Takeaways & Reflections | Grief & Missed Opportunities
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
The one thing I found that my guests Marty Cooper and Ken Ross have in common is that they both embody optimism.
Marty can’t imagine life without learning and without feeling hope for the future. While Ken, in all of his traveling and adventures, never worries about potential adverse outcomes.
Both are optimistic in their way, and both are wonderful examples of what it means to live a life that you’d do over again and not be bored.
This is why these two episodes fit perfectly to dig into the topic of grief as it relates to missed opportunities. Because, I bet neither Marty nor Ken can imagine what their life would be like, or would have been like all these years, had they not jumped feet first into opportunities and taken a chance (on themselves or others).
While deep in grief, we often can’t see the opportunities before us. Throughout various milestones or phases of our lives, we may not be open to opportunities due to timing or simply aren’t ready. And deep in grief, even if we recognize an opportunity when we see it, we’re so often feeling beaten down, we simply don’t have the energy, mental fortitude, or the tenacity to take a chance on ourselves and jump on those opportunities.
RESOURCES:
- Ep. 67 Marty Cooper | Behind the Curtain of the Inventor of the Cell Phone
- Ep. 68 Ken Ross | Rolling the Dice & Preserving the Legacy of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
- YouMap™️
- Wheel of Life, Memoir by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Hello, friends. Hello, grievers, and hello supporters of grievers. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being here today, and giving your time, energy, and attention to grieving voices. I am your host Victoria Volk of the Unleashed Heart. And today I’m going to talk about the recent episodes 67 with Marty Cooper, and 68 with Ken Ross. And I had already recorded about 25 minutes of this podcast when I went to close another program, and I accidentally close the one I used to record. And so, the whole recording just went, poof, gone. So, I don’t know if this is going to come out exactly the same. Actually, I know I won’t, but I hope I can get across what I was so happy to get across in the first recording.
Optimism is the Faith that Leads to Achievement
So anyway, such as life, Episode 67 with Marty Cooper, if you haven’t listened to it, I know I recommend it on every takeaway and reflection episode to listen to the episodes and talking about, but it is such a lighthearted episode. And what I loved about Marty Cooper, when I saw him on CBS Sunday morning, was his optimism. I could feel it through the TV, I just found myself so curious about him, and wanted to learn more really about the process of what it was like to invent the cell phone. I still cannot believe I had the inventor of the cell phone on my podcast. But what does that have to do about grief? Well, when I was thinking about asking him, it was his optimism that really drew me to him. And I also know that in creation, in ideation, and putting thoughts and ideas into action, and bringing them to reality, there’s often a lot of failure in that. And there’s often some grief that comes along with that as well. And the one thing that struck me about Marty is that it took 10 years for this idea. He had to improve what already somewhat existed in the bag phone that people had to be in their cars to use. And he just took that a step further. And he thought there has to be something better that you can use, not just when you’re in your car, and not just when you’re in your home with a corded phone that most people had in their homes at the time. And so, he developed the first model, and the rest is history. So, they say but it took 10 years until he actually made that first phone call with that first cell phone. And I just find his story fascinating. I find him fascinating. And I find his optimism infectious. And so, I just wanted to share him with my audience. And selfishly, I wanted to personally speak with him to the foundation of Marty’s life. And what he shared is in his episode is that learning has been the foundation of his life. And truth be told, I don’t think the cell phone would exist if that wasn’t the case for him. And I don’t think that would be the case, if for many inventions or new technology or new advances in the medical field.
