[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Jamie See Show, a soft place to land for visionaries, the feelers, the heart led leaders, rewriting the rules of business.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jamie See author, educator, and eight figure founder whose work blends nervous system science subconscious rewiring and story driven strategy.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you know that your work is meant to reach more people, if you crave a business that feels as good in your body as it looks on paper, you are in the right place.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go way beyond formulas and we go into the felt.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is business.

[SPEAKER_01]: Reimagined through softness, strategy, and soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's begin.

[SPEAKER_02]: Today's a very exciting episode.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm actually introducing you to my sister Lindsay and a little bit about my sister before we dive in is she's essentially what I call and she doesn't know that I call her this but I call her the glue of our family.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's the number one person who is going to make sure that our family stays together that we get together.

[SPEAKER_02]: She's always making sure that we have the best time together.

[SPEAKER_02]: She can put on one hell of a party and she also has a really beautiful story and I'm so excited if you get to know her.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Lindsay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hello.

[SPEAKER_02]: First off, I'm really excited to have this conversation with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you're here.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you said yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you get to share your story because it's so amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm really curious.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a moment that you can kind of think back to that you're like, this is going to probably change my life?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really when I saw this sign in a doorway of a diner that just my wife and I used to go to all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Simple piece of paper that someone in my community needed a kidney and I looked at it and I was like, oh, something about that really is speaking to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at Jasmine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I think we'd better do something like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was like a pendulum.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, this seems like something that's interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, I know nothing about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the fear sets in of like, ah, I don't know if I'm brave enough to give an organ away.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never had surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of just put it out of my mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it really wasn't until another sign that kind of led me to saying, yeah, I guess this is the journey I need to be on.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what did Jess say when you were like, hey, I actually think I might want to donate an organ.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think nothing surprises her anymore.

[UNKNOWN]: True.

[SPEAKER_00]: She just was like, okay, all right, you know, and she was so supportive the entire time, which was so great.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, it really was that it was at this initial sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it was like, you know, I'm not sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: As things happen, right, when I think we're meant to do something in this life, it'll continue to show up.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, sure enough, when I come home, Jess is watching something on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something completely unrelated to organ donation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, how on YouTube it'll say, recommended for you, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I sit down next to her, she's watching this show, and it says, recommended for you, the truth about living kidney donation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh gosh, I just saw this sign that someone in my community did a kidney.

[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, I guess I need to click on it, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a sign, right in front of me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Click on it, and it's a TED Talk.

[SPEAKER_00]: The TED Talk is actually given by the former mayor of Middletown, Connecticut, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Thirty minutes from where I'm living.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he explains his story and his situation of how he gave to someone in his community.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what it did was that piece of him sharing his story and me learning a little bit about his story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It took all the fear out of me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I went back to the diner, looked at that sign again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Took down the number to the transplant center and called and started the process right from there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what was the process like to go through?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually was about four months of testing.

[SPEAKER_00]: They test you for everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: They want to make sure that you are a healthy candidate to be able to live with one kidney for the rest of your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they're testing you for everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: What they're doing at the same time as well is they're testing it was a man in Bristol that needed a kidney.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they're testing him as well to see if basically are we going to match up or know and we actually were a perfect match.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he needs a kidney because he's a type one diabetic and oftentimes type one diabetics in time will need a kidney transplant because their kidneys start to fail.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when they were testing him at the same time, they were testing me.

[SPEAKER_00]: They found out that he actually had a heart condition that he needed open heart surgery before he could perceive a kidney.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the poor guy now, he needs a kidney and now he needs open heart surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they sat me down and they said, here's an option.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could actually donate into the national kidney registry, which means your kidney could go anywhere in the country that you're a perfect match to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in turn, you would get a voucher and that voucher would go to him and it bumps him up to the top of the transplant list.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, people who are waiting on the kidney transplant list oftentimes wait five to seven years.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this opportunity bumps him up to the top of the transplant list and I will just end up donating to anyone who on perfect match to anyone in the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, that's perfect, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think if it was like, who was mom or dad or our sister?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I probably would have just waited and donated directly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But because this was someone I didn't even know, I just said, well, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could just help two people.

