it. It comes down to risk.

Right.

You know, so the entrepreneurship space, I'm in the business space on a few companies now. Very blessed that way. There's. You're always looking at before you make a decision, hey, what are the opportunities? What are the threats? A typical SWOT analysis kind of thing. Right. So you're going through all that. Well, the. Life's the same thing. Life's the same way. In order to get some of the biggest rewards, you got to take some of the biggest risk. Because one of the things that you did or that you bumped into or uncovered or accidentally uncovered or whatever, one of the byproducts of you putting yourself in these cold water environments was what?

Yeah, total return to health. And this I didn't know anything about. I started studying a field called ecopsychology, about how nature heals not only trauma and psychological emotional disorders, but physically. But I'd never heard of Wim Hof, never heard of cold water immersion. Hadn't heard of a guy named Wallace J. Nichols, and he wrote a best seller called Blue Mind. Didn't know any of that until I was giving speeches after. But let me circle back around just real quickly. One of the things I want to tell your listeners, because it's really important, is that once I came up with the answer that lit my life on fire. When you have a big dream, I don't know if any of you as listeners have tried to light a campfire in Oregon where all the wood is wet.

And that's what the bigger the dream at first, the more lonely those first days are and the more even your good friends and family may try to talk you out of this. When I told my I thought my adventure parents would be thrilled and they were aghast. And they spent months trying to talk me out of this thing. So at first, even when you get the answer, it's going to start slowly. And that's really important to remember.

It is. It is. You know, it's funny. It's funny. I think we might be brothers from another mother kind of thing. I just, I just really. My very first business, the one that I started when I was homeless, the very, very first one.

Was one that I started on a job site taking tool or taking scaffolding out of the trash piles to build. Now when I made the decision and I shook the guy's hand to give me a shot or an opportunity, my father, who was on the site with me because I was working for him at the time, where he was working for him at the time.

Immediately try to talk me out of it, really. And here's, here's the defining factor in that particular moment. I'd had like a divine encounter a couple weeks earlier, but that kind of plays into that I'll share from stage from time to time. But one of the things I defined in there is I knew it was the thing, the fire, if you will, because it wouldn't stop burning in my belly. What shut my father up in the moment was basically me yelling, said, I don't know why I have to do this. I just do.

You don't understand. I've got to do this. And that you know, it was funny because, you know, not grew up a little bit without my dad quite, you know, early part of my life. And I'll never forget this. He's the one that opened the door, this beat up van, started pulling tools out and he said, alright, this is something you have to do. Go start pulling lumber out of the trash box. We got scaffolding to build.

Wow.

You know, I think there's, there's so many hidden truths in life. I think if we're open to it, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, there is truth in becoming resourceful, which all being resourceful is looking around what's inside of you, what's around you. Just look at that stuff objectively and say, how can I use some of it?

Right, right.

You know, so I do, I love that, I love the way you took that back. I really do. Because I think it is important there is a moment where that fire has to withstand anything else in front of it.

And then you've got to stoke the fire daily. Yeah, know I was sick. It was insanely hard to talk myself to getting to the pool every day. And once I really started getting in good shape and started ramping up because I knew I was going to have to swim 10 to 12 miles a day. And that doesn't sound like much, but a marathon in Ironman triathlons is 2.6 miles.

Oh gosh.

Okay. So we're talking three to five marathons a day. And I had leukemia and lymphoma and so a lot of people, if you don't know about leukemia, depresses your immune system and zaps your energy. One of my oncologists called it mono on crack.

And that's how I felt. Sometimes you just felt like you were going in slow motion. So to get myself to the pool and then to do 120 laps and the hard, that was probably the hardest part of the journey because it was before I ever stepped in the river and found out how beautiful and wild it was to swim in a river like that. I'm just slogging out these miles and it was almost mind bending to say lap number one. 118 to go.

Yeah.

Lap number two. 117 to go. Yeah.

But there's, there's so much, there's so much power in that. You know, one of the things that we, we teach here during the life mastery process, when we, when Covid is not around, we have our three day live event. We come here and do A commercial thing.

Wow.

