It is time to get solar powered. We welcome you to the solar powered podcast. I'm Ryan Hall from Royal Hearts Coaching. Royalheartscoaching.com. Life and relationship coaching for kings. And I've I've been away from the podcast for a couple weeks. Honestly, I needed a break, you know, putting out 3 episodes a week there for a while to to, publicize, publicize the great pause. I mean, make no mistake about it. It's been a labor of love.
It has absolutely been a labor of love, but it's been a labor. And I, you know, I needed a break. I needed a break, but I'm grateful to be back. And speaking of the great pause, as as you know, as I've been sharing a lot of conversations with some of my fellow authors in this book, something that's a little something that kind of gets lost in a lot of people. And honestly, sometimes a lot a little lost on me is that I have a chapter in this book myself.
And I wanted to take a I wanted to take a few minutes here in this episode and read you my chapter from the great pause. As I have mentioned many, many times, I am one of 25 authors who have contributed to this book. And when it was released back on August 18th, the ebook spent several days on, I think, 5 different Amazon bestseller lists. And the hard copy isn't even out yet.
This has been a just whirlwind adventure of a lifetime and has truly, truly, truly been the blessing of a lifetime to be able to participate and contribute to something this powerful. Honestly, during a really dark year of my life, during a really dark time in my life, and I am, I am just incredibly grateful to be a part of this. And as I've said, I am one of 25 authors who have contributed a chapter to this book.
And my chapter just happens to be chapter 22, which is a bit of an important number for me because that's the number of the great Mark Ingram, my Crimson Tide's first ever Heisman Trophy winner. Now further ado, this is chapter 22 from the great pause entitled Rising from the Ashes.
In order for a phoenix to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix must building an increasingly healthy bank account, building the life coaching business I've been talking about ever since I joined my training program, and publishing the novel manuscript I've been trying to publish for 2 years. 2020 was gonna be the year I created my life on my terms. As the ball dropped on 2020, I was working my dream job, meeting incredible people and slowly but surely, I was finding happiness.
But on an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon in early January, I found myself on a park bench in White Plains, New York checking the train schedules for a train for me to leap in front of. One's mind jumps to darkness when one gets fired from one's dream job after hiring that job for a month.
I'm sitting on that park bench and I kept having these feelings and thoughts floating inside my mind, Black thoughts, thoughts like do I even need to be here anymore and feelings of despair I'd never before felt. After a call to the suicide hotline, yeah, it got that bad, I walked to the White Plains Trace Station. But instead of stepping in front of the 315 Crane to Grand Central, I got on the 315 train to Grand Central.
Once I got to New York City with a feeling like my feet were in quicksand, I started to wander. Wherever my feet carried me, my body followed. This was January 3, 2020. The Saks Fifth Avenue holiday display as well as the 30 Rock Christmas tree were still up and going. This was well before the phrase social distancing became part of the vernacular so crowds were thick and packed like Gotham sardines. Right across the street from Rockefeller Center is Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
While I'm not Catholic and I'm not entirely sure I'm Christian, I found myself drawn to her doors, which were wide open. I walk in and take a deep breath. This is the same building and the same sanctuary that I've seen on TV and in movies countless times. I didn't stay long, but while I was there, I felt something incredibly powerful, a feeling of peace, of wholeness, and of I am. Little did I know how often I'd have to remind myself of this moment as 2020 unfolded.
In many ways, the prologue to my 2020 was how my 2019 unfolded. My business was tanking. I was working 2 menial jobs, neither of which kept me afloat. I'd fallen behind in rent and utilities. My landlords threatened to threatened me with eviction. And to top things off, my sister back in Alabama was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer. Now this is the time in our program when reporters asked Mary Todd Lincoln if she enjoyed her date night with Abraham at Ford's Theater.
On May 10, 2019, I handed my key back to my former landlords after I'd gotten evicted. After I handed my key back to my now former landlord, I stood on their porch and got cursed out for 30 minutes. At that moment, for all intents and purposes, I was homeless. Eventually, my dog, Pete, and I found a pretty good situation. We landed at an Airbnb, the d standing for dinner, in Stamford, Connecticut, maybe a 20 minute drive from my now former home.