[SPEAKER_00]: My kidney ended up going to an eighteen year old boy in Brooklyn, New York.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that voucher went to the man in our hometown, bumped him up to the top of the transplant list.

[SPEAKER_00]: And six months later, he received from a man in the Midwest.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's so beautiful.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: See, it helped more than just one person.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it was, it was, again, it was just so much opening and learning as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: What was even better was on Mother's Day.

[SPEAKER_00]: She sent me a picture of him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I always think, you know, like in this life, I've never gotten the opportunity to have my own children give birth.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in this way, I was able to take something that had grown inside of me and give new life outside of my body.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like that she sent that to me on Mother's Day.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was so impactful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I got a picture on the day he graduated high school.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just special experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my life has not changed at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's only gotten richer from the experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can still do everything that I've been able to do before.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's amazing to have trusted yourself into your intuition that you wanted to help in such a beautiful way and that it does truly create a ripple effect for not just that one boy but his mother and his friends and their whole family.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that it's really beautiful because there's not a lot of people who would have trusted that process and to have even known that it was an option because like we had talked about before, not many people are talking about work in donation or being a living donor.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have much education or resources that are made available to us that make it public knowledge.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'd love to know, too, after that experience, it didn't just change the trajectory of your life, but your career as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of walk me through what changes had happened and kind of how that facilitated the change in your career as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: The donation was done in end of two thousand nineteen.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'd been working solely as a full-time photographer.

[SPEAKER_00]: In our hometown, I was the Arts and Culture Commissioner at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when Jess and I ended up moving and we found, you know, our little farm and our log cabin and we made the move, you know, my life was a little bit more open.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had some free time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could no longer be the Arts and Culture Commissioner.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Bristol, so it was three months after we had moved in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, remember that YouTube video, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I had actually written him a letter, and I said, I just want to let you know that your TED Talk really inspired me, and it gave me the inspiration of the motivation to actually call the Transmit Center, and I'm actually going to be donating.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was so happy to get that letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he actually took Jess and I out for lunch, and we became subsequent acquaintances and friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, now, this is three years later.

[SPEAKER_00]: He calls me, hey, Lens, I have a job.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think he'd be interested in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, it's up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of photos do you need.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I'd been doing for the last, you know, eighteen years or whatever it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, we need a new executive director of Donate Life Connecticut.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he'd be great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about all of these different pieces that have to connect, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, all right, well, you got to give me a second, you know, I haven't had like a real job.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how to make a resume anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: But again, in opportunity, right, those signs that now are right in front of you and you have to make a choice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you continue to say yes to life?

[SPEAKER_00]: So, give it a day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Back to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, all right, did the interview.

[SPEAKER_00]: They offered me the position.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it has been wildly incredible and impactful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am so inspired by people and their stories and their tenacity and their depths of love in the world of transplant donation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we talked about earlier, unless you're faced with it head on, you don't really talk about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember the day I got my driver's license and they asked me, would you want to register to be an organ donor and a driver's license?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sign me up if I'm not here, but I can help someone else.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would absolutely say yes, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a legacy of love.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's leaving something behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing that's important when we're talking about donation is there's deceased donation and living donation and the worlds are different but the same in that it's new life.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have never known about being a living donor until you became one.

[SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of us, you know, we are asked very similar questions on our lives since we're like, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds great.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm not here, take it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's all good.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's fine, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think I would have ever known what a gift of love it is and how many people actually do it and how many beautiful stories there are including your own about how you can be a perfectly healthy human and donate to another person while you're still here.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's often we think, like, well, if I'm not here, that's when my organ, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not something that I'm doing while I'm playing tennis or, you know, getting my kids ready for school, I'm not thinking about, you know, donating, but then the science come and the opportunities come and you get an opportunity to say, yes, if you're, you know, a perfect match or healthy enough and it's such a beautiful gift.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now that you've entered into this world, I have entered into that world with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: I come to as many of the events as I can and don't know whenever I can and it has been such a beautiful opportunity to witness you stand in this position and stand so proudly and to put together such beautiful events and fundraising and the stories of these people are incredible.