One of the things that we do is we teach people how to walk out with a. Basically a plan for the next 18 months of their life. Because once you got to do it once, you can do it over and over again.

Right, exactly.

And one of the things that we do is we say, hey, you know, from this is my opinion, I said, don't set goals, set outcomes. You know, you already had an outcome, you already knew what you wanted to do. You already, yes, you had things in front of you, yes, you had adversity, yes, you had to consider different ways of doing things. But most people, one of the reasons they never achieve their outcomes and some would call it goals, is because they don't break it down into micro wins. You know, you didn't go jump right in the lake. You know, you're like, look, let me, let me get mile one in. Okay, that's my. All right, I got that. Let's do two. Okay, I got that. You know, when within a short amount of time you were over a hundred, a hundred laps in, you know, and then that prepares you for the ultimate outcome. And I think people want to rush to the outcome. They want to get to the end as quick as they can get there. Not realizing the steps or the laps or the push ups or whatever you want to put into it. Not realizing what, whatever you put into it is actually building the muscle memory and the cognitive memory that you need to actually do the very thing you want to do.

And the emotional strength, the grit, you've got to build the internal fire and that, that belly.

Because one of my favorite quotes is by Von Kennard, the guy that started Patagonia, he says it's not an adventure until something goes wrong.

And things go wrong all the time. And what I've seen is people will have two or three disappointments in a row and they'll just cash in their chips, they'll be up, Don, this wasn't meant to be. You were meant to get tougher. And this was there as a stepping stone for you to build the emotional muscle that you need to handle the big thing.

Yeah, I mean, if you look at movies today, I mean, well, movies today, I guess movies that they used to record out there sounded like me. Yeah. But you know, movies today, if you look at movies, if you look at any story, if you look at anything in the Bible, which is obviously one of the oldest books on the planet.

Right, right.

There's always, I think, what a Greek philosopher came. I got. This is a brain fart for me, So I may not get this right, but essentially there is always a hero's journey. And in the hero's journey, there's always the first step and there's always a subsequent steps that teach you more about yourself that you didn't know. So you can take on the fiery dragon or whatever that thing is kind of scenario. And I have yet to see any time that anyone who's actually trying to get. Get lasting breakthrough or transformation or whatever in their life didn't go all the way through the process and started all over again.

Yeah, that would be really good for your listeners. There's guy named Joseph Campbell that noticed this storyline in all the world's religions and all their big old stories.

Yeah.

And he's the one that came up with that phrase, hero's journey. And all they have to do is Google hero's journey and they'll, they'll see the steps. And if they know, sometimes it's best not to know what's before you, but at least they'll know it's not going to be proven pretty all the time. And it's not going to be easy. And it's not supposed to be.

Well, you know, because if it's easy, it's not effective in many respects. And I think we, we've. We've gotten to this place where everybody wants it now and they want it easy. And that's a culture thing that I'm. That I'm hoping that listeners are getting from us that it doesn't work that way.

No.

If you're going to do something meaningful, if you're going to do something you can be passionate about, if you're going to have a big moment, a legacy that outlives you, it's going to be hard at first, and it gets easier over time as you sharpen your skills. Was it Michelangelo back in the day had the big marble saying, you know, it's not a slab of marble, it's an angel. I'm just trying to set it free.

Right. I love that. That's one of my favorite quotes. And one of the things. Yeah, it really is. One of the things that is important for people to remember as well is especially what I did swimming 10 to 12 miles a day. I tell people when I go to speak, imagine.

Running for eight to 10 hours. Would that be hard? Okay, now imagine crawling for eight to 10 hours. Would that be hard? Now imagine somebody with the fire hose with ice water spraying it in your face for eight to 10 hours while you crawl forward. Would that be hard? And that's that's kind.

I've already decided to do something else.

Well, and one of the things, Stephen, that I always tell myself, I. During the Willamette Swim, I would stop. I had to stop every 30 to 45 minutes, get out on the riverbank, because I was going into deep core throttle. Hypothermia, where you get so cold that the shivers become pretty violent and you can feel your internal organs banging against your rib cage. I have to get out because. And my mind would start going numb. I'd start slurring my speech.

Yeah.

