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Author

Nov 16
Love19

David Taylor-Klaus

By Author, Faith, Mental Health, Personal Growth, Philosophy No Comments

This episode is sponsored by:

In this intense yet uplifting conversation, David Taylor-Klaus is open and honest with Gary about his suicide attempt and what he does now to keep himself on track. This episode will make you think while also lifting you up.

In this episode:

  • Internal self-awareness
  • External self-awareness
  • Being a thought leader
  • Ticking people off
  • Whether or not it’s ok for your family to judge you
  • Attempting suicide
  • The impact Hurricane Katrina had on him
  • The problem with the term “Work/Life Balance”
  • Why you can’t separate work and life
  • Being in a relationship with what you’re doing

Quotations:

“How I got here was by being a cautionary tale. Wisdom comes from making some screaming mistakes and doing it the wrong way for a long, long. And so all of the wisdom I’ve amassed comes from beating my forehead against the wall over and over and over again for a really long time.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“When you’re not aware of your, of your wake, you can do some damage.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“When you own those F-ups, when you own the negative impact, when you own the icky, unintended impact, then you can clean it up.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“For every one person who has a bad experience, they’re 10 quietly happy people.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“To truly be a thought leader, you’re going to be a target because you’re going to tick people off because thought leaders are willing to stand in the fire and talk about what they believe, and not everybody’s going to believe the same thing. And so people are going to be ticked off.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“What we remember of someone or what we see of someone and how we judge someone is always through the lens of who we are. It almost has nothing to do with who they are.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“Not everybody actually lives their values, and part of what happens is the energy drain, and living in constant discomfort can come from living a life that’s out of sync with your values.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“Humor’s one of the ways I cope with the world, good, bad, or ugly.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“Children of parents who commit suicide are 50 times more likely to attempt suicide in their life.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“The work has to be for you. It has to be for yourself, which was the tipping point for me when the work became for me, when staying became for me, when I realized I had something to give, something to do, some impact to have, I was here for a reason.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“Clinical depression is feeling sad when things are going well, and it’s inexplicable to someone who, pleasantly for them, has never experienced it. It’s when everything looks fabulous, and you feel like you can’t move.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“There is so much to offer this world because normalizing mental health struggles is the next front.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“Words create worlds. The language we use is indicative of what’s going on inside, and it shapes our reality. And the phrase work-life balance is so awful. It’s just awful.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

“When we measure our success with the number of zeros we have in the bank, what happens when you wake up on October 30th, 1929, and you got zero in the bank? Holy crap, right? It’s not about the money you have, it’s about who you are and what you know and what you’re able to do.” ~David Taylor-Klaus

Guest’s Bio:

David’s personal and professional worlds clearly reflect a journey in pursuit of excellence, always with a great deal of humor and heart. He is known for his sharp intellect and incisive ability to see and say what others do not. He balances fierce candor with genuine compassion … aka “an iron fist in a velvet glove.”

Whether working with individuals or teams or speaking to large groups, David believes that a powerful leader exists in each of us; his goal is to empower others to unearth and unleash their own leadership mastery. From personal experience, he drives home the importance for all professionals to take an active, intentional, and dynamic role in their private and professional lives.

The mission of DTK Coaching is to reintroduce successful business people to their families and the world outside the office.

Through an informed, well-applied process and an inspired approach, David’s clients overcome the overwhelming aspects of succeeding in business and being a part of a family. DTK Coaching helps them create the kind of Life-Work Balance they only dared to imagine was possible while also achieving dramatic shifts in their performance.

David’s insight and wisdom are built on his three decades as a successful serial entrepreneur.

Prior to establishing DTK Coaching, he was CEO of Digital Positions (DP), an internet strategy and web development firm he co-founded in 1995 and sold in 2009. As a strategist, he worked with C-level executives, senior management teams, and boards of directors to broaden their perspective and see how interactive initiatives support corporate visions and values for positive growth.

It was during this time, however, that David realized that his success came from being reactive rather than proactive and that he wasn’t participating consciously as a husband, father, business partner, or entrepreneur.  As he headed toward rock bottom, David had a significant wake-up call that ultimately resulted in DTK Coaching. 

(It’s a great story… read how really bad it got)

Recent empty-nesters (a status modified due to the pandemic), David and his wife, Elaine, live in the heart of Atlanta with their dogs. A gold-medal rower in the 2004 Georgia State Games, an avid cyclist, and an enthusiastic wine collector (and drinker), David also enjoys kickboxing, really great jokes, and laughing with others … and at himself.