[SPEAKER_02]: and I have stood there with my whole family watching you speak and meeting these beautiful humans who have lost their children and have met the donors and I'm standing there like we're like in parking lots or we're in beautiful facilities or wherever these beautiful events are and I'm just sobbing because the stories are so profound and you would have never heard of them if you're not directly in a capacity to be there or to see it [SPEAKER_02]: And I would love for you to be able to share some of the beautiful stories of what it has been like to meet the families or the people that you have been working with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about the stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's this renewed life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're leaving a legacy of love and I have been so inspired.

[SPEAKER_00]: deeply inspired by the people that I've gotten to know, have gotten to work with, how people move through their grief and through their loss.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know oftentimes what we find is families who lose somebody when they have the opportunity to donate and leave a gift of life and that they live on in others.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is oftentimes actually a big part of their healing process.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the best things that happened just this past year.

[SPEAKER_00]: In two thousand nineteen, there was a seventeen year old, her name is Julia, and it was the second day of school.

[SPEAKER_00]: She had a job and she was coming home from work and someone hit her car and she went to the hospital at CCMC, the Children's Hospital.

[SPEAKER_00]: and Jess was actually one of her nurses.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they knew that she was not going to be able to survive.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing, we always want to tell people to have conversations with their family about their wishes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at seventeen, it was interesting because, you know, we were talking about like, all right, well, we got our driver's license, they asked, we said, yeah, sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't put a lot of thought into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, if I can help someone else, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for some people, it's a, they really want to know and it's a big decision.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for Julia, that was her.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said, I want to learn about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know what I'm signing up for.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so she was asking her about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was asking her mom about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when she did learn about it, she said, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was proud.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you get the little heart of your driver's license.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was really proud to be an organ donor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so of course, this is the most tragic time in her family's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her mom, her dad, her brother, are there with her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And her mom knew that this was one of her wishes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is one of the things that she can do in the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: She can't do anything else for her daughter.

[SPEAKER_00]: What she can do is honor her daughter's wishes.

[SPEAKER_00]: She saved five people's lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her cornea is actually went to a man in Korea.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gave a man in Korea his sight again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not necessarily life-saving, certainly life-changing, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because of a decision of a seventeen-year-old, someone across the world can see his kids again, can see the beauty of a sunrise again.

[SPEAKER_00]: How incredible is that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like this mixture of love and science altogether, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I got to meet Kathy and Todd and Jake Julia's family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kathy became a regular volunteer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this was part of her healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was a part of her grief journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was coming up on the five year anniversary of Julia's passing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we were sitting down, we were chatting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Julia always wanted to go skydiving.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we said, well, why don't we do a big event, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to celebrate her by doing a skydive event, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's called Jump for Julia.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of us are going to skydive and hang out and picnic and it's going to be great, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I had this idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that they had spoken to the man who received Julia's heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: His name is Jonathan.

[SPEAKER_00]: He lives in Michigan.

[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that they always wanted to meet him.

[SPEAKER_00]: They said, I always said, I want to meet the man who has the golden heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought, maybe we can get him here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I call him up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I say, hey, my name is Lindsay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the director of Donate Life, Connecticut, as you know, the five-year anniversary of your heart transplant.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Julia's passing is coming up.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're having an event.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are your thoughts about coming and meeting the family?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, oh my gosh, you know, I think I probably scared him a little bit, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, ah, you know, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got work things going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter's about to give birth to her second child.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, listen, I know this is a big thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you can't do it, it is okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Trust me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he calls me back three days later.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I don't care what it takes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came out with his daughter who actually was seventeen.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're so wonderful.

[SPEAKER_00]: So sweet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Julius's favorite flower was a sunflower.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came with sunflowers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what was working with Todd, who his Kathy's husband, Julius father, just to make sure that he thought this would be a good thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, yes, if you can make this happen, this would be, be amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have like a hundred of their friends and family around.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he comes out with some flowers.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a beautiful moment for them to see them get to hug him, meet his daughter and see him face to face.