And so I knew it was time for me to get out because I had a. In order to do what I do, you have to have a guide boater in front of you. And the coolest thing. You know, if you go for your dreams, not only will you accomplish them, but you'll get gifts that are way better than what you thought the outcome was going to be. And one of the greatest gifts is, like, you finally. My dad was like, no, no, no. He's like, wow, you're serious. I'm in. And he helped me plan this whole thing. But then he decided we were having a hard time setting up guide boaters because this thing was going to last for weeks at a time. He's like, well, why don't I be the guide boater? And I'm like, dad, so good. You've never been in a kayak. He's like, that's fine. I'm like, dad, you're 79. He's like, I can do this. And he's like, nobody knows you better than I do. And I'm like, well, you got. You got me there. And So I got 22 days, 24, 7 with my dad. And what a gift that was.

Yeah.

He would watch me, and he'd talk to me, and when I'd start slurring, he'd get me out. And get this. I may have swum a couple miles by then, you know, almost a marathon. I'd get out on the riverbank, have to do jumping jacks and burpees and things, and run in place.

I'm starting to hear a trend where you're gonna start teaching the Navy SEALs something.

Yeah. Yeah. No, those guys are tough. I'm just stupid. But.

To warm up. And then I'd eat because I was consuming 8 to 10,000 calories a day and still losing weight. So I eat, and then I get back in. And so I do this day after day after day. And a lot of days were cold. Of course, the water was 42 to 44 degrees the first two weeks. And that doesn't sound that cold, but it's cold. If you take your tap water and run it for five minutes, it's probably 60 degrees.

Yeah.

So that gives you a little bit of.

It's cold.

Yeah.

It freezes, what, 30 degrees? 30. 32 degrees is freezing. That's cold.

It was very cold, especially to have your whole body in it and face in it.

And so I do this, and after the first couple days and the newspaper reporters went away, and the TV reporters went away, and I'm just out there and it's raining and nobody cares, and you wonder why you're doing this. The one thing that always kept me is, well, if it was easy, everyone would do this, or maybe one person would have done this. Yeah. And I'm sure Mary was giving you.

Hugs along the way.

It felt like it. Yeah. The second to last day was her birthday, June 26th. And it was a beautiful time of healing for me because I was raised in that generation. I'm a therapist. You'd think I'd be really comfortable with crying. I still wasn't yet, but face down in the water with goggles, you can cry all you want.

You want to.

And it was a rainy, gray day, and I was swimming through the Port of Portland, and the Willamette was such a beautiful, wild place. Eagles had followed us. We'd seen deer, beaver. But now we're going through ancient, decrepit.

Port areas with rusted ships. And it just felt like I'd felt for four years. It was really symbolic. And I cried for, gosh, eight hours. But I just. As I was coming in to where we were going to land that day, I was coming under one of the most beautiful bridges, I think, in the world. And it's called St. John's Bridge or Cathedral Bridge, and it's an old art deco bridge. It's this beautiful bridge. And the sun came out, and it just felt like I was being reborn. It really did. Something changed very dynamically in that time.

It sounds absolutely wonderful and beautiful. I mean, it really does. You know, it's funny. It's not funny. It's actually just. I think it's really cool. I think the cancer in your body just said, this guy's crazy. I'm out of here.

Let's hope.

Circling all the way back to your Goldwater immersion question.

The hardest part of this whole journey was doing this thing. I thought the hardest part would be swimming that long, being that sick, and just day after day after day. Getting up and mustering the courage to do it all over again without complaining. And it wasn't. The hardest part was just shivering all the time. But it's really what started me being able to say yes to life.

When you're violently shivering, you only do this. It's like this. Yes. Motion. You can't do this.

So, you know, finally it got through to a guy like me. But what I didn't know is when you get even to a slight stage of shivering.

All sorts of magnificent things happen. And a guy, a crazy Dutchman, even maybe crazier than me.