Guest’s Contact Info:

Home New

Nov 09
Love18

Lynn Abaté-Johnson

By Author, Caregiving, Grief, Mental Health, Personal Growth, Philosophy No Comments

This episode is sponsored by:

In this brutally honest conversation, Lynn Abaté-Johnson gets candid about her journey as a caregiver and talks about how she was able to finally care for herself the way she cared for her mom in her final years. We also talked about her recently released book Out of Love where she chronicles her journey and provides resources and systems for caregivers.

In this episode:

  • Being a caregiver while juggling her career
  • Keeping it a secret
  • Turning her mom’s cancer diagnosis into a “business”
  • Why she put the book on pause
  • Removing the hustle mindset
  • Being a caregiver while juggling being a wife
  • Changing to a healthier lifestyle
  • When her mom realized she wasn’t going to beat cancer
  • Feeding stress with food
  • Incremental changes
  • How to squeeze gifts out of hard situations
  • How the book morphed into being about her

Quotations:

“If I didn’t take that [her caregiving journey] and learn from it and transform my own life in very personal ways, there would be no point in telling the story.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I went into production mode, and I did one of the things I do best, which is, I created–I jokingly said at times–we turned my mom’s cancer diagnosis into a business, and everything was documented. That really helped us with the emotional support we needed.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I was doing the best job I could for her, at the same time freaking out myself that my mom was gonna die. That was the whole first year. Pretty much I could say I freaked out about me. It was a very selfish perspective. Like, ‘Well, okay, you have cancer, but what am I gonna do without you?’ I didn’t say that to her because I didn’t want her to feel bad. But I had this panic about losing my mom all of a sudden.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I still believe that about every family member. We’re all doing the best we can. There’s a Ram Dass quote that I love that says ‘We’re all just walking each other home.’” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I used to say to my mom, ‘Mom, your cancer’s gonna kill me. Forget about you. It’s gonna kill me.’” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“It was a very different world in 2011 when we got the diagnosis to the point where I couldn’t really be myself; I just had to figure out how to compartmentalize and then just do my job and still be a rockstar at work.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I would go home, and I would fall apart. That’s when I would cry. That’s when I would curl up into the fetal position and be like my little girl self with my husband.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“You know, all of those things that sounded like criticism from my mom before, you never stop hearing that.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I used to joke that, damn, I keep hearing mom’s voice in my head telling me what to do. ‘Can you please stop?’ And it hasn’t changed since she died. I still hear her voice in my head, but now it’s more of a comfort.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

 “We didn’t really admit that we were control freaks until we got that diagnosis. And I’m perfectly willing to say I’m a recovering control freak.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“What am I really hungry for at this moment? So that’s a question I ask myself. Is it food? Is it really food, or is it something else? If it’s something else, then I have tools now that I’ve learned through all of my coaching and everything that I really can pull myself back into what’s really happening now.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“Truthfully, when I was in the trenches and in the muck of being a caregiver for my mom, I did a terrible job of taking care of myself.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“With all of the chaos swirling around, I have to believe that there is hope, and I have to believe that we are going to do a better job of taking care of ourselves and taking care of each other as we learn about our mistakes and, we just really try to do a better job, and doing a better job can be incremental.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I am really committed to honoring everybody where they are in this moment.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“I didn’t die. I didn’t die when my mom died. I thought I would; I could not imagine being on this earth without her. And yet she’s still very much with me. Every time I see the hummingbirds, I say, ‘Hi, Mom.’ And it brings me a smile.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

“It’s not my weight to carry. I can only carry my own weight, and I don’t want it to turn into me blowing up physically again or having so much inflammation on my body that I’m so miserable and I can’t function.” ~Lynn Abaté-Johnson

Guest’s Bio:

After being a primary caregiver for her mother for over six years, author Lynn Abate-Johnson understands the typhoon of emotions and responsibilities that come with caring for a loved one. However, she discovered how to blossom through (and after) caregiving rather than let it drown her. 

By using her natural organizational skills and her solid work ethic, she developed systems and processes to help navigate the difficult journey of caregiving, which allowed her to go from “What am I going to do without my mom?” to “I know I can thrive after she’s gone–just as she would want.”

Like most caregivers, Lynn juggled caregiving duties with a full-time career. In her daily life, she’s a business consultant and global community builder. 

She’s been building businesses from the ground up from a young age, with her first business being a network of family roller skating rinks in the Detroit, Michigan metro area. She is currently growing the global community as “the voice” of the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI), one of the world’s most respected leadership development and professional coach training organizations.