[SPEAKER_00]: This man may not be living to be able to be a father.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's now a grandfather if it weren't for Julia.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we kind of stepped outside and again remember Jess was one of the nurses at the time So she brought her stethoscope and I remember being out there and I had my camera and I remember I was sort of hanging back She put the stethoscope in Kathy's ears and on to Jonathan's heart and she put Kathy's hand there [SPEAKER_00]: And I was taking photographs.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just stopped.

[SPEAKER_00]: I need to take this moment in.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's just something, I mean, still to this day just gives me chills and tears my eyes because having the opportunity to witness something like this, I knew I needed to take it in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when she got to hear her daughter's heartbeat for the first time in five years, there was such a calm she just stopped and she just closed her eyes and smiled and it was incredible, you know, to have that moment of connection.

[SPEAKER_00]: getting to meet the man with the golden heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a privilege and an honor to be in this position.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing else like it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what makes it so unique.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, something that people don't normally talk about, there is such these powerful undercurrents and this beauty of leaving this legacy, leaving this gift.

[SPEAKER_00]: and that these parents found such calm, joy, contentment in getting to meet one of their daughters recipients.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have to say, you know, I mentioned earlier that I wanted to bring up our brother because I know for me wouldn't it have been amazing?

[SPEAKER_00]: if he were to have been able to be an organ donor and we know that he would have been able to live on and other people and be able to leave that gift, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: He was so young and like if he were to be able to have his heart beating and someone else, his lungs breathing and someone else, you know, it would have been a huge part of our whole family's healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish we had gotten that opportunity.

[SPEAKER_00]: There we go.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can't even imagine what it would be like to be able to listen to Scottie's heart.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I did share the story with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: The gift that I was able to be given when Scottie did pass away.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we are all around him in the room when we were letting him off of life support.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I got to sit next to him and hold his hand, but my head was on his heart the whole time.

[SPEAKER_02]: I got to hear his heartbeat to nothing, which I think a lot of people would think that is morbid.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think this probably the best gift I've ever been given.

[SPEAKER_02]: is to be there in the final moments, to be able to have what Julie gave to others.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that it's an incredible thing that no one really talks about.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I've never wanted to go in and get surgery more.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've never wanted to willingly get surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want to know something really cool too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously there are these two sides, but not only can you give most people are born with two kidneys and you can give one of your kidneys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that you could actually give a piece of your liver as well and your liver just grows back a month?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's incredible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our bodies are incredible.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you can donate a piece of your liver, save someone else's life, and then your liver will just grow back in a month or two.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's incredible.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's rare, but [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's about two hundred and fifty people in the entire United States that have done both.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've met two of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: What would you hope that you could share about donate life, Connecticut and the work that they do and the importance of what they do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully I've given you a taste of that is that it is an incredible community of unbelievable stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the heart of life, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're talking about generosity, giving you life, selflessness, grief and loss, healing, what I know that I try to do with the organization is tell the stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: and really tried to tell them in a creative way too.

[SPEAKER_00]: We did this mural the very first year that I became the director because my background had been always in the arts and what I was doing that the Arts and Culture Commission was creating large scale public pieces of art.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought what a perfect way to do this in this realm, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So we created a large-scale mural on one of the busiest streets in Connecticut, which is perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: We told the stories of four people, one, a living donor, who donated one of her kidneys and then donated a piece of her liver, both to strangers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her recipient was next to her in the mural, her liver recipient.

[SPEAKER_00]: She saved her life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next in the mural was Jerome and next to him was Matt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Matt and Jerome both young men died but saved between the two of them probably eight people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jerome was only sixteen when he passed away and his mom, again, has always been to a wonderful advocate.

[SPEAKER_00]: When that mural was being created, pretty large scale mural.

[SPEAKER_00]: The mural wasn't even done but Jerome was painted.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it came up on the day of the anniversary of his passing.

[SPEAKER_00]: She went to the mural instead of his grave site.