As part of my rent, they served dinner almost every night. As we settled in and got comfortable, I realized that my depression wasn't getting any better. It was a good situation, good room, Some unique roommates, including one who actually knew of my former town in Southeast Alabama because that's where he was originally from, and some really killer food. My roommate, Mike, is a terrific cook, but I never trusted my landlord there. A side note, I sure know how to pick out a landlord y'all.
Truthfully, I was always a little scared of him. A big, burly guy, he could talk in Eskimo into buying ice. I eventually found full time employment after a few months and started to feel into myself again. Brought me back to being me a little bit. Right before the holidays in 2020, I was mindlessly scrolling Facebook when I found what I thought was my dream job. This was a job working as a copywriter for a small advertising agency in White Plains, New York.
When I uprooted my life in Alabama in 2017, I made three promises to myself. Put my heart and soul into my coaching business, publish my second novel, and get into the New York advertising scene as a copywriter. Within 20 minutes of submitting my application, I received an email looking to schedule an interview. I crushed that interview into a fine powder. The CEO of the company interviewed me herself. I stayed in her office for over an hour. I was in y'all. I was in.
I got the job and started in early December. Now let's flash forward about a month. 1 early February night at dinner, my landlord started in with some bonkers conspiracy theories about what he was seeing coming from overseas. This was well before COVID hit our shores. I laughed it off as the rantings of an insomniac. At this time, China was building temporary hospitals in a matter of weeks in the Wuhan area.
My landlord was also going in with some really weird Bill Gates conspiracies theory, disturbing to say the least. I made a joke to him about, what size tinfoil hat are you wearing? The look he returns to me says, just watch without saying a word. All throughout February, he kept making some massive runs to Tasco. Tons and tons of food and cleaning supplies. He sent someone to the Best Buy where I was selling vacuums to see about buying a chest freezer. Those had long since been sold out.
He had a former roommate of mine construct a chicken coop in the backyard. I'm serious. A chicken coop. This would be an easy play for me to to make a food the coop joke, but I'll resist. I simply thought he was making wiser choices about how to keep the house stocked with food and supplies. I've never been more wrong about anything in my life. As February wore on, I also managed to pick up a nagging cough that would not go away.
I've had bronchitis enough times to know what that felt like, and this felt like bronchitis. I chalked it up to a seasonal illness that visits me, you know, seasonally. I also didn't have health insurance at the time and with my financial situation as dire as it was, visiting a doctor was out of the question. The later we got in February, I started getting cryptic text messages from my landlord. Are you gonna be able to catch up on rent?
If not, perhaps it's time for you and Pete to make other arrangements. Full transparency, I did owe a little bit of money. Not a terribly large amount, but I did owe. Working only 16 hours a week, I was hurting really bad trying to keep up with my weekly payments anyway. After my weekly payment, most weeks, I might have $30 to last me an entire week. 1 Wednesday morning, early in March, I was still in bed when my phone chimes with one of those cryptic text messages. I was out.
I was given 1100 cash and I was given until noon to pack up and leave. My dog and I were out. He forgave the back money that I owed him. Looking back on things, he wanted us gone. It wasn't about my dog and me and what I owed him. It was that he was about to clear the house. And while I don't believe I ever had a fever, my cough was getting worse. And with the anxiety and fear going through the world in the early stages of this pandemic, he wasn't taking any chances.
Though he never said this was a reason he kicked me out, I'm not saying it wasn't a reason. Understand he never spoke to me face to face or even on the phone about this, only by text message. Just throwing that out there. I found an inexpensive hotel where Pete and I have been staying ever since, and we're now in June as I write this. In the early days of this pandemic, I worked hard to avoid the news. If ignorance is bliss, why was I so miserable? I also didn't realize how bad it was getting.