As part of her devotion to developing global communities that make a difference by connecting human beings, she speaks with cohorts of caregivers to help them discover they’re not alone, everything’s going to be ok, and there are tools they can use to ease the burdens they might feel as caregivers. Her book Out of Love: A Daughter’s Journey With Her Mom To The End provides care for caregivers by giving them the emotional and practical support they need.

About the Book:
Lynn’s words offer a uniquely personal glimpse into her journey as a daughter of a strong mother, along with her own transformation in the aftermath of being a caregiver.

Lynn’s approach removes the stigma of grief, Her expressive and often vulnerable ways of sharing help to normalize what many families may take for granted or miss in their often overwhelming and new experience as caregivers. There will be discomfort, shame, guilt, and layers of conditioning to discover in this book, with the goal of bringing light to the dark and peace to the soul.

These words are also interactive, meaning you will find practical, logistical tools and resources on the accompanying website: LynnAbateJohnsonBook.com.

Guest’s Contact Info:

LynnAbateJohnsonBook.com

Oct 26
Love18

Chrissy Bernal

By Author, Faith, Fun, Personal Growth No Comments

This episode is sponsored by:

Chrissy Bernal is quite a character and has led a life full of surprises and things you just can’t make up.  We talked about light-hearted stuff like sleep eating (yes, eating in her sleep) and talked about heavier topics such as regaining her confidence after escaping domestic violence. Did you know her daughters are Guinness Book record holders? I’m telling you; her story is a movie in the making.

In this episode:

  • Why she carried meatloaf in her purse
  • Competing in physique competitions
  • Gary’s son being born dead
  • What Chrissy has in common with Kurt Warner
  • Primordial Dwarfism
  • Throwing up the first time she saw her daughter
  • Dandy-Walker
  • The shocking thing her special needs daughter did at camp
  • The surprising thing that prepared her for having a child with Primordial Dwarfism
  • Survivor’s guilt
  • What made Sierra so independent
  • Having a woman threaten to call CPS
  • Sleep eating
  • The time her husband said she was going to kill him
  • How her daughter’s global fame shaped her career
  • Domestic abuse
  • What it’s like having kids who don’t want to take normal paths

Quotations:

“When I was competing, I would carry meatloaf in my purse because it smelled better than tuna, and I would just take it out of the baggy and start eating it in the car.” ~Chrissy Bernal

“She [Sienna] knows everything that she’s missing out on. So she tries to gain control of what she can, which is why she started her jewelry business so she could have something of her own that she got to have control over.” ~Chrissy Bernal

“I said like any good Texan would say, ‘Well, you put your big girl panties on, and you just do it.’” ~Chrissy Bernal

“Sometimes taking the first step is the plan, and you figure it out along the way as you make mistakes.” ~Chrissy Bernal

Guest’s Bio:

After accidentally ending up in the global spotlight for her unique identical twins, author Chrissy Bernal was forced to create & grow a brand on the fly. She knew she needed to harness the power of the publicity they were getting. Fast forward 15 years, and now by combining her formal education with the real-world knowledge gained from her family’s growth toward global brand awareness, she has a deep understanding of how to help brands clearly communicate their stories, increase their influence & reduce the chaos experienced in the journey of being known.

While she works with men and women, she’s particularly passionate about working with women because statistics show that female entrepreneurs make half of what their male counterparts make.
She knows from her own experience that particular events in her life caused her to lose sight of her worth, and she has heard the same thing from other women.

She has had so many wonderful coaches and mentors over the years; she wishes she had found them earlier in her career. It would have saved her a lot of headaches and lost income.
She remembers always feeling jumbled and constantly operating from a desperation mindset. Now that she’s clear about who she is, what she’s passionate about, and what difference she wants to make, she feels so much more focused.

And she wants to help other women feel the same way.

She believes women should embrace their worth and confidently pursue the success they desire, so she guides them through proven frameworks for Branding, Marketing, and Communication and uses strategic PR to help them increase their audience and improve their influence with intention and less stress.

Guest’s Contact Info:

www.ChrissyBernal.com

www.BeABetterBrand.com

Oct 05
Love3

William Lee Golden

By Author, Music, Personal Growth No Comments

This episode is sponsored by:

Gary had the distinct honor of having William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys join him for an open conversation, and William was very frank.