[SPEAKER_00]: She said, I just feel so much more connected with him there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what's beautiful is actually where the mural is, there's some picnic tables and you can go inside and you can get lunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so actually both the mothers of Matt and Jerome, they'll go and they'll have lunch and sit under the mural and say that they're having lunch with their sons because their sons are right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was interesting because what we did was we got to create this large scale [SPEAKER_00]: mural and this piece of art that tells the story of donation and transplant, but what I didn't know is that it would become this sanctuary, right, for mothers who have lost their sons.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's just the magic of art and storytelling.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just like what you're doing with this show, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Being able to storytelling to show that there's some really incredible things happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you just didn't know about it, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We both didn't know anything about work and donation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Till somehow I stepped my toe into this world.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know the funny thing is, as I never once asked you why.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just said, okay, my sister's just gonna go into surgery and she's gonna give a kidney and I went and visited you in the hospital and that was about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, sounds great.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where are we going next?

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember when I had a kidney going away, party?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I do remember the party.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was very fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, well, I mean, why not?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's give the kidney a going away party.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was really fun to DJ and break dancers and so fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, she really can't go party.

[SPEAKER_00]: I played my janbay drum at some point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember I had a fanny pack on.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we freeze like twenty five hundred dollars that night.

[SPEAKER_00]: People were just stuff in checks and cash in my fanny pack.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I gave it to the transplant center and was like, hey, I had a kidney going away party and here's some funds for what you guys are doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Keep up the good work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Did you hand it to them in your fanny pack?

[SPEAKER_00]: I did, but it kept the fanny pack.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was an incredible experience that obviously changed the trajectory of my life personally, but also professionally, and has really, I think helped me really grow because of the inspiration of the people that I get to surround myself with.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would love to know if there is somebody that is watching this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, you know what?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm kind of interested.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to learn more, maybe.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be somebody who can do that for somebody.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they're feeling that calling in their body just similarly as you were.

[SPEAKER_02]: What would you suggest to them as their first step?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the education piece, because I think for me too, like I had that moment of like, oh, something about this is resonating with me, but then there's that fear because you just don't know, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like who knows what the process is about giving an organ away, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Unless you're faced with it, you don't normally know that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Especially if you're going to give it to a stranger.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the education aspect, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up watching that TED Talk, which was huge for me, that education piece.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think just getting to know more about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also, for me personally, it was a beautiful experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I was out of the hospital the next day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Eight days later, I was walking in the woods.

[SPEAKER_00]: Twelve days later, I was walking on the treadmill in the gym.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you're really fully recovered after six weeks, six weeks to the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was a TV in the mountains of Costa Rica.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's major surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to downplay that it's not major surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's absolutely doable.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's only made my life better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone's healthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: The man in our hometown, he's doing well.

[SPEAKER_00]: The eighteen year old who is now, well, I guess in his twenties, it's pretty magical.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our bodies are incredible.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's a beautiful piece of awareness that you can make such an impactful change.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe without even knowing that you could do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I think that was one of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The things, too, was like, I kind of felt like, I've never had surgery.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I'm strong enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not brave enough to do something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think what it does, too, is it shows you, you are brave.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can do something big.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can make a difference in someone's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about this earlier, that ripple effect.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw this minimalistic, simple sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: I took a leap.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that ripple effect, it changes a lot of lives, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you save one person's life and then they get to go on and be there for their family, have a family of their own, watch their family grow.

[SPEAKER_00]: What a cool opportunity to be able to do that in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you have the calling, if you have the health, why not change a life?

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, many lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because when you meet one person, like for example, knowing how many people just an R family alone have been affected by a brother's loss, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: How deeply that's affected so many people.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if he were to have been here, our lives would have been different.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the gift that you give to somebody.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is allowing for so much beauty to continue to happen in the whole family dynamic.

[SPEAKER_02]: So simply put, if you feel the calling, go get the surgery, save many lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if somebody was really interested in learning more or even connecting with you on how to learn more about organ donation, where could they go?

[SPEAKER_02]: How can they reach you?

[SPEAKER_00]: So they can go right to our website and they can find us right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: They can find my information and all the information that they're looking for.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I would be happy to have them reach out to me and I can answer any questions they have.