One day in the middle of March, all pro and college sports, concert tours, and theater shows were postponed. I'll never forget this day, March 12, 2020, my 43rd birthday. A few weeks after I'd been at the hotel, I ran into one of my old roommates. He was the primary cook in my old place. Mike and I became friends, and he told me he picked up whatever had been ailing me and had been coughing like mad.
To jump in some lemon juice to the open wound, Mike has an 11 year old daughter who lives with him part time. It wasn't just me and my dog that he kicked out. It was Mike as well. It turns out that my landlord kicked everybody out save for his elderly uncle who would probably love to leave if he could. He shut everything down. He put the house on lockdown. He even gave me a hard time about my mail that had been coming to that address.
The biggest lesson I've taken away from the COVID 19 pandemic started with a woman named Ann Ibe Hall. I usually called her mom. We lost mom in 2009 after a long illness. Like her mom before her, she passed away at only 59. Mom was intellectually brilliant and had enough emotional baggage to drive the handlers of LaGuardia to go on strike. The lesson I'm taking away from this pandemic is when she showed me time and time again.
In one of mom's more sober moments in her later years, she reflected something to me that I'll take to my grave. A couple years before she passed, I'd gone after another promotion at a former job. I was an associate for a call center contracted with a major wireless provider. I'd rather not say the name, but think. Can you hear me now? I didn't get the promotion. Again, I was tired of being on the phones and I wanted to show some leadership.
In my 5 years of working for this company, I believe I went after 7 promotions. I got turned down for 5 and the 2 promotions I got, I didn't really want. The day I was turned down for promotion number 4, I paid my parents a visit instead of making my usual post work trip to the gym. I was down. I was depressed and quite frankly, I was angry. I started talking to mom about this and she said this to me. Ryan, you're the most resilient person I've ever known. You'll be back.
Let's take a look at where I stood when this pandemic started in early to escalate in early March. I was still working my 16 hour a week job. I was living in a hotel, and my depression was steadily getting worse. If I could get away with it, I'd stay in the bathtub all day. I'm not exaggerating. I had no motivation, but I also kept going. It's like a life coaching mentor said to me, you love suffering, don't you? I Suffered but I never quit. I Found an ad for a job.
This was a company I worked for previously but in a different program. I would be working as a third party vendor for a pretty large company, selling their products inside Best Buy. I'd rather not name the company, but the name rhymes with blue goal. I applied. I performed very well during a virtual job interview, and I got the job after waiting out a 2 week hiring freeze.
When you're able to score a full time job during the middle of a global pandemic, that's nothing to sneeze at. 4 years ago, I made a commitment to myself that I would start a private practice as a life and relationship coach. I spent a lot of money on a training program and training and certification program worth every dime. I love supporting people, supporting people doing, to create big powerful lives, and they'll live the lives of kings, the hearts and their leaders in their world.
My business has well, it's been tanking and I'd all but giving up on seeing any return on my investment, my time and my training. But I started working on myself. I started growing myself. I started taking my therapy seriously. I started healing some deep and painful wounds, and I started to see a slow and steady movement and shift in the areas I committed to. And what do you know? With this work, I'm starting to see some more growth in my business. Slow but steady.
It's not sustainable yet, but this is a tortoise and hare situation here. My resilience has always been there. However, I believe this pandemic has shown me what I'm capable of in a really beautiful and powerful way. The following story may sound like a fictional metaphor, but every word of it is true. My grandfather, who passed away in 1992, is still one of my greatest heroes.
A veteran of the South Pacific, he was awarded the Purple Heart after taking a bullet in the left bicep during the Battle of Guadalcanal. When Milbern Ivy returned from his army deployment, he married his childhood sweetheart and had 3 kids. The oldest of whom was my mother. He became highly successful in agriculture and real estate with only a 5th grade education. He was also the finest campfire storyteller I ever knew and the biggest reason why I'm a writer today.
I'd love to tell you about Monkey Town one day. Granddaddy had a large farm in rural Houston County, Alabama. In the summer when I was 5, my family and I were visiting. We spent most of the summer down there that year since my grandmother, Martha, passed away from a massive stroke that May. On his farm, granddaddy owned a large herd of cattle, and he also owned a couple of quarter horses that he used to help work his land and his cattle.