In this episode:

  • What he did during the pandemic
  • Who taught him to play the guitar
  • Why he had to leave the Oakridge Boys
  • His book Behind the Beard
  • Growing up on a cotton and peanut farm
  • Why they didn’t sing any new songs during the pandemic
  • What he thinks about his kids being in the music industry
  • Which song gives him chills
  • Taking a stand and being who you are
  • The insane number of situps he still does at 83

Quotations:

“You know, we were all shut outta church. And so we’ve come together here at our old home and. Got started singing old songs.” ~William Lee Golden

“You can’t go dragging your differences around. You gotta get past all that.” ~William Lee Golden

“I’m into music more than anything.” ~William Lee Golden

“Their [his kids] mothers are the unsung heroes in their lives.” ~William Lee Golden

“I don’t wanna hate nobody. I wanna love everybody.” ~William Lee Golden

“I didn’t come to town and try to join the Oakridge Boys to try and become the star of the show.” ~William Lee Golden

“You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not your entire life.” ~William Lee Golden

“I sing from my heart.” ~William Lee Golden

“I’m who I am, and it didn’t matter.” ~William Lee Golden

Guest’s Bio:

He is one of the most recognized personalities in Country and Gospel music, having garnered the highest accolades as a member of the legendary group The Oak Ridge Boys. Now, the renowned “Mountain Man” is climbing to new heights in the world of fine art.

Doo-wop, Pop, Country

For the first time in a long time, William Lee Golden has a spring in his step. Coming out of a tumultuous period in his life, the iconic baritone vocalist has found the love of his life in his new bride, Simone. He’s also comfortable with his place in the world as part of the Oak Ridge Boys, who are celebrating their 42nd Anniversary together in 2015, while Golden’s celebrating his 50th anniversary since joining the iconic group.

A farmer’s son, Golden spent the early years of his life in rural south Alabama surrounded by music. As he grew up, he started singing at the age of seven and began performing regularly on his grandfather’s weekly radio show along with his sister, Lanette. It was there that his love of harmony came alive, and by his teenage years, Golden grew to appreciate the Country, Gospel, Doo-Wop, and Pop quartets, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before he was joining up with The Oak Ridge Boys.

Nobody back home in Brewton, Alabama, could’ve imagined back then all that Golden would accomplish with The Oak Ridge Boys since joining the band in 1965. While on a break from the quarter, Golden released several solo recordings to considerable success.

But for as much success he has had as a recording artist, Golden’s no one-dimensional act. He’s found considerable success with his paintings, and he’s finding even more success with a new visual medium, photography, where he often focuses on landscape portraits and scenes. Many of his favorite shots can be found on Golden’s official Facebook page.

Family has long held a special meaning to Golden. In addition to his newly found love with his wife, Simone, Golden has four sons in Rusty, Chris, Craig, and Solomon. Golden also has six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Along with his marriage to Simone, he also welcomes his step-daughter Megan, her husband Newton, along with the addition of another grandchild to the fold.

Lifetime Achievements

With over forty million records sold, The Oaks have had more than a dozen Number One singles and over thirty Top Ten hits. Their numerous Gold and Platinum recordings include “Thank God For Kids,” “Ozark Mountain Jubilee,” and the crowd favorite “Elvira.” The Oaks have received five Grammy Awards, one American Music Award, four Country Music Awards (CMA), four Academy of Country Music Awards (ACM), the 2008 ACM Pioneer Award, ten Dove Awards, the 2010 President’s Honor, induction into The Grand Ole Opry in 2011 as well as the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. In 2015 they were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The legendary group has received an abundant amount of other national and international acknowledgments.

American Vagabond

During his forties, Golden went through profound changes emotionally, spiritually, and physically. “With all the success came a very fast-paced agenda. The mountain man and Indian way of life appealed to me because they brought me back to my childhood, where the simple things in life meant the most. I wanted to stop and see myself as God made me.” William reflects. The once-trend setter let his hair and beard grow to their natural lengths.

Golden had a desire to grow musically as well. In 1985, Golden recorded his first solo album called “American Vagabond” for MCA Records. The critically acclaimed album was produced by the great Booker T. Jones and showcased Golden’s individual talent. The ultimate promoter himself, Golden hired New York Publicist Pam Lewis. Pam was known for helping launch MTV and later became known for launching superstar Garth Brooks as his co-manager. 

Notes of Interest

William Lee Golden has earned recognition for his individual achievements in both music and art. Over the years, the iconic features of the Singing Painter have been the subject of many sketches, paintings, and sculptures by other world-renowned artists. Golden has received the “Entertainer Of The Year” Award from the Cherokee Indian Association, which is comprised of 21 tribes from across America, as well as the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

Guest’s Contact Info:

https://www.williamleegolden.com/