Has done research and proven these scientifically. So your readers, if they haven't heard of Wim, they should look him up and look at his research. Yeah. But one of the things they found is that it boosts your immune system. And mine was getting boosted eight to 10 hours a day, every day for 22 days. Yeah. And it increases your metabolism. That's probably why I wasn't gaining weight. But it takes down inflammation. And Wim and his researchers now believe the root cause of almost every disease is inflammation. And I was taking my inflammation down every day, all day, and I didn't know any of this. I just thought I was swimming a river and hopefully inspiring cancer patients and raising a lot of money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. I didn't know any of this, but the first blood test I took after the swim, the leukemia was gone. And the type of leukemia that I had, it's called chronic lymphocytic leukemia, is not supposed to ever go away. And so, truly, it was a miracle. So much so that my new primary care physician, when I told them I'd recovered, he put in my file that I have it. And I'm like, no, I don't have it. I've got scientific proof. He's like, no, once you have it, you'll always have it. I'm like, so I had to fire him.

Dude, test me. Coming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But anyway, yeah, we're, you know, so we're. We're a little over on time, but I don't care. I want to talk to you for days. You know, there's. There's some. There's two things I want to touch on really fast with the. With the small amount of time we got left, the first of which is replenishment zones. I know that you do a wilderness retreat to kind of help center yourself and kind of keep you there. Is that something you do with people now or just something you do on your own that you I would love.

To do with people, especially men. I think it's the future of therapy, I think, for men especially, which is what I've come to specialize in the last few years. I think the worst thing you can do to the average guy is him down and ask him to talk to you. But if I can walk and talk with the guy, then all of a sudden they start to loosen up, tell me their story. But if I can walk with them out in the wilderness, a whole different thing. But, yeah, after the swim, the leukemia went away, but the lymphoma started getting aggressive. And by 2015, my doctors wanted to do chemo and radiation because I've never done it. I've always tried to stay away from it and use it only as the last resort. And I said, I tell you what I've read about this ecopsychology and how forests boost your immune system. Let me. And they just started shaking their heads. They get so tired of me and my little experiments. But I'm like, let me run an experiment on myself. Give me six months. And they say, well, you'll have to come in more frequently for blood tests to make sure it's not getting too alarming. But they gave me six months, and I started going out every Thursday night, way out into the wilderness in the Mount Hood Wilderness.

Yeah. I'll get a mile off the trail where nobody's ever gonna find me. Just with me and my backpack and hammock, and I'll. I'll sleep there all night. And.

There'S just something that happens in the woods, physically and mentally. A lot of the grief started to come out that needed to come out. And I thought, well, I'm alone. Why not just let it drain? And I would walk out of there Friday afternoon just feeling totally restored. So I thought I would stop once the rains came, but I was having so much fun, I just decided to get a rain fly. And then I thought I'd stop when the snows came, but then I thought, no, just get a heavier sleeping bag and some snowshoes.

Yeah.

And I've never stopped. And I think it's something I would encourage everyone to do is find a way to get out in a wild place. Wherever you're at might be out in the middle of a wheat field. Yeah. But just get out in a wild, natural place for at least an hour or two a week and just have time alone to let go of everything you soaked up up that week. All your stress, all your anxiety, all that sort of stuff. And so that's that's what I did. And that's a practice that I have that all my friends made fun of. But now when they introduce me to somebody, they're like, oh, this the guy was telling you about. This stays out in the wilderness.

So don't let people discourage you at first.

Well, I'll tell you what. If you put it together, I'll come.

Oh, yeah. I'm serious.

Yeah, you put it together, give us three to five guys, and we'll do it.

We'll do it. We'll have some fun. That sounds.

I went to Mount Hood. Gosh, it's probably been 10 years ago. And just thought it was absolutely beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah. 45 minutes away from here. Yeah.

And plus, I need to. I need to really figure out there's actually really a Bigfoot. I mean, you know, I just want to see that from my own eyes, maybe.

No, you don't exactly.

If I do, I'm like, hey, guys, I'll see you later. Let me know how it works out.

One of the other things I do that's very, very different than just about everyone else. Stephen. I've got a cold water tank. A group from Scottsdale, Arizona, called Morozco Forge build these wonderful cold water tanks.