Take Pride in How Far You’ve Come
If people wouldn’t take an idea and run with it and see where it leads them and be open to learning along the way. And with being open to learn also comes being open to fail, and won’t being open to fail also entails is maybe putting yourself outside of your comfort zone and taking some risks. And I have never been one that’s been afraid of taking risks or taking chances or putting myself out there some ways it’s harder for me than others. But I’ve learned so much of what I know today because I took chances, and I took risks. And I was open to learning along the way. And I was also open to failure. But the foundation of it, like Marty says is learning. I had asked him a question too, and I can’t remember exactly how I worded it or what it was. But he said that he was unable to put himself in the shoes of someone who was unable to envision a better future. And I think that’s probably the mindset of an inventor. But he said if people need to take pride in what they’re doing, people that can’t envision a better future. He sees that as someone who doesn’t take pride in what they’re doing, who has difficulty coming up with new ideas who don’t really have any ideas, or don’t do things that bring them pleasure. And so, if we look at that a little further, it’s the opposite of that enable to envision a better future, you have to take pride in what you’re doing. You should take pride in what you’re doing. Because if you’re not, perhaps, it’s not the thing you should be doing. Perhaps, it’s not something that’s aligned with who you are. And if you have trouble with that in your life right now, like you’re doing something that’s not aligned with who you are or you feel like you’re really struggling with your purpose or you really want to do meaningful work. But you’re not doing that, I recommend that you check out my website because there and look up under services under “You” map I will put a link in the show notes. But I think when we take pride in what we’re doing, it’s inspiring to us, we’re inspired by our own work, therefore we would have new ideas. We would be inspired with new ideas, and we would be doing something that brings us pleasure.
Learning Outside the Box
And by going and doing other things that bring you pleasure, even just going to the beach or being out in nature or trying something new, like an improv class to help you get out of your comfort zone and to help you to be more expressive. And maybe more easily communicate with others if you’re kind of on the shy side like like I am, which is why podcasting is perfect for me because I thrive more so in one-on-one conversation. But if you put me in a group, I kind of turn into a wallflower. In a way I’ll kind of just gravitate to one or two people. And that’s usually what I do. Actually, it was a recommendation of a guest I recently recorded with how to really kind of get yourself out of your comfort zone and and get more comfortable with those things is to take an improv class. And I thought that was perfect. It’s a wonderful solution to help you expand and grow and learn about yourself. It may not feel good or sound good the idea of it, but I think after you experience it and realize, “oh, that wasn’t so hard”, you might look at it like “oh, that was actually kind of fun”, maybe take that suggestion and go sign up for an improver people, or we can have for other people, or that exists in society of people who are unlike ourselves, and it comes back to that learning piece again, be class. What’s the worst that can happen? Right? So, I think all of that just embodies someone who is able to envision a better future, who is open to learning and growing. And I had asked him what breaks his heart, and he said, your rationality breaks his heart, this intolerance that we often have for other because he said, we all have something to teach someone else, therefore, we all have something to learn from one another.
Wisdom is the Reward of Experience
And I had an “aha” moment, the first time I was recording this, and I shared it in that recording that is now disappeared. But I’ll share it again. I’ve always been drawn to people older than me that my elders and it’s probably why I went to work as a CNA, certified nursing assistant, in a nursing home in high school. But I realize just in recording this, that I didn’t grow up with grandparents, my grandmother passed away a year before my dad, I was seven. My grandfather had passed away the year I was born, so, I didn’t know him. And my grandparents on my father’s side, the grandfather passed away when I was younger, and my grandmother passed away when I was in adulthood. But I didn’t know her because when my dad passed away, they weren’t in my life anymore. And that’s great, too, right? But anyway, so I didn’t grow up with grandparents. So, I did find myself drawn to what older people were talking about what they thought about certain things, and probably close too. I had to grow up kind of fast. And so, I’ve always been more interested in people who have experienced more than myself, who are further down the road, who have something to teach me. And I’ve just found that that’s been kind of a constant theme throughout my life.