Being the typical hard headed kindergarten graduate I was, I desperately wanted to ride one of those horses by myself. I rode several times with granddaddy holding me, but I wanted to ride by myself. Granddaddy saddled up Frosty, a filly named so because of a white blaze across her face, and put me up on her. He adjusted the stirrups to fit my short legs and put the rein in my hand. As Frosty backed out of the stable, I lost my balance and fell on my face.
I wasn't injured except for a small cut under my lower lip and a band aid and some first aid ointment that some kind took care of. This cut left a tiny scar that many years later is still visible in the right light and state of facial hair. After I fell off frosty, mom came sprinting out of the house to check on me. My memory of this event was that I wasn't even crying. I wasn't even hurting. My spirit was in shock. Closing, I don't know if I've learned resilience from the COVID pandemic.
In closing, I don't know if I've learned resilience from the COVID pandemic, but I believe the pandemic has shown me how resilient I already am. I'd like to leave you with the brilliant words from the chorus of Laugh About It, a song by the amazing Tedeschi Trucks band. Rise up right where they put you down. Don't let nobody ever turn you around. Try to believe it. All the caring and hard work and trouble is worth the change. Humanity is at a low ebb right now.
Fear, anxiety and worry are ruling our consciousness. If we take a moment, press the pause button and remember how resilient we all are. This pandemic could be humanity's Phoenix rising moment. Flap those wings, create some energy, rise up from the embers and ashes and soar. Soar like never before. Soar with the equals. Rise like the Phoenix. And that is my chapter from the great pause.
It was truly a, it was truly a privilege to bring that to you here today, and I would truly be blessed if you, if you read this book completely and just really absorb the stories. Many of whom many of which have been featured on this, on this podcast. Many of whom have not, but all the stories are beautiful and powerful and miraculous, really. And to be able to participate in such a powerful project, Honestly, during the middle of one of the darkest years of my life has been a miracle.
It really has. It's been a miracle. And my many thanks to the just remarkable Elizabeth Hill for for for the idea and her, you know, her her leadership in this, to the other authors who have put their hearts and their souls into their words and in their stories, but most of all, to you, to the world, for for being there, for for never stopping, never quitting, never giving up, and never forgetting that we're all here for a reason. I think I said it in one of the earlier episodes.
One of the first episodes of this podcast is that mother nature just doesn't have a pause button. She doesn't have a pause button. And I truly believe that this pause, this break, this breather could really be the most beautiful thing that's ever happened to us, but we have to allow it. We absolutely have to allow it, and it's gonna take us all. So there's a couple things I want you to do. Well well, first of all, I want you to get this book. You can, you can go to Amazon.
As of as of right now, you can go to Amazon and, and download a copy of the ebook. It is only $3.99. Or you can order a copy of the hard copy. The hard copy can either be found on on Amazon or you can visit my website at Royal of Hearts Coaching.com. I'll include a link to the order page in the show notes. I'll include all the links in the show notes. And, yeah. Yeah. So I just think I'm gonna leave y'all with that.
It's truly been a privilege of a lifetime to to be a part of this, of of this process, of this project. My heart just is overflowing with gratitude for all of the beautiful women and men who have who have helped to to see this through and I am truly grateful to be able to share my story with you. And on that note, I think we're going to wrap up this episode of the solar powered podcast, a presentation of Royal Hearts Coaching.
For more information about Royal Hearts Coaching, if you can visit my website, just visit royalheartscoaching.com. You can follow me on social media. Just go to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at Ryan Hall Riots is my handle on all of those. Or you can shoot me a good old fashioned email at ryanroyalhearthcoaching.com. But that'll do it for this episode of the solar powered podcast. It's been a privilege of a lifetime to bring it to you.
And until we meet again, this is Ryan Hall saying thank you so much for listening. I love you all so much and go get solar powered. Right after you wash your hands and put on a mask.