What's that, like a plunge tank? Yeah. Only mine's 6ft long, and I keep it at 40 to 42 degrees. And every morning, rather than drinking coffee, I'll jump in there for three to five minutes. It will wake you up. And then anytime I'm getting funky or overstressed, I call it poor man shock therapy. You get in there, and it just blasts all the stress right out of you. Plus, it boosts your immune system. Plus, for a guy like me, I want to stay fit. And I just turned 60, which is insanely old.

You don't look 60, dude.

Oh, God bless you.

You still got the big shoulders and the whole deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel in better shape than when I was 30. And, you know, taking down my inflammation, I can do these insane workouts, and I'm not sore, so. Because of this practice. So it's something I'd encourage all your readers to look up. Morozco Forge.

Okay.

They're a wonderful group, and they'll. They'll give them a really good deal on a cold plunge tank. And it's during COVID It was one of the things I couldn't get in a pool. Mm. Couldn't go out to. They shut the national forest down.

I'm like, why?

Why would you do that?

Wear a mask to breathe Clean air.

Yeah. We can go to a grocery store where there's hundreds of people grabbing toilet paper but touching everything. I may have only seen three people out there, but they shut those down. So I couldn't do anything but to have that always ready. There were times during the quarantine I'd get in it three to five times a day just to kind of reboot and get my head in a positive state.

That's great. Yeah. I'm building a new house. My wife and I are building a new house. And I've already talked to her about doing something like that. You got to talk for her and myself both. Obviously she deals with a lot of inflammation, you know, so I'd love to see her kind of do that. But I think one of the final things I actually want to talk with you just for a couple minutes is you have a lot of exciting things coming up now. There's a brand new documentary coming out about this whole experience, about everything that you've kind of faced. And so how much can you shake? Can you tell us anything about that yet? Or is it still too, like, hush, hush?

Yeah, we're not seeing a lot other than. I am really excited. I've got one of what I believe one of the best documentary filmmakers in the world. Excited about working with a guy like me at my age, but telling my story because even in spite of myself, I think there's a lot of things people could glean from my story. And one of the things that I think is the most important is. And it used to hurt my feelings. Almost every time I go to speak, I'll have a question and answer time, and people raise their hand and they'll say, dean, I thought you'd be bigger. Dean, I thought you'd look stronger. Dean, I thought you'd be more athletic. And it was starting to hurt my feelings. So I called my dad. Yeah, I would try not to be incredulous and get my feelings hurt, but I'm like, nah, I'm just a guy. And he's like, that's your message. And that's what people were saying, Dean, you give me hope because you're entirely ordinary, buddy. So if a guy like me can do it, anyone can do it. And that's really my message. But that's what we're hoping to tell. And so we're going to New Zealand. We were going to go January because of COVID It got stopped. And we're going to swim the three longest rivers back to back, something that no swimmer has ever done, particularly There. But also when swimmers just doing one big event is hard. Mountaineers will do several mountains at a time, like the top seven. They'll try to see how quickly they can do it. But in the swimming world, that really hasn't hit yet. So, to my knowledge, I'll be the first swimmer ever to try to do several world records in a row back to back. And by that time, I'll be 62.

Well, I'm sure you're asking yourself the right questions, which means I'm sure you'll get the answer that you're trying to achieve.

Yeah, yeah, right. And so we're doing that, but then this June, as a practice.

Going to the uk. What's that?

Sorry about that. I just got a ding. I forgot to turn the. Do not stir. I'll edit that part out.

Yeah.

We'Re going over to the UK and I'm gonna get to. Sweet. Another one of the country's longest rivers over there. And I had such a great time in Ireland. I can't wait to get to those people.

Ireland is my second home. Our buddy Bo has obviously got a little Irish to sit in him. And we got to talking about all the different things in Dublin and Grafton street and all kinds of stuff. My wife, when we. Fun story. Just real fast. My wife. And when I first met my wife, our first date, I was scheduled to go to Ireland for sabbatical for myself. That was my nature trip for two weeks, so to speak. And we're sitting down with. I'm like, I'm really liking this lady. Like, she's checking all the boxes, like, wow, where have you been? Kind of thing. And I'll never forget this for as long as I live. I said, look, I don't want you to forget. Think about I'm dissing you or like. But I'm. I'm literally going to Ireland for two weeks by myself in two days, and this. And then she goes, oh, that's fine. And I'm like, I guess she's not enjoying the date like I am. And then she goes like this. She goes, oh, I used to live there for three years. I lived in. Right outside of Dublin. And scarries.