And so just think for a moment about who you are drawn to who piques your interest. Is it elderly people? Is it inventors? Is it people who have had led really challenging lives or have a challenging story of triumph? like my podcast where I talk to people regularly that share their stories, and I learned from each and every one of them. And I absolutely love it. Perhaps, other Grievers, right? because grief is complex, and everyone’s story is different. And it doesn’t matter what your loss is, you can learn something from it. Let’s say, you lost a child, which I can’t even imagine. And no one else who hasn’t, can’t either. But even if I would have experienced the similar loss, a loss of a child and I was talking to someone else who had there might be some certain level of bonding there. But our relationships are very much unique. And so, was it a baby? Was it an older child? That really doesn’t matter, the relationship is always unique. And so, every grief story is very different. And I think that’s why if we box ourselves into only talking with those who have experienced a loss similar to ours, or we tend to judge analyze or criticize or have this thought that there’s a hierarchy of grief. We kind of pinch ourselves off from learning from other people who may have experienced another loss, who may have a wonderful tip to share with you, or may have an idea that might spark something in you, or may have something very helpful that like change their life to share with you, but you would never hear it because you weren’t open to having that conversation with that person, because simply because they experienced loss different from your own. And I think we make these assumptions that, well, they just won’t get it, they just won’t understand. And maybe if we just accepted that truth on both sides, like you’re not going to get my grief, you’re not going to understand my criticism, not because you don’t want to or it’s not because for lack of trying, it’s because again, every relationship is unique.
Now I didn’t say any of that in that first time I record it. So maybe this is exactly just what I needed to say and what someone needed to hear. So, I’m gonna go with that. But I just really loved that episode with Marty. It’s lighthearted, but yet it’s deep, and he just has so much wisdom to share. Marty is going to be 93 in December, and so I can say this, he is an elder. But I think we tend to under appreciate our elders, we tuck them away in our society when we put them together with each other. And you know, when we want to visit them, or we want to talk to them, then they’re there. But if not, then they’re there tucked away, right?, in society somewhere else. And I think how sad is that? Because they have so much wisdom to share. And that wisdom is fleeting, that wisdom is going away every single day. And I think what if we just took a few minutes when we encounter someone who is older and wiser than ourselves that we just ask , “hey, what’s a piece of advice you’d give me about life?”, and see what they say? I think I’m going to start doing that because I’m really curious what people would say, what the elders would say.
The Dice Theory
Onto the episode with Ken Ross, which I was nervous about. It took three takes for me to get through the intro in once I get his episode and all the others that are recorded and audio and video on to my YouTube channel, which is at the only start I think the only start once I get it on there, you will see how nervous I really was. We had a good laugh about it. But it was just ridiculous. But I was so nervous about it because if you don’t know Ken Ross, he is the son of Elisabeth Kubler Ross, who is I would say, the Trailblazer of hospice and palliative care and on the subject of grief and dying. The one thing that everybody talks about in her work is the five stages of grief, which Ken and I specifically address in his episodes. If you haven’t listened, I suggest you listen to it. But basically, her work was so much more than that. That’s just the one thing that society and everyone seems to latch on to and hold on to. But there’s so much more that she did. And I’ve been reading her memoir, the wheel of life, which is beautiful. Absolutely, her life is just fascinating to me, her stories are just unbelievable, and Ken actually share as quite a few of them in that episode as well. She took a lot of risks, talk about a risk taker, talk about someone who was tenacious and didn’t give up and continue to show up and believed in something so powerfully and so deeply. Just like Marty Cooper in the cell phone, she believed so deeply that everyone should have access to hospice and be able to have a good death. And she also wanted people at the end of life, to be able to express what it was they were going through an experience and help them work through that grief of what they were experiencing. Again, she’s a trailblazer, and she’s very much ingrained in our society. I mean, the last krewella movie, they mentioned the five stages of grief, which I mean, it’s everywhere. It’s all over our society, even the Simpsons have mentioned it in episode, it’s just everywhere, just Google it and you’ll just I mean pages and pages and pages of articles. There was more to her than that, as I said, but the one thing that she passed on to Ken was this idea of not boxing yourself in of living outside the box, of not living life with regrets.