Wow.

Yeah. So, yeah, so it became like this big deal. So then I go to Ireland, and we actually fell in love, like, deeply in love, while I was in Ireland, traveling. Ireland, I mean, everywhere from Dublin to Wicklow to, gosh, the Giants Causeway, all of that, you know, and then having FaceTime videos, forcing us to get to know each other through conversation. Right. Because you're talking somebody video. So, anyway, fun story.

Amazing. Yeah, very fun story. And again, another pinpoint between us, because I felt my wife Bobbi and I had just gotten married and I told her, hey, we're gonna get married and I love you, but. But just because we're married doesn't mean I'm not going to Ireland and swimming this river. And she's like, I don't even understand that conversation. I want to go with you. I'll help you. And so only six months after we were married, we entered that huge. And it made swimming the Willamette even during cancer, because by the time I got to the Shannon, I was cancer free. It made swimming the Willamette look like a kindergartner's place time.

Oh, my God, Ireland. Oh, stinking beautiful. I remember I landed in Dublin. The hotel that I was in was directly across the street from St. Stephen's Green. I saw my name all over downtown Dublin, didn't you?

Yeah.

And it was just. I was there for a healing journey. They had this band there called Key west the Beau knows about. And I remember just. They were actually basically busking on. On this. On Grafton Street. They were. They were singing the song and I told them I can remember the alert. These Key lyrics. How do you think you know me when I don't even know myself?

Wow.

And I got to know myself, like, really, I know myself, you know, past personality assessments and stuff like that, but in a natural environment. A lot of everything that I did, other than driving from one city to the next city, was all walking, really walking, looking at the old architecture, walking into some of the most beautiful. I mean, the ring of carry. Oh, my gosh. It is just incredible, you know. So anyway, look, we definitely out of time, but we're having a good time.

Let me ask you one final thing before we wrap this up and we'll do this again for sure. And that is how can we. How can the audience stay connected with you and find out more about when you're doing your things and, you know, just kind of like, stay connected.

Right. Instagram is probably the easiest way. Instagram or Facebook, My handle is Swimming in Miracles. And people mistakenly think that that's because I do these big miracle swims. No, it's because my philosophy to life is if you start looking for miracles, not only will you start finding them, but there will be so many around you all the time that you're swimming in them.

Yeah.

And so that's where that name comes from. And then on my website, switch Swimming in Miracles calm. So that's. That's where they can find me.

Very cool, dude. Well, I have enjoyed it, definitely. Definitely brothers from another feel like I've.

Gotten a brother, not a podcast. So thank you.

That's exactly. That's exactly what we're hoping to do with all these different conversations with. You know, I just think there's one of the things that. One of the reasons I named the. The company the Journey Principles Institute was because everyone has their own journey.

Right?

And I've discovered that if you live by the right set of principles, I. E. Asked, you know, principle could be very easily be asked the right question to get the right answer.

Right.

Right. Then everybody can have the life that they want. They can literally create whatever life they want. And one of the best ways I know to do that, to reach people is continue to bring on brothers and sisters like yourself that have. Have done pretty incredible thing just by living by quality principles that, that, you know, light up your life and give you that fire that you were talking about earlier, right? It's. It's. It's there. It's there for the taking. It's just like step into it, right? You know, kind of deal. So I've enjoyed it, man. I love you to death. I can't wait to do this again. Can't wait to hear more about the documentary in New Zealand and all that cool stuff. So as you get closer, please let me know more about it. I'm. I'll bring you back on so we can kind of talk about it.

All right. Thank you. All right, dude, thank you so much.

Absolutely. I'll see you soon. Take care.

Bye now.

I hope you enjoyed that video of my buddy Dean Hall. If you did, you are really, really going to love this one right here. So check it out.

Oh. When you look at financial freedom and ultimately the goal, I guess the highest goal of financial success is financial freedom. And that means that you have enough money coming in to support your lifestyle, pay your expenses.