And Ken shared about that and how that evolved for him and what that is and what that means to him now in what he calls the dice theory. And ever since he shared it with me, I haven’t forgotten it and I’ve actually implemented it a few days ago, when I found myself hesitating on taking a chance on something, on putting myself out there for something and I was like, “I’m not really sure but it was fear that was causing the resistance”, and then I remembered the dice theory, just roll the dice. What’s the worst thing that can happen? And so, I did the thing, I put myself out there, and we’re gonna see what happens. But just thinking life in general, if we look at everyday life, his philosophy is like every day, “I’m gonna roll the dice every single day, maybe one day, it’s reaching out to 10 random people, or maybe the next day, it’s a random phone call or an email that I send to someone who I affiliated with, but I haven’t checked in on in a while”. And so it’s this idea of paving the way for yourself for having experiences, because they’re not always just going to fall into your lap. Sometimes it takes action often for us to find ourselves in these serendipitous moments, it’s in repeatedly keeping on doing that, just repeatedly putting yourself out there and repeatedly taking chances repeatedly rolling the dice. So, I absolutely loved that theory that he shared. And just based on who his mother was, I’m not surprised that that’s how he lives his life, just based on how she lived hers. She led by example. It was a beautiful example of doing just that of not boxing yourself in of taking a chance on yourself, and probably on others too, right? Because by putting yourself out there, you’re opening yourself up to also to disappointment if people don’t meet your expectations, or they don’t respond in a certain way. And that’s where you have to let that go. You have to do those things without expectation, do it without attachment and just see what happens.
And that’s actually how Ken and I got together on for the podcast, I was one of the people he reached out to, and I took that as a handshake and sent him an invitation to be on my podcast. And he said yes, and we talked for over two hours. And it was just wonderful. It was a highlight of my podcasting career. So far, there’s been many people, many guests that I’ve had that, again, every single one I learned from and but it’s not every day that you talk to the son of Elisabeth Kubler Ross, who is carrying on her legacy, who is ensuring that her work is preserved, and it’s carried out in an authentic way, and with integrity. I do want to share this fun fact because it just speaks to who Elisabeth Kubler Ross was, and it is in the episode, but I just want to share it here because I didn’t focus on it at all when I shared the original episode. There’s one thing that Elizabeth asked for when she was in the middle of having a stroke, literally in the middle of having a stroke, she asked for a cigarette. Now, you just have to go and listen to that episode to get the full story. She was a hoot. From the sounds of it, and the stories that Ken shared, she was a real hoot. And she had this sense of humor about her, which when you deal in grief and dying and hospice and palliative care. I think those of us that work in the grief space probably do have some sort of strange sense of humor.
Give People an Opportunity to Share Something
I want to share a quote that I didn’t highlight from last from Ken’s episode. And I realize now, that was the one I wanted to use. There was something that he said that just really struck me too. He said, “I want to live a life that I wouldn’t mind doing 100 times over and not be bored ever.”. And I think if we really looked at our lives and asked ourselves “What can I do today to roll the dice to have an experience that might give me another experience? That is sweet surprise and delight? How can I learn today from someone may teach me something that will stick with me for the rest of my life, maybe even changed the trajectory of my life?” Because if I would have been talking with someone who experienced grief recovery, and they told me about it, so happen to go check it out. And I go to the program, and it changed my life, how one conversation has the potential to change our entire lives.
And I think if there’s anything I want to leave you with us today, it’s that I was talking to my husband recently. We’re talking about conversations with people and so often we stick to these superficial surface level topics with people we don’t know so well and people we actually do know well. But what if instead of asking about the weather or their job or or something that would be deemed as gossip, what if instead, we ask deeper questions to give us the opportunity to learn something new. And maybe one of those questions could be tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something I don’t know about you, teach me something new or why do you enjoy this?
If you’re talking about their job, instead of asking, well “How’s work going?” It’s like what do you enjoy about what you do. Give people an opportunity to share something more personal and maybe a little deeper than what they normally do or would because they’re not asked, they’re not given an opportunity to share. And I think maybe to start with you, there’s something more personal it kind of opens up the door for other people to share as well. It creates this opportunity for a richer conversation. It helps people feel more connected to one another So, that’s another thing I would leave you with today is when you’re going out and about in the world, just ask people what makes you curious what makes you curious about them and start there.
P.S. That’s today’s episode. I think I’ve shared everything that I needed to share wanted to share. Please reach out to me on social media. Find me on Instagram at theunleashedheart, send me an email [email protected] if you do share with me what your experiences are, I would love to hear it. I know there’s a lot that isn’t in this recording as there was in the first time I recorded it, but I hope it was helpful, nonetheless. And I hope you do listen to Episode 68 and 69 with Martin Ken Ross. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.